Archive for the Category ◊ Adventures in Translation ◊

22 Nov 2008 In-cognates
Author: Terran |  Category: Adventures in Translation  | 2 Comments

Following up on the previous linguistic post, the other thing that we language newbies need to be wary of, of course, are words that we think we know what mean, but really don’t.  If you’ve studied another language at all — especially any Romance or Germanic languages, which have so much in common with English — you’ve run across these.  Fiendish word traps, waiting to ambush you with your ignorance.  Here are a couple I’ve noticed in the Spanish-English interface.  I’m quite sure that there are many more hiding out there, ready to zorch me.

  • Titular In English: a position having the appearance of power, but not actually having any real power or repsonsibility.  In Spanish: Title (as in job title), headline, or tenure (as in the professoriate).  In other words, something that actually has real meaning or power.
  • Constipado Sounds like a blockage of the lower intestine, doesn’t it?  Nope.  Apparently in Spanish, it means “to have a cold”.
  • Marcha Does, in fact, literally mean a march (military), among many other things (e.g., gear as in transmission).  But apparently in Madrid, in a social context, it means “lively” or “nightlife” and ir a marcha is to go out on the town.
  • Eso es Literally, “that’s it”, more loosely, “exactly”.  But if you say it quickly, you’ll discover, as the Italian student in our Spanish class did, that it sounds very much like “S.O.S.”…
  • Último/a Last.  In English, “ultimate” may technically mean the last (whence, “the rule of the antepenultimate accented syllable”), but usually we think of it as “best” or “greatest”.  (And, for geeks of a certain age, a series of addictive computer RPGs, which never seemed to actually reach el último.)

And we’re in Barcelona this weekend (more on that later), where the dominant language is Catalan, and proper means next.  (As opposed to Castellano Spanish, in which próximo/a is next.)

Also, another one for the “lingusitic minefield” category: caña means “small glass of beer” (popular order in cervezarias).  On the other hand, coño means “cunt”.  Ouch.

19 Nov 2008 Linguistic minefields
Author: Terran |  Category: Adventures in Translation  | One Comment

So we’ve all heard about those linguistic traps for the newbies to a given language.  Words and idioms that are almost, but not quite, pronounced or structured identically, but with embarassingly different meanings.  Like the Japanese words for “cute” and “godzilla ugly” that differ only by the length of a vowel sound.  shudder Or John F. Kennedy’s classic faux pas, “I am a jelly donut”.  (”Resident of Berlin” differs from “Jelly donut originating in Berlin” only by an article.)

Since Susan and I are struggling to learn intro Spanish, we’ve been trying to keep an eye out for some of these.  So far, we’ve identified only a couple of clear ones, though I’m sure that there are many more out there waiting to trap us.  ;-)

  • Año means “year”, while ano means “anus”.  Yay.  There’s an easy one to screw up while describing yourself.
  • If you’ve had a few years of French in High School (as both of us have), you would be tempted to pronounce the European city Paris as “pah-ree”.  However, your Spanish instructor will point out that en español, those sounds are interpreted as “parí”, meaning “I gave birth”.  Not the best way to describe your recent holiday trip.

We have also been running the reverse exercise: what are the linguistic traps in English?  It’s hard to figure them out as a native speaker, of course, because the words are so transparently different to us.  But we did notice that “can’t” differs from a very naughty word only by a vowel sound.  ;-)

Any other ideas out there?  Or suggestions on other Spanish traps to beware of?

19 Sep 2008 First word to learn
Author: Susan |  Category: Adventures in Translation  | Leave a Comment

Advice: The most important word to learn before you go to a foreign country is not, “bathroom” or “check” or “beer” or whatnot. It’s “language.” The word for language in Spanish is idioma.

I have observed that greater than half of all computer kiosks and city info web pages in Spain have a way to switch the language to English. Probably 80% of these, however, tell you in Spanish how to change the language. It’s so universal, it’s pretty funny. And there’s usually very little in a phrasebook for the totally uneducated that would help you find the change language feature.

