This week I got a weird virtual message from someone who initially said something about having a translation job for me.
As always, I forwarded an e-mail for details.
Then the whole thing proved a ridiculous, obvious bait. Someone claimed to be entitled to a substatial fortune in dollars from a deceased Asian big wig and tried to get my consent to have it all deposited in my bank account.
I could not care less for this whole business, but sent back the following reply, verbatim:
"In all earnest, I dont know who told you I was interested in getting so stinking rich overnight, but I'm really NOT.
Keep tempting me, if you like. In the long run you'll see what a waste of your time and best efforts on someone like me."
That's how I decided to keep worrying about how to make ends meet here, and remain as poor as the English in this person's mail. A choice I'm sure I'll never be sorry for.
sexta-feira, 6 de novembro de 2009
quinta-feira, 29 de outubro de 2009
Rights
What right had I to fly so high?
To hide behind see-through disguise?
To trust so far so many a lie?
To pay no heed to words of wise?
What right had I so deep to dive
Into my self for fun, on whim?
Disturb did I a quiet bee-hive
And still have stings all o’er my skin.
The time has come for me to know
How wrong I've been, how wrong, how wrong!
My stupid heart, so weak, so low
How can it love so much, so strong?
To hide behind see-through disguise?
To trust so far so many a lie?
To pay no heed to words of wise?
What right had I so deep to dive
Into my self for fun, on whim?
Disturb did I a quiet bee-hive
And still have stings all o’er my skin.
The time has come for me to know
How wrong I've been, how wrong, how wrong!
My stupid heart, so weak, so low
How can it love so much, so strong?
quinta-feira, 30 de julho de 2009
An Event
I attended last Saturday a very interesting meeting about Peace. The event took place downtown in Rio de Janeiro.
And I was there, in a booth, attentive to every single word heard. I still have the badge bearing my interpreter's accreditation as a trophy, a medal, anything of the sort. I was not told to give it back when I left so it turned my keepsake, my souvenir.
Before beggining, I thought I would have the butterflies. The main reason was that I'm not familiar with modern conference room booths and the technical paraphernalia connected thereto.
The equipment, however, was (to my utmost relief) really user-friendly. Better still, I had a fellow translator beside me all the time who kindly showed me how to switch channels, use the microphone, read the green LEDs and God knows what else a couple of minutes before what could otherwise have been a true ordeal.
I had been introduced to him on the way to the place, which was almost within walking reach.
Our arrangement on how to share the day's work was based on the first signs of tiredness each one of us would have, and we both stuck to that, so the whole thing really worked.
Another concern I had was about my spoken Spanish. I simply haven't been speaking any Spanish whatsoever these days. I kept wondering what would the speakers or someone in the audience come up with.
I just didn’t know what to expect and the best I could do was to calm down, watch what was going on in the opening round which conveniently enough for me was his, wait and see what would happen when he first got tired and signed me so, inviting me for a bit of action.
Lucky me, nothing I could not translate except for half a dozen really unimportant details not very well heard and a guy in the audience who was from Rio Grande do Sul (my state) who spoke too fast to me (and to everyone else, I guess), but he fortunately didn't speak too long and his overall stuff was easily understandable.
I went there thinking I would be requested to translate either from or into English alone, but in the last minute it was found out that there were enough translators for English but only one for Spanish. I volunteered to fill that sorry gap but was told to be ready to move between conference rooms upon request. I was really not needed in another room. Thank God. Translation where I was did run smooth, almost easy to do, with my inexperience and all.
Today I was told the dough for that pleasant workday would be available. No one told me even how much it was, but anyway whatever it is will be pretty welcome. End of month, you know. Like every common mortal, I'm flat broke.
And I was there, in a booth, attentive to every single word heard. I still have the badge bearing my interpreter's accreditation as a trophy, a medal, anything of the sort. I was not told to give it back when I left so it turned my keepsake, my souvenir.
Before beggining, I thought I would have the butterflies. The main reason was that I'm not familiar with modern conference room booths and the technical paraphernalia connected thereto.
The equipment, however, was (to my utmost relief) really user-friendly. Better still, I had a fellow translator beside me all the time who kindly showed me how to switch channels, use the microphone, read the green LEDs and God knows what else a couple of minutes before what could otherwise have been a true ordeal.
