Tempus fugit

Third in a continuing series of blog titles that require, but don't necessarily receive, translation.

Taking a break from translating to drink tea, eat chocolate and poodle about in the Internets. Listening to the CD from which tomorrow's Friday Favourite will be taken (wait for it). Dear gods, it's already Thursday again. Exactly seven days until we hand in the competition, and it's still all very wobbly.

I think that some of the happiness in hard and serious work that I wrote about yesterday comes from having been in Flow for much of the day. The ability to concentrate, to work without being interrupted, is an essential pre-requisite for getting into the flow state; it's easily available at home (since I'm doing the translating on my PC which has no Internet connection and nothing remotely gamelike installed) but harder to obtain in the office. Most of the time I'm alone there, since G is busy being a new father and the two new hires also work mostly off-site.

Work on the translation is slowing down as I get further on with it. At the beginning, I could just plough ahead translating words at the drop of a whim, but now the spectre of consistency raises its head. I spend a small but steadily increasing proportion of my time looking back through what I've previously translated to ensure that I always use the same English word for a particular German one. This is of course a Good Thing and the right way to go about it, but it does slow down the work considerably.

Right, that's enough. Back to work. More later, perhaps.

Eight down, twenty-two to go.

The wee giftie

I have made a start on the translation for the Münsters. As a first step I corrected their previous English translations, remade the menu system in English and translated the startup screen that a user first sees. I packed this stuff together and sent it to them on Friday, thinking (to be honest) that it was a pretty thin effort, just about the bare minimum that I could do without being sacked on the spot for laziness.

The chief Münster (perhaps we'll call him the Münstermeister) phoned this morning to say that they were pleased and impressed with the speed and quality of my work. They are very happy to have made the decision to work with me, and eagerly await the next installment.

When we first spoke about the project, the Münstermeister hinted that there might be a possibility of full-time employment at the end of the contract if all goes well and subject to contract and etc. This morning he flat-out offered me the job, start whenever I like; please think it over, we'd love to have you on the team.

In other news Princess is planning a weekend of gluttony and mild exercise in France for her upcoming 49th birthday, staying overnight in the cells of a monastery near Strasbourg. Could be quite nice.

In musical news the song of the week is "Crocodile" by Underworld, from the recent-released album "Oblivion with bells." (It's a great album, by the way, the standard is very high. "Beautiful burnout" starts slowly but is nearly as good as "Crocodile," and "JAL to Tokyo" and "Best mamgu ever" are also quite pleasant. But "Crocodile" is the one to beat.) This is my candidate for Best Song Of 2007, it's been on repeat since I bought it on Friday. I bought this as a single from iTunes, so I cannot post it here, but would urgently recommend the song to your attention. Get onto iTunes and buy yourself a copy, turn it up painfully loud and dance. Wonderful!

The title? It's a nod towards a poem about a louse.

On choosing the right word

There's a particular event which recurs as you learn a language (assuming that one takes the learning seriously), which reminds you that you continue to learn and improve: Every now and then, you have to buy a new dictionary.

My first German-English dictionary was purchased in October 1984 in London, as I started taking evening courses in German. It wasn't a real dictionary in the Johnsonian sense but simply a list of equivalents: Pferd = Horse, Dog = Hund and so on. 20,000 entries per language, small enough to fit in a large pocket.

A few years after moving here, I found that I had outgrown that first book. My German had improved to the point that I needed a real dictionary, one that explained the meaning and usage of words rather than just translating them. I chose Langenscheidt's "Großwörterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache," a dictionary specifically for foreigners learning German, with well-written, lengthy explanations and many illustrations. 66,000 entries, too big to fit in any pocket. Foolishly, I didn't note when I bought it (I usually write the date and place on the flyleaf of my books); I believe it was around 1999 or 2000.

Seven years (call it that) later, as a result of translating these pieces for Princess, I realize that I have outgrown the GDF: too many of the words that I didn't know in German weren't listed in it, or were inadequately explained. The realization was triggered when the author used the phrase "wehrlos und schutzlos." According to my dictionaries, these words both mean "helpless" or "defenceless," but that's not true. "Wehrlos" is active and means "without means of defence:" unarmed, unable to fend off or counter an attack. "Schutzlos" is passive and means "undefended:" unsheltered, unprotected, vulnerable to attack. Neither of them means "helpless:" If you strip a man and tie his arms behind his back, he is vulnerable and unable to defend himself, but only if you also tie his legs is he helpless.

If you want to measure the quality of a dictionary, look up synonymous words—because there are no synonyms. Humans are lazy: if a culture invented two nearly-identical words, it is because the distinction between them was felt to be important, however slight that difference might now seem.

So I walked downtown this morning, stopping for a cappuccino at the Café Eberhard, to buy a new dictionary. I chose the Duden, the dictionary. Word-nerds use the name "Duden" as a generic term for "dictionary" in the way that thirsty people use the brand-name "Coke" as a generic term for "sweet soft drink." 150,000 entries, too big and heavy to hold on your lap. (I also bought a new one-way translator, German to English; 165,000 entries but quite a bit smaller than the Duden because the explanations are missing.)

The pair of them cost a quarter of what I earned from this job. Hopefully they'll keep me going until 2014 or so.

You would be right to infer that I'm going to try to do more translations. It's relatively good money, as an hourly rate it comes halfway between architecture and programming. We shall see.

