What do Translators do in their free time? The ITA conference 2012

I have just come back from Israeli Translators Conference in Jerusalem on February 13-15. The question that may come into mind is what exactly do translators do at such a conference.

The banal answer is what everybody else does: talk, eat, complain, and drink coffee.  However, due to the nature of the audience, the entertainment is a bit difference.  Of course, there are the nuts and bolts seminars on converting PDF’s, CAT (Computer Aided Translation) tools, and pricing (I and my partner Tzviya Levin gave the last).  There were discussions on translating Alice in Wonderland, personal names into Hebrew, Jewish place names, the Hebrew word davka, to name just a few. While most translators do not need to know those, they are far more interesting than the more practical lectures.

Finally, there are the special events in my mind.  This year, we learnt about translating Mozart’s arias into Hebrew and even got to listen to opera singers perform them. We heard the woman who actually chose to translate Shakespeare’s sonnets into Hebrew.  We even received interesting historical surveys of Israeli film and Pashkevil, the ultra-orthodox version of popular newspapers.

However, fundamentally, the conference represents the annual opportunity to leave our little caves (granted with computer windows) and interact with real flesh and blood human beings.  It is a pleasure to meet the faces behind the email addresses and see the variety of people who choose to make translation their profession. 

Of course, after three days, all the translators were extremely tired of constant social dialogue and were quite happy to return to their caves and get back into word games.

If you want more information on the ITA and/or the conference, go to the ITA site.

I’ll be visiting the states for two weeks, but will go back to writing when I get back.

Tongue twisters

A tongue twisters is a logical (more or less) series of words that test a speaker’s ability to pronounce properly.  Ideally, a tongue twister forces the speaker to say one word at a time in order to clearly distinguish it from the following  and proceeding similarly-sounding words.

Children (small and big) enjoy testing their mettle with these.  The classics that all American children learn are “Peter Piper picked a pick of picked peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?” and “She sells sea shells by the sea shore.”  In my opinion, the most difficult tongue twister in English is “Sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” which simply cannot be said quickly and coherently.  (It is okay to try: I said Big and small children.)

The French have some challenging ones also.  Un chasseur sachant chasser sait chasser sans son chien de chasse is a real mouthful, literally.  Cinq chiens chassent six chats is not easy while Mon père est maire, mon frère est masseur is just cute, which is also important, since it sounds likes My father is a mother, my brother is my sister but means My father is mayor, my brother is a masseur. (Taken from http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/#fr)

I am not very impressed with Hebrew tongue twisters.  They are cute, but Hebrew is simply too poetic (in sound) to make it difficult to pronounce. The best I have seen is גנן גידל דגן בגן, דגן גדול גדל בגן [Ganan geedel dagan bagan, dagan gadol gadal bagan] meaning A gardener grew a cereal in the garden, a large cereal grew in the garden.  If you want to see more, see http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/tongue-twisters/hebrew_tongue_twisters.html

I will let native Russian speakers tell about their toughest tongue twister. I am also interested in tongue twisters in other languages.

Code Words

Every language has code words.  These literally mean one thing, but have a specific context understood to a person who understands the culture.  They are similar to slang, which represents alternative or original definitions to existing words, but can be distinguished.

Modern Hebrew has many such terms.  The classic one every blond (and not so blond) female who visits Israel learns is the invitation  לשתות קפה(lishtot kafe], to drink some coffee.  It is the equivalent to the offer to see someone’s art collection.   While it is true that you may drink some coffee (or see some art), the invitation is to get to know you, in the biblical sense.  If you do something that appears less than brilliant, someone might say   תהי בריא[tiheye bari], literally be healthy.  Actually, it is the Israeli equivalent of the southern expression bless your heart, meaning that you are rather stupid.  When an Israeli, says לך תוכיח שאין לך אחות [lech tochiah sheh ain lecha ahot], literally go prove that you have no sister, what they mean is that there is no way to prove that you are telling the truth. 

If you know of any local examples of coded words in your language, I would be interested in hearing.

As the Hagashash Hahiver, the Israeli comedy quartet that was the “Shakespeare” of modern Hebrew, would say סע בשלום, המפתחות בפנים [sa beshalom, hamavtahot bifnim], safe journey, the keys are inside, or as any Israeli would understand, it is time to go.

Prepping

A preposition is a short word describing the physical or lexical relation between words, such as in, on, or about, to name a few.  Every language has them, but the actual use may vary, especially in sentence with compound objects (of the preposition, not things).

