Keeping both feet on the ground – maintaining bilingual proficiency

 

[Footprints in sand*]

Professional translators must not only to be proficient in the languages they work in but also maintain that level over their career. Attaining proficiency generally involves some combination of intentional action, e.g., studies, and life circumstances, e.g., living in places where people used a language. By contrast, keeping both languages up to par requires conscientious effort as the geographically distant language receives less reinforcement. However, it is possible to overcome that disadvantage to a large degree through active exposure, oral and written. The benefit of such an effort is a long, successful career in translation.

[Rusty gears]

It is clear that an important difference between an aspiring and professional translator is language proficiency, especially in the language being translated. Attaining this level of knowledge of a foreign language generally involves formal study but more often than not also develops from intensive exposure that the language or culture, whether through frequent visits or long stays in a relevant country or living with people that speak that language. As adults, most translators live in the country of birth or an adopted country, reducing exposure to one of the languages. As rust settles forms on the geographically distant language, the person slowly loses the ear. More seriously, without exposure to current developments in vocabulary and structure, translators find themselves failing to understand the meaning of more modern language. The longer the exile, the greater that gap between the language being currently used and their knowledge. Over time, the “new” language becomes a truly foreign language. This dissonance is even true for native tongues. Long established expats can sound like characters from an old movie, slightly off in some ways. It is clear that, without reinforcement, translators can lose some relevant language skills over time.

[Social networks]

Of course, the best way to connect with a language is to use, speak and write with others in that language. With current technology, building an international network is matter of time, not money. For some, work situations create natural bridges when they require regular communication, such as in business or teaching. For others, it is matter of reaching out to friends and family and investing time in communicating. Curiously, communication limited to an expat community tends to reinforce localized language, which is not always identical to that of the home country as it includes 2^nd language interference and foreign vocabulary. Of course, frequent visits are very productive linguistically. Even if a language is a native language, it still requires active use to maintain.

[Monitor]

In terms of convenience and being up-to-date, the various forms of media provide ideal passive reinforcement. Whether through television, radio or YouTube, to name a few, a person hears authentic language unaffected by local peculiarities This language is often the most updated, at least for a specific age group, because it intends to be communicative. It also requires little active effort beyond turning the TV or computer on, being available on countless Internet channels. By regularly watching such programs, translators can keep updated on changes in vocabulary and structure as well as maintain their ear.

[Newspapers]

However, since the oral media generally aim at the general public, reinforcing higher level language involves reading newspapers and books. Newspapers, especially those with a higher standard of writing, generally use more formal language than television, thus strengthening the internal feel of correct language. Books and professional journals firm the benchmarks for translating formal material in the relevant fields. A person must be interested and regularly invest time and effort to make a habit of reading more professional material but the reward is updated knowledge and enriched language. Regular active reading of well-written language is the most demanding of all the means but also the most productive form of reinforcement.

Personally, I practice all three to the different techniques. I not only regularly use English in all my oral and written communication as a translator, I also teach English at the local engineering college, which requires me to have thorough knowledge of English language structure. I also watch UK and French TV through an Internet site, providing almost daily exposure to current language. Furthermore, I have a subscription to the weekly magazine Le Canard Enchainé, which keeps up to date on events in France and reinforces my vocabulary. Alas, my Russian, despite the great number of Russians with whom I interact with, has not kept up with the times. As I tell my customers, my Russian is “Breznevian”, i.e., from the 1970’s. As a result, essentially, I translate certificates from Russian as bureaucratic Russian has not changed much in a hundred years. In these ways, I try to keep my languages up to date.

This commitment to maintaining and even improving knowledge of all applicable languages is a key to a long, successful career. Not only does it keep them up to standards, it also provides personal satisfaction. After all, the reasons a person chooses to learn foreign languages and become a translator generally includes a love of language, which does not fade with time. By keeping all their languages firmly rooted, translators can stand up proudly for their profession.

* Captions help the blind access the Internet.

All pictures through Pixabay.

Accent grave

 

[Chat cartoon*]

Non-natives are often poor speakers of a language for the basic reason that they don’t try to speak and learn like children do – trial and error. While children have little pride and are willing to be laughed at or with, they quickly forget their embarrassment, understand their mistake and master the language, sometimes better than their parents. By contrast, most adults feel ashamed when struggling to express themselves in a second language and avoid the learning process. Aside from grammar and vocabulary errors, foreigners often fear people’s reaction to their accent.  Interestingly enough, this accent is generally not an issue for listeners. In reality, pronunciation and intonation can be a greater problem but fortunately can be consciously improved with practice.

