Translating something for somebody

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Kathrin

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Somebody who has gotten my name from an internet forum where I have helped with short translations has asked me if I could do a translating job for him.

Apparently it is a facebook chat that his wife and a male friend of hers have led. I was worried about the ethical/legal side of it and asked him if they knew that he was in possession of the chat, he said NOW they did because over the weekend he confronted them with it and also let them know that he was going to have it translated. That I would help all the involved get clarity if I did it.

I am a bit torn, of course, if he suspects his wife and her friend be lovers he wants clarity; depending on what it will say in the chat however it may also be good or bad for their marriage…
I am very much for honesty and openness, but I am not sure if he got to the chat by legal means (ok, probably he and his wife share the computer).

So I wanted to put this here and ask… what do you think the moral implications are here?
Thanks for any replies!

Kathrin
 
You haven’t stated whether the wife objects to you translating the conversation. She might now, in which case it is hard to see how you could be acting immorally by doing the translation. If she does object, it might well mean that she was going behind her husband’s back, in which case you probably aren’t helping anything by doing the translation. If she was cheating and confesses to her husband and fixes it, giving the husband the juicy details of their conversations seem unlikely to help.

Can you just tell him to plug it in to babelfish.altavista.com and get at least a rough translation on his own? 🙂
 
He hasn’t said whether his wife agrees or not.
Only that he confronted them with the chat and told them that he had passed it on for translation purposes, and that it would help everybody involved if it could be confirmed that these small talks were really so harmless (as his wife says, I suppose.)

He already tried translation programs but they strike a bit when there is a lot of conversational talk.

(edit: ) Even more important it is for me that it is morally ok is that he wants me to pay for the time. It is quite a number of pages of talk.
 
It would be wise to stay out of someone else’s marital fights. If he is that upset, he may hire a lawyer who will hire a translator.
 
After also talking to it with a counselor at church, I decided to not do it.
 
And got a nice e-mail from him now saying they could clear up the misunderstandings now. :):)🙂
Been praying for that!
 
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