TGIF: Once Upon A Time November 13, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
It’s Friday the 13th! To counteract the supposed bad joo-joo I thought I would share this video clip of an adorable little French girl named Capucine. This is just about the cutest thing I have seen in a while. Have a great weekend, everyone!
Twenty years ago today… November 9, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in German culture, Random musings.8 comments
“The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a concrete barrier erected by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) (East Germany) that completely encircled the city of West Berlin, separating it from East Germany, including East Berlin. The Wall included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses.” – Wikipedia
The East German government built the Wall on August 13, 1961 to stop East German citizens from fleeing to West Germany. Once the Wall was up the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Families were separated and East Germans who had worked in West Berlin could no longer go to their jobs. Around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall after it was built, with death toll estimates between around 100 and 200. I had always been fascinated with German culture, and after I watched the movie “Gotcha” starring Anthony Edwards I decided I wanted to be a spy in East Berlin and studied German and Russian in college.
I was living in Salzburg during my academic year abroad. The previous year I had taken a German culture class, and my professor had stated we would never see the fall of the Berlin Wall in our lifetime. That professor was our Academic Year Abroad (AYA) adviser that year, and our group had just returned from a trip to Vienna, Austria. We were all amazed when the first dominoes started falling, when Hungary proclaimed itself a democratic republic and opened its border on October 23rd. The inflow of Hungarians into Austria was immediately apparent. East Germans were also fleeing to Austria through Hungary. Hungary tried to close the border again, but the damage was done. East Germans clogged the West German embassy in Budapest and refused to return to East Germany. This then triggered a similar incident in Czechoslovakia and mass protests within East Germany.
I remember November 9th being a very exciting day. The East German government announced that East Germans would be allowed to cross through the border checkpoints, and the people started flowing through. It was chaos. The border guards didn’t know what to do or how to react. East Germans walked through the West Berlin streets, unsure what to do with themselves. Lots of people climbed onto the Wall once they realized the border guards weren’t going to retaliate. Strangers were hugging and kissing each other. I remember sitting around the TV in my Austrian dorm watching the happenings in Berlin, crying. My parents told me later they were looking for me at the Wall, but I had an art history exam that Monday so I stayed home to study (what an egghead, right? That is one of my biggest regrets in my life…).
I got my chance to hammer away at the Wall in February when I traveled through Berlin during our month off. We still needed transit visas to enter East Germany and to cross the border into East Berlin, but we were free to visit the museums (the Pergamon Museum was and is amazing!), shop in the East Berlin stores, and chop away at the Wall. It was bizarre. The photos you see above were taken there of me – in the Wall and in front of a hole in the Wall with a guard house behind it – and I didn’t realize a guard stopped and posed behind me.
When I visited Haus der Geschichte while living in Bonn as you got closer to the late 1980s in the exhibit they had a recording of the “chink-chink” sound of chisels and hammers chopping at the concrete that you could hear along the Wall back then. It brought tears to my eyes and transported me back to February 1990. My pieces of the Wall are among my most prized possessions.
My dream of being a spy was crushed that day, but I stuck with the languages, graduating with a double major in German and Russian and a minor in Political Science. I went on to get a Master’s in translation and the rest is history. All’s well that ends well.
Congratulations Germany on a peaceful transition of power 20 years ago and a successful reunification.
TGIF: Hugh Laurie on American slang versus British slang November 6, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
After a couple weeks’ break I am going to continue displaying my love for Hugh Laurie. He is without a doubt my favorite British comedian (and there are some really good ones like Eddie Izzard and Rowan Atkinson). His shows Jeeves and Wooster and Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry are a total scream. Their ability to play with language is simply wonderful. If you haven’t seen them, I suggest you head on over to YouTube or borrow the DVDs from your local library. Have a great weekend, all!
Presentation from ATA conference November 5, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in ATA, Tech tips.1 comment so far
One astute attendee of my presentation at the ATA conference has pointed out that my presentation is not viewable to those of you who are not yet on LinkedIn. I have agreed to post it here as well. Most of the actual presentation was working in the actual programs, but this should give you a vague idea of what we covered. I have tried to embed the PPT presentation here in WordPress, but I simply don’t have the time to mess with it and get all the kinks out. I promise to embed more of my presentations here in the future.
Free OCR tool on your own PC November 4, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Tools.5 comments
Tuomas Kostiainen and I presented at last week’s ATA conference on Making Portable Document Format Files Work for You. I feel very passionately that every translator should be familiar with the concept of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). I OCRed four files yesterday alone. My program of choice (and the favorite of most translators I know) is ABBYY FineReader, but there are plenty of other tools out there.
I wish this blog post (in German and English) had been written before the conference so I could have told everyone that they already have a free OCR program, Microsoft Office Document Imaging, on their computer (Start->All Programs->Microsoft Office Tools->MS Office Document Imaging). We did list it in the handout, and I mentioned the program in passing. However, if I had realized how ubiquitous the program was I probably would have pushed it more. Julia does a very good job explaining how the program works – with lots of excellent screenshots.
eFax.com business practices November 3, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.8 comments
Last month some boneheaded secretary sent a 49-page fax by accident to my free eFax fax number. Free eFax accounts are limited to 20 pages a month. I immediately notified eFax of the mistake and thought the situation was remedied. I was apparently mistaken.
Since I was at the ATA conference I did not receive the notification warning of the suspension of my eFax number. I received that warning and an official suspension of service notice today that my eFax number had been suspended as of November 6. I wrote them explaining the situation, but they are unwilling to let the suspension slide and keep insisting that I should upgrade to a paid plan. I only get 1-2 pages a month – if that. I refuse to pay $16.95 to receive a couple pages a month. Too bad I didn’t get the suspension notice before the conference. I could have changed the fax number on my business cards. Luckily no one ever sends communication by fax any more. No wonder why they are so desperate to have people upgrade. I certainly will no longer be recommended eFax here or in my presentations.
