A stranger in a strange land – vacationing in your own country

 

It is amazing how much life changes after a two-hour train or plane trip. One moment, you are in harmony with the world around you. In a (long) blink of an eye, you are in an alien landscape. Even if the language and signs are the same, you feel in a foreign land.

It is easy, convenient and relatively inexpensive to experience this transformation. A 45-minute commuter flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco drops you into the other California, one that lives to a different drummer than the Angelinos, with a far more European beat. An equally short but far more up-and-down flight from Paris to Nice seems to drop you in the slow zone, where time is to be enjoyed, not merely exploited. In Israel, a two-hour train ride takes you from Karmiel, some 20 kilometers from the Lebanese border and the constant noise of planes, helicopters and birds, to Tel Aviv, where the pace of life is frenetic and the density of people and cars seems overwhelming. Yet, in all three cases, the country and language are the same and are about the only common denominators.

The differences are both physical and psychological. Every region has its dominant topography and layout. A location may be rural and spread out or urban and compact. Nature and water may divide areas in some places while cement and roads fulfill the same tasks in others. More subtly, the pace of life in some places is slow and leisurely, even in some big cities, whereas in many metropolitan areas everybody seems in a hurry and anxious to show achievement. This difference of pace creates an internal dissonance in the confused visitor, who asks, “How can people live like this?”. This difference in rhythm is as disconcerting and maybe even as exciting at the same time as the experience of a baseball hitter trying to hit a 98-mph fastball after an 82-mph breaking bitch (or the equivalent in cricket). The shock goes beyond the physical effect and calls into question our ability to read the situation.

Despite the moments of feeling overwhelmed, it is rather entertaining to visit the alternative worlds so close to us. First of all, it is not necessary to suffer the inconvenience and unpleasantness of long international air travel, which has lost most of its charm in the last 20 years. Second, these other places provide opportunities for experiences unavailable where we live. For example, some cities provide a plethora of shopping possibilities while other locations allow a person to literally do nothing. Third, seeing how “those” people live reminds you how happy you are where you live and helps you appreciate what you have, or maybe not. In any case, it clarifies one’s perspective. Thus, the benefits of traveling close to home are both short- and long-term.

Therefore, when time, money and energy are short, there is much to recommend for a vacation to a place physically close by but so distant in vibes. These places can be as foreign as a distant country but without the high financial and physical cost of getting there and back. They also help us define what aspects of life are truly important. It is possible to be a stranger and then again a native within two hours, while never crossing an international border.

Far more than a day – holidays and non-business days

 

Translators not only translate words but also cultures. To demonstrate, I recently translated a purchase agreement of a flat (an apartment to Americans) from Hebrew to English in which it was explicitly stated that payments cannot be executed on the "holiday and chol hamoed”. Of course, translating this clause involved not only some understanding and thought but also discussion with the translation agency and a short translator’s explanation of the second term in square brackets. It was clear that a non-Jew or even many non-religious Jews would not understand this supplement to the holiday. However, to be fair, Americans also enjoy some implied extended holidays as do Europeans and even many Asians. When it comes to vacation time, the more, the merrier.

First, to explain to the perplexed (to borrow from Maimonides), among the numerous holidays in Judaism, two holidays add several  “good days” during which a person doesn’t have to work and may travel (as compared to the holiday itself when observant Jews do not travel). Specifically, after Sukkot, which occurs in less than two weeks, there is a “chol hamoed” of six days during which families can travel. Likewise, Pesach (Passover in English), generally in April, has a “chol hamoed” of five days in Israel and four days abroad during which many businesses are closed. As you can imagine, during this period, hotel prices are as high as Ben Gurion Airport is crowded. As for doing business with banks, the government or just about anybody, the answer is “after the holiday”. In other words, if you can’t beat it, join it. Getting annoyed won’t help. It seems that almost nobody is working. Thus, the contract specifically exempted these days from the payment schedule. If you are wondering, my solution was to transcribe the Hebrew word and add a brief explanation.

