Language and Culture Book Recommendation
In this article, Danielle offers a review of Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. With this book, Fadiman explores the cultural and language struggles of a Hmong family in California. The title refers to the Hmong translation for an epileptic seizure.

Egregious English: 20 Commonly Misused Words and Phrases
This Language List takes a humorous look at Family Guy’s baby Stewie’s invective against improper use of English words and phrases.

5 More Difficult Words to Translate
The wild success of Maria’s original 10 Most Difficult Words to Translate article prompted us to amend the list with five more interesting words and their meanings.

English Pronunciation Lesson: A Telephone Conversation
Many English learners find it difficult to be understood over the phone because of issues with pronunciation. We created this resource with mp3 recordings so you can read and hear examples of phrases commonly used during telephone conversation.

The Etymology of Heavy Metal
We’re not talking about chemistry terms here. Beyond Words contributor, Chris, rocks out this word origin article. He was probably wearing a cutoff Maiden shirt when he wrote it.

Interpreting Book Recommendation
The first public, international use of simultaneous interpreting was at the Nurenberg trials after the Second World War. Jocelyn reviews the book, The Origins of Simultaneous Interpretation: The Nuremburg Trial by Fracesca Gaiba.

The Etymology of Olé
This article was inspired by a wonderful TedTalk. The Spanish word Olé has a fascinating history that goes back to the traditions of the Northern Africans who ruled Spain for over 700 years.

Hope you enjoy the reading, and have a wonderful July 4th!

With the 2009 Tour de France gearing up for its start on Saturday I can’t help but question—beyond lodging, food, and transportation for all of the teams, media, organizers, and fans—what the language logistics of the race must be like. Since its beginning in 1903, the Tour de France has been internationally recognized as one of the most challenging sports events in the word, both physically and emotionally. This year the twenty-one stage race will cover 3,500 kilometers in France, Monaco, Spain and Germany between July 4 and July 26 and will feature intense mountain climbs, a fast-paced peloton, hairpin curves, and, as always, spectacular, if not dangerous, crashes.

Nine countries are represented by the twenty teams competing—Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, the United States—and, while I’m too lazy to count up the nationalities of all the riders, at least twenty-five nations are represented by the individual riders. While many of these countries are located in Europe, not all are. Last year Australia, the United States, South Africa, Columbia, and Kazakhstan all contributed riders to the race, and these statistics are just for the riders. Imagine how many nationalities and people groups are represented by the coaches, trainers, fans, sports announcers, tv crews, and crepe-makers. Not to mention that the race course itself spans three different languages in its route. Who needs the Olympics when you have the Tour de France?

One of the more interesting outliers in this language amalgamation is the Boulder, Colorado-based Team Garmin-Slipstream. 2009 marks the first year that any team has been comprised of only English-speaking riders, and Team Garmin-Slipstream’s roster includes four Americans, two Englishmen, a New Zealander, a Canadian, and an Irishman. Now, it’s not that Garmin-Slipstream tried to have only English-speaking riders (Dutchman Martijn Maaskant is first reserve) in the 2009 race, but given the fact that it is, I would assume that communication isn’t an issue between coaches and riders. This team might have something going for them.

At the moment I’m unable to find any information about official Tour de France translators or translation issues the race has encountered, but I am searching for some because I find it impossible to believe that a race representing this many nations and languages does not have either several official translators or several major translation snafus.

Certainly the media outlets dilute many of these issues by broadcasting in specific target languages to their viewership, but how do race organizers handle the crowds at finish and starting lines? How are real-time, in-person issues dealt with at the race? Is the official Tour de France language French, or logically, does it include at least English, German, and Spanish? And what is the hiring process for these announcers/organizers? I realize I’m raising more questions than I’m answering, but if anyone has some ideas/thoughts/answers, I’d love to hear them.
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Photos via Garmin-Slipstream Pro Cycling team

All discussion of antedating aside (which, I might add, I find incredibly fascinating — who knew that finding the origin of a word was a competitive sport?!), Zimmer’s discovery led me to question the very necessity of the term Ms. and to wonder if any languages other than English have faced or do face the quandary related by the Springfield Sunday Republican writer.

Although we now know that the term was used as early at 1901, Ms. was not commonly used until the 1970s when it was firmly established as the neutral female complement to Mr. With the rise of feminism and women’s rights, it only seemed natural for women to define themselves by their status as a woman and not by their status as an unmarried (Miss) or a married (Mrs.) woman. In fact, the first issue of Ms. magazine clarified its name by stating that the term Ms. “is being adopted as a standard form of address by women who want to be recognized as individuals, rather than being identified by their relationship with a man.”

