This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Turkish to English translations [PRO] Tech/Engineering - Petroleum Eng/Sci
Turkish term or phrase:madeni yağ
The reason I am asking this question is because the term ‘madeni yağ’ appears in a text for Petrol Ofisi, and when I look at this company’s texts, is see that they translate ‘madeni yağ’ as ‘lubricant’. For example, if you look at page 17 of Petrol Ofisi’s 2001 annual report in Turkish/English:
you will see that the heading ‘Madeni Yağ Üretimi, Pazarlama ve Satışları’ is translated as ‘Lubricants Production, Marketing and Sales’ in English.
This seems wrong to me. Surely ‘madeni yağ’ is ‘mineral oil’ and the Turkish equivalent of ‘lubricant’ would be ‘yağlama maddesi’. On the other hand, Petrol Ofisi must obviously know its own products and what the best English word for them is. I wonder what other people here think, or if anybody can explain this. Thanks in advance for your contributions and help.
Explanation: "Lubricant" is definitely NOT the translation for "madeni yağ". This translation seems like the "marvel" of an incompetent translator. Such incompetent people are frequently employed in Turkish institutions since they have an "uncle" working at a higher position in that institution or a "MP" is their neighbour from Didim, etc., where their summer villa is. It may be useful to point out that mineral oils are not always used for lubrication but for energy transfer (in hydraulic systems), cooling (metal working) and heat conveyance (oil filled heaters, etc.).
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 mins (2015-09-04 10:08:14 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, "lubricants" are not necessarily mineral oils. In many cases graphite powder, air, nitrogen, carbondioxide, inert gases and even vegetable oils are used for lubrication.
I think everybody is right here, and I wish I could give points for both answers, but unfortunately I can't, so I will give the points to the person who answered first. Obviously this term does not in fact mean 'lubricant', but in my context this is what I will have to use because, as Yusef has explained, the use of 'madeni yağ' in this context is a 'galat-ı meşhur'. 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
and in non-technical texts, they would use lubricants for madeni yağ. But I don't think that any engineer or chemist or technician would use these terms interchangeably in technical documents.
I don't know why such discussions have to be at one point personal. The reason of my former note was that you turned personal. So let's end it here. And yes my background could called technical if m ining is so.
Selçuk I am sorry but as an answerer you should not comment what deserves or deserves not something. Secondly yout graphic has mistakes. Motor oils are shown as fully in the lubricants area which is right, but they are not solely made of mineral oils; there are other sources and even a motor oil with a mineral sourc e is only 90% so. Secondly if the graph is also about volume, than it is wrong again as motor oils dominate the lubricant sector with 51% production level.
Just have a look at the piyasa, you would have to ask for a lot of statements. All the sector is doing so, that is the galat-ı meşhur. Some companies like castrol use both meaning onl y motor oil, ıt stems from madeni yağ used for motor oil many years ago. It is not the case of one client all the sector uses it, but not mineral oil for lub ric ant. I prefer motor oil, but people don't care and a lot use lubricant. and the word for mineral oil in Turkish is mineral yağı.what makes it more complicated is that mineral oils is one of three sourc es of motor oil, meaning petrol oil distilled with additives. We are translators, so we have to work for use prevaling. we are not here to change choices.
madeni yağ or vice versa, I would ask for a written and approved confirmation for this, irrelevant of how established and well-known my client is. But it seems that it is kind of a choice, though not mine.
Anyway, Mr.Drayton could suppose it is a mistake, seen from the dictionary side. But we native Turkish speakers should also research the use by native foreigners
Galat-ı meşhur is a b used as a. And is the case here. Remember that last 150 years is the time motor oils (lubricants) were know as such. You are right there are other lubricants: but motor oil is the oned most dealed in .Magnesiumstearate is only known to a relativedly small number of technic ians. Anyway I did not made it up. It is used gen erally by Anglosaxon people; you could also have a look at Castrol.The use prevailing is the one we must accept as true. İn the case of cars, nobody would mean magnesium stearate when speaking of lubricants. There are some flaws in anything, b ut life goes on with them. If I were interested in politics so I'd call it a foreign kumpas: But I am not. The point here is the misuse of lubricant for mineral oil: Nobody d0es something like that. The misuse is madeni yağ for lubricant. Madeni yağ not mineral oil is known in Turkey as motor oil. "It is not covering lubricants as a whole." It is the other way around, lub rican t is covering motor oil as a whole.
