Money talks – Home education

 

[Balancing money and a potato*]

There is nothing like innocent questions from children to cause us to consider our values. Recently, I told my adult daughter that I had sold my car. She immediately and straightforwardly asked “for how much?”. My equally immediate and straightforward answer was “none of your business”. Not for the first time, I was forced to consider the nature, background and correctness of my responses, this time in regard to financial education.

Attitudes are a matter of spectrum. On the subject of family finance, on one end of the spectrum are those parents that do not discuss any money issue in the presence of their children, often on the grounds that children should be protected from this type of stress and worry or in the belief that children are not capable of understanding such matters. On the other end are families that discuss everything at the kitchen table from the nitty-gritty price negotiations in their business to the challenges of staying within the monthly budget. These parents believe both in the virtue of the knowledge and their children’s capacity to dealt with these facts. In between are various degrees of openness about the process and numbers of financial management.

The background of these attitudes includes parental attitudes, immediate circumstances and cultural norms. Clearly, if parents never discussed their salary or the monthly budget, children require a great effort to change the approach when they become parents themselves. In my case, I never knew nor would never ask how much my father was earning or how much they paid for their car. Of course, diffcult circumstances often force parents to discuss finances with children especially when negative events force a radical reduction of the budget. During the Corona crisis, countless families had to sit with their children of all ages and explain why and how spending had to be cut to the minimum. A major factor in financial openness is the attitude of the surrounding culture. Israelis are one of many cultures that enjoy the game of “downsmanship”, i.e., wanting to know if they purchased an item for less. Therefore, it is natural for most Israelis, including my daughter, to say two things upon hearing that someone purchased something new: tithadesh – congratulations on a new item, and "how much did you pay". This behaviour would be extremely rude in many local societies. For example, according to my parents, in the 1960’s such questions were considered faut pas in New York but perfectly acceptable in Los Angeles. So, our total environment determines our approach to discussing finances.

An interesting issue is how parental attitudes affect our children. Clearly, “protected” children have less stress about money during childhood but often lack basic budgeting and negotiating skills when they become adults. They then take a crash course in financial management and sometimes do crash. An extreme example of this was Japanese women, at least in the past, who were encouraged to remain childlike even in young adulthood but were expected to manage the entire family budget when they got married. By contrast, children that learned about budgeting and negotiation throughout their childhood not only are more equipped to find better deals but often enjoy the process. The question is whether the concomitant stress is emotionally beneficial to children. Clearly, financial discussions in the presence of children do have an effect

Preparing children for life should involve giving them the tools to manage their finances. Ignoring such vital matters (like ignoring sex) can lead to disaster. In my view, at minimum, parents should teach their children to value money and stay within budget.  Beyond that, it is a matter of individual judgment. In any case, children are our mirrors, whether we like we see or not.

* Picture captions help the blind access the Internet.

Picture: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/stevepb-282134/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1015125">Steve Buissinne</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1015125">Pixabay</a>

Render unto Caesar – A businesslike approach to freelance business

 

[Roman coin*]

Max Weber, the great German sociologist, discussed the transition from status-based state management in which bureaucratic relations are keyed to the status of the petitioner, to modern citizen-based bureaucracies in which everybody receives the same treatment based on set procedures, at least ideally. He linked the transition, which occurred over the 19^th century in Europe, to the increase in State power and efficiency. Freelancers and small business owners often face the same situation, i.e., personal vs objective, when running their business. While natural when people work outside their house for strangers, it is difficult to create a divide between personal and business when the distance between the kitchen and office is only a handful of meters. Yet, in practice, great success as an entrepreneur is dependent on this differentiation in that it determines our approaches to people, tasks and money.

[Anonymous people]

Effective business practices require entrepreneurs to ignore the “person” with whom they deal. B2B and B2C relations involve the exchange of goods and services, not friendship. While it is a pleasure to meet like-minded clients and even befriend them, that relationship is rare, unnecessary and sometimes even undesirable. Both purchasers and providers both essentially desire to complete the transaction as efficiently as possible, i.e., with as little effort and time as the matter allows.  It is clear that certain businesspeople and consumers are argumentative, overly suspicious or even antagonistic. Like modern government employees, business people need to provide the same level of service as they would to pleasant people, sometime even better. Often these challenging customers, once they are satisfied, provide the best source of references as they believe that if we satisfy them, we can satisfy anybody. By contrast, emotional reaction to obnoxious behavior only fuels the flames and loses the customer. Business is not personal.

