‘Engins publics’. Public works trucks; had to be. Of course it wasn’t; it means a variety of public works machinery, like lifts (don’t even get me started on detailing my mining/construction-experience explanation to my French colleagues) and semis (or should I say articulated lorries) and specific public works-y ‘mobiles that cost taxpayers fortunes (apparently Volvo churns out a pretty good product).
What is a ‘garage mort’? How about defining a ‘mobile home’? The first might bring to mind some sort of cadaver closet. Where I come from the other means a trailer, not a motor home or a camper, or even a caravan—and not a gypsy caravan—and brings to mind a trailer park, which brings to mind low class lowbrow welfare recipients.
Obviously this is not the case. I lived in a trailer for some years as a kid and both of my parents considered themselves middle class; it was our first house. As for the garage of death, in France it actually just means a short-term garage space rental while you leave the campground for a few days to go on a hike, or a boat ride or whatever else it is you and your family might be interested in doing while on vacation.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
My general language box is North American English; maybe some of the loose language I’ve already used has given me away. In English-French translation school we’re taught to use European and Québécois term banks (for example), but in the end, as a translator with limited experience, I often find myself trying to bring it back to what I know and what I can understand in order to make the words make sense.
But your employers box might be different, and the English-language box of the banking conglomerate for which I helped translate an annual report seemed almost an internal language when it came to some of the terminology they used in the glossary they forwarded to us. I’m no financial wizard, and to me banking means deposits and withdrawals (preferably more of the former than of the latter, but I’m an intern in Europe so maybe that’s best left for another, more personal post. Just kidding boss).
But I was sure that based on what I know of North American banking terms and after consultation of EU term records, whatever that bank network was talking about was to be understood only by those who had previous experience saying and hearing it, in their own box. Box inside a box even, but lets not get carried away in layers of trans-philo; I’m just looking for some vocabularic catharsis here.
Would that my ‘box’ be as expansive as I believe my travelling ability to be, but even that has to get called out now and again (have you ever tried to play out a confrontation in a Haitian street, in Kréyol, at night, while pretending like you know what you’re doing? I’m white and was only a month in, trust me it doesn’t work).
So I’m learning. I give, I take, I make notes and I try to remember. I guess what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t get discouraged, because even when we think we have an idea about what we’re doing in a box we feel somewhat comfortable in, things don’t always go smoothly.
If it’s important to you that you learn new places or skills or languages or even new bus routes or recipes, it might perhaps be intimidating at first and probably result in a little bit of ‘am I smart enough?’, but it will be well worth the effort somewhere down the line.
Right?
Because this financial glossary had better come in handy next semester…
Feel like telling us about your box?
What is a ‘garage mort’? How about defining a ‘mobile home’? The first might bring to mind some sort of cadaver closet. Where I come from the other means a trailer, not a motor home or a camper, or even a caravan—and not a gypsy caravan—and brings to mind a trailer park, which brings to mind low class lowbrow welfare recipients.
Obviously this is not the case. I lived in a trailer for some years as a kid and both of my parents considered themselves middle class; it was our first house. As for the garage of death, in France it actually just means a short-term garage space rental while you leave the campground for a few days to go on a hike, or a boat ride or whatever else it is you and your family might be interested in doing while on vacation.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
My general language box is North American English; maybe some of the loose language I’ve already used has given me away. In English-French translation school we’re taught to use European and Québécois term banks (for example), but in the end, as a translator with limited experience, I often find myself trying to bring it back to what I know and what I can understand in order to make the words make sense.
But your employers box might be different, and the English-language box of the banking conglomerate for which I helped translate an annual report seemed almost an internal language when it came to some of the terminology they used in the glossary they forwarded to us. I’m no financial wizard, and to me banking means deposits and withdrawals (preferably more of the former than of the latter, but I’m an intern in Europe so maybe that’s best left for another, more personal post. Just kidding boss).
But I was sure that based on what I know of North American banking terms and after consultation of EU term records, whatever that bank network was talking about was to be understood only by those who had previous experience saying and hearing it, in their own box. Box inside a box even, but lets not get carried away in layers of trans-philo; I’m just looking for some vocabularic catharsis here.
Would that my ‘box’ be as expansive as I believe my travelling ability to be, but even that has to get called out now and again (have you ever tried to play out a confrontation in a Haitian street, in Kréyol, at night, while pretending like you know what you’re doing? I’m white and was only a month in, trust me it doesn’t work).
So I’m learning. I give, I take, I make notes and I try to remember. I guess what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t get discouraged, because even when we think we have an idea about what we’re doing in a box we feel somewhat comfortable in, things don’t always go smoothly.
If it’s important to you that you learn new places or skills or languages or even new bus routes or recipes, it might perhaps be intimidating at first and probably result in a little bit of ‘am I smart enough?’, but it will be well worth the effort somewhere down the line.
Right?
Because this financial glossary had better come in handy next semester…
Feel like telling us about your box?
My box is a vast expansion of several languages - Ukrainian being one of them. Thanks for this informative and delightful blog.
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