The City of Marina, where Monterey Language Services is headquartered, is the 7^th largest multilingual city in the United States. 

On its 35^th anniversary, we would like to wish the City a Happy Birthday in the following languages: Spanish, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, German, Tagalog, Hebrew, Samoan, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese.  Thanks to our many translators who responded quickly to contribute to this special occasion.

Hindi and Turkish just got in:

Hindi – जन्मदिनमुबारकहो!

Turkish – Mutlu Yillar Sana

Happy 35th, City of Marina!

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, being able to speak more than one language can help ward off dementia in old age.  As language professionals, we celebrate the news by sharing it!

“Specifically, the advantages of bilingualism are thought to be related to a brain function known as inhibitory or cognitive control:  the ability to stop paying attention to one thing and focus on something else…  Fluent speakers of more than one language have to use this skill continually to silence one language in their minds while communicating in another.”

Reference:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703794104575545923443462444.html

At Monterey Language Services, we are always searching for interesting tidbits to lift our spirits. Here is one good example. 

Deborah Fallows has a Ph.D. in linguistics.  She decided to immerse herself into Chinese culture by learning Chinese.  In her new book, Dreaming in Chinese:  Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love and Language, Fallows provides intriguing insights into how Chinese think and act as reflected in their language.  We found a delightful interview she had with NPR in which she explains why Chinese talk to each other so bluntly.

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=129552512&m=129556812

The following insights shared by our team members look at the two types of hermeneutics, or art of interpretation, and their role in translation and interpretation market place.

Exegesis is a straightforward, factual explanation.  It assumes that a text contains fixed and invariant meaning. The exegete is a neutral or objective expositor, a transmitter of meaning that is embedded in a text. A creative exegete develops a critical explanation or analysis, expands the original meanings to new applications or expressions, but maintains the objective, determinable meaning inscribed in the interpreted text.

Eisegesis is an explanation with analysis and incorporates one’s own ideas. Eisegesis keeps the reader’s perspective in mind, considering the reading to be neither a neutral nor an objective activity. The individual performing the eisegesis will have to answer critical questions from academic circles, such as the questioning of his assumptions, citations, orientations, presuppositions, blindness, bias, even preferences, interests, and motives.

If this approach faces so much criticism, why is it still one of the main methods in interpretation of texts?  The value of this practice is that it creates a way to look at a text from different angles, transcending what straight word-by-word interpretation would not be able to convey, thus further increasing the complexity of the interpretation.

In the market place, both methods can be applied to various situations in translation and interpretation assignments.  For example, the former suits legal and technical subjects, while the latter is most seen in translation of business and marketing brochures.  An experienced translator or interpreter knows the value, distinction, and roles between the two and is able to interplay at times between them to bring out the best result in communication.

Authors: Mei-Ling Chen, Emily Frye, Lee Eisenberg, Eric Hsiung

Why do we translate Deutschland into Germany
in English?

By Emily Frye

While studying abroad in France my sister and I decided to take a trip to Munich, Germany. While crossing the border by train a policewoman asked what we were doing in Europe.  I said that we were students in France and were visiting a friend in Munich.  She replied in English, “So you are studying in Frenchland.”  Frenchland? We thought she obviously didn’t know English very well.  However, later I realized the policewoman had been quite logical.  After all, Germany in German is Deutschland, so the term Frenchland didn’t sound strange anymore.  But, it did get me thinking…

Why do we translate Deutschland into Germany in English?  A little research unveils that it’s not really a translation, but a consequence of the geopolitical history of the region.  Julius Caesar had borrowed the term “German” from the Gauls. They had used it for the tribes who tried to invade their territory from across the Rhine.  It most likely meant “neighbor” or “men of the forest.” Caesar used the term to coin “Germania,” which simply described the entire region beyond the Rhine and Danube (present day Germany).  This led me to question the origin of many other country “translations”, such as:  Hungary for Magyarország, Croatia for Hrvatska, or Finland for Suomi.

One of the most intriguing however is in the Czech language.  In Czech, Germany is Německo.  The old Slavic tribes called the groups of people that lived by the Rhine River, the Nemetes.  In old Slavic, Nemetes literally means “mute.”  For the Slavic people, the language of the Germanic tribes was incomprehensible, so they appropriately named the region after its “mute” inhabitants.

Source: Schulze, Hagen (1998). Germany: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 4.

The New York Times Sunday magazine section has a fascinating article entitled “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” which discusses recent research on how one’s mother tongue shapes one’s experience of the world.  A must read.

“If I want to tell you in English about a dinner with my neighbor, I may not have to mention the neighbor’s sex, but I do have to tell you something about the timing of the event: I have to decide whether we dined, have been dining, are dining, will be dining and so on. Chinese, on the other hand, does not oblige its speakers to specify the exact time of the action in this way, because the same verb form can be used for past, present or future actions.”

