Last week, you will have divided into pairs, with both members of each pair prepared to work in the same non-English language. One member of the pair should begin with the A version designed for a particular language:

Chinese A
German A
Romance A,

and the other should begin with the B version for that same language:

Chinese B
German B
Romance B

Do not look at the other one yet. If you peek, it spoils the exercise.

Member A should translate the English sentences on Form A into the target language, and deliver them in person or by e-mail to Member B, and vice-versa. E-mail these only to your partner; do not post them to the go-post site yet. You and your partner can work out the schedule for this. Then member B should take the versions of Form A that member A has translated from English, and translate them back into English, and member A do the same with member B's target-language versions of Form B. If you guess what the English original might have been, try to do the translation as if you hadn't guessed (anyway, you might have guessed wrong!).

When you and your partner have completed the translation of both forms back into English, you should post both the target-language version and the English re-translation by 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 17. Use a separate conversation for each team's translations. Don't peek at anyone else's postings on the back-translation exercise until you have posted your own. This assignment will not be graded.

After you are done with this exercise and have "mailed it in," read the brief chapter 12 of Le Ton Beau.

In Class
We will spend our time going over different pairs of back-translations, and discussing what those tell us about the differences between languages, as well as the different philosophies of translation and the ways they affect our outcomes.