[Donkey with load]

In business, to quote my father, anything task worth doing is worth doing well. Freelancers are obliged to wear many hats regardless of their initial ability and inclination. These essential tasks include accounting, marketing, bill collection and putting out fires. Without proper execution of these tasks, a business cannot fulfill its potential. Unfortunately, few of us are born with the natural skill for some or all of these nor truly wish to achieve mastery in them. Successful entrepreneurs perform these tasks as if someone else were paying them well to do them, like a clerk at the bank. Once of the tricks is to do them first so that you can go onto to more enjoyable tasks. Avoidance and half-measures directly lead to failure, including bankruptcy. Freelancers must prpoerly execute the tasks while suppressing their emotional reaction to them.

[Currency symbols]

As Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli sang in Cabaret, money makes the world go round. Furthermore, as accountants remind us, income and costs have to balance. Complicating the picture, nobody can predict the future in terms of economics and technology. Combining the three, a sustainable business invests in itself, controls its spending and provides for changes in fortune. Unlike personal finance, which is often a matter of individual whim, business financial decisions must be rationally based even if they are also intuitive. To paraphrase the song, “it’s my business; I can do what I want to” may be technically true but success is governed by hard (or not so hard) reality. A good technique for distinguishing intuition from whim is to consult trusted and knowledgeable outsiders. The entrepreneur may not like their answers but they can prevent much sorrow. The main purpose of any serious business is to make money for its owners, which of course does not preclude enjoying one’s work. Therefore, it is vital for entrepreneurs to astutely manage their business finances.

In Mathews 22:21, it is written "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”. The quote is in reference to the issue whether paying taxes with coins with the head of Caesar stamped on them (no credit cards then) is a form of worshipping other gods. The answer is that every obligation has its manner of payment. Even if the office is only across the hallway, entrepreneurs need to render unto it the respect it deserves and separate it emotionally, as much as possible, from personal life. Granted, it is easier said than done but it remains one of the keystones for freelancer success.

* Picture captions help the blind access the Internet. Pictures via Pixibay.

LA signing and the art of the translation

 

[Ventura Blvd, Encino with light traffic*]

I took a two-week break from posting blogs due to a family visit to Los Angeles. On my twice-daily trips to my mother’s house from the hotel in the San Fernando Valley, I had plenty of time to notice interesting billboards along the way and even consider how they would be translated. On the flight back, I realized how these signposts illustrate the craft of translation.

Mental Health Matters – This simple three-word text is subject to interpretation depending whether the word matters is a noun, verb or part of a name. In the first case, it would mean issues of emotional stability, which would refer to some counseling service, quite necessary in these Corona times. In the second case, it states that emotional health is important, which is obvious, without saying what should be done about it. In actuality, the text plays on the well-known group Black Lives Matters, and states the name of a charity. “Mental Health Matters” demonstrates why context and cultural knowledge matter.

Corky’s We Control Pets – The advertising message is completely clear in the American context but poses issues in translation. Since the company deals with rats and other nuisances, it is obvious that people pay Corky to get rid of their pests. Yet, the word “control” is translated in most languages as to limit, master or expertly use, none of which applicable in this case. The translator that sticks closely to the dictionary translation, at least in many languages, loses the main point of the message. Professional translation goes beyond word-to-word replacement and requires complete control of the vocabulary nuances.

Serious injury lawyers – The nature of the English language renders this sentence ambiguous, allowing a double meaning. In contrast with most languages, the only English nouns that have gender are natural, e.g., boys, girls, men and women. Thus, adjectives have only one form and do not reflect the gender or number of the noun they describe. In most other language, an adjective in a plural, feminine form must be used with plural, feminine noun, as in les grandes villes in French. In this sentence, we start with the adjective, serious, which is followed by a singular noun, injury, and a plural noun, attorneys, with no grammatical clue to which noun the adjective refers. So, it is possible that the attorneys handle matters of a serious injury, the attorneys are serious or both.  While the first is probably the primary meaning, as a marketing text, the additional implication of legal competence is vital to the message. Thus, the translator must be aware of the purpose of the text so as not to injure its message.

Thus, even a routine drive down Ventura Boulevard can provide food for professional thought. For purchasers of translation, it is vital that the chosen translator is aware of the cultural context, lexical complexity and intended purpose of any text. As for translators, they ignore any of those at their peril. By the way, it is good to be back home in Israel.

* Caption pictures to allow the blind full access to the Internet.

