This morning I found a rather amusing link regarding Google’s latest Trojan App for Microsoft Office and how the German Foreign Office is killing Linux in favour of Windows. The latter story doesn’t make much sense to me, I mean, why get rid of Freeware that works and replace it with a so-called premium product that ends up freezing and then apparently “apologises for the inconvenience.” Microsoft, sweetheart, you have no idea of the inconvenience that you have just caused me. You’ve just lost me several hours of work, you useless pile of wombat dung. Don’t apologise for something if it’s not sincere.
I’ve also found a really good article (well, for me anyway) on sleep patterns. It turns out that we’re supposed to be biphasic sleepers, i.e. we sleep in two blocks separated by a period of consciousness, rather than creatures who hibernate for one massive chunk. See, now I have an excuse explanation for being awake at all kinds of quirky hours.
Oh, and for all you raccoon lovers out there (yes, I’ve noticed the searches), here’s something that I think you might appreciate:Damn, that is one cool cat.
Which is amazing seeing as in the small amount of text I’ve written so far, my mind has been completely and utterly useless at spelling any of it. I think I’m having a messy day.. Aand we're back to this stage again..
Now to explain my lack of whitterings… I was hijacked by a badger the other day?
Naturally, such an experience is highly traumatising, and it’s taking a while to sink in. I hope you’ll all bear with me whilst I sort the blighter out..
It involves a teapot, a shaved gorilla, a sponge and a badger.
That is all.
Oh, and before I forget, I’ve spent the entire afternoon working on my website and teaching myself bits of CSS, only to discover late this evening that all versions of Internet Exploxer below version 9 don’t support the one particular feature I have spent the entire day working on.
Manky git.
Ooh, look: a raccoon. Definite case of tail envy, methinks. Oh, to be tailed.
Ooh, look, a new category! :O (Better watch this one, she’s quick..)
Warning: attempt at being serious/boring. Read on at your own risk. Oh, to be a Babelfish
Here’s a question for you – how would you define translation?
And please don’t just sit there and go “Well, duuhh. You take text in one language and just whack it into another.” It’s not that simple. If it was, we could all do it. Smartarse.
Perhaps define is the wrong word. Perhaps “describe” would be better. I mean, the common answer I seem to come across when you ask the average Joe what he thinks it is, is that he talks in terms of words. In fact, the majority of people seem to have this problem of talking in terms of words.
But what if we were to shake things up a bit and change/redefine things a little? Why not talk in terms of ideas, rather than words? Especially seeing as more often than not, you, as a translator/Babelfish, will come across a word in the source language (the one you’re translating out of) that simply does not have an equivalent in your target language.
“But surely,” I hear you say, “Surely, there must be a way round it?”
Sometimes there is, but sometimes you have to re-jig the entire sentence (or paragraph and thereby undo several hours of hard work) and sometimes you have to insert entire sentences to explain the concept. To be honest, I often find that the most dastardly of words that simply refuse to cooperate when it comes to translation (think children at the dentist) seem to be those that are attached to specific cultural ideas or identities.
Anyway, you try translating “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” into German, or any language for that matter, and let me know how you get on. Sometimes it’s the most unsuspecting of words. You try finding an equivalent for “hot-cross buns” or “baked beans” in any language – on the surface they appear to be well-behaved little words who do as they are told, but the minute it comes to communicate them in another tongue, they transmogrify into a translator’s worst nightmare.
Although it must be said that sometimes it’s not individual words that give you problems, but rather the logic of the language. Take Polish, for example. (Polish speakers please feel free to correct me, here) In Polish you don’t have a definite or indefinite article. There’s simply no need for one. They do, however, have a complex case system. For those of you who know a bit of German – you thought German was hard with 4 cases? Polish has 7. That’s more than Russian and Latin, which have 6. Then in Russian and Ukrainian, my understanding is that there is no present tense verb “to be”.