“Languages like Spanish, French, German and Russian not only oblige you to think about the sex of friends and neighbors, but they also assign a male or female gender to a whole range of inanimate objects quite at whim…Why is Russian water a she, and why does she become a he once you have dipped a tea bag into her?”

“The habits of mind that our culture has instilled in us from infancy shape our orientation to the world and our emotional responses to the objects we encounter…”

Reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html

Monterey Language Services got huge attention from the most prestigious newspaper in Monterey County, and the most famous translation and interpretation school in the world. 

Check us out.

The Monterey County Herald

In the News [click on the image]   

Monterey Institute of International Studies
http://www.miis.edu/about/newsroom/stories/node/21128
[to view it in PDF, click here]

The Californian
http://www.montereylanguages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/The_Californian_News_MLS.pdf

Monterey Language Services (MLS), situated in the rolling hills a few miles from the Pacific Ocean in Monterey County, California, is a jewel of Monterey County — artistic, creative, multicultural, and language-oriented in an inspiring environment.

MLS team members are professional, dedicated and passionate about languages and foreign cultures. We are oriented towards finding the best words for the best translations. As individuals, we take pride in being cultural communicators and in promoting international understanding.

Offering translations from every language into English and vice versa, our company plays an important role in cross-border business communication. We provide translation, interpretation, copy-editing, proofreading, website localization, software localization, multimedia transcription, dubbing, subtitling, foreign language desktop publishing, and more.

At MLS, resources abound to work with foreign languages. Our network is global, and yet locally we are within easy reach of the top language experts in the world. The language history of this area is showcased in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, where immigrants of almost every ethnicity worked. The area has developed into a hub of translation and interpretation education and services. MLS captures the essence of what the Monterey Bay Region offers.

The firm’s website www.montereylanguages.com contains numerous blogs by team members.  Here we recount our experiences working with languages and display a wealth of understanding of how language expresses culture in different parts of the world.

MLS handles all your languages needs professionally. For translation of documents, interpretation for diverse settings or for any other language or culture-related services, email us at info@montereylanguages.com and find out how we can help you:

•    optimize and better formulate your ideas, arguments and concepts
•    enrich your personal or your company’s profile, story or presentation
•    increase your personal or your company’s marketability

By Lee Eisenberg

Going to work in Monterey Language Services (MLS) is not like going to work at most other places.  This company, located in Marina, California, is like a summer retreat.  Each workday, you drive along Imjin Parkway, which then turns into Imjin Road.  The barren but impressive setting is bound to astonish anyone.  Finally, you arrive at MLS, found in a slightly secluded place a few miles from the Pacific Ocean.

The company is located in a one-story building, arranged a bit like a capital pi, and is just the opposite of the archetypal factory.  The windows, scattered throughout each room, give the MLS team a fine view of the landscape.  Although the team works in cubicles, these are not the overstuffed cubicles that often represent workplaces.  There is ample space with modern artwork, a very high ceiling, purple walls, and lots of lights.  It is a very contemporary, soothing setting.

The exterior consists of an atrium.  While eating lunch, one can walk around freely and relax in the sun.  There is a shared conference room, where the company hosts open parties.  There is also a shared kitchen where one can prepare coffee and tea, and microwave lunch.  My experience in translating real estate has prompted me to write about the ambiance and environment.

Working for MLS is an experience like no other.  Above all, MLS team members are left to their own devices when working.  It is wonderful to be able to operate in an environment where one is allowed the opportunity to function freely.  All in all, it is like summer vacation here.  As vacation starts, I would like to share this experience to kick off your cool summer journey, and encourage you to share yours with the world by posting your comments here.

Lee Eisenberg, one of our team members and Russian-to-English translators, shares a wonderful story about how he handles translation between two different cultures using the definition of “real estate” as an example, and how subject knowledge is important for a translator.

The picture of him was taken in St. Petersburg, Russia, standing on the frozen Gulf of Finland.  By walking north, one could theoretically walk all the way to Finland.

Full Story by Lee Eisenberg:

Language is the symbolic representation of culture so to produce a meaningful translation from one language to the next requires domain knowledge about the target culture.

The experience that helped me more than any other to understand the need for domain knowledge was my internship in a Moscow real estate office.  Translating Russian documents into English not only taught me the specific Russian translation to real estate (недвижимость), but also taught me how to think about real estate differently.

The word недвижимость literally translates to “immobility,” because real estate does not move once it is built.  This forces one to ask why real estate is called that in English; what does the concept of “real estate” mean?  So, I did some research and found a definition.  Most languages treat real estate as something physical, while English uses a legal definition.  There are more explanations of the words “real estate” at:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1555/why-is-it-called-real-estate

In conclusion, I would recommend practical translating experience in a specific domain in which one is translating to anyone who is entertaining a career in foreign language translation.