The Americans are not immune to this vacation inflation. Most foreigners are aware that Thanksgiving is a holiday, on the last Thursday of November by law, but foreigners may not be aware that is actually a four-day vacation. The additional off-Friday and weekend provide sufficient time for people to order their Christmas gifts online, creating “Black Friday”, but at the price of traffic jams, crowded airports and high prices, just as in Israel. Speaking of Noel, Christmas is far longer than 24 hours, magically extending to three days or more, depending on which day of the week the holiday falls. In any case, if you require any service provided by an office, wait until after the holiday.

The Europeans are not exactly sluggards in this department. For example, in France, August vacation is not a few days or even a week; it is the whole month, at least those that receive a salary. The government even has to take steps to ensure there are open bakeries that month. If that is not enough, Christmas vacation begins around December 20 and ends January 4 or later. Apparently, Jesus’ birth was a very long process. Easter is not much better, lasting a full week. Once again, the business world hibernates during the holidays.

Even the Chinese Communist government, usually quite demanding, has given in. The Chinese New Year official period is seven whole days, with some taking another week for the pleasure. Japan has the week-long “Golden Holiday”. By contrast and not surprisingly, North Koreans never celebrate more than two days. Yet another example, grantedly quite minor, of the oppression they suffer.

As you can see, although the word “day” appears in the word “holiday”, it does not limit the actual length of the event. This is important not only for tourists but also for locals, requiring a certain willingness to flow with the occasion. As for translators, it is their job to transmit, in the clearest possible way, the local texture of the generic word as it affects business relations. By the way, next week, there will be no post as I am going on vacation for a few days of course, for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  Shana Tova to everyone.

Piano recital

                                        Piano Recital

 

I, a concert piano at the Juilliard School of Music, hereby declare through my appointed representative that:

a.       I am a Model L Steinway piano, manufactured in 1989 (hereinafter: “the  Piano”);

b.       I am situated in the concert hall of the Juilliard School of Music, 155 W. 65th Street, in New York, NY;

c.       I have the complete set of parts standard for an 88- key piano;

d.       A professional tuner examined me and found me properly aligned and tuned;

e.       My wish is for a proficient pianist to play me;

f.        I waive my right to refuse cooperation with to a person playing “Chopsticks” on me.

                                               End of Recital

[no applause or encore]

Translating certificates – distinguishing marks

 

No translation of a novel is the same. The style, language and sensitivity of the translator render each translation unique to itself. That situation applies to legal translation, albeit to a lesser degree. The same cannot be said of official document translation. As the quantity and variability of words is so limited, it is quite probable that different translators will produce essentially identical documents, as it should be. Yet, in this niche, it is possible to “stand out” from the field and be more successful mainly through the “soft skills” required to attain and retain customers. These skills include ensuring findability, professional communication, careful listening, deadline setting and accountability. Together, they create a personal brand in a rather generic niche.

The a priori of developing a client base is making it easy for translation buyers to find you. As private customers represent a significant percentage of one’s clientele, it is the translator’s task to create high visibility and convenient contact. Specifically, the customer searching for a translator of an official document from one language to another phrases the search in a certain manner and directs the search to certain tracks, including AI, LinkedIn, Facebook and professional association search engines. The greater the exposure, the higher the chance of being noticed. However, too many translators forget to make their email address and phone number clearly visible or even include them. The average translator buyer simply chooses another name when faced with a challenge. Thus, official document translators must have a presence where customers search in a manner that allows for effortless follow-up.

Once contact is made, whether by email, telephone or WhatsApp, the potential buyer, generally lacking any ability to discern the potential quality of the translation, places great importance on the tone of the communication. A customer is neither a friend nor an enemy. The market creates business relations, which value ease and comfort. True, a few words of friendly conversation may be beneficial, depending on the individual culture. However, the messages must be clear and complete and create a minimum of follow-up. In other words, the translator must provide the required information in the most accessible and efficient manner possible. This approach creates the impression, sometimes accurate in practice, that the translator is a professional, regardless of how many years of experience that person may or may not have. On the other hand, inappropriate, inefficient or simply excessive words annoy, which may lead to the buyer choosing someone else. The translator sets the tone of the communication.

