IIRC there was Witness statement from a Portuguese waiter on here the other day - where he says that men left the table to 'control' their children. I think that's another example of the word 'control' being used when the word 'monitor would have been more appropriate.
Would you say that the men left the table to monitor their children ?
You monitor through some device (imo), you check on someone or some situation to verify everything is ok.
I couldn't translate "he left to check on his child" just saying "il est parti contrôler son enfant", because in fact he's not going to control his child but the situation his child is in. So I'd translate "il est parti voir si son enfant allait bien" (he left to see whether his child was doing well".
Monitor is not the correct word strictly speaking Anne - but it doesn't carry the same inference as the word 'control' does in this particular context.
As it's obvious the witness was saying they went to 'check' on the children then why not use the word 'check' when translating into English - rather than 'control'- when that word has a completely different meaning? A professional translator would not have made that mistake IMO.
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It's not a question of mistake, Benice, but of rigour. A translator, either earning money translating or doing it for whatever reason, if knowing the text has been translated from another language, will try, if some element sounds weird, to have a look on the original.
If you ask me to translate "ele foi controlar os filhos", I can't but see that it is a bad translation of "he left to check on his kids", because no Portuguese would say this, but "ele foi ver se os filhos estavam bem".
