poor english translations

I don't understand why the  English translations are so off the mark.  Does anyone else feel the same?

Here is just one example:

Lesson 19.4.  Je vais devoir prendre...
is translated as "I have to take ....."
This is just so inaccurate.
It should be... "I am going to have to take….."
I don't know why there are so many poor translations.  It is a real impediment to the course and a hindrance..  It means that in the know it section for instance, we are not really giving an accurate translation, but to get the answer right, we have to learn an inaccuracy off by heart.  

I never get any response or acknowledgment from leaving feedback.   No acknowledgement that   1. there is indeed a problem, or why I am mistaken and why there isn't in fact  a problem  and 2. Never any suggestion that an improvement is ever going to be attempted.   

One gets the impression that Rocket French for the staff is just a set it and forget it.  Never review,  never fix problems, just focus on marketing.  

To this point I have never posted any complaint on the forum, but I am really frustrated by the lack of response from Rocket French.  These translation errors are rife, and yet total silence when leaving feedback. 

Like, Hello….Is there anyone home?

Ian, first of all I'm not getting involved because I think it'll make any difference, but I'm sure as heck not going to leave anyone with the impression that you might be the only one that feels this way, especially since you are on the money with everything you said. I honestly believe that the only point to bringing up the flaws in the platform is for the benefit of other users who take the time to visit the forum, and have the same issues.

As for the translations: 

The target language is not English. It's French. I'm not here to find out how somebody would translate French into cutesy everyday English that strays from the point. There is no doubt in my mind that literal translations from French into English are far more beneficial to actually learning French. Even when they give a “literal” translation, it's not! Also, as Ian mentioned, far too many times the translation is, for no reason whatsoever, just plain wrong.

Furthermore, there are, in addition to French misspellings and French grammatical errors, quiz answers that are, without any doubt, wrong.

As for leaving feedback, I think there should be a toilet-flushing sound effect to go along with that button. I have received two responses to countless attempts to call errors to their attention, and gave up on that long ago.

The very idea that people who've gone to the trouble to voice their concerns in this forum are met with standard send-feedback-so-the-team-can-look-at-it responses is insulting. First of all, we're not here to beta test the platform and more importantly, why the heck didn't the team bother to look at it more closely in the first place? One can't help but get the impression that they never intended for anyone to be taking the content so seriously.

Robert

Hi Ian and Robert

Ian - I emailed you directly about the issues you point out. It looks to me like most of the things that you have submitted via feedback have been rectified if appropriate. As I mentioned in the email, the focus on our courses has historically been on the target language and not the literal-ness of the English translations as we were going for an immersive rather then rote-learning approach.  In recent times we have changed tack and added in more literal meanings, usually via the [Lit.] notation. With Rocket French this has been a little ad-hoc to date as we are revamping most of the course this year, and things like how literal the translations are will receive a thorough going over.

Hi Robert - Some of your concerns are addressed above, however feel free to email me directly as I believe you have my email address.

Thanks for taking the time to repond, Jason.

Robert