In order to provide that information and reinforce the “professional” impression, it is first necessary to listen and ask questions. First, many buyers enjoy talking. It is important to have some kind of human communication here. More importantly, it is vital to ask questions regarding information that is necessary for fully defining the service, such as the receiving agency and need for notarization. These queries both save time for everybody and create the impression that the translator is an expert. Listening and clarifying solidify the business relationship and ensure smooth processing.

One of the key elements of that information is setting a mutually acceptable deadline. For the client, the amount of flexibility varies in regard to the actual required date of delivery. It is important to ascertain the actual deadline. For the translator, each document requires a certain period of time, including sufficient time for proper quality control. It is one of the reasons I do not provide same-day service. Ultimately, it is counterproductive to produce inferior or flawed work or, in the worst case, miss the deadline. Allowing extra time and delivering earlier is a far more successful strategy, like a merchant adding product to a hand-weighed service, such as selling loose candies, as compared to taking some away to attain the desired amount. If customers receive their translation early, it is a bonus for them. It is vital to find the deadline that meets both needs.

To turn a one-time order into a long-term relationship and receive referrals, it is necessary to take responsibility for one’s errors when they occur. Many documents are quite complicated in terms of names, numbers and formatting. No craftsperson (including translators) is perfect; mistakes happen. Fortunately, most buyers understand this to a certain extent. To retain customers, especially when it is necessary to make a correction, requires humility and strength. Prompt and effective handling of any issues smooths over most ill feelings. Whatever anger and frustration a translator feels inwardly and outwardly is not relevant to the matter in hand. In fact, it is best to accept, regret and fix the error with as little emotion as possible. Beating oneself up or the customer is not a good recipe for long-term success.

Thus, while official document translators produce rather “vanilla” documents, they can act to become more or less effective. The most successful translators, including those of official documents, actively market, communicate professionally, listen, set proper deadlines and stand behind their work. All of these soft skills are a matter of approach and habit. They are an essential part of running a translation or, for that matter, any business. They lead to customers coming back and giving you good marks.

The inefficacy of AI writing

 

It is an accepted vision that AI will soon entirely eliminate human writing. We old-timers will brag about how we wrote something by hand, just as some of our grandparents proudly declared that they walked through 5 miles (or kilometers, as applicable) to get to school instead of getting in the toasty car equipped with snow tires as they do now. Progress by definition, irresistibly moves forward, it is claimed. However, I would argue that AI writing may supplement homo sapiens muses but will not eliminate them, but not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with AI writing. The actual reason is that AI writing is simply not effective in many, if not most, situations involving learning, explaining and persuading.

Proper AI output requires directed prompting and editing. The initial output generally contains several stylistic errors in terms of the desired result. The inputting party must refine the prompts until the AI app produces a truly acceptable text. The a priori condition here is that the person framing the prompts is capable of identifying the issues. Therein lies the problem. Without learning how to write using the human mind alone, making mistakes and receiving feedback, a person does not develop a proper template for comparison’s perspective to even judge the AI version. Many students, including adults studying law and finance, avoid the challenge of putting their text on a page and immediately turn to AI. They lose their prime opportunity to learn how to write text and, consequently, to edit AI text. They may pay a high professional price for their shortcut.

The other aspect of AI text output involves factual errors. There is no shortage of reports in the media of AI actually inventing law cases and medical studies as it overstrives to meet the demands of the inputting party. This situation is humorous if the human party catches the error before submission or publication but can have unfortunate consequences if not. While laziness and ignorance sometimes play a part, a more pernicious factor is the illusion that AI is infallible. No AI engine makes such a claim but it is so easy to believe everything a computer tells us. Ideally, everybody would check the facts but, in practice, many writers are lazy or ignorant. Therefore, for many professionals, AI does not in fact reduce the effort involved in writing, but merely changes its form.