In most Slavic languages there seems to be this idea that the majority of verbs come in pairs – one perfective (I read) and one imperfective (I am reading), yet often the imperfective verbs only occur in past and future tenses. Then there’s the notion of the Subjunctive “mood”, which we only have in phrases such as “if I were you” in English and if you want to speak German, you have to know exactly what you want to say before you say it as the verb often sticks itself on at the end. In Japanese, you need to learn to talk like Yoda (Boring this is) to get the correct word order, and then there are African languages where everything’s a series of clicks and whistles. (Interestingly, there was a whistling language in rural France that has since died out, but it was used by Shepherds to help Allied soldiers to escape occupied France and the Occupying Forces didn’t realise that they were talking to each other, rather than whistling a tune.)
It’s enough to make you want to cry.
And then we end up inevitably coming back to the age-old question of translation: How close should you stick to the source text when asked to translate it?
This particular issue does my head in on a regular basis; to the point where my brain feels like it’s about to implode and leave a spectacular yet nasty mess on the inside of my little head.
I had particularly nasty instance of this last night, when rereading a translation about insurance in Germany.
For those of you who are not familiar with the German insurance system, beware. It’s a rather imposing jungle of legislation and forms and all manner of alarmingly-long words. (For a highly amusing, yet accurate view of the problems experienced by an Anglophone learning German, read Mark Twain’s The Awful German Language.)
One such problematic word in the source text was “Laborversicherung”. German being such a wonderful language, you can break the word down into its component parts. “Labor” by itself means, that’s right, “labour” and “Versicherung” is a lovely noun meaning “insurance” – incidentally, it comes from the verb “versichern”, to insure. German’s a lovely language in that it can be so logical when it comes to word families. I might upload a morphology essay I did last year that helps explain to those interested, how to build compound nouns in German.
Edit: Being a bit of a tit, I completely mis-interpreted (oh, the pun’s hilarious) the meaning of the entire word. Yes, I lied. “Labor” doesn’t mean labour, it means laboratory. ‘Cause, you know, the two are easily confused.
Moral of the story? Never kiss a badger. < /Edit >
Anyway, back to “Laborversicherung”. At present, its translation stands at “Work-Insurance” (also in inverted commas within my translation). Even when you google it, there’s no easy definition, and from what I’ve read so far, we simply don’t have an equivalent here in England. So I’ve had no choice but to leave it for the time being.
Whilst I’m here, there’s something I’d like to whinge about too, and that’s the attitude of employers (or, in fact, just general opinion) towards translation/interpretation. It seems to be so incredibly undervalued and relatively poorly paid; perhaps it’s misunderstood. I mean, okay, we get paid per word, but I’m beginning to think that that’s just to trick me into thinking that I’m earning more than I actually am. I suppose what I really mean to say is that there seems to be a lack of appreciation for the art or knowledge of knowing how to read a text in one language; understand all the nuances and the subtleties and the ideas conveyed and intended by the author and then knowing how to keep all of that when writing it in your target language.
I’m not going to lie; it can be ridiculously difficult. So why do it? Because 1) I like a challenge. 2) That feeling of achievement and satisfaction when you’ve done and you’ve done it well is oh-so-fulfilling. 3) So few people have that ability to understand other cultures and the logic that goes with the language.
Oh, to be a Babelfish.
In other news, I came home to find the most amazing pair of socks waiting for me: It's all about the stripes and the knee-length. Oh, yes.
As I write this, my cat is sleeping in my bathroom, curled up on the furry bathmat. I found her earlier this afternoon in the washing machine. (I should probably add that it wasn’t on, she was sitting in it with the door open.) Oh, and she was in the shower earlier, too.
I think Sushi has a thing about water. Although, before curling up to snooze in my bathroom, she did have a good clean. Shame my youngest brother doesn’t seem to grasp the idea; the cat’s got the hang of it :|
Not that we call her Sushi at the minute, to be honest. We’ve renamed her F7. It stems from an incident yesterday, whereby my father entered the dining room to find that his company laptop (several years old, I hasten to add) had been viciously, yet mysteriously vandalised, with several keys left at an angle and the F7 key left lying somewhat discarded next to it. The giveaway, it has to be said, was the occasional white cat hairs all over the laptop.
First the cat-flap, and now a computer keyboard. I do wonder sometimes..
