*Disclaimer* I never really put my own writing out in the universe (other than these blogs). However, I found my a few of my poems from my college days way back when. I’ve tweaked them a bit for comprehensibility.

Enjoy my emo days before emo was a thing. Laugh or cry at these, but do not use without my express permission.

“Signals”

I left a light on, a signal to my heart.

No answer came as memories fly by.

Images waltz and emotions tango

as two figures stretch out,

relaxed like felines bathing in the sun.

Toes, knees, hips touch, caress, mold, and fit.

No movement in the film,

only feather-light breaths are heard.

Intensity rises when I fear

that no more future will be made

into a film of the past.

Signals will be left unseen, unheard, unfelt.

“Haunted Courage”

Haunted eyes bring urgent tears,

tears that slide encumbered along my cheeks.

Battered souls scream for justice,

justice that exists only in fantasy,

Bruised egos muster a haunted courage,

courage that is a heavy price to pay.

“Teacher”

He plays upon my mortal stress with musical gestures.

Blues and greens flash before my eyes,

easily erased as if colored by chalk.

Listless blue eyes refer me to a memory

that was tagged and shelved a long time ago.

I wonder if the voice and the hands will ever stop so I can go home.

 

It’s been well over a year since my last post. I could excuse myself by saying a lot has occurred in that time frame: I got married and I started a new job to name a couple of things. I’m settling into both new roles and am enjoying life. Meanwhile, my thoughts often drift back to my neglected blog and wondering if I could get going again once I have the time. The good thing about language is that it’s never out of fad and it never goes away. So I’ll return soon with more thoughts on language in transition and translation. And in the meantime, enjoy these blogs I’ve found that have got my brain juices flowing.

http://blog.globalizationpartners.com/how-to-translate-your-keywords.aspx?utm_content=34558711&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-english-so-weirdly-different-from-other-languages?platform=hootsuite

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/08/the-language-of-cooking-from-forme-of-cury-to-pukka-tucker/?platform=hootsuite

 

 

 

 

 

Glossaries. They sound dry and boring to most folk. What do you do with them except look up words and phrases? When most kids were playing outside, I was busy reading the dictionary and making my own glossaries for many things. I loved to define words and give them meaning. If I didn’t know a word, it was marked and looked up. I then wrote it down in the appropriate glossary and continued. My mother and I made flashcards, and I studied the vocabulary. I guess you could say that I knew I was going to be working with words one day. With each language I studied, I made sure to start a glossary.

Now that I am all grown up, I use glossaries daily. I used to have my language students construct glossaries for their lessons, quizzes and exams. I still make my own and not just when clients ask me to. The great thing about glossaries is that you can make them be anything you need them to be. Start off by identifying the purpose of the glossary. Then find what you think is the appropriate vehicle for all the vocabulary goodness. I’ve used Excel for some spreadsheets here and there. It’s good for the basic glossaries, nothing too fancy.

I’ve given a few free versions of online translation memories a try. I like them for the most part. They come in handy for sharing information without having to upload documents every time you have a new version of your glossary. These are not always appropriate for all clients though.

Before you start to sit down to construct your glossary, ask yourself a few questions:

1. What purpose does this glossary serve?

1a. Is someone else asking me to construct this glossary? If so, what are their parameters that they gave me?

1b. If this is for myself, is it for consistency within a translation job or for my personal learning?

2. How large does this glossary need to be?

3. What details do I need to include? (You would think that this is self-evident, but that’s not always the case.)

4. What is the finishing point of the glossary? When will I know that I am done?

Feel free to adjust the glossary as needed. I once was halfway through constructing a glossary when I realized that not all the information I needed was being incorporated. I needed some quick reference points. So I added a column and plugged information away.

What do you do when making your own glossaries?

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.

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?