Oh, and the suspension certainly hasn’t stopped them from sending me advertisements…
UPDATE: eFax has since assigned me a new free eFax number. It helps to contact customer service and be persistent.
Hitting the ground running November 3, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in ATA, Random musings.2 comments
I made it home safely with a few cosmic and inspiring twists in my day yesterday. Suffice it to say that I truly believe I was an instrument from someone on the Other Side and helped a man in dire straits yesterday. I can’t go into more detail here, because my mother reads the blog and wouldn’t approve (Mom, this is one of those “Czech Republic” stories. Trust me, you are better off not knowing about it).
This morning I was up early and was unpacked and had my laptop contents transferred over to my work computer by 9 a.m. I am fighting a bad cold, but feel slightly better this morning after a good night’s sleep (I still can’t breathe though). It’s my annual post-conference cold. I think I was fighting it the entire conference though, because I wasn’t my usual chipper and networking self. All in all it was a very good conference. I attended lots of interesting presentations and ventured away from the hotel a little bit (but not as much as I had planned to). I have about 4 blog posts inspired by the conference, one of which I think will create lots of discussion because it is going to be a bit controversial. However, I think I should be tip top again before writing anything controversial.
I enjoyed meeting many of you at the conference this year. I will be posting about the blogger lunch tomorrow. We were 18 people in total, scattered over five tables (unless I missed some of you). I enjoyed being greeted in the hallways and after presentations with comments about my blog. It is very gratifying to know that people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.
I have a full day of invoice writing, proofreading, translating and voting ahead of me, so I’d best get cracking. Today’s Adam@Home made me chuckle, so I am going to leave you with this fun little cartoon:
ATA conference update October 29, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in ATA, Random musings.12 comments
The biggest complaint I hear about the ATA conference every year is the fact that guests have to pay for Internet access on top of paying a large hotel bill when every Motel Six or Quality Inn offers free Internet access with rooms starting at $39.95. Last year in Orlando one of the agencies sponsored Internet access, so we got spoiled very quickly. I’ve been going through Internet withdrawal while here, because it costs $16.95 a day to connect to the Internet at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. I knew it would be expensive, but I had no idea it would be THAT expensive. I felt cheap, but I lowered myself to go to my favorite agency owner’s room to send the agency a file on Wednesday. Luckily he had a sense of humor about it.
I bit the bullet tonight and purchased access, because I came home after the GLD dinner because I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to post on the blog and catch up on Twitter. I may even go to T-Mobile tomorrow and upgrade my phone. I’ve been meaning to do it for several months now, but I digress…
Anyway, back to my point… I was told that the hotel offered the conference attendees access for $2,000.00 a day. That may just be a rumor, but it certainly sounds credible. If that is the case, if half of the attendees would pay an extra fee for Internet access that would cover the costs of Internet access during the conference. Sure, we have the Cyber Cafe in the Exhibit Hall, but it is only open until 6 p.m. and there are long lines. Susanne III suggested an opt-in for Internet access. If ATA were to offer an opt-in check box on the Registration Form (perhaps in the area where one can order the conference DVD) for $10 for Internet access for the four days of the conference I think that would more than cover access for those who want it – and those who do not need it would not pay for it through the registration fees. I know I for one wouldn’t mind paying extra for it, because it is less than $67.80 plus tax (4 days at $16.95).
As freelancers we are dependent on the Internet to ensure our clients do not feel ignored. That means we need to check our e-mail at least once a day even if we are at the conference. I understand I could cover this by purchasing a Crackberry or a T-Mobile Dash, but I know I for one go through Internet withdrawal without access.
So what say you, ATA decision-makers? Would this be a viable solution?
TGIF: The power of a good story October 22, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
I’m home for a couple days before heading to the ATA conference. I couldn’t leave you all hanging without a TGIF video. I’m not going to give away the punchline, so all I’m going to say is “Enjoy”!
Stumbling for words on the tip of your tongue October 19, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Translation.4 comments
I thought it was just me, always stumbling to remember a word that is just beyond the reach of my memory. Well, it turns out it afflicts bilinguals more than monolingual speakers.
USA Today has an article entitled In search of that word on the tip of your tongue that discusses how “deaf sign-language speakers may hold the keys to finding where those words are hiding.” It turns out that sign language speakers have the same problem, but they call it “tip of the finger.” As Jennie Pyers and colleagues at Wellesley College in Massachusetts recently conducted a study of bilingual sign-language speakers that offers insights for all bilinguals.
As Ms. Pyers explains in the article, “”Bilingual folks have the problem even worse… In the study, English-only speakers, shown pictures of 52 rarely recalled things (such as a metronome), averaged about seven tip-of-the tongue glitches. But English-Spanish bilinguals did worse, averaging 12 glitches.” Pyers goes on to explain that “[m]ost likely… bilingual folks only get to exercise the vocabulary of each language half as much as single language speakers, with correspondingly fewer chances to regularly use a word.”
But it’s not all bad news. The study found that “people who speak more than one language possess advantages that make a difference, beyond just fluency in another tongue.” Multiple language speakers apparently outperform monolinguals because we “possess a better attention span for hard tasks. And they seem to be better at switching their focus from one task to the next, a real advantage in our era of multi-tasking emails, cellphones and occupations. The explanation is that they practice controlling their languages, repressing one at the expense of the other, constantly,” Pyers says. “So they are just better at controlling their focus.”
How about that? Yet another benefit of being bilingual. Who knew that those momentary lapses while struggling to come up for the right word make me better suited to being a translator, because it helps us focus our attention and multi-task.
Musings from an overworked translator 