Now, some of the kiosks are disasters even when switched to English. One of the ATMs we tried to use had options in English, but error messages all in Spanish, so we couldn’t figure out what it thought we had done wrong. Fortunately, all the money didn’t drain out of the account or anything :).

18 Sep 2008 Internet has arrvied!
Author: Terran |  Category: Adventures in Translation  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

Also on Terran’s list of “things not to do when you don’t know the language”: trying to get internet connected in your short-term apartment.  Woo.

The details are long and involved, but the key steps involved lots of three-way conversations between people who marginally spoke each others’ languages.  Lots of stuff like “Tiene de internet?  ADSL?” followed by lots of nods, head shakes, and looking confused.

The breakthrough was to get our incredibly helpful apartment agent involved, who speaks both Spanish and English fluently.  He got on the line to Telefonica (local telco/ISP) and made the order concrete.  Then lots of waiting for us.  Then phone conversations with Telefonica representatives that went approximately like:

Them: “Hola! ??? ??? ??? Telefonica ??? ??? ??? Internet ??? ??? ???”

Me: “Er.  Lo siente — no hablo espanole.  Internet?”

Them: “Er.  Si.  Internet.  ??? ??? ???”

Me:  “Er.  Que hora?”

Them: “[sigh]  Hoy, de 4:00 a 6:00.”

Me: “Ah! Si! Muy bien.”

Having thus exhausted my Spanish conversational ability, we both gave up. But the important bits were conveyed. In the end, they called back to reschedule for the next day (i.e., today). And then the actual installer called this morning. All of these conversations were accompanied by much confusion on both ends, but in the end, it all worked out.

So early this afternoon, an incredibly helpful Telefonica representative showed up to do the actual install.  His 4 words of English nicely complemented my 4 words of Spanish, but working together we got it all sorted.  He seemed to be kind-of amused by the whole thing, and with lots of hand gestures, he got everything straightened out and even conveyed “Hey, don’t try to actually get on the ‘net yet.  The WiFi router is booted and you can talk to it, but that doesn’t mean that you actually have internet.  The line to the central switch at HQ hasn’t been activated yet.  It should be live in 30 min-1 hour.  If it’s not, give me a call.  Here’s my cell phone number.”  (I’m filling in some stuff that I inferred, but that’s the gist of it.)

It’s amazing what you can muddle through when both parties are trying and are willing to take it all with a grain of salt and a bit of humor.  And, as always, I am touched by how many of the locals are very cheerfully willing to help overcome the communication barrier.

So in the end, the good news is that we now have decent (read: unmetered!) internet access in our apartment.  That’s a huge relief.  Now we should be able to communicate with family and friends a little bit more smoothly!

15 Sep 2008 Mission accomplished: Cats retrieved!
Author: Terran |  Category: Adventures in Translation, Food!  | Leave a Comment

Whee!  The cats are here and safe!  [whoo] Time to collapse in exhaustion.

Another item for “Terran’s list of experiences that you can feel free to die without having tried”: Picking up animals from air cargo in a foreign country when you (a) don’t have a car, (b) don’t know where you’re going, and (c) don’t speak the language and can communicate, essentially, only with gestures and grunts.

It all has a happy ending, and we managed to hold on to confidence along the way, but it had a pile o’ stress along the way.  Here’s the full story:

