Are we human or are we freelancers?

During a recent seminar on professional positioning, the participants had an interesting discussion  on the correctness of writing in a professional email that you are not available for work because you have to go to the birthday party of your four-year old child or something of that nature.  Does this open up communication and make you more accessible or is this completely unprofessional?  This issue would apply to almost all freelancers whose primary means of communication is email.

Before considering that question, the following social status facts should be considered.  At least in translation, the vast majority of freelance translators work from their home.  A clear majority are women.  A good percentage, but probably not a majority, is married with children.   This means that significant percentage of translators is busy with such household tasks such as laundry, cooking, and errands as well as translation during the day, not that anybody really cares.

Given that fact, household management tasks do affect deadlines.  As was stated by one participant in that workshop, it is clearly more professional to say “when I get back to my office” as compared to “when I get home” even if home is the office. So, freelances need to keep their professional life separate from their personal life. At the same time, there is a need to make an impression on Project Managers so that we become more than a faceless name in their books.  Discovering both you and the PM both have a child of the same age or name can in some cases lead to a dialogue that will lead to more referrals. 

The decision on whether to expose or ignore your personal life is both personal and cultural.  Some people, regardless of the culture around them, function with clear, distinguished domains.  It is often difficult to know whether the Project Manager thinks in this manner.  Cultural factors can be a determining factor.  Some cultures are more informal, such as Israel and Australia, while others are much more formal, such as Germany and England.  Also, the age of the parties is important.  For example, younger Americans tend to use their first names and be more informal in correspondence than the previous generation, where Mr. and Mrs. replaced the first name.

In response to the question in the title, I can quote that wonderful line by Oscar Wilde: everything in moderation, including moderation.  Think before you write, but you are allowed sometimes to share something besides your professional knowledge.  After all, we are both human and freelancers.

A Passion for Words

As a teacher and a translator, I live in worlds that focus on words.  Yet, pedagogy and translation take radically different approaches.  I have just returned from the three-day Israeli Translators Association Conference in Herzliya.  The most striking impression taken from all the various encounters with fellow translators, whether through lectures, workshops or simple conversations, was the passion for language and purposeful meaning beyond the formalistic aspect. This dedication to communication was expressed in many ways.  Here is a very small sample of the products of such enthusiasm and dedication:

A reading in the Arabic original and Hebrew translation of a chapter of book from Mahmoud Darwish describing a Lebanese man making coffee that not only transmitted the meaning of the source words but the rhythm and sound of the process.  As the host said, you could smell the coffee being made.  See the following: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4382946,00.html.

A lecture by Fabienne Bergmann and her husband Haim Shiran, who collaborated to bring into words the distant sights and sounds of the Jewish quarter in Morocco where he grew up.

A lecture by the translator who provided the documents that confirmed that Toyota was conspiring to hide safety issue explaining why she took the risk to share her words for the general good.

A seemingly business-only seminar on expertise positioning by the Polish translator and businesswoman Marta Stelmaszak, who showed that beyond the nuts and bolts of marketing is the serious desire to help the customer use words to succeed, in this case international businesses expanding into Poland.

Medical interpreters earnestly discussing the challenge and dire need to translate the content and culture of their customers so as to allow them to attain proper medical treatment.

A lecture on the translation of the Argentinean writer, Julio Cortázar, who invented words that anybody could understand.

A serious academic reading about the oral and written silence in Israel regarding the issues of the Holocaust and lost sons and daughters in Israeli wars, showing that even a lack of words express buried but existent thoughts.

Even in the driest of the literary fields, accounting, more than 50 people enthusiastically participated in a “quiz” compiled by Alan Clayman checking whether the translators knew the correct term because the correct term is important for everybody’s financial future.

There are countless other examples at the conference f this desire to express effectively ideas of one language into another, many of which I was unfortunately unable or too oversaturated to hear.  In any case, my heartfelt conclusion about the conference is that, like all good craftspeople, Israeli translators strive not only to earn a living, which is important, but also reach beyond the “good enough” and attain the beautiful of mix of beautiful and effective words.  Translators, like other artists, at their best make you say “wow!”

