For ”The focus is…”, I can say that grammar and word positioning played games with my mind when I reached that point. The text is very long and translating everything when I’m normally sleeping isn’t easy. I’ll try and ask my old professor teacher to find more exercises for me to work upon.

As for ”nom de dieu”, well, I translated it without using Google translations and wrote what first came to mind, which was ”By the gods”, even if after rethinking about it, it was in the singular form.

As for the ”hello to tasks…”, I wasn’t certain how to translate it efficiently, I may be bilingual, but certain forms of grammar have fun playing tricks on me. Maybe I should brush up on my grammar classes…

And finally, the ”le bloc note”. I think that it wasn’t a bad translation. The author meant that his cameras were like note pads in a way, since they jog down information. I just thought that keeping that little touch would have been nice. But I guess not many people seemed to get his comparison.

Thank you Kimura for your examples. Now I know that the main problems aren’t that difficult to fix. Mostly grammar and technicalities with words.

I believe the “Google Translate” accusation came from some sentences peppered throughout the article that looked like a direct word-for-word translation of the original, with no regard for trying to make it understandable in English: i.e. “The focus is ultra precise and has nothing to do with the zoom 18-55 F3.5-5.6, which is far too dark and gives a liveview too noisy to make an efficient manual focus in night or dark conditions.” Another example is sayings, like “By the gods” for “nom de dieu” and “Hello to tasks that take less than two or three days!” for “Bonjour, les tâches en moins de 2 ou 3 jours!!!”

The first thing I noticed was the title. The French original said “le Bloc Note”; is it a French thing to call cameras notepads?

Thank you JaccoW none the less for offering some of your insight as nobody from the website commented much except what you see above.

A few of those are:
-”It fairs pretty well” should probably be “It fares pretty well”
http://www.englishforums.com/English/TheDifferenceBetweenFared-Faired/cqd/post.htm
-”First off, the sensor isn’t protected! Hello, that’s a task that takes less than two or three days! It’s monstrous”
After reading it for a few times I think I know what you mean, but it could be worded differently. I assume this is because you are not used to some of the expressions.

All in all I certainly do not see a ‘google-translate’ text. A computer would just literally translate the words. That is not what you did. I see an article written or translated by someone for whom English is not his first language, but did manage to translate the original thoughts of the writer in a way that not much is lost in the translation.
And maybe for some of the original (French?) expressions used there isn’t a proper English alternative.
An example that comes to mind for me is a word used by Nietzsche:
“spiel” which is translated by some as “game”.
While in German it can both mean “game” as well as “to play”.

Personally I think you did an excellent job, and maybe the small errors give it that exotic ‘flavor’.

Best regards,
JaccoW

As for the review itself, it is not that it is unusual, but that I am not used to many of the expressions that are present, certainly due to our differences in where we live. That and the subject matter in question. If it were not for having to translate it, on a simple read of the text, I think I would have found it quite interesting to read, as I may consider getting a better camera one day. But for now, I’m happy with the gift from my friends when they gave me a Digital camera A850 (Fujifilm written on it) that appears to have written on it ”3x f=6-18.3mm 1:2.8-4.9, which I have no clue what that all means….though I must say that I can’t take pictures of high definition with it and often have noise in my pictures.

The only gift I would like to receive is a true evaluation of my text for its good points, bad points and things to make it better if ever possible.

I should have made the translation myself, because I really wanted to review the NEX5 body only, so I tried to demonstrate that with my very old FD lenses I could get a rather good complementary body of my 5DMKII, as a perfect walk-around package.
I will probably bring a 5DMKII+EF24L1.4II+500F/8 and NEX5+FD85L1.2 to my next trip to Japan and this will cover all my days and nights needs.
So if Maxime wants to give me his address by email, I will send him some sweet specialities from Lyon to thank him.

Anyway what was important is that NEX5 body is very very good (betwwen 50D and 5DMKII) and zoom is almost a crap I won’t use (only between 16 to 20mm it’s usable outdoor.

My collegue asked me quite late in the evevning to do so, and I was quite busy due to my full time day job. I never studied translation at University, but I did pass quite a few courses in English Studies with average grades. I believed that I could give it a try for this translation. I soon noticed through a first reading that this text appeared quite difficult to understand. Not only am I not very knowledgeable in photography, but the French person who wrote the text wrote very long sentences, used expressions that I didn’t always understand and well, it was much more difficult than standard language. I passed two nights working on the text. First translating, then re-reading myself the next night while taking a few breaks in between to make my brain breathe through the many challenges that I had to face with translating this text. Around 2:00 A.M. in the morning the second night, I was exhausted and knew that my colleague wanted a text before the end of the night, so I sent in what I had done so far, being somewhat pleased with a few interesting turns or expressions that would hopefully sound interesting and yet kept the meaning that I had understood of the sentences. I tried to make the text alive with the authors many side stories and not a mere bland voice that would explain just the essentials, even if I did think afterward that it might have been best since the author often went about personal experiences all along the text.

I can understand that I haven’t translated often. I do not mind not being paid since I took it on mostly as a challenge for myself. But I do still feel insulted that people compare it to something that is definitely weaker than what I produced.

Cheers