  • Tried to make arrangements to ship cats back in July.  Was told by Delta’s air cargo division that you can only make reservations 13 days in advance.  Okaaay.
  • Spent months trying to figure out the byzantine set of regulations about which forms, tests, immunizations, instruments, etc. we needed for cats.  It seems to be a deliberate bureaucratic maze.  Gory details of that best left for another post (or for late night horror shows).
  • Sep 2: called Delta air cargo to try to make appt to ship cats.  Chick on the line: “You’re flying tomorrow?  Aren’t you a little last second?”  Me, annoyed: “Well…  You guys said that I couldn’t reserve more than 13 days in advance.  That’s what I’m doing.”  Her: “Oh, you don’t want them to go with you?”  Me, really annoyed: “[sigh]  No.”  Her: “Ok, I’ll have a specialist call you.”  No callback.  Great.
  • Sep 3: Flew to Spain.  Life descended into chaos.
  • Sep 10: Wrote to Delta air cargo to make reservations for cats.  Got world’s stupidest drone on the other end.  Typical email exchange: Me: “I have a few questions: (1) … (2) … (3) … (4) … (5) …”  Her: Answers 1/2 of (3), incorrectly.  Great.  Eventually, all things were sorted by the intervention of a great friend and savior in ABQ who was able to do a lot of footwork for us.
  • Sep 13: Cats flew.  We end up paying $150 more than we expected to for this service because of mistakes/cluelessness of world’s stupidest drone.  (See above.)
  • Sep 14: Cats cooled heels in Atlanta airport animal hostel because of scheduling mistake by world’s stupidest drone.  (See above.)
  • Sep 15, 7:30 AM: We leave for airport to pick up cats.  Now at this point, we’re really not sure where to look for them.  All we know is that they’re being shipped by Delta cargo and are probably going to arrive at the Barajas (Madrid airport) air cargo section.  But we have no idea where that is.  (Why not?  Because the world’s stupidest drone at Delta air cargo can’t figure out where her local bathroom is with a compass and a scout team, much less work out where a cargo facility at an airport halfway around the world is.  See above.)  With us, we carry all possible paperwork, our Spanish/English dictionary, Madrid map, and two backpacks.
  • “, 8:15: We arrive at Barajas Terminal 2 (where Metro drops off) and start looking for Delta service desk.
  • “, 8:30: We find Delta at the other end of Terminal 1.  This is like 1km away.  People think that the Denver airport is long and linear, but they haven’t been to Barajas.
  • “, 8:45: Having worked through communication with a Delta representative, we discover what we suspected: that the cats will not show up at normal baggage.  To our surprise, they will also not show up at the airport customs.  We have to go find “SWF” air cargo, who (apparently) handles the cargo for Delta.  Where are they?  She doesn’t know.  Suggests we go get a taxi.  She thinks it’s close.  We go look for a taxi.  But at least she can confirm that the cats are on that flight, which is a huge relief.
  • “, 9:00:  We try to get a taxi driver to take us to air cargo.  He doesn’t want the fare and waves his hands in the general direction of the end of Terminal 1 saying, as far as we could tell, “Just walk that way.  It’s not far.”  He says something like “25 meters”, but we can’t figure out what the heck he means — the end of the airport is clearly much further than that.  We’re confused and worried, but start walking.
  • “, 9:00 AM: Cats are landing at Barajas just about now.
  • “, 9:10: We discover why taxi driver didn’t want our fare, as we run across the world’s longest taxi line.  No, really.  There may be longer taxi lines in, like, Hong Kong or something, but this is the longest either of us had ever seen.  It goes past the end of T1, past the on-ramp into the airport, down the next street, and up another on-ramp.  Then it curves out of sight.  We have no idea how long it really was.  Just the part we saw might well have been 1/2 a mile.  Maybe more.  I can understand why the taxi driver didn’t want to have to move to the back of that monster queue for our pissant fare.  It probably wouldn’t have even paid for his gas to sit in line.  Still, we’re high and dry.
