Top 8 Flaws of the MAST Process and How to Fix Them

TOP 8 FLAWS IN THE MAST PROCESS AND HOW TO FIX THEM 

“I sincerely thought I would be able to make a difference there. This was, in part, because I believed the lies I’d been told by the Christian Missions Machine: that all I had to do was show up no matter how unprepared or ill-equipped and God would do the rest.” – Jamie Wright 

I’ve been studying the strategy announced in June 2014 by Wycliffe Associates that outlines how national translators can “quickly” translate the Scripture from one major language to their own mother tongue. They call it MAST, which stands for Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation. I have interviewed veteran Bible translators for this chapter because I don’t have any experience in Bible translation myself. Because of talking to them I have grave concerns about this process.

It appears WA assumes that a national translator not only speaks his own mother tongue but also knows another language that already has a Bible. For example, they assume someone in India is familiar with the national language of Hindi in addition to their own mother tongue. By following this 8-step MAST method Wycliffe Associates says they then can “quickly have access to God’s word in their heart language.” Quickly appears to be the key aspect of their entire methodology.

I’m sure some nationals who volunteer to do translation have excellent fluency in their language and in the source language, but others might not. Some might have a good education, others little or none. Their knowledge of Scripture would vary also. Some might be teachable and humble while others could be just the opposite. I could find no part of the MAST method which discusses the evaluation of the national translator’s competency, motivation or ability. In fact, it does not describe any process for how they go about choosing a Bible translator. The MAST methodology appears to accept anyone who applies, with no evaluation. If you’ve ever run a business, you know how that works out.

It is not unusual that someone would volunteer thinking it might lead to a job later. Some might be doing it to impress someone or to get the attention of the expatriates. Maybe he’s the pastor’s brother and thinks he should be first in line to get this job. If before you begin, your translators aren’t up to the task, you’re sunk.

THE PROCESS

That said, let’s move on to the actual process. In Step 1 of MAST, the national translator is told to read one entire chapter and try to understand the meaning and the main point of the chapter. This step, they say, usually takes seven to ten minutes. No one points out to these people what type of literature this is or that there might be a completely different way to translate it if it is poetic, or narrative, or instructional, or a prayer, etc. How do you write a letter, or what if this passage is symbolic-figurative language? There can be a great variety of genre in one book of the Bible. What if chapter 1 is not an easy genre like what you might find in a newspaper article, but one of the most difficult genres? It is well known that the first few verses of all New Testament books are the most difficult in the book.

Also, does the translator read this only in Hindi? No other versions? What if the national translator draws a completely inaccurate meaning? Remember that he’s reading in a second language, not his own. Seven to ten minutes is definitely a tight call.

But now the translator goes on to Step 2, which is to verbalize, with a partner, what this chapter is about. “Who are the main people?”, “What did they do?”, “What events happened?”, “What are the main ideas?”

This step, they say, takes two to three minutes. These are excellent questions. I’m not sure I could answer most of them in two to three minutes. How does anyone know if the translators’ answers are correct? And yes, there ARE correct answers. Has he really understood the chapter or missed the point altogether? Maybe he’s assuming that the person mentioned in the text is the same person he read about in another verse, when it’s not. Does his partner draw the same conclusion? Some chapters of the Bible are not about people and their activities. How does the translator figure out the main ideas of most chapters in any of the epistles, or in Revelation, in two to three minutes? This step sounds like an English comprehension test or an ESL class assignment, but not translation. And what happens if the partners can’t agree on the answers to these questions and time runs out?

Step 3 says to break the chapter into small “chunks” of about one to four verses, but only as much as the translator can easily remember and recall. Most Bibles are already divided into paragraphs or sections, so I’m not sure why this is set apart as a separate step in the process. This would be easy to do with some parts of the Bible but definitely more difficult where every sentence is loaded with theological meaning.

Step 4: Now it’s time for the translator to write this chunk of one to four verses into his mother tongue. The directions say, “he should not look at the Hindi or source text but just express the meaning of that chunk naturally.” He moves through the whole chapter this way, one chunk at a time. They call this a blind draft. Yes, it definitely is blind. And what does “express the chunk naturally” really mean?

I like the word “naturally” because the translation must not be stilted or odd sounding. It needs to follow the natural flow of the mother tongue, but there will be problems with this blind draft as we continue.

Next, in Step 5, the translator looks at the source Bible again and compares it with what he has written.

