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Posted by gatchamarie on 07-04-2010 at 06:28:
When translating, one must translate sentence by sentence and not word by word! Sometimes even phrase by phrase ... and poetry is totally a different question! If translating word by word, then the end result would surely be completely different from the original one! Different languages have different sentence structures, especially when verbs are concerned. And when there's dialogue, then it's another different situation! One must take lots of care of how the message should be expressed and addressed and also about the emphasis on the words to be highlighted.
In languages like Arabic, Italian, and even my Maltese, as only one example, it's more easy to make errors in verbs, giving a whole new meaning to a sentence. E.g. the pronouns are not written apart from the verb like it's done in the English language ... they're written in conjunction with the verb, in an abbreviated form. So if you get those wrong ... and believe me it's so easy ... you'll get a lot of errors! Not mentioning expressions! When I do tend to translate literally expressions which work very well in Italian, and which could make an impact, I sometimes even end up with something smutty in English without knowing!
This work must not be done when in a hurry! I know from experience and that's why I tend to be a bit slow when communicating with foreigners! ... and that's why I end up with so many errors when not having enough time to dedicate to my writing! When I was a Central Bank employee I was a member of the Italian translators pool. We were very few and we were daily stressed by deadlines and accumulating tasks. I always ended up quarrelling with my manager who wanted me to translate letters or reports fast in order to give a good impression! I always told him that, in order to make a good impression, one has to submit an accurate job instead of an inaccurate one produced hurriedly! You must know that the manager I had at that time was, or better is, a complete asshole ... yay, I can say it here! ... and he thinks that because of his grade and certificates he is the most intelligent person on Earth ... but he definitely isn't! He even used to contest my translations when he didn't know the language in the first place and tried to read sentences word by word, as I have said! But I didn't leave him empty handed ... I always gave him a bit of my mind, and my own language, and he always ended up shutting his revolting mouth!
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To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!
Posted by lborgia88 on 07-04-2010 at 07:57:
I'll bet you don't miss that manager one bit, gatchamarie! He should have just accepted that you clearly knew how to do your work far better than he did.
I took a class in grad school on how to translate German to English -first we learned grammar rules and then we had to find an article in our field, written in German, and start translating it. I ended up with something about the political situation in Scotland during the English Civil War. It was slow going! At first it could easily take an hour to two to translate one paragraph, though I got faster over the weeks, mostly because I'd started to memorize basic vocabulary and didn't need to use the dictionary for every word (but I've since forgotten most of it). I still remember scratching my head over one phrase which, translated literally, meant "push in the head" -which made no sense in context. Eventually I figured out that it meant "to offend."
Posted by gatchamarie on 07-04-2010 at 08:30:
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Not a single bit! But he's still one of my DH's superiors, unfortunately, and, ironically, is the manager of the Human Resources Department, which, under his management, should be better called the "Anti-Human Resources Dept." IMO!!
__________________
To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!
Posted by green on 07-04-2010 at 08:30:
While I was still living in Japan, I got my hands on two copies of the same book, one in English and one in Japanese. This would have been late in my fourth year, I think.
Anyway, I used an exercise book and wrote out the Japanese sentence by sentence on every other line. Then I spent hours on translating one paragraph with the help of three dictionaries. One for grammar, one for the characters and one that was a straight out Japanese to English dictionary.
Once I had got it as close as I could to what I thought it meant, then I would read the English copy.
And then I would have a drink and a lie down and mutter to myself 'Well, it was kinda right....'
My next door neighbour was a fellow Australian that worked with me - luckily. She would greet me every morning with the total amount of times she heard the book hit the connecting wall between our apartments.
One of the teachers I worked with knew what I was attempting - she had lent me the Japanese copy. Instead of asking me how I was going, she would ask Kate whether the thumps were particular numerous and/or loud the night before.
The truth is I never realised how difficult the job I was attempting to do until I took some study material into work with me.
There are exams people can do to find out their level of understanding of the language. Four levels, #4 being considered as 'basic to intermeditary', #1 is native speaker level. By this time I had sat and passed the third level and was thinking about going for the second.
The same teacher who lent me the book picked up one of the sample exam papers and attempted to answer some of the grammar. It was mulitple choice - the easiest type of questions to answer, right? You've got four answers and one of them HAS to be correct.
She called in another teacher to ask her what she thought the answer was. Turns out they disagreed...
So in came a third teacher, who suggested yet a different answer.
Finally they asked for the answer sheet.
They were all wrong - and they were native speakers with university degrees.
I never sat the second level exam.