Miscellany, Saturday edition

Listening to Don Giovanni, the soundtrack to the Joseph Losey film. This is one of my many favourite operas, possibly my most favouritest after Wagner. I've heard it many dozens of times and seen it performed live twice, and it never gets stale. The Don is such a wonderful character (well: an extremely nasty, vicious bastard, but you know what I mean); Leporello is the perfect obsequious servant, a worm who dreams of turning; and oh, that final scene with the statue!

Many years ago, I saw a remarkable production in which the Don and Leporello were sung by a pair of identical twins, Herbert and Eugene Perry. They played their roles as the opposite of a split personality: One soul in two bodies. I found it a fascinating, revelatory production (though many disagreed), one of the few cleverclogs-director-productions of any opera which transcended the director's ego to achieve something truly new.

Leporello and the Don are (in any production of the opera) entwined in a relationship of almost incestuous closeness, picking the lice from each other's souls (as Vladimir would have it). Like some married couples, they would be glad to be rid of each other but neither wishes to take the first step. Leporello claims to be appalled by the Don's cruel immorality, but enjoys a comfortable life with him; Giovanni is irritated by Leporello's moralizing, but knows he would never find another servant so willing. They have come to need each other.

Finished translating the second item, which was a set of Powerpoint slides about the institution where Princess is shortly to exhibit some new works, for the annual meeting of its directors and sponsors. Should anyone ever ask you to translate Powerpoint slides, learn from my experience: It is nearly impossible to do this on your own, unless the Powerpointer is the kind of idiot who writes out his entire speech line-for-line onto zig hundred slides. Powerpoint which has been done properly, i.e. as a non-distracting adjunct to a speech, is utterly meaningless on its own! Of roughly forty bullet points, some of which were single words, I guessed three-quarters wrongly because I'd misunderstood the context.

I am now wondering how to charge for this part of the job. Normally translation is charged per word, but done by the sentence or even paragraph (i.e. in semantic units); one seldom has to look up a word in the original language because the context usually makes its meaning clear. In Powerpoint, nobody can hear you scream there is no context—it's given by the speech that you (translator) can't hear. I think I shall treat each bullet point as a sentence, and take the average sentence length from the first document to arrive at a working length and thus at the price.

A new meme is making the rounds. Courtesy of the Little Professor, I give you the Library Meme. It's a very simple one, just a single question: which books do you presently have out on loan from the library?

I've borrowed four books:

• Elizabeth George, Well schooled in murder
• Martha Grimes, Inspektor Jury sucht den Kennington Smaragd
• Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Oskar und die Dame in Rosa
• Robert Schneider, Schlafes Bruder

and reserved another:

• Alberto Moravia, Die Verachtung

There, wasn't that just fascinating? Tagged you, you're it.

On automatic translation by computer

I mentioned earlier that I've been commissioned to translate two pieces on Princess into English. Here's the first paragraph of one of them, as translated by Google:

Very harmoniously, nearly already idyllisch those work akkurat hung up einköpfigen Kakteen (O.T.) over the seat opportunities in the entrance hall of the conference center. With the oval Passepartouts and the greenish-yellow They would know background as a dwelling accessory the 60's-years apply. Also is in the sterile Lining up on the holzgetäfelten wall on to think a naturkundliche collection. Those Säulenkakteen became in the botanischen garden that Wilhelma, Stuttgart, photographed, them serve however not vordergründig as florales illustrative material. The light can deceive. The in new city Crying race born artist [Princess] would like in its similar photo work on the one hand form-giving structures and the sinnliche operational readiness level of Surface attractions catch, on the other hand one tries it with their dissecting view behind the outer skin into the inside to arrive the nature of the object. In often inflexibly and appearing stachelig meager and hides itself to aske tables desert plants soft, fleshy, juicy, vital interior life. The form vertically put on of these Kakteenart contained also the reference character on phallische Aspects; male power in their sexual Excludingness can tendentious hurting, penetrant and threateningly its. This threateningness, those appears likewise very aesthetic, becomes in that Work Pisa on the sea II ironically in Spieleri transported. A souvenir tower as landmarks of Pisa stands as symbolful with the Kakteen for that male principle. A pointing becomes with that photographed sperm obtained, in the phallischen Souvenir with largeporous openings is embedded. The work works by the photographic illustration much entrückt and becomes hermetic by the acrylic glass for the viewer seals.

Crap, isn't it? (Mind you, the German original is pretty damned obscure, I very much doubt that the average taxi driver could understand a word of it. A disappointingly high proportion of writers in German sees simplicity and comprehensibility as a sign of weakness and a betrayal of their expensive educations.)

Some of the difficulty that poor Google has with this text is due to the nature of German: as I commented to Lioness recently, it is perfectly legitimate to invent words on-the-fly by glueing concepts together as needed. The hybrid word that results is easily understandable by humans, who recognize the roots and read on with a chuckle, but to the computer it's either a typo or a brand-new word that it doesn't know, and in either case it cannot cope.

I think that non-automatic translation by human beings is going to be with us for a long time to come.

Today's Friday favourite—and my gods how quickly this week has gone by—is a quiet acoustic blues from the finest film of the year 2000. If you haven't already seen that film, then indulge yourselves with my blessings in a real treat this weekend: go and rent it. What the hell, even if you have already seen it, go and rent it and watch the film again. It's that good. Trust me.

Shabbat shalom, my dears.