Work-life balance – The Melo example

 

[Magic Johnson*]

I have always read the “Sports” section first, whether of the morning newspaper of my youth or the websiteד of these years. I really enjoy seeing my favorite teams win, which they unfortunately only do occasionally, but I am not overly upset if they lose because sport is only a game. This week, an article posted in Yahoo Sports discussed LaMelo Ball, the rookie guard for the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA, for those not in the know, like me [link]. The gist of the article is that he is having a fantastic season, is incredibly talented and looks like he is having the time of his life playing basketball. Furthermore, he is as successful and happy as he is specifically because he treats basketball, i.e., his career and livelihood, as a sport only. In other words, he strives to be successful and make lots of money but knows that the real life is elsewhere, quite a bit of wisdom for someone only 19 years old. His successful approach is also relevant to non-NBA basketball players and older folk in terms of commitment, attitude and perspective.

It is clear that there is a strong correlation between success and effort. The more time and effort you invest in your profession, the more skillful and profitable you will become. As I heard in a recent webinar by Corinne McKay, she set a specific financial goal, a rather high one at that, and then sought and found the manner to attain it. To stand above the rest, it is necessary to consider a strategy and then apply it with discipline. In other words, to be a professional, you have to act like a professional, whether you are an NBA star and a freelancer. Commitment is a key.

The “secret sauce” of success is enthusiasm. People are instinctively attracted by positive energy, a factor much easier to identify than skill. Professionals that broadcast the image that they enjoy their work are simply more successful in engaging customers and colleagues, creating a form of synergy. By contrast, unless due to inertia or forced by a lack of choice, we avoid people that hate their job. Therefore, it is vital in invest your person in your job to succeed.

Yet, even our careers, our livelihoods, are essentially a game. Most people want to succeed, be promoted and make more money. Yet, regardless of their achievements in those areas, happiness is fundamentally derived from internal tranquility, friends and family. In other words, the correlation between income and happiness is fundamentally low, removing the outliers such as homelessness and lack of food. How many people found themselves renewed and happier as a result of the Corona crisis, which upturned the professional paths of countless people? Ideally, work is a serious game but only a game.

I admired the skill and dedication of Kobe Bryant whose drive to be the best was unchallenged but believe that his approach is not practical, relevant or even healthy for the vast majority of people. By contrast, Magic Johnson (of my time) and LaMelo Ball were and are must- sees, as the article states, not only because of their skill but also because of their approach. It is desirable and possible for any person, great or small, to invest in and enjoy their work and still lead a balanced life by remembering that, as the Israeli singer Dafna Dekel sang in the 1992 Eurovision contest, זה רק ספורט [ze rak sport], it is only sport.

* Help the blind access the Internet by inserting picture captions.

Prostituting words in English, French and Hebrew

 

[All pictures in this post are of various sex industry workers*]

There is an old joke about a discussion between a prostitute, engineer and lawyer regarding what the oldest profession is. The prostitute begins by stating the obvious, namely, that as long as there has been human civilization, there have been prostitutes. The engineer then mentions the biblical story of creation, which is in fact engineering. The lawyer then trumps [as in cards] everybody by reminding everybody that before there was creation, there was chaos, his contribution. Today’s post relates to the youngest of the three, prostitution, a word derived from Latin and originally meaning exposing yourself to the public. As this is a taboo topic in most societies, many code words exist for the women employed in it. While it is almost impossible to relate all the terms, with English alone having more than 60 words or phrases, probably because you are not supposed to talk about sex, languages approach this not-so-noble profession in many ways, including the time and place of its activity, the purpose and manner of its activity and positive and negative attitude about its morals.

A practical approach to nomenclature is to relate to the when and where of prostitution. An English lady of the night would be a French belle-de-jour and belle-de-nuit, depending on the shift, while Hebrew יַצְאָנִית [yatzanit], derived from to leave, emphasizes that these girls leave their houses, especially at night, an audacious act for females then and even now in some places. Their place of work is the street as reflected in the English word streetwalker and French asphalteuse and pierreuse. These words may not be compliments but do describe facts.

These women are in fact trying to make a living by attracting customers as recognized by other terms. The English term working woman, the French gagneuse and Hebrew זונה [zona] all relate to making a living or bringing home the bread as in the last term. They do so by attracting their customers by being a hooker, a word made famous by General Hooker of American Civil War fame and his soldiers, being available as a call girl or even providing an escort, or as the French would say, just being a sirène, as in those entrancing ladies made famous by Homer. It may be not be a noble profession but it is a business.