I had been introduced to him on the way to the place, which was almost within walking reach.
Our arrangement on how to share the day's work was based on the first signs of tiredness each one of us would have, and we both stuck to that, so the whole thing really worked.
Another concern I had was about my spoken Spanish. I simply haven't been speaking any Spanish whatsoever these days. I kept wondering what would the speakers or someone in the audience come up with.
I just didn’t know what to expect and the best I could do was to calm down, watch what was going on in the opening round which conveniently enough for me was his, wait and see what would happen when he first got tired and signed me so, inviting me for a bit of action.
Lucky me, nothing I could not translate except for half a dozen really unimportant details not very well heard and a guy in the audience who was from Rio Grande do Sul (my state) who spoke too fast to me (and to everyone else, I guess), but he fortunately didn't speak too long and his overall stuff was easily understandable.
I went there thinking I would be requested to translate either from or into English alone, but in the last minute it was found out that there were enough translators for English but only one for Spanish. I volunteered to fill that sorry gap but was told to be ready to move between conference rooms upon request. I was really not needed in another room. Thank God. Translation where I was did run smooth, almost easy to do, with my inexperience and all.
Today I was told the dough for that pleasant workday would be available. No one told me even how much it was, but anyway whatever it is will be pretty welcome. End of month, you know. Like every common mortal, I'm flat broke.
quarta-feira, 15 de julho de 2009
A Book
In my life, it's needless to say, books have always been part and parcel.
I've already had a number of them. Not anylonger.
Some were lost with my own frequent moving, others were borrowed by people who never read them, but never returned them either, others were stolen, some were sold and many were given away.
I had for example a precious Nestle New Testament, Greek and German (Gothic characters), 18th century, one of the most regretted losses. Only someone who knew what it was about would covet such a relic, so I thought nobody ever would. It was just a very old book that seemingly nobody could even read. But I found out I was wrong... by losing it. I'll certainly never know who the hell stole it. And it will take me too long to fetch another copy, if ever. This kind of stuff is really rare.
A not so old Bible in Italian had suffered the attack of bookworms. I managed to stop it and then filled a great big hole in the hard back cover with epoxi resin. But the book went "crippled". The main text was left intact and can still be reread, though.
An old volume called The Limits of Art, given me (or transferred to me, in his own words) by Daniel Brilhante de Brito, my initiator in the art of translation, is an impressive sample with the best pages ever written by authors of all times and places, according to very competent critics of all times and places.
The book, printed in the early 50's, was already old when of said transference in the mid 80's. The volume also reminded me of its giver, who passed away about three years ago. He was a man whose impressive learning has earned my unqualified respect and admiration. Men of this rare kind also grow old and eventually die. I don't know how old he lived to be but saying he had at least fulfilled his alloted span must be a safe guess.
I used to flee to that volume during a long period of personal "darkness". Literal darkness even, since I had for example to live without electric energy for months on end.
To while away the tedium of that hopeless period of extreme poverty earlier in this century, I often could enjoy the company of Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Hugo, Voltaire, Yeats, Poe, Verlaine, Schiller, Goethe, just to mention some. Of course, no one around to share anything from such readings. By turning again and again to it I have even learned by heart some of my favorites.
Just imagine, every single line in my book was worth reading and rereading, just in a moment I scarcely ever could hear anything worth hearing, see anything worth seeing, let alone read anything worthy at all.
In the very "cave" I found these days again the volume I though lost. Apparently, it has been there all the time.
Now I can turn again to those extreme pages. I just love them.
I've already had a number of them. Not anylonger.
Some were lost with my own frequent moving, others were borrowed by people who never read them, but never returned them either, others were stolen, some were sold and many were given away.
I had for example a precious Nestle New Testament, Greek and German (Gothic characters), 18th century, one of the most regretted losses. Only someone who knew what it was about would covet such a relic, so I thought nobody ever would. It was just a very old book that seemingly nobody could even read. But I found out I was wrong... by losing it. I'll certainly never know who the hell stole it. And it will take me too long to fetch another copy, if ever. This kind of stuff is really rare.
