Posted by Dominique Bouley
In a February 6, 2009 PFM blog post titled "Confounded by Language," my colleague Holger van Eden showed some of the pitfalls of lousy interpretation. as he pointed out, this can lead to sometimes embarassing or funny situations. Well, translation of PFM terms is not much better in that respect.
Finding the exact translation of a PFM technical concept can be very tricky. It is difficult enough for the concepts which are used in the two countries whose languages are the source and the target for translation. It becomes extremely tricky when the PFM concept is specific to a PFM system and does not really have a direct equivalent in the target language.
Over the years, my former colleague and dear friend André Terrot, who was a senior reviewer in the then bureau of language services of the IMF faced many of these situations. As a result, he became one of the world's best experts in translating English PFM terminology into French.
Soon before retiring a few years ago, André very wisely thought of putting his acquired knowledge on paper and asked for my help in preparing an English-French PFM Glossary. This glossary was unfortunately never published. The PFM blog offers a unique opportunity for sharing this knowledge with everyone. So, for the benefit of our PFM Blog readers, here is a downloadable copy of the Terrot PFM Glossary.
Terrot PFM Glossary (part 1): Download English-French PFM Glossary (part 1)
Terro PFM Glossary (part 2): Download English-French PFM Glossary (part 2)
Of course, translation is an art not a science. PFM readers may have ideas for further improving translation of a word or concept. I would like to invite them to leave their suggestions as comments to this post.