Many foreign speakers hate the sound of their own accent in a foreign language. They can easily detect the difference between their accent and that of native speakers, whether live ones or those on television. As a result, they feel second-class or worse. Curiously, in many cases, a foreign accent actually creates a favorable impression. Henry Kissinger, he legendary Secretary of State under Nixon, retained his heavy German accent and caused people to believe that he was quite perspicacious, a benefit in his role. My mother was born in France and did not study English due to the “War”. She arrived in New York in her 20’s and quickly became a top perfume salesperson because people believed that, being French, she must be familiar with perfume. Even ordinary folk seem much more exotic when speaking with a foreign accent. How many actresses were considered sexy merely because they spoke in a different way? Thus, it is perfectly fine, even beneficial sometimes, to speak with an accent, even a heavy one.

On the other hand, native speakers do not understand the difficulty faced by foreigners in pronouncing the problem sounds posed by each language. Some examples include the throated h and a in Hebrew and Arabic, the various varieties of r in Russian, English, French and Spanish among others, the English th, so dreaded by the French, and the two types of sh in Russian. Every language has its landmines that test the tongue of the foreigner. Having learned to say these sounds as small children, locals see their pronunciation as obvious and view their mangling as laziness or lack of caring, which it is admittedly sometimes true. Fortunately, it is possible to practice these sounds in the safety of your own home, alone or with a trusted accomplice, and perfect their pronunciation. My challenging French r word was serrurière, a female locksmith, which truly gets your r’s rolling. Once you can say them like the native, your status will increase enormously as will their appreciation of your language skill and knowledge. It is all of matter of practice and therefore attainable.

A more difficult challenge is intonation. In simple terms, each language has a unique song, ranging from flat to sing-song or even extreme highs and lows. Russian tends to be flat, dying in the end while French is up and down and Italian and Hebrew simply sing. This is one of the reasons that speakers of certain languages are considered to be hysterical while other are viewed as cold. Simply, the natural rise and fall of volume varies by language and depends on the emotional content of the sentences. Small children naturally absorb the accepted intonation, but adults find it hard to change their way of speaking. Yet, incorrect intonation makes it difficult for natives to understand you and even sometimes conveys the wrong message, such as unintended annoyance, anger or questioning. As in pronunciation, a little homework goes a long way into retraining your speech to be flatter or more expressive. Over time, a person can develop linguistic schizophrenia, speaking in a different intonation for each language. In other cases, the learned intonation starts entering the native intonation, creating a hybrid. In any case, even not so young adults can practice and reduce native-language interference in their intonation, thus increasing the perception of their language skill, a good result in itself, as well as ensuring that their intended meaning is transmitted. As the song goes, you got the power.

So, if mastering a foreign language is a matter of practice and the willingness to make and learn from errors, accent should not be a barrier. Proper pronunciation and intonation can and should be learned, without public embarrassment. It is such a wonderful feeling when a local tells you how well you speak the language. Enjoy. You have earned the compliment.

* Picture captions allow access to the sighted impaired.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/clker-free-vector-images-3736/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=23713">Clker-Free-Vector-Images</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=23713">Pixabay</a>

Foreign tolerance

                                                          
                                                            [Picture of Oliver Cromwell*]

For every native-speaker of English, there are around four non-native speakers. This means 80% of English users not only have imperfect knowledge of English grammar and spelling but how to express tone. In other words, of increasing importance due to social media, most are not familiar with the manner in which it is possible to express ideas without sounding rude or aggressive. In this regard, it is important to understand that each language has its own acceptable style of written expression, which may sound ridiculous or rude when translating literally.

Two extremes are French and Hebrew. French is a flowery language arising from a culture that highly values formal politeness.  Some beautiful phrases found common in French correspondence of all kinds include: nous avons l’honneuer de …  [we have the honor of], je suis dans l’obligation [I am in the obligation of], en vous addressant mes meilleurs voeux de succes [in sending my best wishes of success], and je me permits d’attirer votre attention [I allow myself to bring it to your attention], even when the the content does not reflect such thoughts. By contrast, Israeli society and the Hebrew language are quite direct, if not blunt, which is reflected in the written language. For example, Hebrew generally avoids use of such fillers as please in  sentences and how are you doing at the beginning of emails. Since, its syntax generally follows the subject-verb-object order and the language has often has few synonyms, the message is to the point. Its tendency to call a spade a spade is the polar opposite of the French indirect style.

English is a direct language in terms of sentence syntax but developed in a class society that valued politeness. In practical terms, the polish in English correspondence is added through doubt, understatement and vagueness, among others. To avoid putting people in uncomfortable corners, English has many phrases to allow for error, at least in form. These include to the best of my knowledge, as far as I can know, it appears that and I have received information that. These words avoid direct accusation. Another technique, typically British, is reducing the severity of the term, sometimes to the point of sarcasm. For instance, your services did not meet my satisfaction means that the contractor’s worker was awful while I find it regretful often expresses great anger. When it would be too confrontational to formally mention a painful matter, native English speakers prefer vague terms. Some examples include please advise, payment issues, contractual obligations and resolving the issue. Using these techniques, English correspondence loses its uncomfortable aggressiveness at least as far as native speakers are concerned.