Whether or not the term is actually neutral can be debated, but what I found most interesting is its existence in the English language. After some cursory research, I cannot find any term equivalent to Ms. in another language. It seems that no other culture finds it necessary to allow for a socially neutral female address, which, of course, makes me wonder why this country spent so much time and energy establishing a debatably neutral term (many argue that Ms. still associates a woman with her marital status and is often interpreted as the address of an unmarried woman).

I’ve listed below the female addresses in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Filipino, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

In German and French it appears that Frau and Madame are actually equivalent to both Mrs. or Ms. in English, but again, there is not a separate socially neutral female address.

If I’m absolutely wrong about my conclusion that there is no equivalencey for Ms.in any other languages, please let me know!

Arabic: آنسة (Miss); ﺳﻴﺪۃ (Mrs.)

Chinese: 小姐 (Miss); 夫人 (Mrs.)

Dutch: Mejuffrouw (Miss); Mevrouw (Mrs.)

Filipino: Binibini (Miss); Ginang (Mrs.)

French: Mademoiselle (Miss); Madame (Ms./Mrs.)

German: Fraulein (Miss); Frau(Ms./Mrs.)

Hindi: सुश्री or कुमारी (Miss); श्रीमती (Mrs.)

Italian: Signorina (Miss); Signora (Mrs.)

Japanese: お嬢さん (おじょうさん) (Miss); 女史 (じょし) (Mrs.)

Korean: 숙녀 (Miss); 부인 (Mrs.)

Russian: Девушка (Miss); Госпожа (Mrs.)

Spanish: Señorita (Miss); Señora (Mrs.)

Vietnamese: quý cô (Miss); Bà   (Mrs.)

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Michael Jackson’s talent transcended language and culture differences. As a testament to this, the above graffiti portrait can be found in Berlin, Germany. Similar tributes can be seen and heard in cities around the world. The artist is MTO Graff.

Since last year, all of us at Beyond Words have worked hard to provide a fun and useful resource for language lovers and professionals.

In between the fun language articles, we occasionally offer advice on how to become a professional translator, and we try to deliver some context on the history of translation, as well as some of the trials and tribulations that translators face.

If you are thinking about embarking on a translation career, we’d like to offer this new series as a useful reference.

Paths to Success in Translation

The Paths to Success series will serve you interviews with professional translators, guides to the best schools and certification programs, and advice for translators at every level. We hope you enjoy it, and find it useful.

With this first of our Paths to Success interviews, we turn to Mary C. Maloof-Fleck for her point of view on what it takes to make a successful translation career. (Hint: In Mary’s case, it has already involved the State Department, wine, dental surgery and a particularly surly gang member.)

Mary translates Spanish, French, and Portuguese into English. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. With 15 years of experience in the language services industry, she is the founder and moderator of SpTranslators, an extremely popular Yahoo! Group for Spanish translators, as well as the founder and moderator of Legaltranslators, a Yahoo! Group for legal translators of all languages.

As a child, Mary, who is of Lebanese descent, surprised her parents by choosing to study Spanish instead of Arabic because she felt inexplicably drawn to the Spanish language and Latin culture. Although she was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, she has traveled extensively throughout Western Europe, and lived in Madrid, Paris, and Washington, D.C. before embarking on her translation career. She is an accomplished classical pianist and has even been known to sing at a club or two!

Without further ado, we give you Mary Maloof-Fleck on paths to a successful translation career:

Why did you become a translator and what path did you take to get to this point in your career?

Originally, in college and in my early twenties, I never wanted to become a translator, and in fact, had never even considered that career path. I had actually been dreaming of a job with the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service Officer, and had engineered my entire college career toward that end, with study abroad in Spain and France, a semester of study in foreign affairs at the American University, and an internship with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, for the written portion of the FSO examinations I scored 145 points out of the 146 points I needed to make it to the oral tier, so my dream of becoming an FSO was dashed. I then graduated from college and moved to Washington, DC in 1994, attempting to break into the international relations sector from another angle through applying for jobs as a foreign affairs analyst, and all my efforts went up in smoke there as well. I couldn’t even get a job as an executive assistant at any of the embassies or government offices in town. In my job search I was invited back by people countless times for a second interview, but the jobs always ended up going to someone in-house or to someone they knew. Always the bridesmaid, but never the bride!

