Happy Saint Valentine's ... and the Language of Love

In honor of Saint Valentine's day, I thought I would post some colorful love metaphors from around the world. At times, it is difficult enough communicating with someone in your native tongue and from your own cultural background--you know, the whole men are from Mars, women are from Venus thing--this becomes exponentially more difficult when it comes to stepping outside of one's own culture and conventions. Then, why not just throw in the pathos of love and va va voom to make things a little more intriguing?

een blauwtje lopen (Dutch) "to walk a blue moon"
Used to describe being rejected in love; something that might cause an Englishman to sing, rather than walk, the blues.

cavoli riscaldati (Italian) "reheated cabbage"
Pointless attempts to revive a former love affair from the proverb: Cavoli riscaldati ne' amore ritornato non fu mai buono [neither reheated cabbage nor revived love is ever any good].

ndege wangu karuka mtini (Swahili) "my bird flew off the tree"
Pain and rejection expressed in the form of flying birds is a common metaphor in Swahili.

moosh bekhoradet (Persian" "may a mouse eat you"
Traditional Persian term of endearment.

OK, now a moment of total self-indulgence: time to brush up on your French with Oscar nominee and sexiest man alive.

Happy World Radio Day!

Yes, it's February 13th--crunch time for last-minute Valentine's Day plans--but it's also World Radio Day. In 2011, UNESCO created World Radio Day as "a day to celebrate radio as a medium; to improve international cooperation between broadcasters; and to encourage major networks and community radio alike to promote access to information and freedom of expression over the airwaves."

Radio is a powerful information source for mobilizing social change and a central point for community life--particularly in the developing world, where access to digital communication is more limited. Radio is the mass media that reaches the widest audience in the world and remains the world’s most accessible platform--a powerful communication tool and a low-cost medium that plays an essential role in emergency communication and disaster relief.

As those in the language industry know, radio programming provides a snapshot of the linguistics of media policy and is an invitation for a discussion about the politics of language, translation practices, and cross-cultural communications. As one of the most important means of broadening access to knowledge, promoting freedom of expression, and encouraging mutual respect and multicultural understanding, radio is a platform for information sharing and promoting public debate, and is particularly well-suited to remote and marginalized communities.

In honor of World Radio Day, UNESCO has posted interviews by notable world figures, highlighting the importance of radio yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I have posted an interview (in Russian, transcript in English) with Vladimir Spivakov, a leading Russian conductor and violinist and a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

Enjoy!

“During the most difficult life periods, particularly during the siege of Leningrad, my mother told me that radio was the only source of light and hope, the only way to unite people, to give them the warmth that they really needed during the war. On victory day, people were listening to the radio in every small and large city. People were gathering on the streets, dancing, crying, hugging – it was a big day. However, radio has not lost its importance in the modern world. There are still many developing countries where people cannot afford TV sets, or where there is no TV, but only radio. If radio transmits moral truth, wonderful music or someone’s wise words, I find it very important. I am thankful that the radio exists.  I’m glad to be part of this UNESCO project – World Radio Day.”

3 years ago...

I really can't believe it has already been three years since the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Like many other French translators and interpreters, I have a story. It was a dark and stormy night (well, snowy). Yes, it was snowing and I had a deadline that was quickly approaching for a major ongoing, never-ending project. And, I was certain I was going to lose power with all that slushy, heavy, icy, snow-like precipitation we tend to get here in Washington, DC. My deadline was Jan. 13 9 AM EST and I needed to get this done. Before I lost power, Internet, etc. indefinitely. My ongoing, never-ending project was for the UNCDF (UN Capital Development Fund). Essentially, this was the final Executive Summary for a development project in Northeast Haiti to reduce rural poverty in a sustainable manner by improving local governance and increasing production, while respecting the environment: typical UN development project managing natural resources and empowering local authorities to reach Millennium Development Goals.

Great, finished and just in time. I headed to the kitchen to prepare enough food to last me through the storm and hit the evening news. It had happened. The earthquake. I think we have all been in these situations, crushed by circumstances beyond our control. This was the epitome of #forcemajeur. All this hard work, time, investment, funding that had been raised for a significant relief project and development had been completely obliterated by some tectonic plates that just had to move in a place that just can never seem to get a break.

Well, these things seem to have a silver lining in the end. I was having one of those dinner conversations where my friends were telling me that, well, all translators would  be replaced by computers. You, know, that conversation that comes round again and again. And, this brought to mind Mission 4636. 

If you don't know about it, watch the video. This is inspiration. It's translation...

E-med records: A blessing or a curse?

As we all know, medical records are particularly challenging for translators; first and foremost because the majority of these documents are handwritten (SOAP notes, progress reports, prescriptions, etc.). Furthermore, many of these handwritten notes are shorthand transcriptions of information dictated by the physician while in the midst of conducting an examination, performing a surgical procedure, examining films, conducting an autopsy, etc.

The rise of e-medical records and, more recently, integration with Tablet PC handwriting recognition systems seemed to be the magic solution for converting obscure handwritten notes into intelligible and grammatically correct text. However, it was recently pointed out to me by a physician that most software fails in that there is no integrated symbol-recognition library. The vast, multilingual character banks do not account for non-character symbols, which are heavily used in medical notes.

Food for thought and certainly a challenge for developers who will need to work to combine mixed text and symbol recognition for each supported language. 

Looks like we will all just need to keep clicking our heels as we wait for a solution to the infamous physician handwriting problem.

Mistranslation Monday - Killer Translations

Linguists tend to revel in the absurd mistranslations that blow across their desks on a daily basis -- silly advertisements, gaffes, total gibberish -- but I was recently forwarded a fascinating article by Dr. Glenn Flores, "Language Barriers to Health Care in the United States," in the New England Journal of Medicine  on "killer" translations (in the literal sense and not being facetious here, for once).

In the article, Flores recounts the case of a Spanish-speaking 18-year-old who stumbled home and told his girlfriend he was "intoxicado" (nauseated), which the paramedics then took to mean "intoxicated," and the patient was subsequently treated for an alcohol and drug overdose. However, after more than 36 hours in the hospital, the patient was re-evaluated and diagnosed with a blood clot in his brain, which resulted in quadriplegia and a subsequent $71 million malpractice settlement.

Despite the National Health Law Program dictating that each state must now have a minimum of two legal provisions related to language access in the context of healthcare services, language barriers still clearly present an impediment to effective care with costly -- and potentially fatal -- consequences.

"Sitting back and just saying, 'God, I just wish these people would learn English' isn't enough. A hospital has got to do more than that if we are going to continue to saves lives."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Follow the jump for a full interview on the NEJM site with Dr. Flores.