A not so old Bible in Italian had suffered the attack of bookworms. I managed to stop it and then filled a great big hole in the hard back cover with epoxi resin. But the book went "crippled". The main text was left intact and can still be reread, though.
An old volume called The Limits of Art, given me (or transferred to me, in his own words) by Daniel Brilhante de Brito, my initiator in the art of translation, is an impressive sample with the best pages ever written by authors of all times and places, according to very competent critics of all times and places.
The book, printed in the early 50's, was already old when of said transference in the mid 80's. The volume also reminded me of its giver, who passed away about three years ago. He was a man whose impressive learning has earned my unqualified respect and admiration. Men of this rare kind also grow old and eventually die. I don't know how old he lived to be but saying he had at least fulfilled his alloted span must be a safe guess.
I used to flee to that volume during a long period of personal "darkness". Literal darkness even, since I had for example to live without electric energy for months on end.
To while away the tedium of that hopeless period of extreme poverty earlier in this century, I often could enjoy the company of Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Hugo, Voltaire, Yeats, Poe, Verlaine, Schiller, Goethe, just to mention some. Of course, no one around to share anything from such readings. By turning again and again to it I have even learned by heart some of my favorites.
Just imagine, every single line in my book was worth reading and rereading, just in a moment I scarcely ever could hear anything worth hearing, see anything worth seeing, let alone read anything worthy at all.
In the very "cave" I found these days again the volume I though lost. Apparently, it has been there all the time.
Now I can turn again to those extreme pages. I just love them.
segunda-feira, 22 de junho de 2009
Awards, Awards!
My first blog at Blogspot, Bonde Andando, is now running for an award: TOP BLOG.
It's been with surprise that I got the stamp. I was not told a word about by whose appointment my blog is now running for a Top Blog award. I have no previous experience whatsoever with awards, and never thought I ever would. Maybe I have already got secret friends somewhere the blogosphere over, who knows?
The surprise was no doubt a very pleasant one. Lucky me, I thought. I'm not an important blogger. Not a famous one, either. True, Bonde Andando enjoys a relatively small - however faithful - readership. But I just can’t help thinking of my blog in its own right as average, just average.
The themes dealt with therein are average. My wording is plain. There's neither any great depth nor any far reach ever to be found anywhere in my text. It’s nothing much, in all senses, whatever the viewpoint. I like to write poems and I post some there, but I never thought of myself as being much of a poet. In fact, I feel I'm more of a free time rhymester. I’m just someone who likes to scan and rhyme lines exclusively for the fun I find about the whole thing.
The blog is not visually beautiful, which may represent one attraction of less. Just words, just text, plain text. I never exploited the tools available, most of them I haven't even taken the time to learn how to use.
Only the readership of Bonde Andando I deem really special. It's nothing short of an asset to the blog. A relatively small gathering of fellow bloggers from all walks of life, with all sorts of backgrounds generously share their opinions by commenting my posts. They give me much support by reading and liking whatever I write and then by telling me so through their comments.
But what if the blog ends up a winner? Considering such a possibility - no matter how realistic it is - is just natural now.
Well, in case my Brazilian "streetcar on the move" ever comes to be awarded, then I will in all likelihood start viewing the blog as somehow outstanding on the account of such award, though still as average as always. Something like an "outstandingly average" blog.
On what will come next there is of course no telling.
Come what may, I'll always acknowledge here, there and everywhere an indebtedness to my readers, my commenters, all my virtual friends.
It's been with surprise that I got the stamp. I was not told a word about by whose appointment my blog is now running for a Top Blog award. I have no previous experience whatsoever with awards, and never thought I ever would. Maybe I have already got secret friends somewhere the blogosphere over, who knows?
The surprise was no doubt a very pleasant one. Lucky me, I thought. I'm not an important blogger. Not a famous one, either. True, Bonde Andando enjoys a relatively small - however faithful - readership. But I just can’t help thinking of my blog in its own right as average, just average.
The themes dealt with therein are average. My wording is plain. There's neither any great depth nor any far reach ever to be found anywhere in my text. It’s nothing much, in all senses, whatever the viewpoint. I like to write poems and I post some there, but I never thought of myself as being much of a poet. In fact, I feel I'm more of a free time rhymester. I’m just someone who likes to scan and rhyme lines exclusively for the fun I find about the whole thing.