The main reason that AI will probably not replace human writers is far more universal. Simply put, for many purposes, its output, even guided by trained writers, does not attain the goal. Long before AI erupted on the scene, the average person did not trust language that was too sophisticated or smooth. They called it “highfalutin” or whatever the local word term was and immediately suspected either someone was hiding something or trying to make them feel stupid. As an example, if a car salesman claimed that a given vehicle was “aerodynamically and ergonomically designed to maximize power and fuel usage”, customers would look confused or suspect that the engine was too weak. Neither result would lead to sales. People prefer to hear direct language using everyday words. Ignoring his politics, President Trump may be crude but everybody understands what he is trying to say at any given moment, unlike most politicians. On LinkedIn, many writers complain about “AI-written content” being published. The issue is not the use of AI but the lack of connection to the reader. AI, even with human help, tends to “automate”, which is much less effective than less polished but honest words.

There are clearly exceptions to this tendency. Academic writing loves soufflé writing, i.e., fancy words with hidden, implied or even no meanings. AI is outstanding at producing these texts, far better than most human beings. Other fields use a specific form and lexicon to express their ideas, often rather formalized. These areas include law and business. Many legal claims and financial press notices sound almost identical aside from the relevant names and numbers. AI serves as an “expert system” in producing this coded text whose audience is in the know of the meanings and expects a certain style. In fact, these readers may not appreciate anything less than it.

Still, AI text is not appropriate for those who are learning, researching and persuading. Even with editing, it quite often triggers an intuitive resistance to the message and the suspicion that something is amiss. It will take a period of time before the impact of these AI inadequacies strikes home to the enthusiastic AI users out there, but the issues will not disappear. In summary, realistically, taking a walk is an enjoyable and healthy experience. However, there is nothing wrong with staying dry and comfortable in a car on an unpleasantly hot or rainy day. AI and human writing are not mutually exclusive.

Eulogistic lexicon – The art of translation

 

Many people equate translation with mechanically replacing a word in one language with one with the same meaning in the other language. It is similar to describing painting as brushing color on a surface. While there is a small measure of truth, the analogies ignore the art involved in creating a useful result. As an example, last week I received an interesting project involving the translation of old gravestones from Hebrew to English. To be clear, the longest of them did not contain more than 20 words. However, the act of translation required a clear understanding of the full texture of the words in both languages.

The challenge began from the start with the honorifics. The letter מ [mem], which is a short form of מרת [marat], preceded the names of some of the women. The problem is that English has two different forms of address, Ms. and Mrs. After careful thought, I chose the former term because the reader of my translation is from the modern era and, more importantly, the issue of her marital status should be minimized. I recognize that Mrs. would be also appropriate since it reflects language use during the relevant years, 1912-1946. However, I chose the more modern term. As for the male deceased, the letter ר [resh], a short form for Rabbi, appeared before the name. However, the term Rabbi was used quite often as an honorific, like Mr. Not every Jew was a religious scholar, although some were. My solution was to write “Rabbi” and let the genealogist ascertain who was a real rabbi and who was merely a respectable gentleman. In both cases, it is possible to justify and criticize my choice.

The fun had only begun. First names in Hebrew and English are not always identical. The English spelling of the name appeared in the caption to the photograph I received from the client. However, I still had to choose between the Hebrew version and the “official” English version. For example, on the gravestones of those named Jacob was written יעקב [Yaakov]. On the one hand, the names are similar enough for a non-Hebrew speaker to identify the connection. Furthermore, my task was to translate the Hebrew, which may include the actual form of the name. On the other hand, the audience was the English-speaking family. I saw no need to add complexity to the already logistically and emotionally challenging task of learning about one’s family. I feel confident that Yaakov would not be angry at me for calling him Jacob even if some translators may question my judgment.

Many gravestones carried a few carefully chosen words of praise. The bereaving families noted that many of the deceased were תם [tom]. A quick dictionary search of the term brings up innocent and naive, to name a few. However, these words in English have a negative connotation, implying ignorance or stupidity according to the context. For example, a naïve businessperson or child lacks something important. By contrast, the meaning here is a person that acted with a pure heart. Thus, I choose guileless, a rare but positive word. In the context of Judaism, this is a virtue.