For another blog regarding the conference: http://ruthludlam.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/ita-conference-2014.html

Loving Mates

English is a practical language, but not ideal for people that like rules, such as non-native English learners.  One example is the masculine and feminine form of animals.  Distinct words describe the male and female of the species for barnyard and forest (hunted) creatures.  Examples include bull and cow, rooster and hen, ram and ewe, and buck and doe.  Please note that there is no pattern whatsoever in the manner the male/female pattern is formed.  As English teachers say about spelling, you just have to memorize it, what fun!

By contrast, Hebrew is ideal for those who like some sense of order.  Regarding the same issue, the Yosi Banai song, מרוב אהבה [merov ahava], meaning Because of Love, admirably shows the Hebrew manner of gender differentiation.  In this song, a male suffering from the inability to communicate with his loved one compares his poor communication skills to that of others, non-human, noting how each of them expresses its love.  The interesting part of the song, linguistically of course, is the choice of the standards of comparison:

ענן  / עננה  [onan] / onana] – Cloud – feminine form adding an [a];

זבוב  / זבובית  [zvuv] / zvuvit] – Fly – feminine form adding an [it];

פיל  /  פילה [pil / pila] – Elephant – feminine form adding an [a];

מלאך  /מלאכית  [malach / malachite] – Angel - feminine form adding an [it]

פסיק / נקודה [psik / neduda] – comma/period – well, 100% doesn’t exist in languages, right?

Any Hebrew speaker would instantly recognize the gender pair if s/he had never thought of flies or clouds for that way.  The forms follow an established rule for gendering that makes instant recognition easy.

Translating this song into English is almost impossible in terms of the sound aspect because the lyricist is forced to use the clumsy words such as male cloud and female cloud.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, a French translator could merely change the article from le to la to make that difference, but, while grammatically correct, it would lose the overall whimsical sound effect.

 If you are interested in hearing the song, here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP4AVOiJtao.

In the meantime, like the tongue-tied lover in the song, I will shut up.

The Times They Are Achanging.

I have lived in Israel as an Israeli for 25 years.  As a result, I have witnessed massive changes to Israeli society over this period, slightly more than one generation.  The way of life here is now significantly if not almost completely different than that of the Israel I came to. This change is most easily felt in the small details of life.  I have made a very partial list of then and now.

1.       Israel had one television and no cable system.  Everybody watched the same programs. Today, Israelis have access to an immeasurably greater quantity of channels, but not necessarily a better quality of programs.

2.      Phone lines were hard to get and involved significant waiting time and/or protection.  I walked and made phone calls from the public phone booth, like most people.

3.      The public phone booths themselves used phone tokens called assimonim in Hebrew, coins with a hole and slot in the middle that only were good for the phone.  People walked around with pocket filled with them so as to always be able to make a call and because, curiously, they were considered relatively protected against inflation.

4.      The city buses had no air conditioning.  Apparently, feeling hot was considered normal, not awful as it is today.

5.      The most popular car by far was the Subaru for no clear reason whatsoever.  For years, the brand had the highest resale value of any company.  Today, it is hard to find a Subaru in any parking lot.

6.      The post office had an ink pad for illiterate people to use by “inking” their fingerprint when signing documents.  I suppose that it exists today, but I haven’t seen anybody use it for a long time.

7.      Every Friday afternoon, on the only government station, an amusing rabbi would joyfully mumble a few words about the Shabbat reading and, slowly and clearly, would say “Shabbat Shalom”.  His name escapes me, but I actually went to a wedding conducted by him.  Ah, the days of cheerful rabbis.

8.      At the local grocery store, a macolit in Hebrew, it was common practice for the goods to be behind the desk of the grocer, meaning you had to ask for the item you wanted.  Shopping in one of those places was a real scary challenge for new immigrants.

9.      To the best of my knowledge, I don’t remember any problems finding parking in most places for one basic reason: the average person couldn’t afford a car.

10.   The shekel to dollar exchange rate was 1.5 (as compared to 3.5 today).  Neither makes any sense to me, to tell the truth.

As Bob Hope said, thanks for the memories.

Shabbat Confusion

Israel, as its founding document says, is a Jewish democratic state.  As most of world has experienced, there is a constant tension between those freedom and religion.  For example, many American cities had Sunday laws, similar to the Shabbat by-laws in Israel, closing stores on Sundays, not exactly freedom of occupation.

