28-08-2010
Once upon our time there dwelt a people in a Middle East city called Beirut. (Also famous as the City of historical SKYBAR, in case you’re confused.)
Their name was the Lebanese, as a group.
At the individual level, some were named à la Française with the letter “r” pronounced à la Libanaise, some carried cool American names catastrophically pronounced by their grandparents, some filed lawsuits to have their Arab names changed into Phoenician names, and the rest are happily carrying their Arab names within the borders of Arab countries.
Rumor has it the Lebanese are born with a dictionary in their mouth.
Sort of a Godsend to a people who will be born in Beirut delivery rooms, where the identity crisis begins.
So the story goes that once upon our time a special baby was going to fall off the baby tree, a different kind of baby who could hear and see from the first cry.
Date: Day One
Time: 10 minutes to birth
Location: Delivery room in Beirut
“Push. Push. Push. Ok, relax now. Again, breathe down into your bottom and push,” the Lebanese obstetrician urged the aching mother.
Thrilled at the possibility that this language could be the first evidence of a western identity, the baby gets ready to slip out of the womb. “My life is going to easier than that of 2.8 billion people! “ The baby cheers up.” I will have fast internet connection. I will benefit from lower calling rates. I will not have to stand in line for hours to apply for a visa. What else would anyone want? I’m out to see the world! “
Date: Day One
Time: 0:03 hour
Location: Delivery room in Beirut
“Smallah, bijanin ya Madame, alf mabrouk!” (Elaborated Lebanese expression for “congratulations”)
There comes the Lebanese nurse and holds up the baby behind a glass partition for the family and grandparents to ogle over. And there the first seed of confusion was planted.
“Excuse me, what was that language she just spoke? But I thought….oh well…I can always turn to mommy for reassurance and truth.” Baby sighed.
But that baby’s mommy was no different than the other Lebanese moms who grew up speaking French and decided to pass that language onto their children because “once you know French, it is easy to pick up another language.”
“Viens te perdre dans mes bras mon amour !” Et voilà! There goes the Frenchy mommy!
Date: Day One
Time: Birth past 15 minutes
Location: Waiting Babel Room
To the joy of about 10 friends, 1,265,326 relatives, Teta and Jeddo (the grandparents) and 5 house servants, baby finally makes his first appearance with the look of confusion planted on the face still to an audience speaking Arabic, English, French, Filipino, and Sinhalese languages.
Date: Day Two
Time: The Hour of Awakening
Location: Beirut
After a long day of bewilderment about the self-identity (or its absence), the Lebanese baby started to realize that the use of languages in Beirut extends beyond a means for merely communicating and expressing ideas.
Mixing different languages in one sentence has indeed become a Lebanese lifestyle – the Lebanese identity.
This whole language mixture and the purpose of its use made me think the other day when I was in a nail shop in Beirut rife with sophisticated Lebanese women.
Some woman walks in and addresses one of the employees to check her appointment. She talked to her in the Arabic language with the pure Lebanese accent and dialect. Then she turns around and runs into another female acquaintance that was getting a manicure treatment. A long conversation takes place and, by the sound of it, (I didn’t need to eavesdrop to hear them, they were loud and liked it that way!) I got the impression I was in the center of the Champs-Elysées. Then that other woman stops the conversation to address the employee in the same Lebanese dialect that the first woman seemed to speak fluently. Then the two ladies resumed their conversation, and this when we fly back to Paris.
And it made me think. Did they have to speak Arabic to the employees out of an assumption that it is unlikely that this category of workers would have been brought up speaking foreign languages and consequently considered them outcast in the Lebanese system? Did they have to communicate friendly with one another in French because they do belong in the same social class? Are languages deemed a sign of class and snob?
This language system is sometimes laughed off as a sort of “artificiality” implying a sense of superiority. Other times, this same system induces admiration and respect in those who contemplate it seeking admission within its ranks.
Whether it comes naturally or artificially, whether it is inherited or simulated, I believe the language system in Beirut gives the city a charm like no other and distinctively sets it apart.
We mix and we don’t really need a fix, but if you can figure out what our problem is I’d be interested to know.:)
If you want to learn more about Lebanon and the Lebanese people, I think no better posts will give you a genuine illustration of the situation in Lebanon than those of Maya Zankoul. http://mayazankoul.com/
11-08-2010
“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.” ~ Rita Mae Brown
The first time I met the deadline dates back to early 2003.
I was running late for work when I received a phone call from my first client (may all good things come to him) offering me a tempting amount of money to walk away with in return for spending two sleepless nights on some urgent translation.
I had to pull over to give it some thought.
Continue driving to work and honor those little translation duties that bored the heck out of me or call in sick and start heading to where the thrill and challenge might start to originate.
