Agonizing Translation Work

I suppose everyone is wondering what's going on with the book project. Things have a way of becoming hectic and staying that way for several days. I really haven't had a chance to get to it and probably won't this week. But next week things are looking up, since nearly all of my schoolwork this term should be completed by then. In other words, it looks like mid-March will be when I finally get it done and submitted. Once again, I apologize for all the delays.

For now though, I want to share with you a small piece of an enormous tranlation of a hellish legal document that I hope to have finished by tomorrow. It really goes to show that lawyers can obfuscate in any language. Here is one of my favorite sentences in the original Portuguese:

Desde que começou a participar do processo de licenciamento ambiental da UHE Barra Grande, no exercício de seu dever constitucional e de sua prerrogativa federativa, a FEPAM apontou inúmeras falhas e lacunas no Termo de Referência que iria subsidiar a elaboração do EIA/Rima (documentos R e S) e, posteriormente, no próprio estudo ambiental, tendo por diversas vezes solicitado ao empreendedor e ao IBAMA que realizassem estudos complementares ou refizessem alguns já realizados, por entender que as informações nele constantes eram inconsistentes, incompletas ou inverídicas.

And here is my translation. (Notice how I managed to preserve the original obfuscation.):

Ever since FEPAM began participating in the Barra Grande Hydroelectric Plant environmental licensing project, in the exercise of its constitutional duty and of its federative prerrogative, it has pointed out countless failures and oversights in the Termo de Referência that would subsidize the putting together of the Environmental Impact Study/Environmental Impact Report (documents R and S) and, later, in the environmental study itself, having several times requested the project undertaker and IBAMA to perform complementary studies or to redo some that had already been performed, understanding that the information contained within them was inconsistent, incomplete or untrue.

Comments

[Teka]

Oh, ick. I don't envy you.

[Tvindy]

Actually, it is kind of entertaining. It's funny that I can go to all the work of translating something like that and still not really understand what it says.

[jenny]

Ah...what about lawyer's writings in braille! (Braille 2 in fact). I have trouble even feeling the cells let alone translating them but blind lawyers certainly use braille.

[Tvindy]

Jenny, I saw a study on TV that showed that blind people actually use their vision centers to process braille. They blindfolded a sighted woman for a week and taught her braille. Once the blindfold was removed, she reported that hands suddenly felt numb, and it was much harder for her to read the braille.