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by gatchamarie on 07-04-2010 at 08:36:
I wouldn't have liked to be that book, Green! But, yes, sometimes it's rather frustrating!
__________________
To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!
Posted by green on 07-04-2010 at 09:02:
Actually, it's a great book and very inspirational!
Called 'Nobody's Perfect', it's about a Japanese man who was born without arms or legs. At the time the book came out I think he was about 25 or so, making him younger than me by 4 years.
It's an autobiography and is the story of his life and the dedication of his parents and how they refused to allow him to be locked away in an institution. Instead he went to a mainstream school and took part in every activity the other students did.
At the time, I worked with several special needs children, unique in their own way because we were a mainstream day care centre (Japan has the tendency to hide these children in specialised schools).
I knew their parents were 'brave' in placing their children with us, but it wasn't until I read the book that I realised how truly remarkable they were - and how incredible my boss was for accepting the challenge.
To this day, they are the only day care centre in the area that take on special needs children, and even though they are a private centre, no extra cost is levelled on the parents for the placement of a teacher/carer that is designated solely for their child.
The book drove home what I already knew - my boss was (and still is) an incredible man who dared to push the veil of ignorancy from those around him and encouraged understanding. First by employing foreigners as teacher assistants so the children would have first hand knowledge of the world beyond Japanese borders and then by accepting children who would normally be hidden.
He is, and will forever be, 'The Boss' to me and many others who may now have other employers - but none will ever compare nor earn the title.
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by Madilayn on 07-04-2010 at 10:27:
Sounds like he definitely is a special bloke, Green.
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"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by gatchamarie on 07-04-2010 at 11:17:
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ITA ... the world needs more people like him!
__________________
To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!
Posted by green on 07-04-2010 at 11:18:
One in a billion, Maddy. Which is a shame - the world needs more like him.
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by Transmute Jun on 07-04-2010 at 14:58:
And it's not like there's anything at all funny about any of the episodes. Nooooo...... 
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Posted by Ebonyswanne on 07-04-2010 at 22:47:
Green it takes a person will to take risks and acceptance an a genuine love of people to push passed the boundaries of what others consider "normal" or "worthy of love" that your Japanese boss did when opening the child care centre for all kids!
My daughter plays with a child who's autistic at pre-school. The little boy is facinated by water, and so is my daughter. The two of them have a common interest, she doesn't know what autism is, when he has tantrums because something isn't quite right in his world, she just waits until he's ready to play again. He's her friend they have a thing in common...water. Good on a 3yr old to see a person just needs a friend and to eb accepted just as they are! (We're Aussie.)
Her pre-school teaches have commented on how she always finds him and spends a lot of time with him playing and giggles and smiles, he warms to her quickly and now looks for his friend every week and get intot trouble for flooding the kids sinks in the bathroom. A progress for him apparently to look for another child to play with and interact. I feel kids need to be around other kids who aren't like them, and see normal is a matter of prospective.
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Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up- Pablo Picasso.
Posted by Madilayn on 07-04-2010 at 23:03:
Let's face it - children are born without any prejudices and I always think that it's ripping away part of their innocence when we impose our own prejudices on them.
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"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by green on 08-04-2010 at 09:35:
One of the sweetest days of my time with the kids was on a field trip to a local park on a weekday.
There were other groups of people, mainly from the local aged care homes.
This area, while considered Tokyo, was out in the boondocks. The older generation (and there was a lot of them present that day) stared and made comments about the blonde, blue eyed gaijin with Japanese kids.
side note on the term 'gaijin' - it short for 'gaigokujin' (outside country's person - a foreigner). Take out the 'goku' and you have 'outsider'. To put it in a more relevant context, it's the 'N' word for African-Americans - and used the same way. A foreigner may call themselves 'gaijin', but it is a serious insult to be refered to as such by a Japanese person that isn't in your inner circle of friends.
Anyway, I had a group of about six five year olds with me. These kids had known me for over 3 years; I had bandaged cuts, kissed bumps and bruises better, read them stories, disciplined them and held them when they had woken from nightmares during nap time.
One of the sweetest kids in history heard the word 'gaijin' and saw the fingers pointing my way. He looked up at me and said, 'Sensei, that woman over there used a bad word about you."
I said that I had heard, but it didn't bother me because I didn't know her and didn't care what she called me.
He answered, almost crying, "I care."
I was told by another teacher (this one Japanese) not to stop him as he walked over to the woman, because it was important to him (and his development) to have his say.
He was very polite and excused himself for interrupting her, but she had just called his teacher a bad word. He went on to say that I had understood what she had said (she had actually said something along the lines of 'what the hell is that gaijin doing with our children?') and while I didn't care, he did because he cared about me.