A tourist travelling in Israel on a Saturday would be forgiven for not quite understanding what exactly Shabbat means.  Depending on the place, the roads and shopping centers may be completely empty or packed to the gills.  Is Saturday a day of rest or not?  The answer is as unclear as in regards to other aspects of Shabbat behavior.  For example, is it okay to have a child’s birthday party on Saturday keeping in mind that some of families keep the Sabbath?  When my daughter was small, parties were during the week.  Today, I am not so sure.  Many but all people avoid talking about money on Saturday, at least with strangers.  Most Sabras do not call people they don’t know on Saturday, but most will use a telephone.  Workers strive to avoid working on Saturday to spend time with family and friends. In other words, Shabbat is a day of rest (from work at least) but not a restful day for many Jews.

Shabbat remains different from the other days of the week but not in any uniform way.  While some people keep the Sabbath according to the book, others less religious keep some of the spirit out of respect or self-interest.  In this sense, Israel is Jewish and democratic, every Jew “respecting” the Sabbath in his/her own way.

Non-trite eating

To eat is such a nondescript verb, flatly describing the physical action of putting food in your mouth and swallowing.  The English language with variety of roots and structure has countless more precise ways to describe the context and richness of that necessary act of nourishment.

Some terms add the element of time.  You have breakfast in the morning and brunch between 10-2, often on a weekend day.  You lunch (but not always have lunch) in the afternoon followed by an afternoon snack, at least for growing children.  You have dinner in the evening or a supper later in the evening dependent on whether you eat American or European style.  Of course, you can snack between meals and nosh at any time.  Depending on our activity, you may have a late night snack to hold you until the morning, when it all begins again.

Other terms add quantity. Picking at your food meets you are not very hungry. A light meal is at any time but in moderation.  If you have a bite, you eat enough to meet your energy needs as is grabbing some chow. By contrast, if you scarf your food, you eat fast while pigging out and stuffing your face imply maxing out your calorie content.

The purpose of the occasion can also be expressed in the verb.  To do lunch is meet someone for the lunch, where the main function of the mouth is actually to talk.  If you are going to have a coffee or a tea with someone, you will probably eat something with your hot beverage but the biscuit is not the purpose of sitting down.  If you munch in front of the television or after smoking marijuana, you may not even taste the snacks. By contrast, to dine is to consciously choose to enjoy food.  Even more serious, if you intend to feast, the food is the prime attraction as in a holiday dinner or birthday celebration. 

So, in some ways the word eat is like the word thing: it says so much that it says so little.

Alphabet Soup

Learning languages sometimes involves learning different languages or, for languages using the same letters, different names.  For example, the letter e is said differently in English and French.  In further consideration of the matter, another interesting fact of letter names is that the same sound often has a meeting of its own, whether or not spelled in the same manner.  Of the twenty six letters in English, eighteen of the sounds are also words.  I identify the following as words in the dictionary:

A – Aye, I have a dollar.

B – A bee can be very busy.

C – I see your bet and raise you five dollars

G- Gee I am sorry for spilling your drink.

I – I use my eye to see.

J – The jay is a beautiful bird.

L – When in Chicago, you can take the el.

M – The em is a type of dash as compared to the

N –the en, the difference between them almost nobody knows.

O- Oh, I forgot my keys.

P-Beer makes me have to pee.

Q- Standing in queue is not my favorite activity

R- You are what you are.

(S) – Yiddish – Esse mein kindt – eat, my child)

T- Before going to the tee, we’ll have some tea.

U- You know about this one.

X-With the popularity of divorce, there are many exes out there.

Y- I don’t know why that is true.

The neglected letters are d, e, f, h, s, v, w, and z.

In a more polyglot vein, the Hebrew alphabet also has it sense – able side:

Bet – as in stupid in French, bēte

Hey – as Hey kid, wake up!

Vav – a hook in Hebrew because of the shape of the letter

Zi’in – the male sexual organ in Hebrew

Het – a sin in Hebrew

Tet – A head (anatomical) in French, tēte, as well as a famous Vietnamese month

Kaf – As in put your hand over your mouth when you cough

Mem – the same, mēme, in French

Nun – as in that famous western, High Noon

Ayin – an eye in Hebrew

Peh – mouth in Hebrew

Tzadik – a righteous one in Hebrew

Shin – as in don’t kick me in the shin

Sin – as in a Jew eating a ham and cheese sandwich on Yom Kippur

Next time, I’ll get back to words.

If you have any additions or comments, feel free to make them.