The blog is not visually beautiful, which may represent one attraction of less. Just words, just text, plain text. I never exploited the tools available, most of them I haven't even taken the time to learn how to use.
Only the readership of Bonde Andando I deem really special. It's nothing short of an asset to the blog. A relatively small gathering of fellow bloggers from all walks of life, with all sorts of backgrounds generously share their opinions by commenting my posts. They give me much support by reading and liking whatever I write and then by telling me so through their comments.
But what if the blog ends up a winner? Considering such a possibility - no matter how realistic it is - is just natural now.
Well, in case my Brazilian "streetcar on the move" ever comes to be awarded, then I will in all likelihood start viewing the blog as somehow outstanding on the account of such award, though still as average as always. Something like an "outstandingly average" blog.
On what will come next there is of course no telling.
Come what may, I'll always acknowledge here, there and everywhere an indebtedness to my readers, my commenters, all my virtual friends.
quarta-feira, 13 de maio de 2009
On New Tricks and Old Dogs
If there are old dogs that still can learn new tricks, I'm certainly one.
True, my fluency at German, at typing, and at sheet music reading and at God knows what else don’t seem to be improving at all these days, but I just refuse to lay the blame for that on the fact that I'm already in my 50's.
I'm not a lazybones either - a conclusion too many people who know me seem to be so ready to jump at.
Those who don’t have the slightest idea of how much effort it takes to master … no matter what (especially when there is no money and no one around to help) will in all likelihood look down on your initial efforts, shrug at your progress and frown at your laboriously worked end results. It’s no use to try to explain a thing to them. No matter what you say or do – which will never be understood at all – you can only be doing the wrong thing, the wrong way, at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.
In the capacity of my own personal trainer for a lifetime, however, I know that I still can learn new things and exactly how fast, and I also know exactly what I want to learn and what for.
I got used to assessing on my own all the resources at hand, the skills and limitations I have, at what clip I can get ahead, in a nutshell, everything. And I find myself now as determined to learn as I've always been and always will. Drawbacks do exist. Stagnant phases too. It's simply natural.
The experience I enjoy now with French came as a windfall. I've been speaking French almost on a daily basis recently, which never happened to me before. I’m delighted. It’s always been no travels, no French speakers, nothing at all but my readings. No wonder my spoken French is still a little stiff, no wonder I still produce stilted utterances and make unreasonable mistakes. Lack of practice, that's all. Readings alone can – and do – work wonders to someone's knowledge of a foreign language, but nothing can replace practice. Now I’m finally practicing. Something I find nothing short of serendipitous.
However, I’m no longer blogging much. My typing is still too sorry. My music is not being sufficiently practiced and I'm not making enough money yet, either. There isn’t really much to be preened on. I’m just musing.
True, my fluency at German, at typing, and at sheet music reading and at God knows what else don’t seem to be improving at all these days, but I just refuse to lay the blame for that on the fact that I'm already in my 50's.
I'm not a lazybones either - a conclusion too many people who know me seem to be so ready to jump at.
Those who don’t have the slightest idea of how much effort it takes to master … no matter what (especially when there is no money and no one around to help) will in all likelihood look down on your initial efforts, shrug at your progress and frown at your laboriously worked end results. It’s no use to try to explain a thing to them. No matter what you say or do – which will never be understood at all – you can only be doing the wrong thing, the wrong way, at the wrong time and for the wrong reason.
In the capacity of my own personal trainer for a lifetime, however, I know that I still can learn new things and exactly how fast, and I also know exactly what I want to learn and what for.
I got used to assessing on my own all the resources at hand, the skills and limitations I have, at what clip I can get ahead, in a nutshell, everything. And I find myself now as determined to learn as I've always been and always will. Drawbacks do exist. Stagnant phases too. It's simply natural.
The experience I enjoy now with French came as a windfall. I've been speaking French almost on a daily basis recently, which never happened to me before. I’m delighted. It’s always been no travels, no French speakers, nothing at all but my readings. No wonder my spoken French is still a little stiff, no wonder I still produce stilted utterances and make unreasonable mistakes. Lack of practice, that's all. Readings alone can – and do – work wonders to someone's knowledge of a foreign language, but nothing can replace practice. Now I’m finally practicing. Something I find nothing short of serendipitous.
