TGIF: The Tale of Mr. Morton June 19, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
This is the Tale of Mr. Morton… featuring predicates. I bet only a few of you English native speakers can explain what a predicate is. I know I couldn’t until I looked it up. It’s been over twenty years since I truly studied the fine details of English grammar. The predicate is basically the rest of a sentence apart from the subject. As Wikipedia so succinctly explains, “a predicate is one of the two main parts of a sentence (the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies)… The predicate must contain a verb, and the verb requires, permits or precludes other sentence elements to complete the predicate. These elements are: objects (direct, indirect, prepositional), predicatives (aka predicate complements: subject complements and object complements) and adverbials (either obligatory or adjuncts).”
This Schoolhouse Rock clip first aired in December 1993 and features Jack Sheldon, who was a frequent contributor to Schoolhouse Rock. As I’ve said before, he sang most of my favorite Schoolhouse Rock clips, including Conjunction Junction and the wonderful I’m Just A Bill.
Have a great weekend, everyone! I’ll be offline, because I will be walking a total of 30 miles (17 on Saturday, 13 on Sunday) in preparation for the Breast Cancer 3-Day. I am training to walk 60 miles in 3 days from July 31-August 2. We are just ending Week 7 in the training plan. I have raised $2780 so far. And if you want to donate to my walk I certainly won’t say no 🙂
Give it a couple shakes… June 18, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.3 comments
Maybe it’s because I’m not quite awake yet, having worked late last night to get a good chunk of my e-learning modules finished (only 2200 words to go, so I’ll be finished with it today – YAY!), but this morning’s Adam@Home made me chuckle enough to want to share it with you all. The backstory is that he and the kids are cleaning out the basement this summer. There have been lots of jokes about procrastination, etc. I think you’ll see why I thought this one was worth sharing. I think I have a typewriter in my basement too. I’ll be sure to give it a couple shakes…
Scam alert: Somya Translators June 16, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Scam alert.5 comments
If you receive an e-mail with a signature for Ajoy Singh at Somya Translators (e-mail: somyatranslation@yahoo.com, phone: +91-11-22484180, cell : + 91-9990094796, fax : +91-11-22484180) with a job request, do not fall for it. It is apparently a scam. According to Tina Mittra, a project manager of Somya Translators Pvt. Ltd. in Delhi, India, the company has been receiving invoices and e-mail for work which the company had not assigned. Apparently someone is using the e-mail somyatranslation@yahoo.com and assigning work under Somya Translators’ name and company details. If you receive a job request from the yahoo.com account, do not accept it. As Tina states, “We only use our internal company accounts like sales@somyatrans.com etc. for all the business activities. We never use yahoo, gmail, rediff or any other public accounts for business activities. We welcome suggestions from all of you how we can catch this kind of people.”
Several people on the ProZ.com forums and some of the payment practices lists I subscribe to have been complaining about Somya Translators for a while now. This explains a lot. All we can do on our end is ignore the job request. Hopefully they are able to take legal action on their end.
For more information, please read the ProZ.com forum thread. This only underscores my insistence that no one ever do business with a yahoo.com account!
Translators against Crowdsourcing by Commercial Businesses June 16, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.2 comments
The translators who are active on Twitter are all atwitter (ok, pissed off) about LinkedIn’s request for translators to translate their site without payment. I’m not as upset as some are. In fact, I think I deleted the e-mail from LinkedIn without even reading it. I’m too busy to deal with that kind of thing right now. I figure I don’t pay to be on LinkedIn, so I certainly don’t expect anything from it. However, that doesn’t mean I am going to help translate the site into other languages.
Crowdsourcing is all the rage right now in this economic downturn. As Bilingual Joe’s Translation Store explains, “It basically involves getting your fans to work for you, for free to improve your bottom line.” Facebook did it, then Google, and now LinkedIn. I’m sure this won’t be the last time. Everyone’s hurting nowadays, and big companies are doing everything they can to save money – at the expense of quality.
I think the main crux behind my fellow translators’ rage is that LinkedIn has always marketed itself as a professional site, but now it is treating its professional members (translators) as non-professionals. As several of my fellow translators have pointed out, LinkedIn isn’t asking its accountants for free accounting services or PR folks to do its market research and publicity work for free. Why then do they think it is ok to ask translators to offer their services for free?
If you would like to join, there is a new LinkedIn group called Translators against Crowdsourcing by Commercial Businesses. I’ve joined it, but I don’t expect to be too active there. Like I said I’m upset by it, but I am not too sure it will change anyone’s mind about crowdsourcing.
Update: Matthew Bennett wrote a very good blog post on the subject today as well entitled LinkedIn Infuriates Professional Translators: 10 Big Questions in which he asks some very good questions.
Wonder and amazement in Antwerp’s Central Station June 15, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.1 comment so far
My first experience overseas was when I studied in Salzburg, Austria back in 1989. Salzburg is of course where they filmed huge portions of the Sound of Music, so it – and the movie – has always had a special place in my heart. Train stations are the same no matter where you are, so I can only imagine the bewilderment these people experienced. This is just a really cool video. Not necessarily TGIF worthy, but consider it a little bonus to brighten your week. And think about how you might react if this had happened where you were. It is a promotion stunt in the Central Station of Antwerp for a Belgian television program, where they are looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical of “The Sound of Music”. Apparently they only had two rehearsals. Quite impressive…
Scam alert: yet another Nigerian scam targeting translators June 15, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Scam alert.add a comment
According to the Sun Herald of Biloxi-Gulfport and South Mississippi, there is a new Nigerian scam targeting Hispanic translators in which con artists are promising to send people money in return for jobs that don’t exist. The jobs are being posted on Craigslist and Monster.com, so they just aren’t a local problem. The job ad requires the job seekers to send their resumé with their addresses and date of birth, previous place of employment and all their other personal information, including their social security numbers. The job seekers are then eventually contacted and sent large checks without having done any actual work. Once they receive the checks, they are then told the checks were made out for too much money and that the victims should immediately return the overpayment in a wire transfer to another address (if you’ve been paying attention you know that this is a common scam method and these checks are bogus). In short, the only time our clients ask us for all the detailed personal information is if you need to for a background check with the government, and those agencies should be easy to look up online. Never accept money ahead of time if you haven’t done any actual work – unless you yourself make it a stipulation for the job (like when you translate personal documents for an unknown individual). If you use your head and a little common sense you will not fall prey to these scams.
TGIF: Busy Prepositions June 12, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
It’s Friday, and you all know what that means – TGIF video time. I want to apologize for my lack of posts in the last few weeks. I have been working on a large project. I just submitted the fourth batch of files today. The job is supposed to end in the next few weeks and will then hopefully start back up in July. That leaves little time for things like housecleaning, spending time with Lily and blogging. I need to get better at managing my time. I’m sick of living in a pig sty :-). I’m planning on spending today cleaning, doing laundry, washing the floors and finishing up odd chores – in addition to a little translating.
We are coming to the end of the Schoolhouse Rock videos on grammar. I don’t know about you, but I have really been enjoying this little trip down memory lane. I have even had the opportunity to share them with my 4 and 6 year old nieces when I babysat them, and they now ask to see them again when they see me. These songs are so catchy that I still can sing along – and it’s probably been 35 years. These last two, Busy Prepositions and The Tale of Mr. Morton, aired in 1993. Even if they are more recent they are still catchy. I will post the one that started it all – Interjections – to end the series.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
Payment Practices now a “Member Benefit” of ATA June 10, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Tools.6 comments
This has been in negotiations for a while now, but now it is official.
Payment Practices, Inc. (www.paymentpractices.net) is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with the American Translators Association (ATA) to become the very first vendor in ATA’s new “Member Benefit” program. Under this agreement, current ATA members will be able to subscribe to Payment Practices for an annual fee of just $14.99, a 25% discount from the normal price of $19.99/year. To receive the discount, ATA members must use the link provided at the ATA Member Provider page (www.atanet.org/member_provider).
Current subscribers to Payment Practices who are also ATA members can take advantage of the discount when their current subscription expires. If you have established a recurring payment via PayPal, you should cancel that subscription before the renewal date and then pay the discounted rate either by check or a one-time payment via PayPal.
I feel Payment Practices is one of the most beneficial services for translators out there – and now it is available at a 25% discount to ATA members. How cool is that?
There are no kangaroos in Austria! June 8, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff.3 comments
This became a well-worn joke during my Academic Year Abroad in Salzburg, Austria back in 1989. So much so that I have a twenty-year-old t-shirt with the above slogan. Sadly, it really is true that folks confuse Austria and Australia, because one of my letters that year arrived months later because it had been directed to Australia by one well-meaning yet inept postal worker. So it really made me chuckle to see this Adam@Home comic in my e-mail in box this morning.
TGIF: Unpack your adjectives June 5, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
There are nine Schoolhouse Rock – Grammar Rock videos in total. We are getting down to the end. Today’s video is on adjectives and features Blossom Dearie on vocals. According to Wikipedia, “Blossom Dearie was an American jazz singer and pianist, often performing in the bebop genre and known for her distinctive girlish voice.” A camping theme is used in this video to describe adjectives. As we all know, adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. I personally love the turtle. He’s adorable. I hope you enjoy this one and have a great weekend!