Some cultures had respectful words for the profession but some soured over time. The French once called them girls, putains, but that word lost all of its shine. Fortunately, they have positive terms, including fille de joie and femme galante, meaning a woman of joy and a gallant woman. The English terms whore and tart originally meant someone that enjoys and a sweetheart, respectively, but, alas, these lost their status a long time ago. As for the Hebrew, גַּחְבָּה [gachba] and נַפְקָנִית [nefkanit] are both derived from producing, pleasure presumedly. On a positive note, the Japanese language has a respected place for these women, a bit like the official mistresses of the last French kings, referring to them as courtesans and geishas.  

However, the vast majority of morally defining terms are negative, emphasizing the light morals of these women. The English have called them loose women, floozies and scarlets, depending on the period. Less tolerant French would call one une fille lègére, a “light” girl, not referring to her weight. Hebrew identifies their broken values in the word פְּרוּצָה [prutza], relating to broken, and שַרְמוּטָה [sharmuta], the last derived from Arabic. Clearly, most of the morally-charged terms for prostitutes are negative.

This list of nomenclature is just a sampling. However, the sheer number of terms and their wide variety of approach show how prevalent and successful the third youngest profession is as well as the spectrum of perspectives in regards to its existence. As for any phenomenon, whether constructive or destructive, the importance of a concept can be ascertained by the number of words describing it. By that standard, the other two ancient professions have been far less successful.

* Captions on pictures are just one easy way to help the blind. All pictures are from Pixibay.

Giant steps – Head in the clouds and feet on the ground – the 2021 Online Conference of the Israel Translators Association (ITA)

 

[Winston Churchill*]

One of the purposes of any professional conference is to get people to dream while showing them how to make the dream a reality. In that sense, the 2021 ITA conference was a great success. Spread over three days from March 1-3, the attendees profited from the variety of visions in regards to translation and its significance as well as practical steps for success in these challenging times. When the lecturers speak with enthusiasm and authenticity, it is the icing on the cake. I would like to present my personal highlights (with apologies to those speakers I do not mention).

Starting with Yves Champollion, we were taken to the start of the modern translation, the process of the deciphering of the Rosetta Stone, which exemplifies the required skills and challenges of today. Later that day, Douglass Hofstader discussed the relative merits of transposing contextual language, whether description or dialogue, from one culture to another, citing the translations of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and David Grossman’s A Horse Walks into a Bar, among others.  He discussed the degree to which the readers’ culture should be reflected in the choice of words. The next day, Prof. Yehuda Shenhav-Shahraban spoke about the problem with translating from a language without solid knowledge of its culture and how working in groups, i.e., through dialogue, can overcome this limitation. Later that day, David Chrystal took us on a rapid and fascinating trip through the history of linguistics, a challenge in itself, and enlightened us on its latest focus, pragmatics, crystallizing (pun intended) our intuitive knowledge that context is almost everything in determining the actual meaning.  Fabienne Bergmann and Eliezer Nowodworsky discussed the problem of censorship even when the translation is clear, using the Little Prince as an example. These lectures brought out the extasy of translating a word.

No less importantly, other lectures provided guidance for business success in the changing world translation. Regardless of your current specialization or future area of growth, lecturers provided a gold mine of information. Nina Sattler-Hovdar broke down the ins and outs of transcreation while Joseph Kovalov demystified machine translation. Michel Norman shared his wealth of knowledge on financial translation, which I personally profited from, while Maria Victoria Tuya provided a detailed presentation on medical translation. Paige Dygert gave excellent advice on why and how to find legal clients while the challenges of remote interpretation were addressed by several speakers, including Francesco Saina as well as Myriam Nahon and Gisèle Abazon of the AIIC. I personally led a discussion on communicating with customers when problems occur for the purpose of both limiting damage and building customer loyalty. The conference provided plentiful practical tips.

Maybe the most valuable  contribution of this conference was the inspiration and hope it gave after this last difficult year. Anna Lewoc presented the why and how to achieve the proper balance between work and happiness, an art that especially tends to be lost in tough times. Armenise Guiseppe Alessio spoke with enthusiasm and specific about how he succeeded in starting a freelance translator business in the middle of the Corona crisis. Finally, and most inspiring, Marguerite Strom showed how us how she reinvented her business in that period, overcoming all the psychological barriers, including being non-native to technology and uncomfortable with marketing, and is thriving. She especially cheered up those generalists, who have been feeling underappreciated  in  recent years. Whether we are new or established, their messages rang a bell.