However, most users of English are neither native speakers nor advanced students of English in terms of formal studies or living in an English-speaking country. At the same time, they increasingly are active in international writing, especially in social media and email. Their language is generally understandable in terms of content but sometimes creates misunderstanding in terms of tone. Specifically, the writer may have intended the greatest respect but the reader, especially a native English speaker, may forget that the writer does not share a common culture and interpret a comment as rude, even insulting, or bloated This communication gap can create avoidable communication barriers.

In terms of implications, it is clear that non-native English-speaking professionals that actively use email and social media should seek guidance on the matter to ensure that they transmit their true message. For example, my wife, an Israeli, occasionally consults me in regards to sensitive email to make sure that the underlying message is effectively expressed. On a greater scale, when reading and reacting to various comments in social media, especially Facebook, it is important to consider the background of the writers. If they are non-native English speakers writing in English, however correct that English may be, they may be entirely unaware of English writing conventions and, consequently, how insulting their comments sounded to a native English speaker. Accordingly, we native speakers must be patient with foreigners not only because they are the majority but also because the vast majority have limited knowledge of English. I hope for the same when I write in French or Hebrew. As Cromwell would say, tolerance is the basis for a civil society.

* For the sake of the blind, do not forget to caption your pictures. Picture taken from wikipedia site.

The uniqueness of translating Hebrew

Comparison of several words in Hebrew with and without vowels.*

Translation is the art and skill of translating an idea in one language to another language while both faithfully transmitting the various levels of meaning of the source language text and respecting the integrity of the target language. As each language is unique, even if they sound similar, such as Spanish and Italian, this conversion of ideas can be sometimes quite challenging, even incomplete. It is not always possible to full capture the layers of the word or create a seamless text. For example, in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the Russian word сознающий [soznayushi] implies both knowledge and conscience, a combined meaning difficult to transmit into English (and vital for the story). Clearly each language has its unique aspects that pose challenges to the translator. For example, modern Hebrew is a both very young and very old, in linguistic terms, Semitic language. This affects its alphabet, vocabulary, structure and registers.

The first aspect of Hebrew that strikes non-readers is its alphabet, which initially appears alien. However, fundamentally, it is not difficult to learn how to recognize and read Hebrew letters. The process of learning a foreign alphabet is essentially a mechanical process, a matter of practice, not actually cognitive. The difficulty with Hebrew letters for a new learner and an experienced translator alike is the fact that in most text the vowels sounds are not presented, i.e., the reader is given the consonants only and is assumed to be able to insert the right sounds. As Hebrew words follow strict rules in terms of form, it is possible to most cases to properly ascertain the sounds, such as a short or long e or a. The greatest challenge comes with foreign words, especially names, that are transcribed into Hebrew and don’t follow established patterns. For example, a drug begins with a short a, as in tap, or a short e, as in bed, would both begin with the letter aleph. It requires to knowledge or research to discover the original name in English unless the vowels are marked, which is rare. When I receive a “simple” birth or marriage certificate to translate into English, I often have no idea how to spell many of the names, which are extremely idiosyncratic by nature. Thus, the challenge of the Hebrew alphabet is not in what is seen, but what is not seen.

One characteristic of Semitic languages, which include Hebrew and Arabic, is their extreme genderification. All nouns and personal pronouns, singular and plural, reflect gender. There is no way to express neutrality. For example, if the staff at an elementary school has 20 female teachers and 1 male teacher, teacher being a neutral word in English, in Hebrew, the writer must decide whether to apply the standard rule, the masculine gender applies for all mixed groups, or the minority approach that majority rules, the feminine form in this case. Since the verb also reflects the gender, in academic writing, the translator must find out who exactly is A. Jones in order to insert the right form of the verb. My wife, a medical translator, has a whole series of tricks to figure this out but it can be a very time-consuming task. The fun really kicks in second-person texts, including questionnaires and marketing materials, where the translator has to understand who the potential audience is and find an elegant way to address it. For example, since there are men that suffer from breast cancer, the masculine form may be appropriate in some medical forms. Sex is everything in Hebrew and complicated.

