French to English: Petroleum Industry, Part 3

 

I created a Squidoo lens about translation awhile back.  For that blog (Squidoo prefers to call it a lens), I talked about translation as a career covering topics like translation tools, fees, pitfalls and training. 

Regarding tools, translators need more than just bilingual dictionaries.  These days a translator who works with pocket dictionaries would get a severe reprimand because pocket dictionaries simply won't do.  If you're studying to become a translator, throw them out!

Aside from bilingual dictionaries, professional translators who take their work seriously tirelessly collect other useful tools of the trade like bilingual catalogs and glossaries.  And the more specialized these tools are, the better.

My main terminology source is Termium (owned by the Canadian government) but there are times when Termium can't provide the terms I'm looking for.  So what do I do?

I scavenge around for French/English web sites (99.9% of the Canadian government web sites are developed in both languages), or consult other terminology banks like the IATE (Inter-Active Terminology for Europe).  Use of their terminology data base is free (thank goodness) and can be accessed by anyone looking for translations in even the more obscure languages like Lithuanian or Maltese http://iate.europa.eu/iatediff/SearchByQueryEdit.do.  Terms are divided according to industry or field of activity.  Would-be translators, this is a site to include in your bookmarks!

Given that new terms keep appearing, a translator needs to be resourceful.  I can't stress this enough.  The ability to locate the right equivalent in the target language at lightning speed is a desirable trait.  Unfortunately,  publishers of dictionaries and industry-specific lexicons just can't keep up with the flurry of new words and phrases.

At the very minimum, a translator needs:

• good bilingual dictionaries preferably with over 300,000 word entries (not including contextual expressions and phrases)
• unilingual dictionaries published by a recognized name like Larousse, Harraps, Le Petit Robert
• specialized glossaries and lexicons
• web sites that specialize in terminology
• web sites that cover the industry you're translating
• academic reference materials (e.g. Elsevier - but books by this publisher cost an arm and a leg)

Having said that, and to prove that the more tools you have, the more efficient and accurate your translation will be, I tested Termium for certain technical words used in the petroleum industry.  Out of the 15 words and phrases I collected, Termium was able to give me only half (8).  I didn't panic because sitting on my book shelf is the French Petroleum Institute's bilingual Dictionary of Petroleum Technology compiled by M. Moureau and G. Brace (Editions Technip).  This dictionary is probably one of the more comprehensive ones in the market and I'd be foolish to sell it - even at profit!

One final word of advice before I present the last instalment of petroleum words and phrases:  France may use a different term than say Canada or Belgium and it's up to translators to clarify with their client who the target readers are!

FRENCH	ENGLISH
sable diluviens	diluvial sands
inclinaison magnétique	needle dip
dénomination d'une diagraphie de porosité obtenue pendant le forage	Drilling Porosity Log (DPL)
émulsionner	to emulsify
dossier d'impact sur l'environnement	environmental impact statement
amodiation (ou accord d'affermage)	farmout agreement
vanne à sécurité intrinsèque	failsafe valve
plan de charriage	overthrust fault
jauge de Birmingham pour les fils	Birmingham Wire Gauge
calibre pour tôles	plate gage
additif pour essence	gasoline additive
gaz acide	sour gas
gaz de combustion	stack gas
gaz naturel de synthèse	substitute natural gas (SNG)
habitat des hydrocarbures	oil habitat
effort de traction	hauling

There are hundreds of thousands more petroleum terms and we will definitely revisit this theme to build this lexicon further!

For the next series, I'm wavering between information technology (one of my translation specialties) and the wine industry (having just come back from Niagara's scenic wine route last week).  I'm not a wine lover nor do I drink socially, but somehow this wine tour stirred my imagination.

I'll let you know!

French to English: Petroleum Industry, Part 2

For those who nurture an interest in Canada's petroleum industry, an excellent way to start would be to visit the web site of the Canadian Petroleum Discovery Center where Leduc # 1 - Alberta's first oil well - is located.  The Center is located about 20 minutes west of the Edmonton Airport.

To put some color into Canada's petroleum history, you can watch this video and get to know the people behind Leduc # 1 (scroll down the page for the video): http://www.c-pic.org/.

When it comes to oil and gas, the first image that we conjure up are the oil sands out in the Middle East, and that image is probably the same for anyone because we have come to associate the Middle East with a bottomless oil reservoir, the enormous beehive of petro dollars.

