Quotes Part III

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart.” (Nelson Mandela) – thanks JLibbey!

“If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’m buying, ‘dann muessen Sie Deutsch sprechen’ [then you must speak German]“ (Willy Brandt) – thanks JLibbey!

“Translators live off the differences between languages, all the while working toward eliminating them.” (Edmond Cary) – merci Hélène!

“A mio avviso, può, chi scrive, discettare [...] intorno ai problemi dell’idioma: è bene che la materia dell’arte sia conosciuta e analizzata (oltreché tentata, sperimentata) da chi se ne vale ad esprimersi. Il legno del falegname, la lega ferrosa del siderurgista” (Carlo Emilio Gadda)

“The translator must strive to adopt the very soul of his author” (Alexander Fraser Tytler)

“I do love translating: it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing” (Nancy Mitford)

“La traduzione di una cosa è il nostro sogno di quella cosa” (Serena Vitale)

“Paris can’t be London or New York, it must be Paris; our hero must be Pierre, not Peter; he must drink an apéritif, not a cocktail, smoke Gauloises, not Kents; and walk down the rue du Bac, not Back Street. On the other hand, when he is introduced to a lday, he’ll sound silly if he says: ‘I am enchanted, Madame’“ (Robert Adams)

Tools of the “Trade” (part III)

4. Lexibar

Lexibar is a very useful tool that lets you add special characters to a text written in another language. It is a good alternative to using keyboard shortcuts (e.g. ALT + 0228 for the German ä, as in Läufer) or the Windows Character Map because it is language-specific. There would be no need to learn shortcuts by heart, and sometimes using the Character Map may be a little more “time-consuming” because you have to find the special character you want to insert among many others.

According to Lexicool.com:

Lexibar is a small toolbar which gives rapid access to special characters not always available on your keyboard.

Once you have installed lexibar, either click on the special characters to insert them directly into your word processor or drag and drop them (using the left-hand mouse button). If these methods do not function, you can copy the characters to the clipboard by double-clicking on them, then paste them into your document.

Lexibar is available, free of charge, in the following languages: Catalan, Czech, Croatian, Danish, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish. You can download Lexibar here.

(per i miei lettori italiani: Stefano, autore del blog “trovareXcredere” ha scritto un’ottima recensione di questa utility con un piccolo “tutorial” in italiano. Il link è questo —> http://trovarepercredere.blogspot.com/2009/12/lexibar-utility-gratuita-per-accedere.html)

Translation Quotes Part II

This is not really a “Learning by Translating” Special post because I received less translation quotes than expected. I actually expected more participation… maybe not everyone has a favourite translation quote?

Anyway, I’m starting my post with a quote that Chris (Textklick on Twitter) sent me:

Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes. (Günter Grass)

He also wrote me (in Italian) that he loves translating as much as he loves Italian food! Thanks for participating, Chris!

Now I’m posting some other translation quotes I’ve found online lately.

Translation is a bit like shoveling coal. You scoop it up and toss it into the furnace. Each lump is a word, and each shovelful is another sentence, and if your back is strong enough and you have the stamina to keep at it for eight or ten hours at a stretch, you can keep the fire hot. (Paul Auster, The Book of Illusions)

Simultaneous interpretation is like driving a car that has a steering wheel but no brakes and no reverse.(Preter Pyotr Avaliani)

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original. (Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Art and Antiquity)

All I require of a translator is that he or she be a more gifted writer than I am, and in at least two languages, one of them mine. (Kurt Vonnegut)

Jakob Grimm compared the task of the translator with that of a sailor: the latter mans a ship, directs it with full sails to the opposing shore, but then has to land ‘where there is different earth and where different air plays.’ (Birgit Stolt)

It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower – and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel. (Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defense of Poetry)

Last, but not least, now “Learning by Translating” has an Official Facebook page! Click here to view it and become a fan of my blog!

Learning by Translating Specials #001: Translation Quotes

I’ve just opened another blog category: LBT Specials.

The first special post I’d like to write is one on translation quotes. I know there is already a post on translation quotes, but this time I would like to write a post with LBT readers’ favourite translation quotes. If you wish to participate, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail with your favourite quote(s) to ilaria.translations*@*live.com (remove the stars first!).

I will be posting all the quotes I receive next Sunday.

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Ho appena aperto una nuova categoria: LBT Specials.

Il primo special post che vorrei scrivere sarà dedicato alle citazioni sulla traduzione. Sì, lo so che ho già scritto un post a riguardo, ma questo sarà diverso: sarete voi lettori di “Learning by Translating” a “scriverlo”! Se desideri partecipare, manda pure un’e-mail con la/e tua/e citazione/i preferita/e sulla traduzione all’indirizzo ilaria.translations*@*live.com (rimuovi gli asterischi prima!).

Tutte le citazioni che riceverò saranno pubblicate domenica prossima.

The Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting [FSTI #002]

You read right, another post about interpreting.

Last night I dreamt that I was shadowing a simultaneous interpretation from English into Italian! I was doing an actual reformulation, not a mere repetition of words! No, I wasn’t interpreting, just rephrasing what was being said in Italian. Maybe that dream is a reminder: practice.interpreting. I haven’t done interpreting practice in a while, I should catch up with it.

When I practice interpreting, I do it just for fun. I download podcasts and play them using VLC media player (if they’re too fast for my level, this software allows me to “slow them down”… it’s rare to find audio files that are slow enough for beginners like me). I record myself using either Audacity (you can also play the audio file you’re interpreting with it, and listen to the original and the interpreted versions after you’ve finished) or a digital audio recorder (before buying one, I used my cell phone’s audio recorder that allowed me to record up to 5 minutes at a time).

Ways in which I practice interpreting:

• Simultaneous interpreting (I think this is self explanatory enough)
• Consecutive interpreting (you take notes using a spiral-bound notepad and a pen/pencil while the speaker is speaking, then you translate after he/she finished his/her speech. You can’t note every single thing, because you don’t have the time to, and you have to pay a lot of attention to the speech. I noticed that the more I pay attention to taking notes, the more I get distracted. Interpreters must learn to split attention between two activities, and I think this doesn’t apply only to simultaneous interpreting, in which you listen and speak at the same time, but also to consecutive interpreting. Most interpreters use abbreviations or symbols while taking notes)
• Sentence-by-sentence interpreting (a kind of interpreting that is usually done in a liaison interpreting context. First there is the sentence in language A, then you interpret it into language B, then the language B speaker replies to the language A speaker, and you interpret what he said into language A, etc. It is not done simultaneously, but it is rather a form of consecutive interpreting without notes)
• Shadowing (like I wrote at the beginning of the post, it is an exercise in which you reformulate, or repeat, what a speaker says in the same language. You can also do it after a few seconds from the original utterance, trying to lag behind the original speaker as if you’re doing simultaneous interpreting)

(I know, I wrote that I’m more of a written translation person, but I’ve got bitten by the interpreting bug from the very first moment)