Britain – a nation of ‘languageless’ people?

Those who know better in Britain are deeply concerned over the the fact that hardly anyone still bothers with learning foreign languages. Even some of the more reputable universities have shut down their language departments.

What the latest rounds of A-level and GCSE exams have shown is that children in Britain are no longer learning foreign languages. To read how bad the situation has got, see here, here or here.

This creates quite a mess. For starters, with a population that is increasingly monolingual (and not even that, really), businesses will have to rely even more on immigrants to fill jobs that require language skills. At the EU, too, Britain is woefully underrepresented, because British candidates for positions in Brussels cannot meet the language requirements.

Almost every article I have seen on this problem lately has included the following quote, so I’ll do the same:

“Whoever is not acquainted with languages knows nothing of his own.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Indeed, and I’ll argue, therefore, that there is no such thing as a monolingual person, because anyone who doesn’t speak a second language knows precious little about his/her own mother tongue, which means that they cannot function at 100 per cent and are, thus, alingual. Since I have been at least bilingual all my life, I cannot even begin to imagine what a miserable existence it must be not to have perfect command of even a single language. I pity such dysfunctional beings.

Post to Twitter

Posted in Academia, Languages | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Saying bye-bye to translators’ associations

A while ago I mused about the usefulness of translators’ associations and how I was considering cancelling or not renewing my existing memberships. I am now happy to report that I have come to a decision.

After not renewing my ATA and ATIO memberships a few years ago, I will now let my two remaining memberships, ATIA and STIBC, lapse as well.

While the membership fees (a few hundred dollars) may not seem much for a whole year, they are still excessive when taking into account that the benefit, for me at least, has been nil.

In my view, Canada’s various translators’ associations have failed at what they were supposed to accomplish: establish Certified Translators as the only source of professional translation services and, thus, neutralize the black and grey markets that do exist in Canada.

Instead, companies hardly ever bother to look for translators in the directories of these associations. They pick up the Yellow Pages or use Google to find a suitable translator. The only ones who turn to the printed and online directories of the associations in Canada are immigrants or their immigration consultants when they need a driver’s licence or some other personal document translated.

Continue reading

Post to Twitter

Posted in Translators' Associations | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Finally: Academy of English

This is good news for all of us who are sick and tired of bad English everywhere these days:

The Academy of English, formed by the Queen's English Society, hopes to secure a royal charter by setting higher standards. Founder Martin Estinel said: “Let's set down a clear standard of good, correct, proper English.”

France and Spain, for example, have long had their own academies to protect the French and Spanish languages, respectively. But there has been nothing comparable for the English language (except, to a certain degree, the editors of the Oxford dictionaries).

The Queen’s English Society lists as examples of bad English the incorrect use of apostrophes (one Canadian blogger, over forty and still living on welfare and plenty of time to blog nonsense, for example, doesn’t know the difference between “won’t” and “wont” or “its” and “it’s”) or misplacing the stress in a sentence.

Personally, I would implement stiff fines for any mistake or misuse. Unfortunately, the Society won’t go that far. But setting up an Academy of English is a good start.

Post to Twitter

Posted in English Language | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Good news for my clients: I now have Trados

I first tried Trados almost ten years ago. Back then, it was a program full of glitches that would repeatedly freeze MS WORD and crash my computer.

I tried it again a few years after that, only to find that even its then-current version was just as flawed.

Now, though, I have made the jump into SDL Trados 2009 (which also includes SDL Trados 2007), and I’m happy to report that this version of the CAT software finally works.

This is good news for many of my clients. They work with Trados, but they have generously allowed me to work on their files using wordfast classic instead. Well, no more of that workaround. From now on Werner Patels can provide full “Trados service”.

Post to Twitter

Posted in CAT software | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Are you still happy with your translators’ association?

I used to be quite the pest on online message boards years ago when I would spend a lot of time telling everyone that membership of a professional translators’ association should be made mandatory for anyone wanting to work as a translator. But the years passed since have taught me a different lesson.

First, I dropped out of ATA (American Translators’ Association). I had become extremely dissatisfied with their poor professional standards and the way in which they protect fraudulent, non-paying translation agencies at the expense of freelance translators. And their “certification exams” are an insult and a joke.

Then, I discontinued my ATIO membership (the association in Ontario). Their membership fees are the highest in Canada, but members don’t really see any benefits. What is more, ATIO, too, began courting agencies and companies and promoting their interests over those of freelancers.

I have only two memberships left – STIBC in British Columbia and ATIA in Alberta. But I’m considering dropping them too.

Continue reading

Post to Twitter

Posted in Translators' Associations | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ontario court interpreters found to be incompetent

This doesn’t come as a surprise to me:

One out of three Ontario courtroom translators failed proficiency tests administered by the Ministry of the Attorney-General last year.

Another third did poorly enough that they have been placed on probationary status by the ministry, Paul Burstein, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, said Monday.

Mr. Burstein said the figures were revealed recently by a ministry witness who was called to testify by Mr. Justice Casey Hill of Ontario Superior Court, who has expressed repeated concerns in the past about the quality of translation in the courts.

I have complained about the quality of court interpreting in this country, and in Ontario especially, for a very long time. I have seen in action many of those who call themselves “interpreters” when, clearly, they are not, such as one, highly uneducated and not-too-bright, German twit who worked as a tour guide and also doubled as a “court interpreter”. She’d even go and tell everyone about the confidential details she’d hear in court, thus violating some of the most fundamental rules of our court system. Her English skills were also abysmal.

The whole industry – translation, conference interpreting, court and community interpreting – in Canada is a source of immense shame for a country that prides itself on its two official languages and multiculturalism. One wouldn’t expect it from a country like Canada, but we have some of the lousiest and least professional translators and interpreters in the world. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that we have the worst in the world.

