Sunday, September 30, 2018

EXCUSES -- TRAVESTY -- DIVERSITY -- TRANSLATION

EXCUSES


Life in our small Southern California town has made big city Los Angeles TV news which occurs  only occasionally.   Seems some young gals swimming in their pool Saturday heard a voice screaming for help.   Trying to pinpoint if this was a genuine call and from what location on their usual quiet cul de sac, they responded.   A young man hollered back he was in desperate need of water -- that he was stuck in a chimney, had been all day since 3 A.M., and also needed assistance getting out.  

Police and Fire Department authorities were called who after several hours of effort extricated the young man covered in soot from a chimney down the hill from the girls’ house.   His explanation for being stranded in the chimney of a home whose owners were away was that he was looking for his drone.  Following hospital treatment for dehydration he was arrested on a charge of burglary and transported to jail.   


TRAVESTY


This past week’s events with testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing cannot be ignored.   The hearing could have been avoided, the nominee spared his meltdown in front of a national television viewing audience and a woman spared possible further emotional trauma also.  

All this Administration and majority political party leaders had been required to do was follow logical procedures – order further FBI investigation when accusations reached a level of credibility raising significant questions about the Supreme Court Nominee’s behavioral history.    There is no excuse for this not to have been done, is insulting to women that it was not done and was a disservice to the Nominee.  

The fact the FBI investigation has now been ordered but could be limited by this President and must be completed in a week reflects more about political considerations than a search for truth.    

The responsibility for the politicization of this process is completely that of those who chose politics over seeking justice – the choice of this President and the Republican Party.   Their accusations blaming others defy common sense facts for justice seekers.   Also, false assaults on Senator Feinstein for respecting the ethical and moral responsibilities of confidentiality reveals just how crass her accusers have become. 

This President and his political party leaders are an embarrassment to what was once a proud grand old party that more and more faithful followers, including friend(s) of mine have increasingly recognized -- this is one more assault and betrayal as they say -- they hadn't left their Party, until recently, and even more now, but say “...the Party left me.”   

(FWIW I will state again that I am not affiliated with any political party, am an undeclared voter.)


DIVERSITY


New neighbors have been moving to our street this past year.  This has been another real estate market we’ve seen here before when elevated home prices entice owners to sell and buyers are aplenty.   Typically, such a period has been followed by a slow down with home values dropping slightly for a number of years before the up and down pricing process resumes again.

So it is, that in the ten or so homeowners on our southwest street section our immediate neighborhood has become even more diverse.   I don’t know any of the people living further up our street as my friends there including an African-American couple have long since moved away, died, or both.    Our little corner has all ages, widows, widower, young college agers, long term traditional families, same-sex housemates, hetero couples.  We have European-American, Mexican-American, Indian-American (India) homeowners, and a couple renters -- the latter, interestingly, seem to be more reclusive.      


TRANSLATION


A Chinese-American couple moved in down the street a year ago.  I recently learned their first child will be born in a few months.  Now a non-English speaking Chinese couple have moved next door this summer.   I don’t speak, read or write Chinese so I decided to experiment with Google’s instant translation site.   I don’t know what dialect it is but hoped that my new neighbors would understand.

I printed a page, front and back, of mostly simple sentences (both English and Chinese) introducing myself, offering the usual neighborly welcoming gestures.   When I went to their door, handed her my greeting, I was pleased to see the lady of the house, nodding her head in affirmative recognition of the translation’s Chinese symbols. 

She offered a fairly common English first name which started with an initial letter whose sound she struggled to produce.   Though her tongue had been unable to position itself to clearly articulate an /l/ sound, her smile and affirmative nod confirmed I had interpreted her name production correctly. 

My later research revealed that phoneme consonant sound is among those most difficult for Chinese speakers to produce.  We weren’t able to speak long, but if they choose to have further contact I did refer them to the Google site I used. 

I expect now there are likely some audio sites I haven’t explored yet that give instant translation. 


Have you had foreign-to-you language experiences and/or translation devices or websites you’ve used to aid communication?





