Lost in translation?

The Perils of a Foreign Language

I used to teach Spanish and French back in the States. I really enjoyed it, most of the time. It was usually pretty easy to tell when they were taking the easy way out in finding their answers. When I taught in St. Louis I had a group of students that got caught cheating on the worksheet packet I'd given them. On one page they were to answer personal questions, such as "Qu'est-ce que tu t'appelles?" (What is your name?) Because these were personal questions the answers should have varied from student to student. So it was pretty easy to guess what they were up to when they all had the same answer for all the questions on that page. Since I gave them all French names I didn't double up. So even if I had more than one student with the same real name, they didn't share a name with anyone else in the class. So when all 4 students, including a boy, told me their names were Antoinette, it didn't take a degree in rocket science to figure it out.

A few years later I was teaching in Sparta. While the internet was being used and students could use the computers to get online to look up things at the school in St. Louis, I didn't have students using online translators for their work. But they were 8th graders and their homework mainly consisted of word puzzles that they wouldn't need much help on. But in Sparta, while I continued to teach middle school, I was also teaching the high school Spanish and French classes. Their homework consisted of exercises that corresponded to the exercises we were doing in the textbook. I was expecting them to actually use the language to form sentences, etc. But I could always tell the ones who were using the translators. Their sentences were usually translated wrong. Instead of using the vocabulary we were actually learning and working with in class, they would use whatever popped up on the screen when they typed in English the sentence they wanted to write. And no matter how many times I pointed out to them that it wasn't giving them the correct word and deducted points for it, they'd still do it. Didn't someone once say that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results? {sigh}

Now we're living in Kuwait. Now, in Lebanon you'll find signs printed in different language. Arabic, the native language, French, which is the 2nd language of most Lebanese, and English. Depending upon where you are you'll also see them in Armenian. For example, where Aunt and her husband, who's Armenian, live. They tend to do a fairly good job with spelling words correctly. They'll even misspell something intentionally for the rhyme, humor, whatever. But in Kuwait, it's just so sad. I've made the comment many times that for a dry country Kuwait sure has a lot of saloons. The saloons for men are on ground level with big windows and lights. The saloons for women are upstairs behind curtains so they can be uncovered and have their hair done without anyone of the opposite sex seeing them. Saloons, get it? I think I've seen all of 2 signs there with the word spelled correctly. {sigh}

So, please, those of you who are reading this, if you ever have to translate something into a foreign language, follow the advice given to me by a former Spanish professor in college. After you look up the English word, look up the words again from the other side to be sure that they mean what you want them to. (And if you're using an online translator, maybe have a native speaker proof it for you, OK?)