Anyway, my apologies for lack of whittering over the past few days – Wednesday afternoon I was rather poorly (for once, this was nothing to do with going to the pub the night before) and ended up having to be rescued by my parents, which meant I had to have my interview for my Praktikum (internship) for my year abroad at home. That was interesting – and promising. I’m now in the process of having to do a sample translation of one of their webpages for Monday.. Eeep.
I seem to remember in my last post whittering on about the Clangers, Soupdragon and various other children’s cartoon characters being a decent alternative to the current government. Whilst originally said rather flippantly, I’ve come to the (slightly bizarre and somewhat unhinged) conclusion that if it’s perfectly acceptable to have fantasy football teams and leagues, then why not governments? I’ve decided that so far, Major Clanger would have to be Prime Minister, being leader of the Clanger Clan, whilst Tiny Clanger would be good as Foreign Secretary – my reasoning being that he was the one who befriended the Iron Chicken when Major Clanger stood there and got cross. Deputy Prime Minister would have to be Mother Clanger, as second in command of the Clanger clan. The Cloud, would be secretary for Transport (it did rescue Tiny Clanger when he got stuck in the Iron Chicken’s nest) and the Soup Dragon would be my Chancellor of the Exchequer. I’ve yet to decide what role the Froglets would play.
Yes, I’m actually going to put time into this crazy idea. Why not? If you’ve any suggestions, please let me know!
Meanwhile, in the real world, Microsoft says “Adieu” to Autorun and a doner kebab saves a man’s life.
Yup, you heard me, Microsoft’s getting rid of Autorun.
Time for my first late-night whittering. Or should it be early-morning? I guess it was only a matter of time before I found myself at 1:30am in bed with my netbook.
The world is a strange place in the early hours. It’s really quite eery and ghost-like. It’s also the time for comfort eating. I found myself in this position towards the end of last week, having finally snapped (and become somewhat even more unhinged than before) after a screw-up with an assessment for another course (one that, for once, wasn’t entirely down to me). Before I knew it, I found myself in a somewhat zombie-like trance in the kitchen; freezer door open with spoon in hand and the best part of a tub of ice-cream gone.
The thought then occurs to me, that being lactose-intolerant, perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.
I paused, shrugged my shoulders and decided that I might as well finish what I’d started. I guess it was one of those moments in life where you’re pretty sure that there is some kind of being watching all of this and wetting himself.
I then decided that I was going to be really mature and boycott work for the rest of the night. So I watched the Clangers instead, which I felt was a far better use of my time.
I also came to the conclusion that the Clangers and the Soup Dragon would make a pretty good government. (I will elaborate, but it’s now 1:40 and I have class at 9 tomorrow..) I’m aware I sound like I’ve been taking some kind of illegal substance – I haven’t. Just lots of tea. And maybe Marmite on toast.
Incidentally, I found the soundtrack to the Clangers and now have it on my mp3 player (no iPod here). It certainly brightens up the world – try listening to it when wandering through Liverpool Street station during rush hour. I couldn’t help but smile.
Yes, I know. 19 and a half and I’m watching old children’s T.V.
Next time, I’ll whitter on about the benefits of Bagpuss..
Ooh, and apparently it’s handbags at dawn for Google and Microsoft. Honestly, ladies. Show some decorum, please. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Half a whittering? My excuse is that I got back from my Berlin conference in the early hours of yesterday morning and my Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is back with a vengeance.
Berlin was amazing. My first day was spent working on the welcome desk..
And then we had networking sessions later that evening:
…And all day Saturday:
Considering we had more than 300 delegates, I think it went quite well!
So that’s what I was doing all weekend.. I have, however, just found an article on the BBC about yet another flaw Microsoft have discovered with their software and hardware.
This is why we should be using alternatives more, rather than the default dinosaurs.. no?
Also, The Register has an interesting article on the latest update from Google about their GoogleDocs facility. I like the use of the word “netziens”, personally. *removes linguistic hat*
Right, once I’ve actually learnt something useful, I shall come back and try again. Carpet Tunnels permitting..
Inane Whitterings 