In the meantime, I had to pay the rent, so I temped as an executive assistant at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and numerous think tanks. At one of them, the World Resources Institute, I worked as part of a team that was preparing a report to be submitted to the first Summit of the Americas (Miami Summit). I was asked to translate some articles that a group of Latin American journalists had written on sustainable development projects in Latin America, articles that would be included in this report with their translations. My co-worker, who was responsible for coordinating the articles and communicating with the journalists, had worked as a part-time translator for 20 years, and told me, “Your translations of these articles are excellent. You have a gift. Have you ever considered becoming a translator?” I laughed because I had this picture in my head of translators being these pedantic recluses without a life, huddled behind piles of books that they never emerged from to see the light of day, and I, of course, was not like that. After patiently listening to all my objections and stereotypes, she simply handed me information on the translation certification program at Georgetown University’s Linguistics Department, saying, “Look, just humor me and check it out.” I went to their next orientation session, spoke with the professors, and in two hours’ time, I knew in my heart that this was for me.

I went to translation school at night, and worked as an editor at a publishing firm called Carroll Publishing during the day. After I graduated from the program in May 1996 with a certification in Spanish to English translation, I did freelance work here and there part time while continuing to work for Carroll full time. In January 1997 I moved back to my hometown of Atlanta, GA, where I remain to this day, and I’ve freelanced full time ever since.

How did you land your first translation job?

I got my first job through Georgetown University right after I’d graduated from their program. A prestigious law firm needed a freelancer to translate some correspondence that was going to be presented in an international lawsuit, so they called Georgetown asking for the names and phone numbers of the most recent graduates of the Spanish to English program, and contacted me.

What has been your biggest professional challenge?

I can’t say that I’ve had any overarching professional challenges since I started, just a lot of little ones every day. No two documents are alike, so every single one that comes across my desk presents a new little puzzle to unlock, and presents at least one new thing for me to learn. In this profession I’m always challenged, I’m always learning, and I’m never bored.

Now, with regard to my most challenging project, I would have to say that one of them was definitely working with the district attorney’s office of Athens-Clarke County on a murder case involving a Mexican suspect. I was asked to do a “transcriptlation” of his interview with the investigator and testify as an expert witness during the trial, answering various questions from the prosecution and defense about my qualifications, Mexican slang, gangland terminology, etc. What unsettled me was not the questions that the defense was firing at me in an attempt to establish doubt as to the accuracy of the translation, but the fact that the suspect was staring at me quite aggressively the entire time, trying to intimidate me, I suppose. It was a little scary but I stayed focused and the DA told me I did a great job.

On that note, what has been your biggest professional reward?

Knowing that I’m actually changing people’s lives by helping them break through communication barriers.

A few months back (for ALTA, no less), I translated a letter a Chilean customer service rep had written to his company’s corporate office in the US to ask for their help with some disfiguring dental issues. His job involved interacting with clients face to face on behalf of his company, so he needed some dental work done, but his dental benefits weren’t coming through and he was being mistreated by the local office. I completed and delivered the translation, and forgot all about him. Three weeks later, I was given another letter to translate, and it turned out to be a very emotional thank you letter from this same Chilean gentleman, thanking his company because they had applied his benefits and covered his dental surgery, and now he could smile again. It was pretty awesome knowing I had helped him.

What advice would you give to an up and coming translator?

If you’re freelancing, get out from behind that computer and network, network, network. Then, when you’re sick of all that networking, network some more. This is how you get work. After you’re well established and word of mouth has gained a momentum of its own, you won’t need to pound the pavement nearly as much, but in the beginning you definitely need to dedicate every spare moment you can to marketing your services.

Also, don’t generalize; pick one or two specializations you enjoy and carve your niche in those specializations. If you do that, clients will turn to you again and again as the “go to” person for those specializations, and you’ll get to work in a subject you like. To paraphrase a popular saying, do what you love and the money will come later; if it doesn’t, hey, at least you’re doing what you love. I have a passion for wines and actually have an intermediate certification in wines and spirits from the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET), so from time to time I’m approached by wineries to translate their marketing materials for an American audience.

Are there any pitfalls to avoid in the translation business?

There are plenty of unscrupulous individuals, businesses and organizations out there that take advantage of translators and pay them for their work only after many months have passed, if at all. I’ve always found this practice to be unconscionable because translators – at least the professional ones, anyway – work hard to meet their deadlines and turn in their work on time, and the least their clients can do, if they value their translation talent at all, is to return the favor by paying them in a timely manner. Subscribe to a resource such as the ProZ.com Blue Board, the TCR List, or the Payment Practices List to find out who the prompt payers, the slow payers, and the non-payers are.

What’s unique or interesting about your particular language combination? Do you have any specific advice for up and coming translators pursuing the same combination?