35 comments:

  1. A Chinese couple have moved into the house two doors away, but they're very self-contained. I've tried talking to them but just get rebuffed. It seems they don't want anything to do with their neighbours. Perhaps they've had bad neighbours in the past and are suspicious of any overtures.

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    1. I wonder if language is a problem — they’re limited English speakers? But hard to know what is reason for their attitude.

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    2. Good point. I've no idea whether they're fluent English speakers or not, as they don't speak to me.

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  2. I started to put my comment regarding the hearing; but it quickly became too long, so I put it in my issues blog where my thinking often evolves or sometimes devolves. For anyone interested, it's at the larger cause trumps truth. Comments there, agree or disagree, are always welcome-- lately haven't been many. I think a lot of people want to tune out in such a divisive time.

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    1. I understand the different reasons, points of view, considered them and because of what is just, think it’s long past time for people to simply address the issue, so feel compelled to say so.

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    2. It went into the level of a treatise. Comments can only be so long. ;)

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  3. Only used these on FB when friends have had foreign language response from their family and friends. I can get the jist..but much is lost in translation.

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    1. Good to know as I suspected the translation might lose something which is why I wrote my English statement in case they wanted to question with someone else and also mentioned the source of my translation they could check out. I didn’t want to create any misunderstandings.

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  4. Good neighbor, good friend.

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  5. I've always thought if I traveled where another language is used I'd download one of those translation programs to a tablet. My niece did that while in Europe, Japan and China and it worked perfectly. How nice of you to make the gesture with new neighbors, I'm sure it made a lot of difference to them.

    I do put all the blame of the Republicans for the sham hearings we all just went through. They put themselves on a time table to ramp Kavanaugh through and they paid a price for that. As for Dianne Feinstein or her office getting the blame for the leak, I don't believe it. It's not her style. Ms. Ford talked to her friends before deciding to send the letter to D.F. and one of them could have easily tipped off the press with that anonymous tip to the Washington Post that brought this all to light.

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    1. I think an audio program of some sort each speaker could talk to would be ideal. Perhaps what’s best depends on the languages.

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  6. I had an elderly Italian neighbour in Toronto who hadn't a word of English and I raked out my high school Italian (I had 5 languages in various stages of articulation when I graduated!) and we had a great old time communicating. I have a story about it somewhere, thank you for the reminder.

    How brilliant Google is for this, technology can be so powerful.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Yes, it can be fun and interesting when both people want to understand each other.

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  7. That was so thoughtful of you to make the effort to communicate with your new neighbors. Hope you can figure out how to load one of those translation programs on to your tablet or phone. There is so much to learn when we make the effort.

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    1. My iPad mini was on the fritz at the time so have yet to check on any other kinds of translation programs.

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  8. First off, I wish you were my neighbor.
    I believe Google translate is a good app to use for communicating.
    As for the Kavanaugh fiasco, it's one more example of what is happening in this country. I've actually seen an interview with a Republican woman who said things like this happens in high school and that all boys act that way. Seriously?

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    1. I could enjoy being a neighbor of your family. Appreciate hearing what you think of Google translate. Sadly, I must agree that there was a segment of the high school age boys, often some of the athletes, in the fifties that exhibited an undesirable attitude toward girls which has been present for generations before and since then. I think there has to be a whole culture re-education about what it means to be a real man. Perhaps if girls can feel safe and able to speak their truth without condemnation that will help such boys to begin to understand and respect them.

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    2. I can't see how girls/women will ever feel safe and able to speak their truth UNTIL boys/men begin to understand and respect them. As long as females are being heckled and belittled for things that happened to them, it is hard to ask them to speak out.
      Cop Car

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  9. What a wonderful approach to your new neighbours! I remember moving to a new country with a complicated language and different script and how much these friendly contacts meant to me and my family. Life can be so very lonely without a shared language. And a shared language can be anything incl. hand and feet.

    I love language apps and I have not yet given up on duolingo to teach me Irish one short lesson a day.

    I am also a language editor and I occasionally use free translation software (deepl.com is by far superior to google translate). Helps to get through long tedious technical texts, at least saves time on typing.