However, I’m no longer blogging much. My typing is still too sorry. My music is not being sufficiently practiced and I'm not making enough money yet, either. There isn’t really much to be preened on. I’m just musing.
quarta-feira, 11 de março de 2009
In French, too. Why not?
My contact with french is old indeed. My eyes have been fed with much French in print ed words for longer than four decades. This gave me in the long run conditions to express myself well enough in the language.
I've been on the whole self-taught. In the beginning, cheap manuals with indications on how to pronounce more often than not misleading. French songs of the day (most thereof I still like to hear) were not understood for lack of ear trainig, nem the same for the few films I could see.
I have never lived in France (or any French-speaking country), never even been there. Never lived with French people nor even with fluent speakers. Never spoke French on a daily basis for any period of time or kept correspondence. So my writings in French naturally may sound bookish but that just can't be helped. My knowledge of argot is really poor. The literary language is what I know better.
If you view a vocabulary as something built overnight you just won't believe mine. When I read my French-Portuguese dictionary some twenty years ago (while reading i scored at every page the number of existing entries and that of the words I knew, ranging from none to all, accordingly). I knew a little over 61% of them. The balance of vocabulary forgotten and learned over these two decades must be positive, because today I know much more French than I did then.
It's not without difficulties that I write in French today, and the same holds true for Spanish, Italian, English or even Portuguese, my mothertongue. It never will. Many doubts still arise when I communicate in French today, and the same holds true for Spanish, Italian, English or even Portuguese. They always will. I still make many mistakes in French and ... You know.
To keep fit, I need to train. So I just write. Nobody in my acquaitance can be a reader, but there is the blogosphere, always affording incredible interactive possibilities. That's why I starded another blog: En Français Aussi. Pourquoi pas?
If you can read French, welcome to http://neo-orkuteiro-pourquoipas.blogspot.com/
À bientot
I've been on the whole self-taught. In the beginning, cheap manuals with indications on how to pronounce more often than not misleading. French songs of the day (most thereof I still like to hear) were not understood for lack of ear trainig, nem the same for the few films I could see.
I have never lived in France (or any French-speaking country), never even been there. Never lived with French people nor even with fluent speakers. Never spoke French on a daily basis for any period of time or kept correspondence. So my writings in French naturally may sound bookish but that just can't be helped. My knowledge of argot is really poor. The literary language is what I know better.
If you view a vocabulary as something built overnight you just won't believe mine. When I read my French-Portuguese dictionary some twenty years ago (while reading i scored at every page the number of existing entries and that of the words I knew, ranging from none to all, accordingly). I knew a little over 61% of them. The balance of vocabulary forgotten and learned over these two decades must be positive, because today I know much more French than I did then.
It's not without difficulties that I write in French today, and the same holds true for Spanish, Italian, English or even Portuguese, my mothertongue. It never will. Many doubts still arise when I communicate in French today, and the same holds true for Spanish, Italian, English or even Portuguese. They always will. I still make many mistakes in French and ... You know.
To keep fit, I need to train. So I just write. Nobody in my acquaitance can be a reader, but there is the blogosphere, always affording incredible interactive possibilities. That's why I starded another blog: En Français Aussi. Pourquoi pas?
If you can read French, welcome to http://neo-orkuteiro-pourquoipas.blogspot.com/
À bientot
quinta-feira, 29 de janeiro de 2009
On me
Brazilian, 52, divorced, children and grand children.
I work professionally with English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Portuguese.
I have never denied myself the pleasure of reading in many languages. In fact, I have been reading a good deal for decades on end, and of course amassed a something of a fund of knowledge.
I'm really no intellectual, no scholar, but I have an idea of the historical evolution of all languages I work with and some contact with their respective literatures.
I appreciate good anapestic tetrameters like "For the moon never beams without binging me dreams" (E. Poe) or "Les parfums ne font pas frissoner sa narine" (A. Rimbaud) and lots of others.
The benefits of lengthy reading may be subtle. I enjoy a certain degree of confidence whenever I write no matter what in no matter which language, one I don't think likely at all without some intimacy with texts from the best authors.