If this translator is honest, he will find not only some omissions, but also mistakes. I’m glad no time suggestion is given for step five. This part could go on for hours. Yes, he should take whatever time is necessary to restudy each chunk, correct it and redraft it.

I’m not sure why steps 5 and 6 cannot be combined. They call Step 6 a “peer edit.” Again, as in Step two, it is not clear to me if this partner is working on the same chapter or if he is just a member of the same language group. I have heard both interpretations of this step. If the partner is working on a different chapter, then it’s impossible for him to judge if what this man has written is good or incorrect. On the other hand, if the partner is working on translating the same passage, why aren’t they working together right from the start? My cross-cultural experience is that people enjoy hashing things out together, bouncing ideas off each other.

More problems show up at this point because as he looks back at the source text, he notices what he missed the first time in his blind draft. He is tempted to tuck words into that first draft. Before long the smooth, natural verse developed in Step four becomes a drastically literal translation.

Someone needs to point out to him that the number and length of sentences in a Biblical text would be different than his own language. Also, probably there are “connectors” in his own language marking paragraph breaks, or other features, that must be included in his translation even if the source language doesn’t use them. We are tempted to think, “But he is a native speaker, so he knows all these things.”

I disagree, and if you take a minute to consider, you will realize that we often don’t know all that is going on in English, even if it is our mother tongue. It takes some English teacher or linguist to make us aware of certain features, and most people still can’t diagram a sentence. Can you?

What if they always start genealogies from the farthest removed ancestor to the present, instead of from the most recent and back? What if they always tell a story in consecutive order and not using flashbacks the way the Bible tells it? What if everything that people spoke had to be a direct quote, never an indirect quote? I have already mentioned some of these types of problems in previous chapters, but it always comes back to a translation that is accurate vs. inaccurate, natural flowing vs. foreign sounding. The MAST process doesn’t address this well. 

Step 7 is a “key word” check. Though not specifically listed in the outline of the MAST process, I’m assuming they mean words such as: peace, blessing, glory, justification, Holy Spirit, to name just a few. They mention something called a “Studio Check” which is a resource on their computers to help them work through key terms. All the help a translator can get from concordances, lexicons, and commentaries would be beneficial. The TranslationStudio app looks like a wonderful resource. It needs to be studied carefully by the translator. The national translator must have an excellent grasp of English to understand it. 

 

If the key term or important concept is missing, then WA says to go back to Step 5. I envision him going around in circles or settling on something inferior. WA does not list any other recourse. They don’t say it’s all right if he has to leave it for later. They don’t say, “Sleep on it.” What if he says, “I have no such word in my language.?” What if that key term is a noun in the source language but can only be expressed as a verb in his language? My parents retold the story many times of the unforgettable moment when Kondo, realized that the key term testament or covenant was God tying a knot as told in Chapter One.

The use of key terms is one of the most crucial elements of translation, but it is handled very casually in the MAST method. I put a big warning sign here.

Step 8: Now, the final step requires only three people. Without referring to the source text, the translation is read aloud. They state, “…it is important that (1) the meaning in the translation is the same as the meaning in the source text and (2) that all of the events and important details found in the source text are present in the translation.” It’s not clear how they will check these two things if they are not looking at the source text at the same time.

I am very sad at this point to learn that after this final step the translator can have as many copies as he wants printed on the ‘Print on Demand’ machine. This is only a rough, first draft, not something to be published and distributed at all, let alone widely.

Perhaps we need to review the definition of the word “translation”. I know a math book designed for fifth graders would be written in a different style than a math book for college students. What level is WA aiming to hit with their translations? Is it okay with WA if a translation has a childish level translation, something just whacked together in two weeks? Can we legitimately call it translation?

If this translator continues learning, studying and translating, he is going to improve his skills. He’ll find better ways of expressing concepts, but that takes time. Later he will wish he could bring back some of those first draft copies he distributed earlier, but he can’t. This first attempt is good practice in writing and starting the thinking process, but it’s just whetting his appetite. It is a first draft, not a final version.

FIX IT

Before laying out ideas for fixing it, let me say that the amazing book and course called ‘Translation Principles’ by Katy Barnwell has been used, tested and tried over many years. So my first recommendation is to use that.

What can be done to fix MAST? Let me mention a few aspects of the training of national translators that I believe would enhance the MAST method or substitute for it:

1 - I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt here, but there is no background information given on how they decide which languages to tackle. Is there a survey of the geographical area? Are there churches already established? Do they have a scientific alphabet? Are these people who have just raised their hands or what is the criteria? I would only work with hand-picked people who have shown their eagerness, humility and dedication to stick with the task for the long haul. I would want input from the local church leaders and missionaries.