    There is this interesting experiment that students of language/translation studies are introduced to early on: Take a simple English text, a short news clipping, nothing complicated, and ask a different native speaker (any language) to translate it into their language and then pass this translation onto another different native speaker for translation and so on for translations from their language to the next, do this about 3-4 times and then ask the last person to translate the text back into English (e.g. English to French to Italian to Russian to Japanese to English). The end result bears almost no comparison to the initial text.

    I've done this experiment with various translation software systems, I never get the same text or anything quite resembling it.



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    1. Really appreciate the information you’ve shared. I’m not surprised to hear about content and meaning becoming “lost in translation”. I had been concerned that could occur. It happens even among those speaking the same general language.
      Even words if not defined by the speakers can hold differing meanings to each.

      That’s also why the loosely used labeling words can cause dissension based on erroneous assumptions. One person’s view of a feminist, conservative, liberal, etc. may be quite different than that of another. It’s better to speak of issues. Different languages would be even more complicated on all matters.

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    2. I wouldn't expect much from translations. Heck! Hunky Husband and I have been talking to one another since 1956 and we still do not communicate! *laughing*

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    3. Keep at it and maybe you’ll have a break through one of these years! *grin*

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  10. What a kind overture on your part! Even if there were certain nuances your translation did not capture, your effort on their behalf spoke volumes to your new neighbors.

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    1. Hope they’ll feel welcome here, that neighbors care — which I think is what we all want to feel wherever we live.

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  11. I use English to Tamil and Hindi translation / transcription applications quite often on both my computer and smart phone. I haven't had to use any overseas. During my travelling days, I had a lot of problems in Germany and France but with good samaritans ever willing to oblige inevitably got some free translators and enjoyed a lot of laughter after the exercises. Otherwise English served me quite well everywhere.

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    1. Glad to hear there are those willing to assist with translating.

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  12. What a great entry. You poke at everything including the hearings...I'm so afraid of that result, and you are a most delightful and caring neighbor. I live on the border, yet I have continual trouble with Spanish. I have severe learning disabilities, and languages are not easily assimilated.

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    1. I certainly share your concern about the hearing results as they pursue additional investigation. Can appreciate the challenges you encounter but expect you’ve developed some coping and compensatory skills over the years. These digital translation aids can be helpful to all of us.

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  13. I have used Google translate, but, while good, it is not without it's errors.

    As someone who attended H.S. in the 80s. What Dr. Ford shared is not without precedent, sadly.

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    1. Thanks for stopping by and appreciate your sharing translation experience, too. Yes, I think what Dr. Ford described has been an issue for too many decades.... generations.

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    2. Good grief! I was/am appalled at the conditions being reported for high schoolers. In high school, I never ever saw any student (inside school or outside school) take a drink of alcoholic beverage. But then, of course, that was a different age. There were probably two or three senior students who smoked and about twice that many who had cars - in a school population of about 1200 students. I recall attending one "wild" party, a cast party, as a freshman; but, there was no drinking and I've never figured out how I got invited since I didn't really know the other kids.
      College? That was a whole different thing. A large number of students were veterans from the Korean conflict so it was not hard for under-aged students to have someone buy booze for them. One acquaintance drank so much at a party that he eventually died of liver damage (age 20 or so).
      Cop Car

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    3. Oh yes, even in the fifties the parties, involving the athletes, were well known among our high school student body — beer parties in the woods described with the typical misperception beer couldn’t be a problem cause it wasn’t hard alcohol — and beer was what the boys drank to show they were a man. I didn’t attend any of the parties as I did not aspire to winning any of the athletes favor.

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  14. I commend your Chinese eforts - I haveonly fooled around with German which I took both in HS and college.

    Guess my HS was too stra
    ight -nothing like the little rich kid Kavanaugh. We really had no elite classmates -those students were across the bay on the Penninsuula. I have heard tales similar to the Kavanaug tales from them - seems it is some sot of elite rite of passage. I andnquite content with my blue collsr upbringing

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    1. I haven’t had occasion to try the Google translation with any other language except briefl checks of a few rate efforts made to place commercial promotions in non-English in a comment on my blog.

      Glad your h.s. avoided some of the tales you heard. From what I have gathered from others tales, social class only determined the kind of parties that occurred in those communities where such activities took place whether prep school or public school.

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