When finding the precise word or turn of expression will make a difference, there is much pleasure in searching for it and much reward in finding it. I don't think I would ever know what such pleasures and rewards completely unrelated with money are like without my readings.
I don't think I would be able to explain (opr even notice, for that matter) too many a distillation of choice found in a line or another without my readings.
I have been recommending very experienced writers to younger translators (like Eugene Nida, Garcia Yebra, Paulo Rónai, John Catford, Eric Partridge, George Mounin, just to mention some). Those who actually read what I told them to must have felt the difference and know what I'm talking about with perfect understanding.
I also recommend fetching copies of the Bible in all languages of interest and reading all of them, cover to cover. Such an experience will make a difference, and what an one, I tell you. This book is believed to have been authored by God himself, with humans as "ghost writers". You'll be greatly rewarded for having done such reading, regardless of any faith, let alone religion. The Bible is also just a book availabeble to every man willing to read. Whatever your case is, you're likely to find there a very well translated work, if not a masterpiece of translation, too often the work of a lifetime. Reading it really pays.
Good dictionaries and assorted reference works can also be read through and actually doing this proves in the long run nothing short of a very rewarding idea.
In the long foreword to his Plays Pleasant, G. B. Shaw says: "I could explain my plays, if I chose, but those who misunderstood the plays will misunderstand the explanation ten times more".
One of the most fascinating aspects of my profession is that no matter how much I learn, I am confronted with my ignorance on an everyday basis. No matter how much vocabulary I acquire and grammar I master, I am always introduced to new knotty problems, always putting my tens of thousands of hours of reading to shame. That is why I can resist preening too much on my "fund of knowledge", as it were.
Mistakes do happen and to err is human (and to lay the blame on anything like a computer program is still more so). To make my work as neat as I can make it, I endeavor not to be too "human" when I translate.
I work professionally with English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin and Portuguese.
I have never denied myself the pleasure of reading in many languages. In fact, I have been reading a good deal for decades on end, and of course amassed a something of a fund of knowledge.
I'm really no intellectual, no scholar, but I have an idea of the historical evolution of all languages I work with and some contact with their respective literatures.
I appreciate good anapestic tetrameters like "For the moon never beams without binging me dreams" (E. Poe) or "Les parfums ne font pas frissoner sa narine" (A. Rimbaud) and lots of others.
The benefits of lengthy reading may be subtle. I enjoy a certain degree of confidence whenever I write no matter what in no matter which language, one I don't think likely at all without some intimacy with texts from the best authors.
When finding the precise word or turn of expression will make a difference, there is much pleasure in searching for it and much reward in finding it. I don't think I would ever know what such pleasures and rewards completely unrelated with money are like without my readings.
I don't think I would be able to explain (opr even notice, for that matter) too many a distillation of choice found in a line or another without my readings.
I have been recommending very experienced writers to younger translators (like Eugene Nida, Garcia Yebra, Paulo Rónai, John Catford, Eric Partridge, George Mounin, just to mention some). Those who actually read what I told them to must have felt the difference and know what I'm talking about with perfect understanding.
I also recommend fetching copies of the Bible in all languages of interest and reading all of them, cover to cover. Such an experience will make a difference, and what an one, I tell you. This book is believed to have been authored by God himself, with humans as "ghost writers". You'll be greatly rewarded for having done such reading, regardless of any faith, let alone religion. The Bible is also just a book availabeble to every man willing to read. Whatever your case is, you're likely to find there a very well translated work, if not a masterpiece of translation, too often the work of a lifetime. Reading it really pays.
Good dictionaries and assorted reference works can also be read through and actually doing this proves in the long run nothing short of a very rewarding idea.
In the long foreword to his Plays Pleasant, G. B. Shaw says: "I could explain my plays, if I chose, but those who misunderstood the plays will misunderstand the explanation ten times more".
One of the most fascinating aspects of my profession is that no matter how much I learn, I am confronted with my ignorance on an everyday basis. No matter how much vocabulary I acquire and grammar I master, I am always introduced to new knotty problems, always putting my tens of thousands of hours of reading to shame. That is why I can resist preening too much on my "fund of knowledge", as it were.
Mistakes do happen and to err is human (and to lay the blame on anything like a computer program is still more so). To make my work as neat as I can make it, I endeavor not to be too "human" when I translate.
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