Today’s story is about language. Or more precisely, translation. One of my key responsibilities here in Nicaragua lately has been translating stories about people and communities—stories of transformation—from English into Spanish. In the last week, I’ve translated 4 different entrevistas/historias (interviews/stories) written by other people in English into Spanish for distribution within Nicaragua. These stories have been about youth outreach programs in Chinandega, art programs in Ciudad Sandino, school improvement programs in Managua, and community activism in the barrio of Pedro J. Chamorro. It is amazing to read the things community leaders, pastors, teachers, and youth say about how these programs have improved their neighborhoods, and changed their own personal worldviews. Poco a poco, Nicaraguans are changing their country for the better!
So, back to the point. After translating each of these stories, I send them to, yes, you guessed it, Hultner (one of 2 people in the office who speak better English than I speak Spanish). Hultner has graciously agreed to edit my “traducciones”. Which is a good thing, because, as I quickly found out, even with my extensive grammatical base and a good Spanish dictionary to help me with the words I don’t know yet, I still make quite a few errors when I write. I suppose I should be happy that my errors are mostly in the realm of “article use”—i.e. “a”, “de”, “en”, and “por”. I should be happy that my friend Hultner so readily agrees to help me in this way so that I can improve my Spanish. But my ego is a little bruised today after seeing 16 red cambios (changes) to one 2-page document (I know, I know, 16 errors out of 1,000 words isn´t that bad), and I am feeling discouraged. The funny thing is, I easily make 16 errors in every conversation I have with someone in Spanish, but for some reason, seeing my written errors hurts more (perhaps this has something to do with how proficient I feel writing in English).
Anyway, I think somehow Hultner could sense this, because in the message he included with the latest story he reviewed for me, he wrote the following:
“BUEN TRABAJO PAMELA! (Good work, Pamela!)
No te desanimes por los pequeños errores, ya verás mis errores cuando traduzca algo al inglés. (Do not be discouraged by the small mistakes. You will see my mistakes when I translate something into English)
ADELANTE! (Onward!)"
Adelante, indeed.
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3 comments:
He has the right idea. Next time, you might make 14 mistakes. And then the time after that, 11. And you'll keep improving until you only make one or two per document. Give yourself time.
[hugs]
And of course, you often learn more by making a mistake than by doing it right the first time.
I found the whole por/para thing to be one of the most confusing aspects of the Spanish I learned. Even after asking multiple people to explain it to me, I still couldn't come up with any general rule, just memorize specific situations in which to use each.
And in languages in general, prepositions seldom translate exactly, and there are always certain ones that go with certain verbs in certain constructions. In time you'll come to the point where the right choice just sounds right, the way it does in English.
thanks, guys. i appreciate the encouragement.
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