For example, French insists on placement of the preposition before each noun to ensure clarity: Il a parlé de l’indépendence, de la dignité and de la gloire de la France.  In Hebrew, a speaker can insert all of them or omit the last ones:   הוא דבר על העצמאות, על הכבוד ועל התהילה של ישראל   or, without additional prepositions, הוא דבר על העצמאות ,הכבוד והתחילה של ישראל .  The prepositions are underlined in all of the sentences, with the translation being He spoke of the independence, dignity, and glory of France and Israel, respectively. English has a clear preference to drop unnecessary prepositions, as demonstrated in the previous sentence. 

The most curious case is Russian, which often omits all of its prepositions entirely due to its grammatical structure that has built-in prepositions.  Some examples include он мне дает деньги and она работает дураками [On mne daet dengue] (He gives money to me) and [ana rabotaet durakami] (She works with fools, respectively).  In these cases, it is not necessary to add to or with because the ending on the noun expresses the relation without additional words.  Of course, in many cases, Russian does use prepositions, but, like English, tends not to repeat them.

To conclude, I would like to cite Abraham Lincoln’s beautiful use of prepositions in the Gettysburg’s Address:

“…to ensure that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people can long endure.”

No laughing matter

Words can express their meaning not only by an arbitrary process of defining them, but also in the sounds and facial expressions they produce.  The first is known as onomatopoeia while the second has no name of which I am aware. 

Some classic examples in English for the former are to meow and squeak, the sounds that cats and rusty wheels make, respectively.   If you wish to see a full chart of animal sounds, I recommend the following site: http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/animal.html.  I have to note that Hungarian cats make strange noises!

Smiling requires many facial muscles as anybody who has waited for a baby to make his/her first smile would know.  In English, the mi in “smile” widens the mouth perfectly while the rire in the French “sourire” does the same.  The Hebrew חיוך [hi’ukh] and Russian улыбка [ulibka] create their smile from the last syllable also.  Similarly, laughing is a generally a happy matter.  Ignoring the difficulty of spelling it, the final f sound in “laugh” forces the lips to open as does the long e sound in the French “rire”.  The Hebrew צחוק [tzhok] ends a mouth-opening long o and k sound.  Of course, nothing beats the Russian words for laugh and laughter хахатать (hahatatz] and смех [smyeoch], which provides examples of both onomatopoeia and face forming words. 

So, next time you learn now to say something as important as laughing or smiling, remember that the choice of words is a serious affair.

Expressionist Fruits and Vegetables

The food we eat is not only concrete, but also abstract, not referring to the state of its ripeness.  Since fruit and vegetables are such a part of our daily life, they have entered our language also.

In a loving family, a person can refer to his/her significant other as a sweet pumpkin and child as the apple of his eye.  By contrast, being a couch potato is bad while being a vegetable is tragic.  A Georgia Peach is one of the special pretty girls from the American South, with bright red cheeks (at least in my imagination).  It is obvious that one should not buy a lemon because it is a very bad car.  Someone who lets out a raspberry in public is embarrassed by the smell and can drive people bananas or crazy.  It will definitely get you into a pickle, a difficult situation.

French also has its green-based expressions.  Mon chou-chou is a wonderful endearment which literally means my little cabbage. I suppose that it is no more illogical than calling someone a pumpkin.  A woman referred to as a pruneau, a plum, is not flattered as it means that she has many wrinkles.  A bad movie is a navet, a turnip, while raconter les salades means telling lies, literally telling lettuces.  If you don’t have any radis, radishes, you are broke.  (My appreciation to http://www.francaisfacile.com/exercices/exercice-francais-2/exercice-francais-7627.php for some of the French terms.)

I would be interested in hearing about other imaginative uses of fruits and vegetables.

Haves and Haves Not

The verb to have seems like a such basic thing.  Every language must have one, of course?  Actually, while the Latin-based languages do, other languages have invented others ways to signal possession.

While the English to have and the French avoir are possessive verbs in themselves, Russian and Hebrew used somewhat complex structures: у меня есть [u menya yest] and יש לי [yesh li], literally meaning there is to me.  Somehow the existential verb to be gets involved, with the possessor being marked as an object, not a subject of the sentence.

The situation becomes much hotter (or colder) when viewing how people feel. The straightforward English I am cold become J’ai froid [I have cold] in French, мне холодно [mene holodno] or קר לי [kar li] cold to me in Russian and Hebrew, respectively.

As for eating, in English, one has breakfast, lunch, and dinner whereas, in French and Hebrew, people more logically eat those meals.  Russian is the most efficient by having specific verbs:  завтракать [zavtrakatz] and обедать [obedatz].

An unsuspecting American or Brit risks ridicule by saying Je suis plein(e) after a meal, literally translating I am full, unless it is a woman, who may be congratulated.  The French phrase means I am pregnant.

I’ll leave on that note and hope that you have a good day.