The best testimony of this conference is that I was able to sit on my sofa for three days without suffering, an abnormal act if I  am healthy. The combination of relevant topics and effective speakers made it easy to do nothing but listen and learn. The ITA chairperson, Uri Bruck, deserves a whole haberdashery of chapeaux for the organization of the conference and keeping it on schedule. Churchill said that if you are going through hell, keep on going. This conference was a giant step to better times.

*Use  picture captions to assist the blind. 

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/openclipart-vectors-30363/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1299836">OpenClipart-Vectors</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=1299836">Pixabay</a>

Courting disaster – Why poor quality and use of machine translation are serious legal issues

 

[Gavel*]

A post in JurTrans shared an article by John Shea entitled A cautionary tale about machine translation: a recent Polish court ruling. As a longtime professional translator, I was pleased to see a legal bottom being laid in the rather deep hole of cheap translations, in both meanings of the word cheap. The case itself is rather extreme and involves a single language service provider (LSP), but is relevant to all parties in the translation chain: translators, agencies and end customers. The bottom line is that there is a financial price for ignoring quality to achieve a low price.

The incident, which occurred in 2013, involves a company that ordered the translation of a technical booklet (IT) from Polish to English from an agency, which contracted a supposedly professional translator to carry out the project. Interestingly enough, the company itself approved the specific translator after viewing a sample of his writing. The individual had excellent high school English and was studying IT in college but had no translation experience nor was an expert it in the field. He produced a translation that, by his own admission, besides being delivered late, was 92% machine translated using Google Translate with insufficient post machine translation editing with the remaining 8% MT not receiving any editing at all. The company did not find the result satisfactory and requested and received review and amendment but ultimately was forced  to pay a real professional translator to do the job properly. The agency, rather full of chutzpah (gall), then demanded payment from the company for the job not so well done. The Polish court rejected its request and required it to pay legal fees.

The court discussed several issues but I would like to mention three aspects relevant to all in the translation business. First, while the term “professional translator” may lack a single coherent definition, it can be defined, albeit by elimination, and is of legal importance. With the exception of a few countries, translators are not licensed by any authority. A few professional associations, notably the American Translators Association, certify translators using tests or other objective criteria but technically speaking, anybody can hang a shingle claiming that they are professional translators. In practice, most translators have degrees in a language or a professional area and significant experience in translation and/or a technical field. In other words, they have knowledge of how to transmit specific information accurately from one language to another. This skill is not shared by the vast majority of high school or even college students, no matter how intelligent, hard working or well-read they may be as the knowledge and skill required to produce a proper translation takes many years to acquire. People, even long-term translators, that are unable to properly express the content of specific source document into target documents may be considered unprofessional in the specific circumstances. Thus, any false representation as such in regards to a specific document may be a breach of contract with its attendant consequences.

On a related issue, the relative cost of a translation does not cancel the implied warranty of merchantability. In simple terms, even if the payment is very low, the translator and agency are responsible for producing a usable product. There may be an emotional attraction to the expression “you get what you pay for” but legally and practically it does not hold up. If employees working for minimum wage (or less even) fail to do their job properly, they are fired. Likewise, regardless of the bottom barrel rates being paid by some agencies, a translator that has accepted them must provide at minimum an adequate product or risk truly working for nothing or worse. On a more serious level, as the rates offered by the mega LSPs keep on declining, they may find themselves in the situation faced by the agency in this case. The court specifically stated the agency has the legal duty to supervise the quality of a translation to ensure its usefulness. Both translators and agencies need to keep this requirement to produce a useful product in mind.

Finally, according to the court ruling, use of public machine translation sites can be a breach of the confidentiality condition of a contract. The issue here is not the quality of machine translation, which has radically improved in the 9 years since the decision. However, the mere act of a translator placing text in a public machine translation service such as but not limited to Google Translate has the effect of putting the content in the public domain, a breach of contract in many cases. Even more so today, it is very tempting to insert problematic section into machine translation for reasons of amusement, curiosity or need. According to the court decision, the translator must be aware of the legal ramifications especially if identifying data has not been removed. Clearly, for general expressions, public online help of all kinds is common and acceptable. The issues arise when exact specifications are entered. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. Translators must think before they insert.

I have presented a brief summary of the original longer article by John O’Shea, a bit like concentrated broth. As in all matters legal and medical, for a complete picture, it is always advisable to read the whole article. In my understanding from both the article and my legal studies, translators and LSPs need to fully understand the express and implied warranties they provide to the customers and comply with them, including in regards to professional status, translation quality and confidentiality. A word to the wise is sufficient.

*The blind need captions to full access your content. 

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/artsybeekids-392631/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5660494">Venita Oberholster</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5660494">Pixabay</a>