He went on to explain the reason why I was with them was because I was a teacher and it was a good thing that I wasn't Japanese because he now knew that there were other people in the world that didn't look like him and he wasn't scared by that thought.
He excused himself and apologised, again, for interrupting her and added that he hoped that he hadn't offended her, (told you he was one of the sweetest kiids ever!) but he wanted to explain that I wasn't gaijin - I was gaigokujin from Australia and I was his 'sensei'.
By this time I was crying and when he came back, he threw his arms around me and told me not to be sad, because to him I wasn't an outsider. I explained that I was crying because I was so proud of him and honoured that he cared enough to defend me, not because I felt like an outsider.
I looked up at the woman and she was wiping her eyes with a tissue. She bowed and said that one day he would be a fine man because he obviously had good parents who had taught him manners and good teachers who cared more about the children than themselves.
A day later three huge bunches of flowers turned up at work addressed to 'the principal and staff', 'the parents of the little boy in the park' and 'the blonde haired teacher from Australia'.
The card in mine was written in English and with a great deal of care.
It said 'apology'.
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by Madilayn on 08-04-2010 at 09:51:
Oh wow, Green!! What wonderful children - and the lady ws right. That little boy will grow up to be a fine man. It must hve broken your heart to have to leave them.
Do you still keep in touch?
__________________
"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by Cain Highwind on 08-04-2010 at 09:56:
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That's such a great story Miss Green
Posted by green on 08-04-2010 at 10:04:
He graduated to go to school four months after I left Japan. I chose the timing because it would be easier to say goodbye to all the kids at once and not just the one class that I had grown particularly fond of and then have to leave everyone else...
I keep in touch with the teachers through others still there - and many of the children have continued to have English lessons after school with the club that we set up, so I hear all about them on a regular basis.
Kenji-kun was always going to grow up well, right from the start he was just a beautiful person. He and his little sister both - and OMG, they are going to break hearts! Georgous inside and out, the pair of them... Longest eye lashes known to man and they know how to use them!
At the age of three, nearly four, Kenji presented me with a rock he had found in the playground.
"I only wish it was a diamond," he said, "so it would sparkle like your eyes."
Yep - definitely going to be a heart breaker... Especially if he kept listening to his dad's advice! 
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
Posted by Transmute Jun on 08-04-2010 at 13:41:
What a lovely story, Green! So touching.... it brought tears to my eyes, just reading it.
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Posted by Springie on 08-04-2010 at 14:18:
Oh my, what a touching story! So sweet! I hope you are able to get in touch with him again- what a special little boy!
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Posted by gatchamarie on 08-04-2010 at 15:24:
Such a sensitive and special boy! You were fortunate to meet him, Green, and he was fortunate to meet you! I think that every single person we meet in this world, even for the shortest of time, plays an important and significant part in our lives. And these children surely seem to have played a rather indispensable one in yours, Green! You think that you're the one that's helping them but, in fact, they are the ones that teach us what sometimes we cannot understand so easily and help us appreciate life better! Keep up your good work and your attitude!
__________________
To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!
Posted by green on 09-04-2010 at 06:01:
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It did more than just bring tears to my eyes when I was writing it down...
Until I started work at the day care centre I had always dealt with older kids through choice. My mother's reaction to finding out I was working with kids under the age of six was 'huh? I didn't think you knew they came in that size'. I was known far and wide as the 13 year old that announced to her old fashioned father that she was not ever getting married and having children fell under the catergory of 'hell, no!'.
I had always looked at the young kids with dread - give me a child who knew something about the world, that didn't need me to teach them the 'basics', and I was in teacher-heaven.
I had basically fallen into the job through a friend (the same one that calculated my translating success by the amount of force I used to throw the book at the wall), and had taken it on as a chance to improve my Japanese skills with the idea I would stick out doing part time for a year or so and then move on.
At the end of the year, I had taken a major paycut by quitting my three other jobs and going full time at the centre. I moved out of the centre of Tokyo to be closer to work and ended up living less than five minutes walk away, which meant running into the kids all the time - something I had always felt strange about in Australia, because it wasn't 'professionally based' interaction...
I still have trouble believing that my cynical self fell in love with working with kids that needed to be taught how to tie their own shoelaces, eat by themselves, potty-training...
You were right, Marie - they are the ones that teach us. Their simple view of the world does get more complicated when we add to it in the name of education and preparing them for life - but our view gets more simple, the BS gets stripped away and we regain some of the innocence we lost growing up.
I think the adults gain far more than the children... And it's such a pity!
__________________
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~Eliza Cook
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