What are the professional associations doing about this? Nothing. ATIO in Ontario, for example, is more concerned about promoting the interests of translation agencies and companies, instead of representing freelancers (thus making the same mistake that has ruined the reputation of ATA in the United States).

Over the years, I have lost faith in professional associations. I have left ATA and ATIO, and I am now considering not renewing my two remaining memberships, STIBC and ATIA. The translation and interpreting professions in Canada are becoming a major joke, and as a freelance, I don’t see or receive any benefit from belonging to Canadian associations any longer.

Post to Twitter

Posted in Court and Community Interpreting | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Wordfast Pro doesn’t yet work with all computer systems

Update: Wordfast has relented and refunded payment for the faulty software.

Before it was the typewriter, but nowadays no translator can be without a high-grade computer and good professional software. As everyone in the business knows, that includes CAT tools, or Computer-Assisted Translation software, such as Déja Vu, Trados, Across and Wordfast.

A while ago, Wordfast came out with Wordfast Pro, a newer and, supposedly, more sophisticated version of Wordfast Classic (which essentially works along the same principles as Trados).

A translator decided to give it a try and downloaded the demo version of Wordfast Pro. During the trial period, no actual TM was used, because the demo version limits the size of TMs. So, instead, the link-up to Google machine translation was used for testing purposes.

Everything looked and worked fine, so the translator decided to purchase the licence for the software. But it was then that the problems started.

Now using actual TMs and, for the first time, testing the claim of Wordfast Pro that it was compatible with Microsoft Office 2007 (e.g., file format .docx), the program would repeatedly crash. In addition, it was impossible to preview the translated output, and saving (i.e., exporting) the translation didn’t work either.

Continue reading

Post to Twitter

Posted in CAT software | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Quality of simultaneous interpretation in Canada

As a translator and simultaneous interpreter, I can confirm Naomi Lakritz's assertion that translation is never black and white. I also agree with her that Canadians should not be made to rely on interpretation alone, as the quality of simultaneous interpretation in this country is often very poor. One of the official Ottawa interpreters in a live TV broadcast, for example, kept interpreting "dans un café" in a speaker's story about how he sat in a coffee shop and discussed the issues of the day with voters as "sitting in a coffee." He'd make that same mistake several times in the span of a few minutes. Not only do most simultaneous interpreters in Canada lack the proper training, they're also often found to be translating into a language other than their first language (such as the one in my example), which is a gross breach of professional standards and ethics.

Werner Patels, Calgary

via www.calgaryherald.com

This is my letter-to-the-editor printed in the Calgary Herald today, in reply to the opinion column by Naomi Lakritz.

Post to Twitter

Posted in Interpreting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Welcome to Ontario, Canada’s backwater

Apparently, the University of Toronto has decided to discontinue programs for several foreign languages. Well, isn’t that smart?

I left Ontario several years ago, because I could see the writing on the wall, of a province that was quickly becoming the nation’s backwater and bottom-feeder. This latest move just proves my point.

Apart from that, I think it’s a major embarrassment that Canada doesn’t have a single internationally renowned university school for translators and interpreters. For a country that wears multiculturalism as a “badge of honour”, this is an atrocious oversight.

Canada needs more, not fewer, language programs – and also in English and French. Several recent surveys and studies have confirmed that virtually half the population of Canada is functionally illiterate, i.e., people can read individual words but cannot make sense of them in context.

One letter-writer in Canada’s national newspaper Globe and Mail found the (gallows) humour behind this story:

The University of Toronto’s decision to cut foreign languages, including Latin, reminds me of the Congressman from Alabama who expressed his disdain for the teaching of foreign languages in the U.S. by saying “if English was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.”

Hmm, I wonder if Jesus spoke American English or the Queen’s English, though.

Post to Twitter

Posted in Languages | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Is it really another Shakespeare play?

They're known as the sniffer dogs of Shakespeare's plays – unstoppable academics who refuse to admit that the Bard's famous lost plays are really, truly gone forever.

You've never heard of Shakespeare's historical romance Cardenio?

That's hardly surprising, since it was performed just twice, in 1613, and then failed to crack the first authoritative text of the playwright's works published in 1623. But four centuries of absence haven't been enough to discourage Professor Brean Hammond of Nottingham University in England, who yesterday claimed that he had turned up the missing play.

via www.theglobeandmail.com

I have to admit that I have doubts about Prof. Hammond’s claim to have unearthed this “new” Shakespeare play. My area of specialization is 18th/19th-century English literature, but looking at the excerpt provided in today’s newspaper (see below), I don’t get the sense that it “feels” like something Shakespeare could have written, even leaving aside the rewrite imposed on it by Lewis Theobald.

It may well be possible that Theobald’s Double Falsehood used bits and pieces, or the general plot, of Cardenio, but whatever is preserved of it today can hardly qualify for inclusion in the Shakespeare canon, can it?

Lopez [to Fabian]: Soft, soft you, neighbour; who comes here? Pray you, slink aside. [They withdraw.]

Henriquez: Ha! Is it come to this? O the devil, the devil, the devil!

Fabian [to Lopez]: Lo you now, for want of the discreet ladle of a cool understanding will this fellow's brains boil over!

Henriquez: To have enjoy'd her, I would have given – what?

All that at present I could boast my own,

And the reversion of the world to boot

Had the inheritance been mine. And now –

Just doom of guilty joys! – I grieve as much

That I have rifled all the stores of beauty,

Those charms of innocence and artless love,

As just before I was devour'd with sorrow,

That she refus'd my vows and shut the door

Upon my ardent longings.

Lopez [to Fabian]: Love! Love! Downright love! I see by the foolishness of it.

Post to Twitter

Posted in Literature | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment