Merging: plants and animals, Dutchies and 'Murcans, sports and interpreting

Translators are often lovingly (or otherwise) enveloped in cross-cultural marriages, which take even more straight-forward communication than the other variety to get to the point of smooth functionality. Case in point: I’ve been accused of improper pancaking. Try to get through the day with your breakfast marred by erroneous foods! Well, after years (about nine – how time flies! And where’s the Lantra Gallery, which documents his proposal and our love? Can’t link to what’s not up anymore!) , by the resident Dutchman. What I was making, apparently, was AMERICAN pancakes. Would my marriage, peace of mind, and breakfast-making skills survive the multi-culti conflict? Trust the Amsterdam board of tourism to come to the rescue. “Dutch pancakes are thinner and come with toppings”, it says so right there on their blog. Which implies that my pancakes are fine - and that what he actually wanted for breakfast was another food item by the same name. So now we know...

However, pause to appreciate the Amstedram blog tour. Being a brilliant – and budget-conscious – board of tourism, they sent a bunch of prominent bloggers to Amsterdam for most-expenses-paid (I *did* say budget conscious) trip. The result (links on the Bloggers In Amsterdam page) makes for a very good read. And *do* check out the blogs linked too. Especially Dooce, she’s priceless.

But she’s not a translator, and this is a blog for and about translators, so let’s get down to the daily news. Here’s a Bronx cheer to Natalia Smirnova, foreign rights manager, at Limbus Press , who is quoted in the St. Petersburg Times saying that “A middle-aged translator might not be able to put adequately the thoughts of a teenager, to translate young people’s slang, and the way they speak and act.”” Ageism is one of my pet peeves, and she’s stomped right on top of it in her great-big winter boots. No way, Natalia. It’s not the age. It’s the exposure. I hear more teen slang now (I’ll be forty sooooo soon) than I did in my twenties. This has to do with the presence of teen speech in your life. One of my favorite into-Hebrew translators of literary material, a Dr. Emmanuel Lottem, has a crown of silver hair that boasts far more decades than mere teens, but his work is pure poetry. Look for some more like him, not for cheap teenagers!

For us law-and-biz translators, it is heartening to see some government getting it right: Jurist reports that “ The Japanese government is planning to put English translations of its business-related laws on the internet in order to avoid their misinterpretation by foreign companies. All that, plus a definitive glossary! That’ll make work much easier for Japanese-into-English translators!

When it comes to pricing, have you ever wondered how much the market can bear? The highest paid interpreter in the world seems to work in California. Yeah, I could deal with wages like that. Have you any idea how much yarn you can buy for $50,000?

And I’ll sign out with some pictures worth a heck of a lot more than 1,000 words (target, payment 30 days net): a contest where slightly deranged folks in better control of their photo editors than their good taste merge plants with animals to great effect. Some of it is lovely, other pieces will come up in my nightmares.

‘Till tomorrow...