That day my conscience was on holiday, and the rest is details.
And I met the deadline, and then another one, and another one, and another one.
One thousand and one sleepless nights on words, they made me happy. And I kept coming back for more. More words, more translation, more challenges, more deadlines.
Then time would elapse and I would start to feel tired as my fighting system would start to fade. I should take a break and slow down.
I should decline a deadline and finally make that long-promised visit and spare my family that same old “Sorry she couldn’t make it, she has a deadline” justification in an attempt to ingrain in their community a sense of respect towards my constant absence.
Yes, I should slow things down and mingle around. After all if I’m working hard to afford luxury, I’d better be out and show it off!
Then time would elapse. And I start missing deadlines again. Probably it has become an addiction for me. The pressure, the stress, the bustle, the rush, and the push of life would make feel alive and break me out of my routine schedule. I’m on a constant deadline and I’m surviving happily.
What about you? You’re a translator too. I see you won’t be on a mission to the moon anytime soon. And most probably you won’t be working to see your designs finally materialized in beautiful sky-scrappers. Oh, and I’m sorry to break the news to you, but Frank Sinatra reaffirmed his intention not to be reincarnated in you.
So you’re doomed, buddy. You studied translation and all that is left for you is your laptop and dictionaries.
And yet there’s always a way to add variety and fun to your job. You want the thrill? Get on a deadline!:)
Deadlines will make you a better person, a happy worker. Through deadlines, you will learn how to think, analyze, and translate faster. Instead of embarking on a quiet, dreamy journey of wonder and hesitation contemplating the ceiling for hours looking for a muse to beat you over the head or a miracle to happen on your document, just wake up and get your mind trained on staying alert and focused. Why? Because you’re running out of time. Because miracles happen to those who pray, but we don’t have time for prayers now. Why? Because we have a deadline.:)
Deadlines user manual coming soon! Make sure you come back to check it out.:)
30-07-2010
If it’s a crime to twist and misunderstand, you’ve got a life sentence!
And I don’t really care whether you ended up in the translation profession because your mama thought it would be prestigious to brag about your languages to your aunties on Sunday’s family lunch or because it took you eighteen years to realize that Isaac Newton was not another comic character in Asterix and Obelix.
Whatever the twist of fate that dictated your career path, you’ve become what you’ve become, and now that you’re aboard you’d better assume full responsibility for the title you got yourself or there’s always another ship to commandeer.
But if you wish to continue pleasing your mama and you’re willing to steer to the professional shore, you need to agree to live by the following 5 commandments:
1.Thou shalt understand the difference between a writer and a translator.
Writers are fully entitled to express themselves the way they feel regardless what their audience feels or thinks.
Translators are bound to understand what the writer meant.
“Oh but I thought the writer meant this or that” won’t give good results. You misunderstood the meaning; you’re guilty as charged! Don’t think so, know so!
2. Thou shalt get over your teachers at the translation schools.
With all due respect to the teachers who tried their best, you might have been taught wrong. School days are gone with your daddy’s pocket money. You’re a professional now, you might as well earn it. Do your own research and find your own proof!
3. Thou shalt revisit your long-inculcated understanding of some concepts.
What you once translated and passed without opposition does not necessarily mean that the translation was always the correct answer. Don’t just choose the easiest way relying on past information. Don’t apply the first thing that comes to your mind.
Be your own judge and repeat the trial.
4.Thou shalt not twist the meaning to camouflage your failure to understand.
You just couldn’t understand and then you gave up. But there are still blanks that need to be filled, so you blablabla using vague words hoping to get away with it. Nothing goes unnoticed. That vaguely translated word was paid for. How would you feel if you go home and find out that the designer shirt that cost you a fortune missed a button?
5. Thou shalt put your I-know-it-all attitude aside and ask for clarification when needed.
Don’t be ashamed to ask. You’re not supposed to have a PhD in law, medicine, IT, and finance. When you’re in a doubt, ask.
Rejoice! You have just completed the Pilgrimage of the Five Translation Commandments and your old misunderstanding sins are now washed away. Stay on track.
27-07-2010
Positive words will let you lose weight and help build muscle mass.
Positive words will help you guess the next lottery numbers, and the next positive thing you know you are a happy, positive billionaire.
Positive words will get your name in the draw to sail in the vast positive ocean of Seychelles for seven positive days with your adorable positive partner.
Sure all this can happen. That is half the truth. The other half is that in spite of your doubt and confusion, positiveness will never let go of you until the last positive word is said. I’m positive.
But if some universe conspired to prove me wrong, at best you will stay fat, you will continue to earn your bread the hard way, and you might need to keep an eye on your inflatable swimming pool for a while, but with a good weaponry of positive thoughts you will find it hard to notice how dramatic this turned out.
Conversely, a negative attitude and consequently negative actions will put your mind in a depressed emotional state, will create more problems to you, will affect your perception, will drain you emotionally and spiritually, and will tear you down and wear you out, all the way to mass destruction and general unpleasantness. We do not want that, do we?
I wish I’m licensed to discuss the process of mental upgrade to positiveness, but I can always serve you linguistically with a risk-free 30-day trial list of positive phrases with a guarantee to attract positive outcomes and incite the universe to send positive energy back to you.
“Tomorrow means Tomorrow.” Telling your customers that a task will be done on a certain date – regardless of holidays or weekends – will instill them with confidence about your business.
”I can solve that problem for you.” Be direct with the customer, telling them a task will be done in clear terms they can understand.
“I will keep you informed.” Since they’re paying you, customers like to be kept in the loop vis-à-vis what is going with their business. Remind them that they are in the loop.
”I take responsibility.” Always let the customer know that you are accountable for their business.
“I will deliver on time.” Let the customer know that you will stick to your deadlines when asked.
“It will be what you ordered.” Reassure the customer that the product or service being delivered or performed will be exactly what they wanted.
“The task will be complete.” Assure the customer of your thoroughness, reminding them that the task will be done on time.
“I don’t know, but I will find out.” Admit to the customer when you don’t have the necessary information, but assure them you will get it.
“I appreciate your business.” Don’t forget to specifically remind the customer that you value their business.
09-07-2010
Everyday a communication takes place with a faceless voiceless name that hardly tells you anything remotely true about the real person behind the text. Yet we manage to remain judgmental behind the screen and to cast biased votes in favor of some senders over others.
What exactly incites us to respond more enthusiastically to certain communications that we like to privilege to the exclusion of others?
Could it be a discourse tone filling us with alarm that makes our superstitiously-judged correspondents score lowest on our measure of empathy?
Is it the firmness and conciseness of speech of capable writers that leave us with good feelings and impact words that call up pictures in our minds and, consequently, trigger a favorable reaction eligible for a higher score?
Or, simply, exchanged words, like anything else happening live, also succumb to the command of chemistry causing us to assume, conclude, and judge all within a limited context backed up with a good deal of intuition.
Like Bob Marley sang it, ”In every little action, there’s a reaction” and reactions to this blog are more than welcome to help explain what influences the way we act, interact, and react upon one another. React.:)
02-07-2010
There’s a say in Arabic that “One should count to ten before talking.”
Now I can see there was probably a reason for me to have ended up a translator and not a mathematician.
Figures and I, it has always been complicated.
Counting to ten is easy, a kindergarten child would say.
Counting to ten is a long ten-stop road trip that needs patience, time, and breath.
A patience that I don’t have, a time of which I’m always running out, and a breath that is definitely too busy catching.
But when it comes to instant reaction, whatever you do, don’t race me there. I will react before you even realize you need to take action to react. Fast reaction comes into play in the most natural spontaneous forms with a fine stock of ready words and sentences racing against my keyboard, desperate to be expressed, eager to be released, impatient to be freed.
Dramatic as all this sounds, instant reaction, impatience, and my obsessive-compulsive word release disorder came in handy whenever I was asked to translate and deliver in a short time that had no room for one to ten. Pressure and tight deadlines served me good because they fell directly in line with my character, and liberated me.
Translation impossible accomplished in no time. Send button hit. Shoulders laid back. Hands relaxed off the keyboard. I smile as the sense of achievement dominates my ego.
Then something comes up to shake up my day and disturb my tranquility, and this time it’s not about translation but rather a communication that needs a response, and I have to deal with it. Did I manage to deal with it without blowing a fuse?
I dealt with it exactly the way you figured. The whole built-in behavioral reactivity process is triggered again and the ready stock of words were evacuated rapidly, but this time with anger.
Response delivered. Hands off the keyboard. I read myself again. What have I said?!
Then I wished if I could go back in time to rephrase, restate, retell, review. But it was too late. What is said is said and what is sent is sent.
Finally, I decided to make peace with figures and count, properly and slowly.
One, two, three…un, deux, trois…. un, dos, tres… some things must be changed.
28-06-2010
If you happen to be the legal heir of Carlos Slim Helu, please stop reading at this point because we were only joking in the title.
But if you are one of those many professionals who constantly need to translate presentations and documents without always having to bargain for discounts from your Arabic translation service provider, you should trust this blog.
Acronyms are your discount coupons.
The rationale behind this cost-effective tool is very simple: 1 acronym equals 1 word.
Since the translation company will charge you based on the amount of words in the language from which the text will be translated, you can start reducing the total number of words from your end by using acronyms instead of complete phrases.