The point here is a misuse of lubricant for mineral oil. This is not Galat-ı meşhur. Lubricant has its own meaning and a proper term in Turkish. It is kayganlaştırıcı ya da yağlama maddesi (which is a Galat-ı meşhur btw). For example, magnesium stearate is a lubricant in the pharmaceutical industry but it is not an oil. Therefore, the correct term is kayganlaştırıcı (meaning a substance making something (mixture, machine part, etc.) smooth or slippery). Slipperiness(?) may also be achieved using oils and this is the case where we use "yağlama maddesi" (meaning to use oil to achieve a slippery environment). Using lubricant for madeni yağ is a mistake because lubricant has its own and correct term in Turkish and madeni yağ has also its own and correct term in English.
galat-ı meşhur means a wrongly used word for a long time so that, a replacement now would lead to confusion so they let it be. You say "Petrol Ofis made a mistake and..." what would you do in such situation being made fun by your sellers and customers and go on. I Don't think so. And what about the rest of the sector? Any thing exploited from the earth,(solid or liquid) is named also madeni. . Just the same maden is sometimes used for metal, one is Arabic and the other western (new) and metal was for more than 2000 years "the" maden. Madeni yağ should be the word for mineral oil but it is not. Note to asker :a b rief research on Castrol's page would let you to grasp the situation. They announc e: 1899 yılından b eri mdeni yağ teknolojisinde yüksek evsafta motor yağı üretiyoruz
(Btw, I didn't know that expression, thanks). Mineral oil (Ger. Mineralöl) is "Madeni yağ" in Turkish. Still, it is not obtained from minerals nor metals. It is a petroleum product (maybe because Petroleum = Oil from the rocks). Lubricant is a completely different term. Selcuk Bey explained it below. I guess, Petrol Ofisi made a mistake and now they cannot retreat.
On Petroturk's web site:" Petroleum Istanbul’da bu yıl Lubricant Eurasia başlığı altında madeni yağ sektörüne özel yer ayrılacak. Türkiye’nin ve dünyanın önde gelen madeni yağ markaları Lubricant Eurasia’da bir araya gelecek. " These people deal constantly with foreigners (meaning they would not tolerate an error on their web pages, galat-ı meşhur is a wrong used word for so long that it is accepted as true in the end". Or perhaps the name derives from oil used on maden which also mean metal. Mineral oil is used as pointed out by M r Selçuk not as a lubricant but most frequently as a brake fluid. "
If I were to translate this text, I'd first tell the situation to the client and act accordingly. According to my experience, they would probably insist on their previous translation, even if it's obviously wrong. :)
This usage in the 2001 Annual Report is just one example. You will find that, for example, at Petrol Ofisi, the official name in English for the department 'Ticari, Endüstriyel Satışlar ve Madeni Yağlar' is: Commercial-Industrial Sales & Lubricants. It seems wrong to me, too, but this is what the company uses. What to do?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
1 hr confidence: peer agreement (net): -1
motor oil
Explanation: madeni yağ is used as motor oil, mineral oil is something else and has a different function. Lubricant is synomn im.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 saat (2015-09-04 11:14:03 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
So madeni yağ is used wrongly here but Petrol Ofis, who was since its start always working with foreign countries and has a lot od English speaking personnel tranlated it right. Petrol Ofis or any other oil company does not mineral oil when saying madeni yağ.See Castrol web page
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 saat (2015-09-04 11:25:44 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
sorry above: .....when saying madeni yağ means lubricant (motor oil)
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 saat (2015-09-04 11:30:09 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
...does not mean mineral oil when speaking about madeni yağ. That is the famous "galat-ı meşhur"
Yusef Türkiye Local time: 09:11 Native speaker of: Turkish
Explanation: "Lubricant" is definitely NOT the translation for "madeni yağ". This translation seems like the "marvel" of an incompetent translator. Such incompetent people are frequently employed in Turkish institutions since they have an "uncle" working at a higher position in that institution or a "MP" is their neighbour from Didim, etc., where their summer villa is. It may be useful to point out that mineral oils are not always used for lubrication but for energy transfer (in hydraulic systems), cooling (metal working) and heat conveyance (oil filled heaters, etc.).
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 mins (2015-09-04 10:08:14 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
On the other hand, "lubricants" are not necessarily mineral oils. In many cases graphite powder, air, nitrogen, carbondioxide, inert gases and even vegetable oils are used for lubrication.
Selçuk Dilşen United Kingdom Local time: 07:11 Works in field Native speaker of: Turkish PRO pts in category: 4
Grading comment
I think everybody is right here, and I wish I could give points for both answers, but unfortunately I can't, so I will give the points to the person who answered first. Obviously this term does not in fact mean 'lubricant', but in my context this is what I will have to use because, as Yusef has explained, the use of 'madeni yağ' in this context is a 'galat-ı meşhur'.
peer agreement (net): -1