What’s interesting about my particular language combination is that I’m dealing with a source language that is spoken in 16 different countries, each of which has its own slang, vocabulary, etc. And in each of these countries, you have regions that can in turn be dramatically different with respect to vocabulary.

My advice to up and coming translators pursuing Spanish to English translation would be the same as that initially given to me by my translation professor at Georgetown: read voraciously, read everything you can get your hands on, in every subject you can get your hands on, from legal texts to novels, in both Spanish and English. That way, you will be able to accept a far wider range of jobs and not have to turn them down because you don’t know the terminology.

What’s your funniest translation story?

I find plenty of little things to giggle about in my job on a daily basis because Spanish and English are, to me, two of the funniest languages on earth, so I can’t think of any one incident that would top the others in funniness. That said, I do get a laugh out of the reaction I get from clients when they find out what my ethnic background is and find out that I acquired my foreign languages exclusively through my education and travels. I’m Middle Eastern, not Latina, so I have no family connections to the Spanish-speaking world, and I grew up in a household that spoke only English.

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For more information on Mary visit her website at www.malooflanguageservices.com.

Most people would agree that some languages have just the bon mot for a particular sentiment.

The English language has adopted many of these perfect expressions and incorporated them into everyday speech and writing.

Check out this list of words and a bit of the story behind how they made their way into English.

à la

If you are having a brownie with a scoop of ice cream on top, you are having a brownie à la mode, and you have the French to thank for the delicious treat. In French, à la means “in the style of”, with à la mode meaning “in the current style.” If a restaurant has an à la carte dining fashion, patrons are free to select from a fixed list of options on the menu, or carte.

amateur

Originally, to be an amateur meant to be a lover of something, from the Latin amare, meaning “to love.” The contemporary meaning of the term, meaning a non-professional practitioner of some pursuit, comes from the French. A similar term of Italian origin – dilettante – comes from the verb dilettare, meaning “to delight.”

armada

The term used to describe a large navy fleet made its way into English from the Spanish armada. The root arma, meaning “weapon,” described the heavily armed and protected Spanish ships. Similarly, the armadillo is a small “armored” creature thanks to its heavy outer shell.

banana

The name of this fruit comes from the Arabic ba’nana, meaning “fingers.”

biscuit

This pastry comes from the prefix bi-, signifying something doubled, and –cuit, meaning “cooked” in the French language. Originally, biscuits were baked through twice in order to achieve their satisfying crunch.

bistro

The bistro, or small, European-inspired café or restaurant, has quite a dubious etymology. It may have originated from the regional French words of the Poitou dialect bistrot, bistingo, or bistraud, meaning a “lesser servant,” or from the term bistouille or bistrouille, which was a type of drink made from brandy and coffee. A more riveting – although mostly discredited – etymology takes place in Russian-occupied Paris after the Napoleonic wars. It was once believed that Russian troops shouted “бы́стро” (pronounced “bistro” and meaning “quickly”) as they stopped at restaurants on their way through town.

buckaroo

The familiar colloquialism comes from the Spanish vaquero, meaning “cowboy.”

ennui

The term for a persistent state of melancholy, listlessness, or boredom originates in the French ennui, meaning “annoyance.”

jungle

This word originates from the 18th century in India, from the Hindi word jangal, meaning a rough, wild, and waterless place.

rodeo

Rodeos became an American southwestern staple as they made their way from Central America. The term comes from the Spanish rodear, meaning “to round up.”

R.S.V.P.

To R.S.V.P., one lets the host know that he or she will be attending an event. This bit of etiquette comes from the French phrase “Répondez s’il vous plait”, asking guests to please respond to the invitation.

savvy

The term denoting keen, practical understanding of a situation comes from the Spanish verb saber, meaning “to know.”

sherry

The type of sweet wine known as sherry comes from the name of the Spanish town where it originated – Jerez (Xerés in Old Spanish).

sombrero

The wide-brimmed hat known as the sombrero takes its name from its purpose – in Spanish, a sombrero is an object that creates shade.

Sudoku

Although citizens of many countries have played number puzzles for centuries, the current popular Sudoku trend originates in Japan. Popularized in French newspapers of the 20th century, the puzzle was introduced to Japan in 1984 under the title “Suji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, meaning that all digits in the number puzzle must be unrepeated. The title was later abbreviated into the acronym Sudoku and has since become a popular trend in numerous countries.

tango

The passionate and intimate Argentine dance earned its name from the Latin finite verb tango, meaning “I touch.”

teriyaki

This method of cooking originates in Japan and takes its name from the morphemes teri, meaning “glaze” and yaki, meaning “broiling.” Thus, a dish like teriyaki chicken consists of broiled or grilled chicken coated in a sweet soy sauce marinade.

thug

In the original Hindi, a thag is a thief or conman. A Thuggee was an Indian network of secret fraternities who were engaged in murdering and robbing travellers and known for strangling their victims.

