How to Make Money from Translation

To make a long story short...

Jokes

Driving through a fog

An Archeological Dig

Language learning is a process of cultural excavation. At first, you’re simply pondering over shards and fragments, holding them up to the light, trying to put them in context.

Little by little, the culture behind the medley of artifacts starts to come through.

The ways people think and behave – and have thought and behaved over time – reveal themselves through the bits and pieces you’ve uncovered.

The point: Language is culture. Culture is language.

This basic lesson takes some time to figure out.

The longer you speak a language and the more time you spend in areas where it’s the native tongue, the better chance you stand of getting access to a new way of thinking and a new way of seeing the world.

Little by little, you come to realize that phrases and expressions you use for the sheer practical purpose of communication are deeply cultural, and reveal cultural values and beliefs.

Language learning is like driving up a long winding road through a thick fog. You arc around curve after curve, hypnotized by the monotony and the concentration of driving, by the feeling of being totally lost and insulated in your little car world.

Then you break through the fog. You’re at the flat peak of the mountain and a whole valley of undulating green, edged by a distant bay, spreads before you.

“Holy shit!” you think. This is what I’ve been approaching!?”

The point: Immersion is a fog.

If you’re really, truly immersed in a language and unable to escape it, you’re probably going to spend quite a bit of time feeling completely isolated and unsure of yourself.

You’re going to muddle through things and feel a bit lost in every conversation, just trying to inch up the road.

And then suddenly, there will be a moment, or moments, when you can sense how far you’ve come.

Additional reading

Have fun

A missionary goes to Africa to visit a community, a very old, primitive tribal community. He gives a long sermon. For half an hour he tells a long anecdote, and then the interpreter stands up. He speaks only four words and everyone laughs uproariously. The missionary is puzzled. How is it possible that a story half an hour long can be translated in four words. What kind of amazing language is this? Puzzled, he says to the interpreter, "You have done a miracle. You have spoken only four words. I don't know what you said, but how can you translate my story, which was so long, into only four words?"

The interpreter says, "Story too long, so I say, 'He says joke – laugh!' "

Help!

Two translators on a ship are talking.

"Can you swim?" asks one.

"No" says the other, "but I can shout for help in nine languages."

A Mexican bandit made a specialty of crossing the Rio Grande from time to time and robbing banks in Texas. Finally, a reward was offered for his capture, and an enterprising Texas Ranger decided to track him down. After a lengthy search, he traced the bandit to his favorite cantina, snuck up behind him, put his trusty six-shooter to the bandit's head, and said,

"You're under arrest. Tell me where you hid the loot or I'll blow your brains out."

But the bandit didn't speak English, and the Ranger didn't speak Spanish.

As luck would have it, a bilingual lawyer was in the saloon and translated the Ranger's message. The terrified bandit blurted out, in Spanish, that the loot was buried under the oak tree in back of the cantina.

"What did he say?" asked the Ranger.

The lawyer answered, "He said, 'Get lost, Gringo. You wouldn't dare shoot me.'"

And finally, the most hilarious joke about the ex US President George Bush, Jr, a very special man, who obviously had particular troubles with some things that were beyond the scope of the US borders. Enjoy!

http://www.otoons.com/politics/condoleezza.htm

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23