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
15-06-2010
The learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but it is still nonsense. Benjamin Franklin
How many languages are there in the world? How about 5 billion! Each of us talks, listens, and thinks in his/her own special language that has been shaped by our culture, experiences, profession, personality, mores and attitudes. The chances of us meeting someone else who talks the exact same language is pretty remote.
How often did you attempt to update your smartphone with the state-of-the-art applications and software and you were greeted with the “denied access” message because your UFO area happens to be a third-world nation?
How many times did you sit down confidently at your desktop with a “I-know-it-all” attitude trying to transact over the net only to be kindly blocked away with a “we-know-better-dude” counter attitude for using credit cards issued from “Sorry, what was that again?” “Right, Lebanon! Sorry again.”
Did it happen that you fell on a new high-tech web-based innovation and you became all thrilled about how much easier this would make your life and what a great deal of money and time it would save you? But guess what? Yeah! You guessed right, it’s still Lebanon!
E-bay, PayPal, Moneybookers are just cool names we come across through catchy advertisements that leave us lusty for more. But to the surprise of the Cedars lovers, they have also designed one special message “Here’s the deal: Don’t touch me!” Why? Because apparently we chose the wrong country on the drop-down list.
But here’s my deal. I am not planning on trading my country for any other place on earth. I want to flourish and prosper right here in Beirut, but I would also prefer to finish things a click away so I can devote my essential time, attention, and energy to human-operated affairs. And all I need is access – authorized, not denied.
Then I woke up to the shocking news today that Somali militants have threatened football fans they will be publicly flogged – or worse – if they are caught watching the World Cup on TV. On Saturday, militants killed two people as they attacked a house where people were watching a game.
Then I thought, maybe it’s not so bad to be a Lebanese citizen. I can always live without e-bay and things will eventually get better one day. So thank you Lebanon for not killing us for watching the game and for having paid the USD800K.:)
13-06-2010
I am a product of my native land, Tuscany, Italy. Andrea Bocelli
Just because we are not Italian, does not mean we cannot appreciate Michelangelo, it is the same with cuisine. Tony Bourdain
Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek. Mario Andretti – Italian born American Race driver.
I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, which melts like kisses from a female mouth, and sounds as if it should be writ on satin with syllables which breathe of the sweet south. George Gordon Noel Byron
