Every Day Is Special: interpreter

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September 30 - International Translation Day

Posted on September 30, 2018

Translators and interpreters do an incredibly important service in an increasingly shrinking global society!

Translators work with written words and text, translating from one language into another. Interpreters do basically the same thing, but with spoken words.

Translators also edit machine-made translations (computerized translation), which as you can imagine is sometimes plain old wrong! I mean, how easy is it to translate the following sentences:

Hattie would've given anything to live in a melting pot like the United States.

Mike is a total couch potato.

Truman had a sign on his desk that said, "The buck stops here."

Translating sentences with slang, idioms, and metaphors can be very tricky. It's not just a matter of looking up each word individually and then writing down the French or German or ____ [fill in the blank] word from the dictionary. Instead, translators have to understand the meaning of the entire sentence, and make sure that their translation captures the overall meaning. Also, really good translators strive to capture the feeling of the text, the voice of the author, the flavor of the words.

Even in poems. Maybe even especially in poems!

Many translators are fluent in just two languages. Remember, fluency requires knowing slang and idioms, and that often requires knowing a fair bit of history and culture as well as the language.

However, some people recommend that professional translators know more than two languages. Obviously, with the requirement of learning slang and culture and some history for context, translators probably cannot gain translator-level fluency in 12 or 20 languages, but knowing at least two languages in addition to your own native language can be helpful in keeping the right amount of work coming your way. Many translators know several related languages, such as Spanish and Italian and Portuguese.

Also, translators can specialize in particular industries or fields. For example, I know a Spanish-English translator who has extensive knowledge of several versions of the Christian religion, of the Church's history, of the Bible, etc.; she could bring all of that expertise to bear when translating an article about Christian values or Biblical interpretations. Other translators might have expertise in the law, medicine, health insurance, or computer technology and related industries.

That said, some translators know a lot of languages. Apparently Ioannis Ikonomou, the Greek-born man who began serving in the European Commission as a translator, knows 32 different languages! He is considered fluent in the 23 official languages: Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarians, Irish, Italian, Latvians, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish. He is also fluent in Arabic, Russian, Turkish, and Chinese. He is the only one in the European Commission who is trusted to translate into Chinese.

If you are interested in learning more about this hyper-polyglot, here is an article about Ikonomou, who learned English at age 5, German at 7, Italian at 10, Russian at 13, East African Swahili at 14, Turkish at 16. His reasons for learning all these languages? Mostly curiosity. He says he wanted to talk to other people, he wanted to know the languages of his favorite authors, he wanted to learn a new language just for "fun"!

Here is an article about how to become a professional translator.

One thing that is really interesting to me is how many movies and TV shows are available in multiple languages. For example, in Netflix you can search for shows available in a particular language, you can get dubbed shows by searching "Audio in...," you can get subtitles by searching "Subtitles in...," and you can even get custom subtitles by using a Google Chrome extension called Super Netflix! These things can help you learn new languages - but someone has to be doing these translations or checking machine-created translations! Wouldn't that be a fun job?

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the premiere of The Flintstones

Independence Day in Botswana

Anniversary of the first tooth extraction with anesthesia

Chewing-gum mogul William Wrigley's birthday

Anniversary of the commissioning of the world's first nuclear submarine

"Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait's birthday

Agricultural Reform Day in São Tomé and Principe

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June 3 – De Soto Claims La Florida for Spain

Posted June 3, 2013

It's so tough to talk about history, at times; we shudder to tell the whole truth about various expeditions, battles, and peoples, because there is so much that is horrific and brutal. I don't want to write about awful events in detail, and you probably don't want me to!

One of the Spanish explorers, Hernando de Soto, was infamous for his brutality.

He had good qualities, too—he was brave and loyal—but let me assure you that too many Native Americans died at his sword and at his orders.

On this date in 1539, de Soto claimed all of La Florida for Spain. Don't you love it when some guy does that—not knowing how big the particular chunk of land he is standing on is (this was a pretty big chunk—all of North America!), not knowing where on Earth that chunk of land was (de Soto thought he was in the “Indies,” near China), and apparently not caring that people already lived there!—he just says, “I claim this land for my king!”

Only in this case, you know, in Spanish!

At any rate, de Soto ordered some of his men to find and capture natives—but who they found was a Spaniard who had come to the area with an earlier expedition!

The Spaniard, named Juan Ortiz, was naked and had his body decorated like the Uzita Indians he lived with. He carried a bow and arrow, and I would imagine that he had grown quite tan. I wondered how de Soto and his men knew that Ortiz was a Spaniard—but then I read that someone hit him with a lance, and Ortiz called out a prayer in Spanish. Soon he was patched up and well enough to act as an interpreter for de Soto.

Interestingly enough, though Ortiz acted as an interpreter between Native Americans and Spaniards for the rest of his life, he never readopted European clothing and ways. Because he seemed to have “gone native,” some of the Spaniards didn't trust him, but de Soto stayed loyal to Ortiz.

De Soto's expedition through the North American wilderness crossed what would later become Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. I bet you are wondering how Ortiz, who had of course learned to communicate with the Uzita Indians while he lived with them, could be an interpreter to Native Americans living in so many different areas. Well, Ortiz was part of a chain of interpreters. He would communicate with de Soto in Spanish and in the Uzita language with a young boy named Perico. Perico knew several local languages, so he could talk with representatives of several different groups. When the expedition went farther, Perico would talk to an Indian who knew one of his languages but also another language of Native Americans who lived nearby. Eventually de Soto would speak to Ortiz, who would speak to Perico, who would speak to a guide, who would speak to another guide, who would speak to...well, you get the idea!

Also on this date: