Our Linguists of the Month

We at Small World Language Services wish to honor our valued linguists with a special focus in our monthly newsletter!

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Our Valued Linguists

We at Small World Language Services wish to honor our valued linguists. Below is an interview with one of our linguist couples: Steven Huddleston and Adriana Martinez, based in Carolina, Puerto Rico.

1) Tell us a little bit about yourselves, i.e. where you’re from, when and how you two met and decided to become linguists and subsequently, start your own language company together.

I was born in Puerto Rico, where I have lived practically all of my life. My father was from Arkansas, USA, and my mother from San Sebastian, PR. Neither spoke the other’s language very well, so, out of necessity, my brother and I grew up speaking both. I began my reading adventures with the comic books in my parent’s drugstore, then moved on to the paperback digests available for the tourists, by the time I read my first novel (The Time Machine by H.G. Wells) I was already hooked on literature. I worked in the drugstore to support my reading habit until I discovered my other passion, computers, and rose through the ranks from a tinkering amateur to a full blown professional software engineer all on my own, (there were no computer science courses in the universities back then, and no, I will not say when that was…)

I began my career as a linguist, by accident, really; once my employers discovered I was equally versatile in both English and Spanish, I was assigned to translate all manner of company documents and manuals.

I met Adriana on the Internet, which was no accident; we were both looking for each other and had the skills to do it online in an age when Google was just the name of a one with a million zeroes. Adriana was a professional linguist working as an editor/translator for a publishing agency in Mexico. Years later, Adriana decided to stay at home to raise our daughter, it was a good move, she started her own little enterprise translating documents over the Internet to supplement the family income in her spare time. Becoming a freelance professional translator was a gradual process for me. I started following Adriana’s lead, taking on jobs now and then during my spare time. It turned out to be just as intricate and challenging as designing software. I fell in love with it. It wasn’t long before I realized I might someday make a living out of it. Then, having grown weary of modern “cowboy programmers” and in spite of the current worldwide economic crisis, I quit my career of more than 25 years and decided to jump into translations full time; lock, stock, and barrel. In one year we “doubled” the household income, and to keep the government from sniffing around and slobbering all over our rapidly growing money pile, we became a corporate entity. Really, we should have done this years ago!

2) What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as businesspeople (and in Adriana’s case, as a foreigner) in Puerto Rico?

Oh wow, I don’t know where to start! I suppose finding a good and responsible accountant for our business has been the worst. You’d think they grow on trees, well; the bad ones do, anyway. Another big toughie was learning to deal with the many personalities we encounter in the course of our everyday business. Some customers are easy, they love everything you do, or just say nothing and pay you. While others, well, they have needs, and we have to bite the bullet and provide for those needs, however eccentric or wild their requests may be. The customer is ALWAYS right. I believe this attitude, more than anything, is the key to our success. But also, you have to truly, honestly love what you do. It shows in the work you turn in and don’t ever think others don’t notice. Somehow, somewhere, however subtly or subliminally, they do!

Then, of course, sometimes you get too high on yourself, and bite off more than you can chew. I discovered a whole community of colleagues willing to help me meet my own unreasonable expectations. Learning to simmer your ambitions down to a boil has been tough, but I think I got a good, sustainable rhythm going now.

But the worst of all is when an unscrupulous customer decides to default on his payment even before they hire you. Oh yes, it happens. That always hurts, of course, but you learn that you are bigger than that, and also, you learn to sniff them out. The important thing is, they are bad, and you are good, so it makes no sense to feel bad about that. Shake it off, move on. Ahead is only one direction.

3) How did you get started in translation? How and when did you start? How would you describe your business?

I think I’ve already answered the first two in the first question, as for how I would describe our business, I think I’m going to answer that by doing a cut and paste from our own website, I know that sounds cheap, but to be fair, I wrote that text myself, so its valid, and besides we all know cut-and-paste is the translators best friend. Are you ready? Here it goes:

“We are a husband and wife team of full-time professional translators specializing in English to Spanish and Spanish to English translations with over 30 years of combined experience translating documents of all kinds for a variety of industries in countries around the world.

“Each one of us is a native speaker of their particular target language, and equally fluent in the source language. Having had careers in news publications and information technologies respectively, (where our unique bilingual abilities were often called upon to provide in-house translations for our employers), our combined talents make us exceptionally qualified to provide fast and accurate translations for documents of almost any kind and almost any industry.”

Egad! That’s not too cheesy, is it?

4) What was the translation industry like when you started your business? How would you describe the industry today? Many translators believe this is a dying industry, what do you think about that?

I don’t believe translations existed as an industry back then. Oh, I knew translators existed somewhere. But as an organized body of professionals, I don’t think so. Well, in any case, my interests were elsewhere back then and I am sorry I didn’t think to look around and see what the translating world was like.

Today, however, I would describe the translation market as a booming industry. Driven by the globalization trend, the need for quality translations has done nothing but grow increasingly more intense over the past few years, and there seems to be no end in sight. Globalization is in its infancy, and it will not come of age until the entire planet has a single currency, that is still a ways off, and translations can do nothing but grow in all that time. The trend for this industry is one of continuous growth for the next ten years, at least. There are not many markets that can boast that kind of outlook.

I am surprised, and a little saddened, to learn that many translators believe this to be a dying industry. Surprised, because any casual glance at what the market trend for translations is will reveal the opposite, and I was under the impression that as freelance translators, we all keep an anxious eye firmly fixed upon the market. Saddened,, because in light of what the actual market trend for translations is, my dear colleagues who feel this way are obviously projecting some personal shortcoming, perhaps, that infuses their performance, (and hence, their success), with a negative influence, and thus, their grim outlook of the industry is really a reflection of their own results, and not the translation market trend, not by any stretch of the imagination.

5) What would you say is the key to running a successful translation business?

Attention to details, attention to customer needs, keep every deadline, answer every email ASAP, the customer is ALWAYS right, (especially when he is not), consume enormous quantities of coffee. (Well, maybe the coffee isn’t really required; I just like it a lot!)

6) What advice would you give freelance translators who are interested in working with you?

Nothing is as unproductive as an excuse: Tell me what the problem is, and together we can find a solution. Communicate everything: Even the slightest or most seemingly ridiculous questions should and must be asked. The only stupid question is the one that isn’t asked. Love what you do, or leave it for someone who does.

7) How do you manage working together as a husband & wife team? What about balancing family and other priorities/responsibilities in life?

Well, it isn’t easy. We are both relentless and totally absorbed when it comes to our work, so interruptions hurt, a lot, but they are necessary and we know it. Also, as is the case, I imagine, with most translators, we have strong and unyielding opinions/prejudices/dogma about what constitutes the proper use of language in our respective pairs. We each keep to our own expertise and consult each other only after we have exhausted all other research resources, to keep those dastardly interruptions down to the barest minimum, and we do our darnedest to smile and say things in a nice way.

It doesn’t always work, but knowing each other’s passion for what we do helps to understand that it is not personal, and our professional differences make for some highly enlightening and educating discussions, (even when neither ego is willing to yield). Having the same career and goals also helps us to understand each other; our values, frustrations, fears, levels of stress or exhaustion, etc. and I believe a better appreciation for the other grows naturally from this, establishing a whole new level of awareness, even admiration, for the other.

Being professional partners has opened up new avenues of communication and understanding between us, which helps us to understand and complement each other, not only in our professional partnership, but also in our personal development as a marriage, as a family, and as a comprehensive team that encompasses all challenges in life, whether they are personal or professional.

As for balancing family needs with other priorities; this is the quandary that has vexed mankind since before we started climbing down from our trees. As with all things, I think we are better than some, but not as good as others. Anyone who has moved out of their parent’s home knows it isn’t easy, and let’s be honest; every juggler drops a ball once in a while. The important thing is not that something was dropped, but how well and how quickly we pick it up again, and, on a secondary plane, how cool and graceful we look doing it. The one thought that has kept me sane through every ordeal, disaster, emergency, or faux pas is: Everything changes; this too, will pass. So, never think you won’t drop something, but never think that you will either, better to spend the time thinking about how to scoop it back up when you do, and preferably, before anyone else notices, and if they do, how to look really cool doing it.

Our solutions define us, not our problems.

8) What has been your experience working with Small World Language Services?

Over the years, it has been my privilege to work, (and continue to work), with a number of outsourcers from several countries, spanning the globe. Each has their own little ways in which they are different and unique, based on regional and cultural peculiarities and philosophies. That is why I feel perfectly at ease when I say that Small World Language Services is the finest outsourcer I have worked with.

Kimberlee is a highly competent professional with a keen, almost uncanny ability to find solutions to almost any situation. I’ve seen her find resources to counter difficult, almost impossible situations, almost as soon as they occur. She is, at the same time, sweet, kind and considerate, but also, strict, firm, and demanding, when the situation calls for it; and she instinctively knows what kind of pressure to apply to get the most out of her people.

For more info, see Steve and Adriana’s website: http://www.kongaloid.com/

Getting Personal with Languages

By Kimberlee Thorne-Waintraub, owner of Small World Language Services & Quality Translation, Seasoned Proofreader, Language Arts & Culture Coach and wearer of many other hats

It’s interesting how one becomes naturally impelled to write something like this, in the quest for defining your own personal, yet ever changing definition and how my experiences shape my role in this global community of language collaborators. My contribution today is an attempt to convey how my personal experience has evolved into who I am today.

When I started accepting my first official language gigs in this industry, it was unknown to me that I was making a natural professional transition from verbal communication to that of written, after attempting to mentor my own language students into techniques that would help them communicate in the best way possible.

Moreover, I was tired of doing the same thing, answering the same basic questions over and over again and although I loved the social and cultural interaction with my English students on a personal basis, I was a little bored (more like “drained”) and frankly speaking, I wanted to delve deeper into different languages and find the inner workings of why and how languages work and what makes them tick…

I wanted to work in an area that stimulated me intellectually and one that would force me to read varied texts that would enrich my own vocabulary, yet one that allowed me to reconstruct them and make them better, while adding my personal touch. Fortunately, my wish was granted. Hurray!

This “new activity” consisted of proofreading and editing jobs for my English students and clients who needed real help in creating and rewriting their own essays and emails for their own academic and business correspondence and documents, and others which required a native English speaker’s polished touch.

This required the perspective of someone who could understand the language nuances, grammar and subtleties in English, but ideally it could only be interpreted correctly by someone who had been born and raised in an English speaking country, and who later moved to a foreign country and lived enough time there to understand how the locals live and think on a daily basis and understand their mindsets. It helped to be married to a local, thus I got the inside view instead of a tourist one.

In my case, I started out as a private English teacher (15 years as of date), and with time, due to the immersion process of experiencing daily life in a foreign environment, I could also the roots of the original or source language (in my case, Spanish) in order to understand the thinking process of someone who thought in another mindset, which is a separate chapter in itself, and maybe even a whole series of research that has been done by others on this subject…

Thus, I soon began to realize that there was a huge need for written text to be handled clearly, concisely and be well-communicated, so I began a somewhat fruitless quest in my attempt to teach them how to do this on a personalized level. However, I also realized after a time, that unless the individual had been taught to write clearly in his/her own native language and had continued to utilize these skills on a fairly regular basis, it was very unlikely that the same concept could be taught and successfully incorporated in a second or foreign language.

In summary, and many years later, after taking on one too many poorly written texts in Spanish and Portuguese to English, I have also come to the very clear conclusion that very few texts are written well in the first place…

This is a real issue that we deal with as writers, translators, editors, reviewers and post QA professionals who are given the task of dealing with a less than perfect text that we, for as much as we struggle to do our personal and group best, can rarely produce a quality text, simply due to the fact that the “raw material”, otherwise known as “the source text” got off on “the wrong foot”. I have often witnessed the process of a text that went wrong somehow, since my professional duties are mainly two-fold: Project Management and Revision.

In this fast-paced world that has become accustomed to instant (just add water) food preparation, auto-pilot and mass production, few are able to take the time and effort required to truly do something well, yet we understand that some processes really do deserve to be done in a careful and time-taking fashion, i.e., slow food, cheese, wine, and yes, business reports and written documents (especially emails) are no exception. Therefore, we find that if these necessary steps aren’t taken, the results are far from satisfactory in the end and the end product or service suffers greatly…

As a seasoned reviewer and often the last stop for Quality Assurance, I naturally detect errors in written text in so many places where one would think and take for granted that someone has at least re-read or proofread the text before sending it along to the readers. This is commonly found in social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, professional CVs and cover letters, emails, blogs and newspapers. Furthermore, with so many texts going around continually on the Internet these days, this trend is growing more prevalent, and at an alarming rate, in my opinion.

I’d like to start with the definition of what Proofreading means, according to BusinessDictionary.com (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/proof-reading.html):

Careful reading (and rereading) of a (yet to be finally-printed) document, to detect any errors in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. It may also involve checking of different elements of a layout (such as headlines, paragraphs, illustrations, and colors) for their correct dimensions, placement, type, etc. Every author knows that (despite the spelling checking abilities of modern word processors) a human proof reader is indispensable. See also editing.
Many of you reading this will probably be thinking, “how obvious”, probably due to the fact that you work with language on a regular basis… But you may be surprised to hear that texts are getting worse in these modern times, especially due to the onset of emails, chat sessions and text messages that often corrupt and abbreviate text. Don’t even let me get started on today’s generation of youth that will consequently be those who write our future texts!
I often see e-mails in English that make me think, “Uh-oh. This person is in trouble!” I often wonder if they realize how their writing abilities portray them as a business professional and expose their corporate and personal images openly to others.

Typos and words that are similar from one language to another are what we call “false friends”. They appear to be one thing in one language, but it clearly has another meaning in the second language.

I will use a real example from one of my clients, when I asked about a payment that hadn’t been sent out, and this is the reply I received from my client:

Dear Kim,

I am sorry for the incontinence you had. I am in Italy and just got your message and took care of it right away. For some reason your invoice did not reach the accounting, so I have made sure you will be paid.

Best regards,

If you don’t know what “incontinence” means, I’ll tell you now. It means the inability to retain your own body liquids – a condition that is frequent among elderly people, but certainly not for people my age (I’m in my mid 40s now).

Additionally, when you write in a language that is not your own native tongue, you might tend to rely on your own abilities to do it well, without knowing that it doesn’t sound natural in a foreign tongue. But let’s face it – we are prone to make mistakes, especially since we may not be aware of the fact that we’re making them. It may be more forgivable to make those mistakes while with friends and family, but it’s not alright to make them in business, especially when your image is so at stake.

And since English is the language we currently use in business throughout the world, our writing skills are constantly put to the test. Make sure you proofread/review your written text and if you can, have it read by a native of the language you’re writing in. As a minimum, run the spellchecker in that language. You may be surprised how many mistakes have been made.

Until your writing skills get up to par in a foreign tongue, try to rely on a good native speaker to help you out. There are experts available who can provide you with professional services like email writing and revision, document creation and translation, with the aim of helping you communicate better.
Kimberlee Thorne-Waintraub is an experienced linguist, proofreader and project manager from the USA. She has published multiple articles on the fields of Translation, Localization, Proofreading and Editing. She currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

What your Project Manager is (probably) thinking

What your Project Manager is (probably) thinking

by Kimberlee Thorne-Waintraub (Owner of Small World Language Services, moderator of Quality Translation on Facebook, and wearer of many other hats)



Before I create any false expectations on this article, I want to make my own disclaimer before you read this. There is no way that my thoughts may be completely representative of any other Project Manager (hereafter "PM" or “PMs” in the plural form). However, based on my own experience doing this as my professional activity for many years, I would dare say that my opinion is not too far off from a fairly good view of what many other PMs think from time to time...



So here we go, in our attempt to get inside a PM's brain! Wish me luck…



Unless your direct client list is beating a well-trodden path from their location to yours, often breaking your door down, begging you to do language services for them that should have been delivered yesterday, chances you could use some of this helpful advice. However, if your door has been ripped apart and resembles your client's silhouette on it (like an episode from Cartoon Network), by all means, write ME back ASAP and give me your advice, which I will gladly take and run with it, not mentioning your name, for confidentiality sake!



If your path looks covered with snow (or leaves (plural of leaf) like mine), well then, let’s face it - your main income sources most likely come from at least one or two PMs (hopefully more) who represent a translation agency or another similar organization, or surprise, surprise, other translators like you…



And you are most likely considered one of their “resources”, meaning you are one of their “worker bees” or “soldiers”, as I prefer to call members of my wonderful linguist team, or as I am often found telling my people, “Carry on faithful soldier”, while encouraging someone to keep going at an odd hour of the morning, when most of the world in my parts of the Americas should be sleeping… After all, I'm the "queen bee” cracking that whip and the one who will be sending out their payment in the end, right?



Wrong! My collaborators are my partners, an extension of my own self and of the services I have to offer, and form a powerful fusion and force that when in action, is pretty unstoppable!



First of all, let me tell you who I am, and that means revealing myself at the personal level. I'm the owner of a small niche agency called Small World Language Services, whose services specialize in just 3 languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese. I’m originally from the United States, but I have lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina enough to say that my breakfast regularly consists of an Argentine drink called 'mate’ and ‘medialunas’ (croissants in English) and ‘dulce de leche’ (milk jam, coined by exporters from Argentina).



Another thing – I don’t have enough work to give everyone who reads this, simply due to the fact that my organization is still small, but we’re powerful because we work hard, believe in what we do and have great potential to grow more than what we have done in a year (200%)! We are currently among the top 5 on proz.com this year (2011), but it’s not because we’re the biggest agency out there. We’re just focusing on what we do best in the languages we can handle and aren’t interested in offering all the world’s languages and services that the others do.



Nevertheless, just because we won’t always get the chance to work together doesn’t make you any less valuable to me. On the contrary – my organization also does research on multicultural people, which guess what? If you’re a translator, project manager, traveler, expat, or similar, you fit the mold, and I want to get to know you too! Chances are your story could be on our “YouTube” channel someday if we’re able to establish a relationship of trust and make it happen.



I have learned some ways to keep clients coming back over the long-term, and believe me, I want and need my clients and if possible (which I know it is), I want and need more of them...



Nonetheless, I consider myself a dedicated linguist, project manager and excellent reviewer in English. I care about quality and I want anything entrusted to us to come out as impeccable as possible, and I try to do everything it takes to get the job done, and believe me, you don’t want to know what that has required so far…



This is what I’ve learned over the years about PMs, who, by the way, are perfectly normal people like any of us, but who have the role of being responsible for all the aspects of a project, which usually means it has been sold by a sales person, confirmed and accepted, handed over to a PM, who will then decide who gets put on each step of the project, what requirements are needed, within the budget constraints and deadline requested, oh, while pleasing the client along the way until the end, crossing their fingers and often praying that things will turn out well, meaning everyone will still have their hair and hasn’t killed anyone in the process...



Geez, that whole mini job description was exhausting in itself! And believe me, it is. A PM’s job is not easy at best. To the contrary, it’s a high stress job that few are capable of doing well and one that requires an attention to detail, good communication and you know what else? A good sense of humor! Yes, folks, can I tell you how important that has become? You have no idea how much...



This is something I learned from a very valued collaborator located on a sunny island located in the middle of the Caribbean. He knows who he is, but since he’s so good, I'm keeping his name top secret or he’ll get so many job offers that he’ll never be available for me ... But we have grown professionally together throughout the last few years, and he has been the perfect collaborator: trustworthy, good communicator, excellent team member, and does all this with an extremely eccentric sense of humor, even when he sends his invoices. He, along with his wonderful and loving partner in crime (his wife), who is also a great translator, make a great partnership and are people who I have learned to love and appreciate so much…



My wonderful collaborators have taught me how to be a more effective PM, better person and have blessed my life greatly in so many ways, gotten me some cool gifts from other places and some very delicious meals, by following these steps that could easily be named "The Top 10 top secret tips of Working in the Translation Industry":



1) Create a relationship of trust from the beginning. This goes for both sides. Can you yourself do the job well or not? You need to tell me the truth of what's going on with the project, any questions you may have, and if anything goes less than perfect, let's work together to try and make it better. Don't lie to me and tell me that you can do a job when you're lying in a hammock in the middle of the Bahamas, or put one of your substandard colleagues on the project instead of you. That creates mistrust and makes me think you’re only in this for the money, which by the way cannot be hidden once we do the Quality Assurance step… On the other hand, if you do a great job, you'll not only get paid for the first job, but you'll get repeat work from me, and probably lots of it...



2) Respond quickly to job offerings. The saying, “The early bird gets the worm" is so true. If you need to, invest in a mobile device that allows you to communicate quickly. Then be communicative throughout the project until the end. Please, don’t leave me hanging in the middle of a project wondering whether you’ve either been checked into the hospital or your private jet has been hijacked to the middle of some unnamed island that’s not even on the world or local map. Which leads me to my next point…



3) Communicate! Though an email, a phone call, a public computer, text message, mobile device, through someone else or smoke signals if necessary. As long as you can breathe, you can communicate somehow to me and let me know what’s going on with the project I've entrusted to you. I as a PM cannot fathom how you can just disappear off the face of the earth, unless you really did get sucked into the inner bowels of the earth, due to some natural disaster, i.e., an unforeseen circumstance has truly happened, which does happen once in a blue moon anyway, and those circumstances do happen. I just hope it doesn't happen while you're committed to one of my projects!



4) Make me remember you, but for good things. I've worked with so many people over the years, but unless we do a few successful projects together, I probably won't remember you and you'll get lost in the database. It's not on purpose! I'm probably the one missing out on your great services.



5) Be a flexible team player. We aren't always given the best budgets or deadlines to work with, and sometimes the jobs come trickling in instead of steady volume on a regular basis. We need people who can understand our clients’ needs. On the other hand, when better budgets are given to us, we'll be glad to pass that onto you since you're a real team player and we can count on you, and choose to reward you with a higher rate whenever possible.



6) When things go wrong, as they will at times, admit when you were wrong and the work wasn’t up to standard. This shows a PM maturity and responsibility on your part and demonstrates that you care about the quality of the work you’re delivering, and it can oftentimes recover a lost client. Ask them for the reviewed file, so you can check it yourself. You don’t prove anything to a PM by arguing that you were right and the work was in good shape, when it wasn’t… Help me resolve what’s not going right. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.



7) Be nice and don’t forget your manners. This is something I shouldn’t have to tell you, but as the world is getting more and more competitive and resources of all kind (food, money, oil, etc.) are getting scarcer, I cannot emphasize this enough. Be grateful for the work you get, and thank the people who give you work. After all, those people are our treasures and a means to make our dreams come true. They deserve to be treated well and yes, loved and pamperedJ



8) Show gratitude for the work received. I know what you’re thinking. She just said that, so why is she saying that again? This means thanking the person who gives you work, offering your services from time to time by saying you’re available and offering new services that can be in demand, and saying thank you for the payment. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Yes folks, this gesture can go a long way, believe me.



9) Be ethical and don’t contact or steal my clients. As a linguist, you are often entrusted with confidential or sensitive information. Do not betray this trust. Sooner or later, this will come back to haunt you. The Golden Rule: Do unto others what you'd have them do until you. and the reverse, Don't do unto others what you don’t want them to do until you. Enough said…



10) Find humor while doing work. Just this last weekend, while working on a very large rush job, a colleague of mine and I came up with the term "Vatman", which means “Very Accurate Translator” and "Vatmobile", which means my translator’s laptop. These are ways that I encourage my people to keep doing a good job and that also make them want to keep working with me while making a normally stressful job a bit more enjoyable…



I hope you’ve found this article helpful and a bit amusing. I welcome your comments and hope to get to know all of you over time through this group.







For more info, see our website at www.smallworldlanguages.net

Proz.com profile - http://www.proz.com/profile/77598



or Like us at our Facebook company page at http://tinyurl.com/4v3upb4





Small World Language Services is a corporate member of the ATA (American Translators Association).

Say Good-bye to Your Dragon Tattoo: Why Translation Still Does and Will Always Matter

YALE PRESS LOG

The importance of translation in bringing new books and ideas into English is crucial. Although no one has declared a universal language since Louis XIV, the dominance of English in international commerce, media, and even academia is impossible to ignore. Yet merely an estimated three percent of the hundreds of thousands of books published in the United States have been translated from non-English languages, and the volume of new, translated work from modern and contemporary writers is even less. Read more

HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY!

JULY 20th--- International Friendship Day!

It was originally promoted by Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark cards in 1919, however, it didn't stick in the United States. In South Asia it is widely celebrated, and I can speak personally that in Argentina it is an excuse to have a good party with friends.

Prior to visiting Argentina, I had never heard of Friendship Day, or as they say in Spanish "El Día del Amigo". Friends send text messages, meet up for dinner and drinks, and sometimes give small gifts to each other. Although I think it is a nice idea, celebrating a day for friends has never crossed my mind before. As it is, we are with friends every chance we get. They are the people we chose to share our lives with outside of our families. But I am left thinking that there is no harm in having a day to reflect on all the great people you have in your life and enjoy a few more good moments together.

I wonder why it faded in the United States. Perhaps it is because we already have enough Hallmark days as it is.

TRANSLATIONS GONE WRONG

It seems simple enough. You can enter the phrase into an online translator, use a dictionary, or what you learned in grade school. Companies and businesses translate greetings, directions, and warnings to deliver important messages to people of other languages and countries. The intention to connect and bridge communication gaps is present, however, it is blemished and marked with humor and lack of professionalism.

We can laugh or gasp at a sign that is poorly translation, be forgiving of their errors, but it's a shame that their good intention and the real meaning is lost in the translation.

Have a good laugh at these signs, but let's make sure we do it right!



Photo by: Drpoulette(*)
Photo taken of a sign at a restaurant in Mexico.














Photo by: djrue













Buzzandthecity.com

New Services added to our company!

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that we've just partnered up with a voiceover (VO) provider that can not only handle your voice over projects in several languages, but also write your scripts.

This is a new offering for us, and we're very excited to do it.

For any information, see our website at www.smallworldlanguages.net or write us at info@smallworldlanguages.net

Kimberlee Thorne-Waintraub
Owner

Small World Language Services: "Captain's Log," Stardate February 24, 2011

Small World Language Services: "Captain's Log," Stardate February 24, 2011

"Captain's Log," Stardate February 24, 2011

I logged onto the Internet tonight to see that the space shuttle Discovery had taken its final flight into space this morning. I clearly remember the first time a shuttle was launched into space and returned safely. I was in junior high school, in my science class, of all places, and our teacher, an aging man (who died later that year), set up a television set and we watched a replay of the launch which had occurred two days earlier, then watched, live, Columbia's flawless landing. It was a thrilling start to a new age in space exploration in which a manned space craft could actually return to earth in the beautiful and majestic form of a giant gliding aircraft with wings, and return to space again! I had remembered the test flight of the Enterprise shuttle four years earlier, before I had reached puberty and was steeped in the then brand new Star Wars phenomenon of that same summer. I would not have yet received my first Star Wars action figures or miniature Millenium Falcon ship or Star Destroyer until later that November for my birthday, or December for Christmas. Everything seemed to be about outer space and discovery in the summer of 1977, and would continue to be for some time, as far as I was concerned. My best friend of the time and I obsessively used to build spaceships out of Lego's in our pre-adolescent days (before they came pre-designed, with instructions, like today!), and moonbases resembling the moonbase on the futuristic television show Space: 1999 (which seemed impossibly distant in the future at the time). NASA's test shuttle Enterprise had even been named after the television series Star Trek's USS Starship Enterprise. A lifetime would feel like it had passed between the ages of 10 and 14, between Enterprise's piggy-back ride on a 747, its successful glider landing, and Columbia's historic launch into orbit and safe return through the blazing heat of free-fall re-entry in 1981.

Now, here I am in 2011 watching a replay of Discovery's final launch over this thing called the Internet (the PC was not even a household item yet in 1981!), and I feel as if another lifetime has passed since that day in my junior high school science classroom.

I felt moved as I watched Discovery's final ascent, while listening to the oddly comforting rumble of its rocket boosters escorting the shuttle to serve its final mission of "Discovery."

I watched as the camera mounted to the fuel tank showed a curving horizon, framed by an inky black and its accompanying "no-sound"...complete silence even in the separation of the fuel tank from the shuttle--as if it had moved beyond the physical world, like a reincarnated being finally breaking free from its cycle of mortality and arriving at last at Nirvana, and sending us back a transmission of what it saw...earth as one body, one spherical volume of molten core; cliff- and canyon-carved crust; colonies of ants working tirelessly, their labors riding piggy-back, as they march toward ant hills and underground ant civilizations; humans moving like ants across and through one another on city streets and avenues in New York, Shanghai, Riyadh and Buenos Aires; sprawling, automated sprinkler systems watering squares, rectangles, and circles of world crops, too far away to see from this altitude, but contemplatable through eyes of thousands of civilians peering down from passenger windows suspended somewhere between Discovery and earth at this very moment--and this morning, in the moment that two of those eyes might have been caught off guard by a vertical plume of smoke rising into the air appearing in the horizon, rising higher, above you, through the cirrus clouds, then melting into the stratosphere. And it dawns on you, this Thursday morning, that most people have never peered into the abyss of blue beneath you or beyond the darkening hues of cobalt above you.

But look--and go--NASA did.

When Discovery returns, she will return as a body, as the shell of Discovery's spirit, accompanied by pall bearer jets; but Discovery's spirit will remain "up there" with the dreams and reachings of humankind, who shall build more, and better space crafts to take us into space, to constantly move us closer and closer to unity with the mind of God, to "universe-"al knowledge.

Watching her disappear into the ether, as even the most advanced ground cameras struggled to keep her sight in their digitally-exacting motion-steadying eye pieces, was like watching the spirit of a loved one slowly slipping away from you in their final moments of dying, when you know they have moved beyond the point of no return and are already there in spirit even before their hearts have stopped and the spirit has left the body. It was like saying goodbye to someone I'd known for a very long time and for whom I'd grown to feel great affection over the years....

Discovery has not returned from space yet. But right now, I know she's up there floating, probably belly up, like I used to do in the ocean in the summers on beaches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine; feeling weightless, disembodied from the cares of the world, a chasmic depth of mystery beneath me and a domeless, infinite blue above me. I even remember floating on a quietly bobbing sea at night one time, staring at the stars, as the shuttle crew must find itself doing every now and then on their missions.

When Shuttle Discovery's body is "shuttled" home by two or more pallbearing fighter jets, I will greet her with flowers and a kiss on the cheek, where those tiles burned each time in a trial by fire--a trial necessary for her to go through each time she returned with new knowledge, and new Discoveries to share with all of humankind.

Not every trial has been perfect. The original Columbia, seen in her maiden voyage from my junior high science class, was not able to share with us the fruits of her last labors in February of 2003. I was well into my 30's when damaged wing tiles did not withstand the intense heat upon re-entry. Columbia, our beloved original, would be no more. Challenger's accident found fault in the opposite--freezing temperatures, blamed for leaking O-ring joints in the shuttle boosters two minutes into lift-off, in January of 1986.

Did you know that if the earth were to attempt to cozy just a smidgeon closer to the sun, toward the trajectory of Venus, that we would not survive the heat; or that if we were nudged just so much further way from the sun, closer to the orbit of Mars, we would all freeze to death?

Our planet and our dreams hang in a fine balance between exuberant ecstasy and catastrophe. Thankfully, we do not have to worry about the Earth's general safety in a universe of Newtonian physics governing, so elegantly, the motion of the planets and stars; but we humans, the one imperfect creature in this universe--though paradoxically the most "advanced" that we know of--must experience trial and error in our Endeavor to reach for the stars, and trial and error to reach below, toward the source of mythology's Atlantis, into the depths of the sea (which covers more territory than Earths' dry land!).

One more matter before logging out of this "Captains Log" (in my dreams!), Stardate Feb. 24, 2011... I cannot look over one remaining detail: the role my father played in the space program. Dad worked for the original Morton Thiokol Corporation which built the space shuttle boosters, which have been escorting the shuttle into space for these last three decades. I remember accompanying my grade school class on a field trip to observe a shuttle booster test before Columbia's inaugural launch. Many of us had parents who worked for Thiokol. The mother of my best friend from 5th grade through high school was a telephone operator there. The booster was mounted firmly to the earth and the propulsion from the booster was blasted onto the desert hill side, which I remember turned black as soot. The sound was thunderous, unlike anything I had ever heard. I imagine we were much closer to the booster than viewers are allowed to stand to the shuttle when she launches from Kennedy Space Center.

When the Challenger "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" years later and blame for the accident was pinpointed, I remembered back to that day and wished, as I'm sure much of my home town did, that we could have done something to reverse the sorrow brought upon her crew's families and upon the entire nation, whose very dreams and hopes were symbolized in the ambition of the shuttle program. Only five years had passed since the first shuttle launch. Mistakes were made in making decisions about whether to fly or not. The danger was debated, but those who insisted on flying, like those who insisted on taking the Titanic full speed ahead, won out. Improvements were made in the O-ring design before the next shuttle was allowed to launch, and in the 25 years since then, the space shuttle boosters have successfully carried all five shuttles dozens of times into orbit without failure. Which reminds me: Twenty-five years is exactly half the time my dad worked as an employee for the Thiokol/ATK company, becoming the organization's longest serving employee in its history.

Nearly everything that my dad earned to give me a life free of want at the dinner table, filled with opportunities in music and education, and a modest weekly allowance so that I could go see The Empire Strikes Back, Disney's The Black Hole, or the latest incarnation of Spock's ears for the umpteenth time came from the place that courted and escorted all of our shuttle missions into space.

Thank you for your missions of discovery over the years...Columbia, Challenger, Endeavor, Atlantis,...Discovery. And thank you, Dad.



Copyright Aaron Jensen 2011


Discovery's final launch - February 24, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPkJ8ugK3_0
First shuttle test flight - Enterprise - February 18, 1977
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I8DZivcnMM

First shuttle launch - Columbia - April 12, 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_PUF7DiKp8

Newtonian physics applied to the space shuttle in orbit (Thank you, Isaac Newton! b. 1642, d. 1727)
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0164.shtml

Why does the space shuttle fly belly up in space?
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae524.cfm

I'm American, but I hate to say that this is true...

“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages”
Dave Barry

US school does things right - the bilingual way!

Language trendsetters in local US high school: Bilingual production brings together East High theater students http://tinyurl.com/6bf6o2o