What counts towards this million-word marker to begin with, given the many slang words that are created daily and the many compound words which are not included in many English dictionaries? Do we count the million odd insect species names or the 80 million chemical compounds?

While the millionth word may seem like a milestone in the history of the English language, it raises many questions among linguists and the general public.

I know that to most people, Web 2.0 does not seem like a word which should be included in any dictionary, much less count as the millionth word in the English language. Linguists who are supporting this new millionth word maintain that it appears in over 25,000 internet searches online, thereby making it popular enough to be construed as a word of importance within the language. While the word originated as a technical term referring to the next generation of web products, it has gained much circulation in the past six months, causing it to originally be considered amongst words like slumdog and n00b as a contender for the millionth word.

Many linguists maintain that it is impossible to count the words in the English language. Most don’t agree to how many times a word must be used before it is counted as an official English word. The easy acceptability of words from different cultures into the English language is one fact that additionally undermines the millionth marker of Web 2.0. With so many words constantly entering into the English language, it becomes nearly impossible to determine how many words are in existence today. The many Spanglish or Chinglish words which have roots in both languages are a sign of the many words which have English roots but are still unrecognized by such an overwhelming organization like the Global Language Monitor. While English still claims the most words when compared to Mandarin Chinese (which has roughly 500,000) or French (which has 100,000), it becomes pertinent to question why certain “authorities” who make claims on behalf of English feel that the language has the most words when compared to other modern languages, or why words such as Web 2.0 make their way into our lexicon. While many linguists still remain unconvinced as to the validity of such a word, many around the country still base their understanding of new words on the ability of Microsoft Word to recognize them within its own dictionary.
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This post was contributed by Caitlin Smith, who writes about associates degree programs. She welcomes your feedback at CaitlinSmith1117 at gmail.com

To help Beyond Words readers overcome this unfortunate quandary, here are a few adjectives for words that pertain to other nouns:

Source:
The Phrontistery

What at first glance appeared to be yet another cute baby making faces video quickly took on an added dimension. I noticed this baby doing something with her hands. Over the next few minutes I came close to rubbing a bald spot on my chin because of my amazement.

Watch the video, I highly recommend turning your sound on.

The child in the video is a one year old girl and her parents started training her using sign language at an early age. The fascinating part is that, although she was able to say a few words, a good portion of the words that she was able to sign she wasn’t able to say.

In fact, according to the norms of child development, babies usually aren’t able to ask for foods by name until they’re 18-24 months old, but she does this in the video with signs. At a year old they have a vocabulary that can be counted on both hands. This is not for lack of cognitive ability.

It turns out that as children grow, their hand-eye coordination develops much more quickly and at an earlier age than their speech abilities. While there are many muscles in the human hand and arm, there are many more in the face and throat that are required for making intelligible sounds.

So because they’re able to exhibit comprehension at 12 months old, they’re also able to mimic giving commands or requests at 12 months old. While their vocal ability takes longer to develop, babies, it seems,have the cognitive and physical ability to communicate by making signs or approximated signs.

Young children are much more intelligent than many people give them credit for. Baby talk is a symptom of this attitude towards young children. Really, babies are able to understand adult speech.

Children grow rapidly and are constantly learning new things that they want to be able to communicate. The problem is they often don’t have the vocabulary.

All of the articles concerning infant singing and other research that I’ve read say that the temper tantrums associated with the 1-3 year olds (the terrible twos) aren’t an inherent part of a childhood.

Multiple language learners will identify with this example. There’re days when you’re having a nice conversation in a language different than your native language, and you just get stuck on a word. When that happens you can’t remember the translation and can’t quite explain what you mean. This creates natural feelings of frustration and anger.

Now imagine yourself not only not having the word in another language, but not having a word in the only language that you know. It’s entirely understandable that young children break down, they’re full of excitement and they lack the words to be able to share it.

For more reading about this I highly recommend visiting these links:

On Facebook
A general resource about baby signing: BabySignLanguage.com
Wikipedia article: Sign Language in Infants

Also there an excellent book about baby signing by two of the original academic researchers in this field; it’s called Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk. The authors are Dr Linda Acredolo and Dr Susan Goodwyn.