Author: brandeemiller

Bilingual (English and Spanish), proofreader/editor, teacher, horror movie aficionado, animal lover, chocolatier, and now blogger

Busy-ness as usual: what do wordsmiths do for a break?

We all have times when we’re so busy with work that we can barely breathe. Last week was one of those weeks for me. Sure, I love what I do, working (playing or cavorting even!) with words in two different languages. However, all that working didn’t allow me much extra time for producing my own language in the written sense. And I missed it quite a bit.

Freelancers and full-time employees alike have times like this. What do you do for a quick mind break? As editors, translators, transcreators, what do you do? Can you pick up a book or a magazine to read? I tend to notice the mistakes and cannot turn of completely what I do with my day job (though I do read quite a bit for research for work). If you do read, what is your leisure reading of choice? Do you go with something completely different than your daily work?

I tend to do work with my hands and cook, bake, sew, or play with one of my pets for a quick break. I need that time to allow all the information gathered throughout the day to percolate. Lately, I’m trying my hand at gardening on our patio. It’s a wonderful way to cleanse the thoughts and concentrate on something completely different but doesn’t take a large amount of time away from business.

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Research is the name of the game

We’ve all read the stories of translations gone badly, especially when it come to marketing. Companies give names to products that work well in the source language but can cause problems in a target language. Copywriters under tight deadlines don’t always have time to ponder what their headlines may sound like in another language or if the headlines are applicable in another culture. This especially applies if it wasn’t part of the original scope of work. Can we expect the copywriters to think far enough ahead that the tagline or headline for an ad might catch on and spread worldwide? My opinion is that’s what the translators and the localization experts are for. We’re the ones who are paid to know and when we don’t know, do our research.

One famous example of a product name supposedly gone awry: the Chevy Nova. The story goes that it didn’t sell well in Spanish-speaking countries. My first thought when I heard this in my marketing class in college was “How did the translators, the proofreaders, the writers not do their research?” Well, it appears neither had my marketing professor or so many others who have retold that story. It’s fake according to more than one resource.

Here’s just one resource: http://www.duetsblog.com/2012/07/articles/branding/that-story-about-the-chevy-nova-its-a-no-go/

Blackberry is example of a company who tried to do their research, not only from a linguistic standpoint but also from a cultural point of view. Take a look at their global site and shift between the countries and languages: http://global.blackberry.com/sites.html. When the images, colors, or product names wouldn’t work in a certain cultural setting, they changed them. Their translations may not always be successful, but they put time and thought into localizing their site.

Do you have examples of translation gone right? It’s just as important to see those examples as it is to know what went wrong. How much research do you do when you take on a new project?

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When basic isn’t basic enough

During my 11 years of teaching Spanish, more than once students complained, “Señorita, I took this class for an easy A. I’m getting a B. What’s wrong with this picture?”

That question angered me at first. Learning a language is difficult. It’s something that take serious study and countless hours of listening, speaking, and writing. Why would anyone think it’s easy? Then it dawned on me that there are programs that promise that you can learn a language in a month! two weeks! Take this course, and you’ll be speaking Italian! It’s true. You’ll have a starting point. But it’s an entirely different thing to retain the knowledge over a period of time and constantly practice.

My brightest and best memories are of teaching the classes that few of my colleagues had patience for: beginning levels. For me as a teacher, those were the most rewarding classes. The students came into Spanish 101 knowing how to say “Hola. Cerveza. Yo quiero Taco Bell. ¿Dónde está el baño?” And they left with the ability to form complete thoughts in present tense, some past tenses, and knowing how make some future constructions. But those who asked me that question very often were the ones who cared about their grades and actually learning. They put the required time in and reaped the benefits. I did notice that some needed to realize that learning a language is a different aptitude than just memorizing parts of speech and vocabulary.

So we broke learning language down and created a formula that worked for them. Once they unlocked that formula and went beyond the basics of memorization and wrote learning, they could go on to retain much more than someone who was just in it for the semester. There was never one formula that worked for all students. It depended on their situation, what type of learner they were, what resources they had at hand. If it came easier to them after unlocking that formula, then that’s another matter.

So no matter what you are learning, whether it be a language, math, science, html coding, if the basics aren’t working for you, go beyond the basics and find your personal formula. Here are some of the questions I would ask my students to help them realize their potential (which is really what teaching is all about):

1. What do you hope to gain from learning Spanish?

2. How can you practice to achieve that goal?

3. Realistically, how much time do you have on a daily basis?

4. What resources do you already have at hand? (Because we’re talking about students, free or already owned resources were a must.)

5. Who do you know that can help you achieve your goal?

6. What are the basics of this lesson and how can you break it down into more digestible chunks?

7. Where and when do you learn/remember the most?

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Glossaries, resources, search engines, oh my! When is enough, enough?

There are so many resources out there for translators and others who work with languages on a daily basis. Where do you start? And more importantly, where do you finish? When do you say, “Okay, that’s good for now. I don’t need any more sites to pull up, books to pull out, glossaries to create”? I’ve worked with languages for quite a while now, and I haven’t reached that point yet. But I imagine there might be a point in time where I think I have more than enough to work with. Would that restrict me though? Since the languages we work with are constantly changing, are we allowed to put our feet down and not budge another inch?

