Notes of a non-native son – to technology

 

["Retrain your mind"*]

I have been privileged to witness and experience the most amazing period of electronical transformation. In almost all spheres of life, the manner of accomplishing the simplest of tasks has changed fundamentally. I was born in 1961, at the start of that revolution. For writing, I learned on a manual typewriter and have used an electric and electronic typewriter, a Commadore 64 word processor, Basic based word processing systems (“…2s…” was the command for double space, I still remember), Word Perfect and other local variants until finally settling into, along with almost everybody, Word. The phone at home was a rotary dial hand unit and evolved through touch-tone phones, dumb phones and smart phones to phone watches. Banking used to involve tellers and cash and now is almost entirely digital ATM’s and applications, not to mention the gradual disappearance of paper cash. Real-time monitoring has become the norm, even in physical fitness. Applications now tell you how many steps you have taken, calories you have burned and heartbeats per minute. There seems to be an app for everything. The pace of electronic-based change in our life is extraordinary.

While my age gives me an interesting historical perspective, it renders me non-native to this technology. Specifically, I may use it, sometimes by choice, but I do not understand it intuitively nor really embrace its use. To explain, I use a computer for work and play, do my banking online, order takeout food and make restaurant reservations through sites and invoice my customers through an online service. I use MemoQ, a CAT (Computer Aided Translation) tool, and do most of my term searches online despite my extensive collection of dictionaries. I maintain communication with my teaching colleagues through WhatsApp and email and can teach on Zoom. I am clearly computer literate to a respectable degree. Still, I approach each new technological application on a need-to-know basis, absorbing only those features that I require, with no curiosity on what else can be done.

Not surprisingly, when I attend conferences (virtually lately) and workshops and hear fellow translators and educators discuss technological solutions, I am left with the feeling of inadequacy and even inferiority. These experts show how amazingly simple it is to use a specific application or software to speed up or automate professional tasks. They exhibit great knowledge and joy explaining how our lives will be improved if we use these tools. My first uncomfortable feeling is the sense of the gap between my prehistoric or at least Bronze Age methodology and that these experts so heartily recommend. However, I do not use age as an excuse and know that I am capable of learning new technologies as I have done so before. What is more disturbing is my strong internal resistance to making the jump to these more efficient tools. In blunt terms, I generally do not want to make the effort to catch up with the latest technology. I know that I am not “up to snuff” but am emotionally paralyzed to take the “necessary” steps to address that issue.

This inaction leaves me with a disconcerting feeling. On the one hand, I know that I am far more computer literate than many. In a recent questionnaire, some 25% of translators in the American Translators Association still do not use CAT tools. I also realize that life is not a competition, i.e., my happiness is not based on my ranking as compared to others. On the other hand, part of me says that I should (such an awful word) care and embrace technology with all my heart, soul and brain and that doing so will make a better professional and person. Alas, fundamentally human beings are rationalizing, not rational, creatures if given a choice. I am not native to digital technology and can at best selectively use it to meet my needs. I try to remember the words of Jacques Prévert: Je suis comme je suis; je suis fait comme ça – I am who I am; that is my nature. In most cases, I accept my imperfections quite well but, in this case, it does somewhat bother me but evidently not enough to motivate me to overcome that barrier. As in James Baldwin’s book of essays Notes of a native son, albeit to much smaller degree, I feel out a little out of place and powerless in my own society. I am almost certain that I am not alone in this feeling but that sharing only goes so far in compensation. I simply will continue to live and strive, someone uncomfortably, as a non-native.

* Pictures captions allow the blind to access the Internet.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/johnhain-352999/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=743166">John Hain</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=743166">Pixabay</a>

Conventional Relevance

I just returned from my 5^th Israeli Translators Convention.  Attending such an event requires a significant investment of money, time and energy.  Many people, translators and non-translators alike, ask what the return on this investment is.

The most obvious benefit is knowledge, whether immediately practical or not.  Dubbing, subtitling and faction translation are not even a marginal part of most translators business, all of which were explained in a wonderful clear manner, Yet, I feel somehow richer understanding the requirements and challenges of those fields since it expands my vision.

Of course, there were numerous technical workshops on various translation tools, including the MemoQ and SDL CAT tools (Computer Aided Translation), Abbyy Fine Reader and Word.  The concentrated and immediate access to experts is invaluable and really only available at conferences.

Of course, there were countless niche-specific presentations.  For those involved in the specific niche, the lecture provided priceless information. 

Finally, the conference was blessed by fascinating speeches from non-translators, ranging from Simcha Jacobici (the Naked Archaeologist), journalist Eetta Prince-Gibson, a Jerusalem based reporter, and Israeli writer Dorit Rabiniyan. 

Other areas of presentations included business, literary and cloud based translation.  Sometimes, it felt very frustrating only to be able to attend one lecture at a time.

The other major benefit, one that personally reinforces my energy and desire to do the best job possible, is the added proof, if one were necessary, that translation matters.  It affects how people understand the news, interpret the Bible, learn about other cultures through foreign fiction, cook a dish, understand a disease and defend their rights in court, to name just a few.  This often invisible part of the document production cycle is in fact no less important than the writing of the document itself.  In other words, even in some translators feel isolated and even neglected in their modern computer-equipped caves, we do indeed make the world better. 

So, it is back to work with a renewed understanding of why I read the small print of insurance contracts and articles of association.  We are relevant.  That confidence by itself is more than adequate compensation for the price of the conference.