If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Does a bilingual speaker have a mother and father tongue?
Are you an orphan if you prefer to talk tongue-in-cheek?
And I leave you with a plea for my profession:
Being a native speaker is not a profession.
Being a translator is.
anon.
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pictures imperfect blog 
Excellent points! Even my bad Spanish has a positive effect on those whose first language is Spanish. Not so much in French, though! LOL My hat is off to you. I don’t know enough of any language to be a translator! ESL teacher – yes, translator – no! 🙂
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I love the work. However, English-German is very badly paid because every i… with 5 years of English thinks he can a) speak the language and b) translate it. I hate it when I catch mistakes, when I see anything in German and it takes me three seconds to realise that it is a (bad) translation from English. Actually, if you notice that it is a translation it is per se bad.
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That is true. I have tried to read books both in Spanish and French that I couldn’t get through. It takes maybe more talent to translate it than it does to write it. We used to have huge debates in the Migrant Office when writing notices or letters between the different native speakers about how best to say something to catch the original meaning of the author when the author (me or another consultant) was standing in the room with them. It was enlightening to say the least.
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👍🏽
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Translating is supremely difficult. Often it’s easy enough to understand what the speaker in another tongue is saying. But rendering it in comprehensible form to someone else – worse if it’s a written translation, and needs perhaps to be ‘better’ is often really hard. Hats off to translators! And as to simultaneous translation, as in the EU Parliament – my respect and amazement knows no bounds.
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I couldn’t be a an interpreter. I found out early that if I try to do that (for friends etc.) I tend to translate not into proper German but into dialect (which is really my first language). It is, to be honest, a different profession. But I love sitting over a text and trying to find the proper German words to convey the English meaning. Although it is not always possible.
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It’s certainly a stimulating intellectual exercise. What’s your ‘proper’ first language, asked she nosily?
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Kurpälzisch (or, in proper German, Kurpfälzisch). It is a variant of German with some extra vocabulary, a few grammatical variants, and a distinct pronunciation which is not generally found attractive by Germans from other regions.
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Du bist eine gute Übersetzerin, Elke. Um mich in anderen sprachen zu unterhalten, bin ich auf maschinen und scharaden angewiesen 🤔😉😁
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As long as translating machines use words like “scharaden” in a text I know my job is safe (as badly as it is paid).
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👍😂
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I’m also in awe of the skills of interpreters and translators! It’s hard enough for me to explain the meaning of some of the Plautdietsch words I use to my kids – never mind translating on the fly! I’m trying to learn (relearn? Sort of?) German as a hobby and I doubt I’d do very well communicating with a native speaker who didn’t know English!
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It’s possible if you know a bit of Marcel Marceau😃 It’s what I use when I teach German to Arabic speaking people, Kurdish speaking people, Dari and Farsie speaking people, Romanian and Vietnamese speaking people of whose language I have nio idea.
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