One of the greatest qualities translators/interpreters/language teachers have in common is curiosity. We’re constantly learning since our material is not the same day in, day out. We have to learn new words, new ideas as our clients, our source texts, our classes change on sometimes a daily basis. Sure, we have specialty areas, but can even the experts claim to know all there is to know and not learn another word? We are not static people by definition, so it’s my opinion that we can’t be afraid of a little change. We must be restless.

Here are just a few of my favorite sites to consult and train with routinely. What are some of yours?

Lingua Greca: Adventures in Technical Translation

They offer a weekly collection of favorite sites, lists, and articles: http://linguagreca.com/blog/

ATA: The Savvy Newcomer

Even for those who aren’t new to translation, this is a good place to gather ideas, resources, strategies: http://atasavvynewcomer.org/

Linguee:

This is a search engine for bilingual texts for single words or more complex phrases: http://www.linguee.com/

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Translation in transistion

My first word in translation was when I was five years old and someone taught me how to say “one” in Chinese. I was living in Kuala Lumpur at the time. I learned many more words in the following two years we lived there, but I always associated the words I was learning with the equivalent word in my mother tongue, English. There were always word pairs for me to associate meanings.

Fast forward to the summer before fifth grade. By then we were living in Ohio, and my mother was going stir crazy trying to keep her inquisitive daughter’s curiosity in check. She said it was about time for me to be curious in two languages and signed me up for beginning Spanish classes. Most of the classes were about word pairs again and learning easy phrases, but it also introduced the idea of culture with learning language. It was a difficult concept for us to grasp at that age, because words are words, right? We say “dog;” they say “perro.” Translation and learning a language are that easy, right?

I’m fascinated that most people who are not part of the bilingual/multilingual world (and some who are) think that is all that translation encompasses. Sure, a large part of translation is knowing how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, or other reference materials wisely. But it’s also understanding the target culture of the audience. I have known some of my colleagues to fret a day or two about a phrase that is causing them major problems. It’s not just that some things just don’t translate well, it’s that some ideas don’t translate at all. How do you transform an idea into another language without losing the intent of the author in the source language? Many blogs are written about this very question. And I’ve yet to find an easy answer. Translation is art form. While great strides are being made with Machine Translation (MT), we’ve yet to see a computer generate the articulation of a human translator who has spent more than a second’s time in deciding which word or phrase should be used in a source language.

Translation is definitely in a transitional stage at the present time, but that is good. We need to be continually challenged and pushed to be our best and use the best resources out there. No longer are dictionaries the only resource. We have translation memories and computer-assisted translations, to name a couple. But the human element will still be needed because our audience, no matter what language they speak, will always be human. At least, for the time being.

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Language as a portal

Since I learned to read, write, listen, speak, and watch, language has taken me places. From a physical point: I’ve lived in Malaysia, Spain, Venezuela, and various states in the U.S. I learned a few words of Chinese at five years old. In summer school before fifth grade, my mother had me take Spanish. In seventh grade and later on in college, I took various courses of French. I took a month of Spanish Basque when I lived in San Sebastian, Spain. While pursuing advanced degrees in Spanish, I took Portuguese and German. The only languages I claim fluency in and have taught are English and Spanish. The other languages keep a firm hold on my attention, and that list grows every year.

From an imagination point: I’ve read thousands of books and articles–some of which transported me to places I can’t physically visit in this lifetime. I must admit that I’ve read much more than I’ve written. I took time off from sharing my writing (almost 19 years) to learn, listen, watch, read, and practice what I wanted to say. For most of those years, I’ve used green, red, and orange inks to edit the works of colleagues, students, friends, and significant others. Along the way, I’ve had wonderful mentors, teachers, and friends who have taught me the importance of a single word or the weight of a phrase. And for now, I’ve been bitten by the bug to start writing and sharing again. I’m not sure for how long I’ll feel the effects of the writing bug–maybe a month, maybe 10 years.

Language is fascinating, no matter how you choose to use it. We use it every day when answering questions from parents and teachers; asking questions of friends; reporting on the latest trends to bosses; texting notes to loved ones; listening to our favorite programs on podcasts, television, or radio. How we choose to use language is up to us. Some use it to delight and inspire others to be their best, others use language to frighten and chill while entertaining us. Others use language to motivate populations to purchase a product or consider a differing viewpoint.

And the best part of language? It’s constantly changing. A single word that meant so much in the rocking ’80s can hold a totally different meaning today. Language itself is not a trend, but many studies are written about the trends of our communities and technologies and how to reach a target audience, all while using the one thing that’s being studied. What’s the new buzzword or tagline? Who will respond to it? Who will ignore it?

No matter how we communicate, language transports us. I know it’s naive, but hopefully it’s somewhere new and fascinating for the reader, listener, speaker, or even the writer. How will you use language today?

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