The Translators - Interpreting Donald Trump: The Daily Show

Before his inauguration German media (Spiegel) had an interview with his translator (Norbert Heikamp) and he said exactly the same: 1. it is very difficult to translate him, because he jumps from topic to topic without any sense or clear line of thought 2. He speaks so randomly that you can hardly prepare for his speeches 3. He contradicts himself several times in one speech, which makes the foreign audience think the translator got it wrong

"He will change his mind in the middle of a sentence." - says it all.

Did you see how Macron's wife looked like she was trying to use Melania as a shield?

This is in fact a very real issue. Making Trump sound less crude and incoherent than he actually is undermines the severity of having him as a leader. I read some Trump quotes that were translated into Mandarin in a newspaper and he actually sounded coherent and non-maniacal. My father who only has access to Trump's content through these newspapers is now under the impression that Trump is a fantastic leader and supports him. Like seriously. As much as I understand it is difficult to translate Trump's speech, it is frustrating knowing that non-English speakers are getting a filtered and watered-down version of his bigotry.

Just a reminder, the Macrons are fluent in English, Melania is fluent in French, only Trump needs a translator during this visit.

All joking aside and whether you like him or not, the translation issue is actually a pretty cool perspective that I never thought about.

I remember that discussion on Austrian and German TV. During live translations you can even hear the amusment and confusion in the translators' voices.

“Who’s going to pay for the wall?” “No México” 🤣🤣 That’s my boy 🇲🇽🇲🇽

I like how we had a fake anger translater for Obama and now we actually need a real translator team for Trump.

"Who's gonna pay for the wall?!" "Nobody" .... I mean he's not wrong

The reason the ASL translator was more "accurate" was because of the way they are trained. In their first semester they are taught how to tell a story and in that they learn how to "be" their characters.

the best part is the deaf translation that got pixeled out as is done with curse words. great show and parody.

I feel sorry especially for the Japanese and Arabic translators. Translating from English to Japanese/Arabic is already hard enough with all of the cultural nuances but his rambling and how he changes topic mid sentence must be so hard to translate. I don't know if the average person realizes but Arabic and Japanese are ordered very differently to English. E.g. the sentence "The boy kicked the ball. Would be ordered as. Arabic: "Kicked the boy the ball." Japanese: "Boy ball kicked." Like imagine how hard it is to translate already grammatically incorrect sentences into languages with different word orders.

You can tell the French first lady was uncomfortable. At 0:32 she pats Melania like "I'm gonna acknowledge that you're standing right here, even if your husband refuses to do that".

"My dude said he wants to smash!" We cannot have you as a translator Trevor!! 😂😂😂

"We do not want to offend people more than what he already has" (Spanish translator) Wowwww!!! Pretty deep.

"Who's gonna pay for the wall?" -"No México." 😂😂

I feel bad for these translators. They have to try to make sense out of someone who cannot even speak English.

Did anyone notice how the French first lady put her arm around Melania? I think she knew perfectly well what he said, and felt badly.

First I'd like to share a bit ...I started teaching myself sign when I was six, after seeing the deaf students in my school and being immediately facinated by their joy. When I grew up and started my family my second son was born early and lost his hearing at 2 months old. I've been signing for over five decades. The day trump was elected every deaf/hh person on earth simultaneously gave trump the exact same sign name. It was magical!!! You can guess what it is .. his hair flapping on the top of his head. Sign language is clearly a visual language. If you want to interpret you must use facial expressions and body language to be accurate. You're taught to show the emotions on your face and with your body. All of that being said for no real reason... I LOVE that sign intrepretor! She needs her own show! I'm afraid I'm going to need you to tell us who she is. That was FANTASTIC!!!