Almost uniquely, Hebrew is both an ancient and new non-Latin-based language. Its root date some 23 centuries but its modern form is not even 150 years old. In terms of vocabulary, this ancient past and newness create some strange versions of rich and poor. On the one hand, some areas of activity have numerous words, including putting on a piece of clothing, each type with its own verb, and types of rain, depending on when it falls. On the other hand, while English has effective and efficient, two clearly distinct meanings, pure Hebrew has only one word, יעיל [ya’il], leaving the translator to use a borrowed English word, effectivi, or use multiple words, a less than elegant solution. Starting off with such a limited pool of words for modern concepts, Hebrew is still in its lexical growth period, adding words at an incredible pace and creating numerous disputes on which Hebrew-rooted word should be used to describe the concept or whether an English word recognized by most Israelis should be applied. This uncertainty forces translators to choose between readability, the understood English borrowing, or purity, the new Hebrew word, if it exists at all. In terms of vocabulary, the lexical earth for a Hebrew translator is not very stable.

Finally, there is the curious issue of register. More established societies, almost without exceptions, have social classes. The relations between these social classes are reflected in the form of address and vocabulary. Examples of distinction include titles, such Mr. and Mrs., use of first names, different forms of the word “you” and the choice of active or passive structure. Israel is a young society essentially composed of generations of landless, poor immigrants of all religions. This economic equality was reinforced by a socialistic/communistic ethos of the rejection of European formalism. Thus, everybody from the youngest to oldest is addressed by their first name without titles. In fact, the best way to shock, if not insult, a woman is to call her “giveret”, Ms. Her reaction probably would be “What, do I look that old?” Not only that, having such a small number of roots, there are simply almost no sources for alternative “high-fulutin” alternatives, except for the Bible, which, alas, is to modern Hebrew what Shakespearean English is to modern English, artificial (except in certain subgroups). So, Hebrew essentially has really only one register, so different from more complex and older societies.

These features of Hebrew are far from negative. They enrich the language and process of working to and from it. Translators enjoy their job specifically because it involves the effort in finding the right turn-of-phrase that transmits the idea to the target language in the best possible way, even if something often gets lost in translation. In point of fact, translators are no less writers than the original writers, especially when working with Hebrew.

* As my friend from yesteryear Len Burns has reminded me, blind people also should be able to know what the picture is. Please label your pictures.

Foreign tube watching

I admit that I enjoy watching foreign television. The reason is not that it has better or different programs than my local one.  In fact, the format of most television shows worldwide is fairly similar both due to the universality of human nature and tendency to copycat successful programs and of equally poor quality. For that matter, I don’t even have to fully understand the language to enjoy the television as any child can tell you. In my countries, I could guess, often successfully, the meaning of many words.  For example, Russian is very helpful in understanding Polish while Italian is a cousin of Spanish. By contrast, in China, I understood absolutely nothing and was mesmerized by the tube.

First of all, I enjoy the tone of the speech, which reflects the nature of the language and people as well as the agenda of the television stations. For example, most characters in English tend to speak quietly and even respectfully. At the same time, they often are mocking the same institutions and customs they are respecting.  This is a nice contrast to the argumentative and loud nature of Israeli television. Chinese television is owned by the government and is therefore very nationalistic and proud. Aside from great military victories and impressive scientific and economic achievements, they also proudly present many shots of Chinese food production and preparation, always in a loud fashion (to my ears).  Thus, I was able to see parts of China that I would and will never visit in person. Not having lived in the United States for some 30 years now, the TV in the United States is interesting in terms of how the language and emphasis has changed. I can see by the words and message that America is much more critical and direct than it used to be.

The national differences are also reflected in the local version of internationalized programs.  The French version of Master Chef focuses on the artistry of the food while the Israeli program focuses on the past and present personal situation of the participants. The tone of the original Japanese Iron Chef is straight out of the classic Samurai Movies while the American one resembled sports broadcasting. In the Israeli The Voice, exotic is expressed by an ultra-orthodox singing rock while in China strangeness was represented by a black Chinese-African singing Frank Sinatra in English (and singing it well, it should be noted). I would not say “lost in translation” but instead “localized in translation”.

Finally, the aspect of foreign television I enjoy most is the commercials. Ads reflect the 

concerns and psychology of the people.  For example, based on the frequency of the ads on UK television, the Baby Boom generation is very concerned about paying for funerals while those in their twenties are having a hard time getting accepted for a credit card. French commercials focus on food, health and losing weight, no surprise. Apparently, death and credit are of no concern. Americans appear to be hypochondriac as every third commercial (or so) sells some drug, faithfully and rapidly reading through the long list of potential side effects and ultimately encouraging people to consult their doctor, of course.

So, while I am not a big fan of spending much time in hotel rooms when I travel, circumstances sometime lead to dead time, which I profit from by watching TV. I am amused, surprised, educated and even entertained by programs whose words I barely or do not understand at all as I learn about the culture, psychology and concerns of that place. In short, foreign television is much more interesting and educational than my local local one, just like the proverbial lawn.