It is no wonder then that Canada was hardly thought of as an oil-producing nation.  Our petroleum reputation changed when the country experienced an oil boom, brought about by discoveries in the province of Alberta.  That was in 1947 when Leduc # 1 made the exciting discovery.  Since then, we have become a major exporter of oil; our biggest trading partner is of course the United States, known for its insatiable thirst for energy. 

A Canadian government publication says that Canadian companies exported about 63% of domestic production; in 2005, Canada was supplying the US about 10% of that country's crude oil requirements.

Here are more "pet" terms in French and English:

FRENCH	ENGLISH
épuration de gaz	gas cleaning
puissance au frein	brake horsepower
soute	bunker oil
craquage catalytique	catalytic cracking
unité de craquage catalytique	cat cracker
indice de cétène	cetane index
huile de coupe minérale	mineral cutting oil
désémulsibilité	demulsibility
essai au plombite de sodium	doctor test
point d'ébullition finale	final boiling point (FBP)
homogéniseur	homogenizer
aréomètre	hydrometer
point initial d'ébullition	initial boiling point (IBP)
huile pour moteurs marins	marine diesel oil (MDO)
ozonisation	ozonization
dénomination d'une base antirouille	Petrobase

And if you thirst for more of Canadian petroleum history with a special focus on Alberta, head over to the Alberta Online Encyclopedia - a massive information portal about Alberta that serves as an invaluable reference for not only teachers, students and scholars but also for corporate and government entities and tourism researchers http://www.albertasource.ca/aoe/ui/index.aspx.  By clicking on Canada's Petroleum Heritage (further down the web page), you'll discover the works of Earle Gray - Canada's most eminent petroleum historian!

How does Canada compare to Saudi Arabia in terms of oil production?  Statistics Canada reports that "at the beginning of 2006, Alberta’s remaining established oil reserves amounted to 28 billion cubic metres, or the equivalent of 174 billion barrels. This places Canada second in the world after Saudi Arabia’s 42 billion cubic metres."

That should make you stop asking why real estate hit an all-time high in Alberta, and why it's now called Canada's wealthiest province.

French to English: Petroleum Industry, Part 1

Today we start a three-part series on the petroleum industry.  You've watched movies that trace the evolution of petroleum in different countries, most of them moving sagas of how brawn and muscle dug into the deep to help transform countries into revered oil giants.

Historians who devote their research and writing exclusively on the petroleum industry have much fodder to nibble on, feverishly churning out tales, legends, real life stories and controversies.  As their pens scurry to separate fact from fiction, the oil wells continue to "belch out"  because energy - often called a nation's backbone - has to be produced continuously to satisfy world demand.  The tons and barrels of this commodity fuel the imagination of man, turning humble citizens into bold entrepreneurs who'll do whatever it takes to be able to strike the exact spot on the ground that will set forth a towering inferno.

When you look at the petroleum industry, you need to decide which perspective to take, because it is as vast as the oil fields in which they thrive.  Will you be studying it from the perspective of the movers and shakers, meaning the oil manufacturers who dictate how much to export or import, will you be looking at the different petroleum products in the market - how they're explored, manufactured and then refined for the buying public or will you be looking at the processes only, or the various technologies that have taken their rightful place in oil and gas exploration?

Yes, there are different ways of looking at the petroleum industry, and there are five segments based on the categories set by the American Petroleum Institute:

• upstream - this relates to the exploration and processing of crude oil and natural gas;
• downstream - this relates to the tankers, refineries, retailers and consumers - basically the refining and marketing side of it
• pipelines
• marine
• service and supply  

The web site of the American Petroleum Institute is a good place to start if you're looking for a well-organised overview of the  fundamentals.  There's also a section on training and certification for those who are seriously considering a petroleum career:  http://www.api.org/certifications/.

Our first set of petroleum terms:

FRENCH	ENGLISH
or noir	black gold
pétrole brut	crude oil
sables bitumineaux	oil sands
installations de forage pétrolier	offshore oil rigs
consommation pétrolière	oil consumption
extraction pétrolière et gazière	gas and oil extraction
mètre cube	cubic metre
barils	barrels
réserves pétrolières	oil reserves
brut classique	conventional crude
approvisionnements insuffisants	supply shortages
prix en plein essor	soaring prices
OPEP (Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole)	OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries)
plates-formes de forage en mer	offshore platforms
raffinerie	refinery

We'll be back for Part 2 in a few days.  In the meantime, a much needed vacation - it'll be a short and sweet one. 

For my vacation, I managed to exchange my Air Miles reward points for three Shell gas cards!