  • “, 9:30: We escape the bounds of the passenger side of the airport and get lost in a parking structure. An incredibly helpful passer by gets us pointed in the right direction.  We share no common language, but she was amazingly patient and sweet and, once I had conveyed “air cargo”, she got us out of the parking garage and pointed toward a tall glass and steel building in the distance.  I think she also kept us from getting hauled off by security guards — when we showed up, she looked moderately panicked and pointed to her security badge and kept saying something along the lines of “secured area”.  Eeep.  But at least we have a goal.  We keep walking.
  • “, 9:45: We reach the concrete and steel building.  It looks like more nearly the right place, as it says something about cargo on the outside.  But it also looks more like an office building than a shipping facility.  Worried and confused, but having no other clues, we go inside.
  • “, 9:45: We show our hand-written note saying “Delta Cargo, SWF, DL108, 2 gatos” to the security guard.  He scratches his head at our abysmal attempts at Spanish and then says, “Delta”.  We nod, and he points us to the right wing of the building.  We navigate through the security desk in that wing, where the guard points us to the 8th floor.  Confused (pattern here?), we head up the elevators.
  • “, 9:50: We find the indicated office.  It does say “Delta Cargo”, but it is solidly closed and unoccupied.  It’s also clearly an office and nothing resembling cargo.  Worried, now, we go back downstairs.
  • “, 10:00: We wander around confused.
  • “, 10:10: More wandering.
  • “, 10:15: We find a place on the ground floor that has a sign indicating customs and agricultural inspection.  This looks more promising.  The security guard for this wing looks at our handwritten note and shakes her head.  Not here.  Gah!  But she turns out to be yet another of the angels of this quest.  She drags us outside and points around the end of the building and says, as far as we can tell, “That way, beyond Correos”.  We head off again.
  • “, 10:25: Victory!  That way, beyond the Carreos (Spanish postal system) cargo building, we find the WFS cargo building. This is very clearly a cargo facility.  And it has (a permutation of) the right letters on it.  This looks way more promising.
  • “, 10:30: We talk to the clerk at the desk inside WFS.  Me (broken Spanish): “Nosortos estamos aqui por dos gatos.” (We are here for two cats.  I think.)  Her: “Si!  Dos gatos.  Terran y Susan Lane?”  Woohah!  Victory!  Happy dance!  We have actually found somebody who acknowledges the existence of our cats!  And she has paperwork and everything.  Holy shit.  There may actually be an end to this.  Better yet, our long-suffering cats will not sit endlessly in a cargo crate somewhere in the Twilight Zone until they starve to death or drown in their own hairballs.
  • “, 10:30-11:00:  The amazing, wonderful, and English-speaking clerk walks us through the paperwork.  She also charges us €68 additional, which is yet another unlooked-for expense.  At this point, though, we’re delighted to pay it.  She has our cats!  Woot!  She describes the sequence of convolutions we need to do next.
  • “, 11:05: We go back to the concrete/steel office building, in search of the official veterinarian with the Ministry of Agriculture’s office.  But at least now, thanks to the wonderful WFS clerk, we know who we’re looking for.  Unfortunately, we don’t quite know where to find said vet, though we do know to look near customs.
  • “, 11:10: We wander into customs trying to find the vet.  A confused customs officer, who speaks a reasonable amount of English, goes to find someone who speaks only Spanish to give us directions.  We get sorted out that we need to be one floor up (on the left).  Out and back and into the left wing, now, muddling our way past that security guard.
  • “, 11:15: Another unbelievably helpful person in the Ministry of Agriculture office speaks far more English than we do Spanish and takes our forms and gets the process rolling.  Apparently, she’ll send the vet over to look at our cats, the vet will check all the forms, and then will produce a letter for us.  We’ll take the letter to be stamped by customs and then take it back to WFS, who will then give us our cats.  Theoretically.  [whew]  She riffles through our forms for a sanity check, and it becomes clear that we have way more paperwork than we actually need.  (Refer to “world’s stupidest drone”, above.)  She tells us that this will take an hour, so we should chill and get some coffee or something.