On the subject of virtue, at least one gravestone mentionedחסוד  [hasud] as a trait of the deceased. The two most obvious meaning are demure and pious. The former implies self-defacement in a negative way while the second is a bit vague to my ears, although it would also be appropriate. I choose virtuous as it expresses the idea that the person strove to live his/her life according to the values of the religion.

The last matter I had to consider was how to relate to the abbreviation ז"ל placed after the name of the father to mark his prior death. In some documents, it is possible to write the late, as in “the last John Smith bequeathed his money….” That term does not read well on a gravestone. Neither did RIP as there is a bit of sarcasm there. I instead chose of blessed memory, which is both a literal translation and appropriate.

Thus, translation is the art of choosing the appropriate word or phrase, taking into account all aspects of both the source and target language. This complex matching makes it both interesting and challenging to create a proper translation. If you need an accurate translation and are tempted to use AI or Google, remember your child’s rendition of a dog hanging on the refrigerator.

The educational pendulum – a step too far?

 

S

Something is wrong in the kingdom of Denmark, educationally speaking. or so it seems to me. The attitude towards and, consequently, of educational institutions has changed 180 degrees over my life. They have gone from being a provider of God-inspired, figuratively, wisdom to an issuer of career–required, literally speaking, certificates. The teacher, once the kingpin, has become a cog in a complicated system of wheels powered by money. I understand the change and appreciate how much it has improved education but I feel it is time for the pendulum to go in the other direction.

The journey of my generation began with the teacher as God’s assistant (or maybe vice versa). Teachers decided what we needed to learn, which was accepted without question by both students, their parents and administrators. The system created a dogma, often unjustified, that educators somehow knew what we, the students, needed to understand in order to be successful in life. Questioning was taboo, as I discovered as late as 2000 when I did my MBA at a British university. During my college years, in the 1970’s, at some universities, such as UCSC where I studied, it was possible to talk with teachers on a friendly basis and even disagree about interpretation. However, nobody, including the college administration, openly disputed the teacher’s basis for assessment and the right to fail those that did not meet their criteria.

Today, in many if not most institutes of higher education worldwide, students are the customers, i.e., the college needs their tuition to survive. As high school testing standards have deteriorated over the decades, the gap between the assumed and actual knowledge of students beginning their degree programs has widened significantly. This discrepancy, combined with the ever-increasing tuition fees, has created a serious financial dilemma for college administrators: colleges need paying students in order to be able to keep their doors open. At the same time, the academization of professional life has made attaining the appropriate certificates essential for attaining most jobs, e.g., BAs for nurses. Finally, fundamental faith in the system, the belief that the people up there know what they are doing, has dropped to critical levels, also often justifiably. These crises together have created an atmosphere where an unspoken agreement exists in which students, their parents, administrators and even many teachers believe that an institution, when faced with a conflict between a student’s lack of knowledge and need for the certificate, should opt to issue the latter. Colleges and universities have become, to one degree or another, factories for diplomas, not actual knowledge. Interestingly enough, most people recognize and accept this phenomenon.

I, as a “dinosaur” who will retire from institutional college teaching in Israel in three semesters, find it disturbing that too many first-year Israeli engineering students I teach can pass my English course without knowing how to write a proper sentence in English or even in their native tongue, let alone a paragraph, not to mention create an organized argument. For me, effective communication is an essential skill. The world does not care if English is the second or even third language. As I tell my students, if a customer asks whether or not a bridge will bear a given weight, you need to be able to produce a coherent answer. My college, to be fair, is slightly more insistent on keeping testing standards up than many others. However, the unspoken and spoken message is that it is not “good for the college or department” if too many students fail. Teachers, beware.

At the same time, students should be made aware that they will be shortly entering the world of real work without many of the tools they need to be effective and that this lack will impact their own professional lives, not to mention those affected by the results of their work. It is clear that the omniscient and omnipotent status of teachers not so long ago was unjustified and harmful. On the other hand, the perception of a teacher as a clerk functioning as a cog in the system is equally unjustified and harmful. It is time to find a reasonable medium between these two extremes. The pendulum needs to start swinging in the other direction.