Thus, using UNDP rather than United Nations Development Programme will subtract three words from the count without affecting the translation since the acronym will be translated into full phrases in Arabic.
Why? Because there’s no such thing as acronyms in the Arabic language.
All you need to do is place your acronyms and leave it up to us to do our research and find out what they stand for as long as they are searchable and conventional to a certain extent. Acronyms that are exclusively created by and known to the author alone will confuse the translator unless they are defined at least once in the source texts.
Yes, acronyms are your best friend, go ahead and abuse them.
Yes, acronyms are the worst enemy of Arabic translators, but it is this very Arabic language that made us partners. No complaining from our side.
Therefore, it’s my pleasure today to be the devil’s advocate and raise this awareness because I believe it’s in our interest to help our loyal clients save on their translation costs and come to us for more requests.
And now that I’m done with my Mother Teresa attitude and with advocating the use of acronyms in source materials, I need to mention that I’ve always felt that it would be much nicer to write “as soon as possible” instead of the dreaded acronym ASAP because it’s my interpretation that ASAP comes across abrupt when used in a demand. But that was just a FYI that I will leave to your discretion and convenience.:)
What are your favorite or least favorite acronym? Please share for Service Help and Resource Exchange.
24-06-2010
While my intention is not to offend anyone or underestimate the lack of intelligence or knowledge about the obvious differences between translators (a category of human professionals) and photocopiers (machines), I feel the urge to recapitulate some observational differences in a good faith effort to help understand what might be the reasons behind receiving a no for an answer from a translation service provider.
The whole truth must be told, so help me God.
1. Translators operate on the basis of biological energy that translators define as large coffee mugs and energy drinks. Our fellow photocopiers rely on electrical power to operate. (EDL or the neighborhood generator providers, a.k.a Moteur)
- 2. Translators read the data visually within the naked-eye visibility range. Photocopiers scan the document once and create replicas digitally.
- 3. No depreciation value. The higher the number of years of experience, the more valuable the translator.
- 4. Translators undergo maintenance over the weekends while they remain able to answer urgent client requests. Photocopiers will go for maintenance for a number of days and their safe return is neither guaranteed nor predictable.
5. Kicking the machine to force its operation helps sometimes. (I tried it and it works) Interacting with translators without a fair estimate of the translation value will result in a No answer. (I had to give it occasionally because things don’t work this way.)
Now, upon the facts stated above
700,352 pages cannot be translated into another language within three hours. Magic Wands coming soon, in the meanwhile stay tuned via our blog for updates.
Most people in most parts of the world speak more than one language to varying degrees of fluency, but knowing the language is one thing and translating is another. Translation is much more than the substitution of the words of one language with the words of another language.
“If I had the time, I would have translated it myself!” – We hear it every day.
Nonetheless, here at DITTO, we achieved records in both numbers and quality of translated words. While we don’t pretend to be able to operate in the speed of photocopiers, we do, however, serve our local and external clients to the best of our human capabilities.
Try us and spread the word.:)
17-06-2010
In other words, I owe all respect and gratitude to the man who invented the Copy and Paste and made my words run at a faster pace!
Technology is altogether cool and helps simplify many aspects of our day-to-day operations and communication.
Emails definitely made the world a smaller place. Attachments surely saved us roundtrip flights in a few megabytes. However, that copy and paste feature, all-praised, all-blessed, all-gracious, Function of the hard workers, save my day.
On a random day in the life of moi, a translator, repetitions and recurrences do happen sometimes. When they do, they colonize my screen like ants coming in tons and tons of them to blur my vision, kill the joy of dealing with new words, bore me, and eventually slow down my strides.
Then gracious Gates makes a heavenly appearance and says:
“Copy and you shall paste, my child!”
Thanks Bill. I don’t know what my hands would have done without you, but I’m curious to know how far will you go. Are you guys considering extending this marvelous function to other aspects of our life? Will it come a day when I will be able to cut myself from a present location and paste the same self into a different place? How about copying my winter wardrobe into storage to make room for the pasted summer attire! And when the other speaker doesn’t comprehend the meaning of my frontline statement, will you copy my concepts and perceptions and paste them in the same order and manner so they think, believe, and see the same?
If you consider these aspirations of mine to be way too imaginary, please do not panic as this too may be possible. We made it possible at DITTO! Not only that, but we’re also good enough to show you how we are capable of conveying an idea from one language into another in a way easily understood by a native speaker. Meaning copying and pasting is our thing too.
Therefore, please allow us to help you acquire the technique of transference that we achieve linguistically and then we shall wait for you to apply it technologically.:)
Music does bring people together.
It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same.
Let the Music Play – Barry White
