Another one lost in translation

Honestly I was going to take a nap since I’m dead tired, but there’s suddenly so much to write about and most of all, I feel like doing it in English again. Is this maybe influence of the piece on blogging that Mr Newman uploaded at the beginning of the semester and that I'm holding in my hands at the moment? The end sentence says: REMEMBER, your blog is reflection of you and your attitude!

Now, we all are only human beings and failure is typical of our nature. So is doubt. That’s why we all have moments of weakness when we don’t know which way to go. And then we write a bit too little… ;) Let's say this is my way of excusing inconsistency.

I’ve been pretty busy recently, but I don’t want to go into detail about my life at fast pace. However, there’s one assignment, I’ve recently got, that is worth mentioning, and namely my first official translation I’m supposed to be paid for. On the one hand, it’s pretty bad time to do something like this just before final exams, especially considering that it’s a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, I find it a perfect opportunity to check firstly – if I’m into translation at all, secondly – how good my reading comprehension is, thirdly – what my current level of written German is (the translation is from Polish into German) and finally – how well I can interpret what the author is trying to say without losing the gist of his message.

Having finished the first ten pages I can already say that you should definitely give some thought to the idea of translation. It’s clear to me that lots of people study languages because they enjoy learning new vocabulary and interacting with people other nationalities. That’s the part that makes most fun. Translation, however, is much more complicated. It needs to be dealt with in a much more general context which makes it take longer. At any rate it’s not simply putting single words in an other language, but researching the meaning behind them (since you sometimes don’t know some more sophisticated vocabulary from your mother language as I’ve experienced the last few days), trying to paraphrase in order to make the text more understandable, etc. That’s why you shouldn’t be surprised/terrified/devastated when you realize that translating is a very time-consuming, confusing and sometimes irritating activity. I’m very curious if you've had any experiences with translating more demanding texts?

By the way, the language itself is such a fast developing field! I haven’t been living in Poland for over 2,5 years now and when I get to talk to my eighteen-year-old brother it turns out that I sometimes don’t understand his “school slang”. Furthermore, I had no idea how a USB stick was called in Polish since it wasn't popular or even well known at the time I was at high school. Now, that’s ridiculous, don’t you think so?;)

That's all for now about my struggle with finding the right words.