Translating and interpreting

On the after lunch news Rajoy was chatting to Theresa May. I don't think our President speaks English and I'm pretty sure that May doesn't speak Spanish. Just behind them was a chap with grey curly hair and one of those "access all area" passes. I presume he was their interpreter.

On the Wordreference.com forum pages I sometimes have a go at helping people to translate things. I tend to go the Spanish English way rather than write in Spanish as I am very aware of the manifold slips that I make when writing in Spanish. Wordreference is a wonderful dictionary cum language resource if you don't know it.

For quite a while now I've listened to the Spanish podcasts by Alex occasionally assisted by Vanesa on the cunningly named Spanishpodcast.net. A while ago they started to push their YouTube channel as well but it took me a while to getting around to having a look.

On the videos Alex didn't look at all like I expected from having heard his voice on the podcasts. The videos though are really simple and they look very professional to me. Alex speaks in Spanish and, one day, the video ran automatically with Spanish subtitles. Trying to turn them off I found that there is a tool on the site for adding in subtitles to videos in other languages. I've made a couple of donations to the Spanishpodcast.net site in the past but, generally, I've got most of the stuff for free so I thought it might be a nice gesture to add the subs in English.

I understand the dialogues 100% or maybe 99% some weeks. Nonetheless putting in the subtitles proved to be more challenging than I expected. The way that it's done on YouTube is that there are the subs in Spanish and a box to type in your attempt in whatever language underneath. The little boxes in Spanish finish on a particular word and I try to end on the same word in English but it's not always possible simply because of differences in word order. Then there are the expressions that make sense in Spanish but aren't good English. I have been very undecided whether to go for a good English style just taking the sense from the Spanish, whether to go for the most literal translation that maintains a semblance of sense or to mix a bit of both. I have not been happy with any of the translations so far but, eventually, I'm sure I'll settle on an appropriate style.

In the meantime hats off to that translator bloke making it possible for Rajoy and May to maintain a conversation at a normal speed.

Summer passing

I don't have any work between the end of June and the beginning of September. No pay either so it's not quite as good as it sounds. And with Maggie working mornings our options about getting out and about have been a little more restricted too.

This is one of the reasons that I've got through quite a lot of books over the summer. That and because I prefer short books. Reading ten books with 200 pages is only like reading a couple of big thick books. Anyway I get bored with one style, one set of vocabulary and the same basic theme. Generally I've read books in Spanish - partly to try and improve my language but also so that  I have a bit more local culture under my belt. After all you don't need to have read every Kate Atkinson or Stieg Larsson to be able to have a conversation about their style. Talking about what you have read is a common enough conversation so the more points of reference I have the greater the possibility of maintaining that dialogue. The only fly in the ointment is that my memory is terrible so I often deny all knowledge of a book until the other person starts to describe something I read only a month ago.

Anyway one of the other pastimes is taking part in the WordReference forum. WordReference is an online bilingual dictionary but there is, amongst others, a Spanish/English forum to talk about word use, phraseology and what not. I realise it doesn't sound that riveting but I find it entertaining enough. Although my written (and spoken) Spanish leave something to be desired my understanding of written Spanish is pretty good and my grasp of English is still excellent. It's surprising though how much of the English that people are trying to understand is remarkably byzantine.

Something new today though. Somebody using the name Zameda picked me at random to give them a hand in putting subtitles on an MTV interview with Amy Winehouse. "Why not?" I said. I watched the video and understood it perfectly. Then I tried to answer Zanema's specific questions given as time periods on the soundtrack. It was amazing how many times I had to listen to correctly transcribe - "Stuff like that you don't, you don't, you know, even cross your fingers or get your hopes up; do you know what I mean? just, just err, you know; if it comes through it comes through, if not I won't have got my hopes up."

Back to work next week I suppose though with a gentle lead in. I don't think students will be queing at the door to get back to their English studies. Still time for a few more photos, a bit more reading and maybe another few posts on the forum though probably not enough time for the cleaning and gardening.