2 - Before starting translation, I would have the translator record the various types of speech which are in his language so he could see how different genres look in his own mother tongue e.g. a sermon, a prayer, a letter, an argument, summary, counsel, parable etc. When he comes to a section of Scripture with that genre, then he would have a model for how to keep the translation sounding natural.

3 - I would divide the book to be translated into its various genres, then have them start translating, not at 1:1, but with the easiest narrative passage in that book (for example Acts 3:1-10; 5:1-11; 8:3-8; 9:32-43; 10:1-33; 12:5-19 are all narrative texts.) But even starting with narrative texts, you can’t expect the translator to proceed pretty much on his own. He will, no doubt, get bogged down with the differences between his language and the source language. The grammar, the word order, the connectors, the turn of phrase, paragraph markers, length of sentence, etc. are so different from one language to another. He needs someone to sit with him and train him. It is impractical to let him do much on his own right from the start. It will all have to be redone.

4 - I would have a series of comprehensive questions on each section, so that as he looks over his translation these questions could test comprehension and accuracy. There are potentially 80 different translation issues that could come up in any given verse of Scripture. To not give a clue on how to deal with these issues would only result in frustration or faulty translation.

5 - I would emphasize over and over that the translator must not translate word for word but concept by concept. This simply requires more time and more training. When my father, Edmund and our Nabak translator, Kondo Singema, were translating Ephesians, Kondo kept repeating some of the words, thinking Edmund had mixed up the Nabak way of expressing negative. “Well, Paul isn’t saying we’re saved by grace. He’s saying we’re saved by works. Everybody knows we’re saved by works.” It took a couple of hours of serious discussion and reading commentaries before Kondo understood the true meaning of Ephesians 2:8-9.

I shudder when I think what a heresy would have resulted if Kondo had been sitting by himself translating these verses. It was well worth the time spent explaining away these preconceived ideas, because once Kondo grasped what Paul was really saying, he became a champion of that truth. The words “quickly” and “accurately” do not join each other when you’re talking about translation of the Bible.

6 - The translator needs to have several commentaries, a concordance, a lexicon, Translation Notes, TranslationStudio and other study aids available to him, if these are available in the source language.  A good national translator would learn quickly how to use these resources, and he will benefit greatly from them. He needs training. I know Zumbek Molong went to Bible School for three years, then to Seminary, but when they finished the translation of the book of Romans, he said, “I never could understand what Romans was about until I translated into Nabak.”

7 - There absolutely needs to be a community check of what has been translated. A community check is something which is missing completely from the MAST process. Between the time of translating and publishing, let the translator use every opportunity to read his translation to as many people as will listen, preferably representing a variety of education levels and ages. This must take priority over handing out bad copies. The translator must always remain willing to better rephrase or correct his draft. Incorporating listeners’ thoughts and suggestions into the translation will make it better and more natural. Maybe he could preach from that text or read it at a community meeting. Reading it to his wife and family around the fire after supper could yield some treasures. 

8 - He can print copies for a select few before printing a large number of copies of this chapter or book. It needs to be checked by a person who knows the original Greek in which the Bible was written (a step completely lacking in MAST). Checking with the source text (e.g. Hindi) is one good step, but at some point he must go back to the real source text (Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew for the Old Testament). The front-burner issue here should be accuracy, not speed. MAST is the inverse.

9 - Before a genuine translation is printed, it would look more like a real Bible if headings, parallel passages, cross references, a glossary, prefaces etc. were included. All these are very helpful to the reader who does not have access to study helps in his language.

10 - I would show an attitude of excitement, and encourage the translator, always emphasizing that this is do-able, though it may take longer than expected. “Take whatever time it takes, my friend. You are being God’s mouth to bring His words to your people. Let’s do the best job possible, by His grace. Accuracy over speed, okay?”

I can attest to the fact that translation is a huge and complex undertaking. It’s not only a challenge linguistically, but cross-culturally and spiritually. Volumes have been written on the topic, and many dedicated people (expatriates and nationals) have given years to this task. Many since Tyndale, including my own father, have given their lives. I do not question anyone’s motives. After all, God’s Word is a gift like no other. I write this because I am committed to the beauty, sweetness and authority of God’s Word, but I say frankly, this method promoted by Wycliffe Associates is sadly lacking. I would NOT trust it to result in a good translation.