  • “, 11:20: We find the cafeteria downstairs and get some (guess what?  Ham sandwiches!) to fill the hollow from long-ago breakfast.  We try not to dwell on the possibility that the Ebon Menace will rip the vet’s pituitary gland out (*) and the vet will ship him back to the US or to Myanmar or something.
  • “, 11:20-12:20: Time passes.
  • “, 12:20: We return to the MiniAg office.  Nobody there.
  • “, 12:20-12:40: Time passes.
  • “, 12:40: The vet returns, as does the helpful administrator who can translate for us.  Everybody passed.  We can have our cats.  Woohah!  The vet does make some rueful remarks about “Sebastian” to the administrator.  But he shows no signs of blood or missing organs, so apparently Ebon didn’t give him an unduly hard time.  Not so much that he won’t let us have them, anyway.
  • “, 12:45: Back downstairs to customs.  The clerk there has her trainee that she walks through every step of how to stamp our vet letter.  She goes through our paperwork 3 times (we panic, quietly, afraid that we’re missing the green form with purple dots or something) before stamping it.
  • “, 12:55: Back to WFS, letter in hand.  The wonderful clerk there reviews it, then gives us a form to give to [somebody we can't figure out].  When she figures out that we’re clueless, she takes us in hand and hauls us out to their warehouse, where she drops the form on one of the forklift drivers.  Then she motions to us and, in two-year-old-ese, tells us to “stay right here”.  We stay.
  • “, 12:55-1:00: Time passes.  We are anxious.
  • “, 1:00: They bring the cats out on a forklift.  WTF?  Mist hasn’t been overeating that badly.  Whatever.  We have our cats!  We sign for them and haul them back into the entrance hall, where the “baby and small furry creatures effect” hits and a gaggle of office staff cluster around to baby-coo at the cats (in Spanish baby-coos).  A woman sticks her finger in Sebastian’s cage, in spite of the prominent, bright yellow sign that says “AFRAID OF STRANGERS!” (in two languages), and we have to quickly intercede to preserve her structural integrity.  (Why do people think that this is a good idea?   Trying to pet a creature you know nothing about, who has been in travel for 36 hours, and who is in a strange situation they don’t understand.  I would maim someone who tried to pet me at that point.)
  • “, 1:10: We escape from WFS, cats in tow.  Another lovely administrator gets us pointed to the local shuttle bus back to the airport.  Yay!  We were not looking forward to hauling two cats+carriers+junk back 1.5 miles or whatever to the Metro.  While we cool heels, waiting for bus, we examine the ball of packing tape stuck to each cat carrier.  It appears that all of the Cat Stuff that our ABQ friend provided for the cats (food, gooshyfood, microchip scanner, etc.)  was summarily scrunched up into a mass of tape and stuck to the carriers.  Nobody opened them as far as we could tell.  If the cats were fed while in transit, we have no idea what.  And it’s clear that the scanner, that we were warned in capital letters that we needed to have, was never used.  [sigh]
  • “, 1:20: Back to airport.  Wend our way back to Metro.  Those luggage carts come in really handy when you’re overwhelmed by felines.
  • “, 2:00: Survived metro.  Cats, amazingly, do not spaz out in the crowds, up and down escalators, on trains, etc.  [whew]
  • “, 2:00-2:15: Trek back from metro to our apartment.
  • “, 2:15: WE’RE HOME!  [whew]  The cats are almost as exhausted as we are (or maybe the other way around).  But it’s clear that we’re all happy to be here.  We all fall over, semi-comatose for a while.

Final assessment: ~2:30 hours of raw transit time.  ~2 hours of unavoidable bureaucracy time.  ~2:30 of “not speaking language, being clueless, or being misdirected by helpful, but clueless people” time.  ~$480 of unexepected or unnecessary expenses.  (Not counting an unknown number of redundant or unnecessary visits to the vet or unnecessary paperwork.)  [sigh]  But, in the end, we’re here.  They’re here.  They’re happy to see us.  We’re delighted to see them.  Life is good.

And, once again, the people of Madrid are, by and large, wonderfully helpful people who that a stunning amount of sympathy and helpfulness for clueless foreigners.  We are amazed by how many people were so helpful to us and went way above-and-beyond to overcome the communication barrier.  We are grateful.

(*) Spleens being overused in hyperbolic humor.