Jayce Rod

Not only has this class been a great and comprehensive preparation for what is in store for me, it has been fun.  I feel as though I have a much better understanding for the job market and how to sell myself to people for translation and localization work.  I came into this class just trying to finish my French minor but I have come out with so much more.  Each handout that we were given gave me an interesting multi-cultural view of how translation affects the world.  Coming out of this class (especially after having finished the final project), I have realized that I am capable of doing work that is worthy of money.  With my fan website about Ratatouille, I simply took a template of a website and changed it to completely fit and entertain an audience of french and English nationality.  I have had plenty of experience creating websites (thanks to the class) and therefore embedding links and working with Flash was not that difficult.  I must admit that timing and translating subtitles to fit the pace and mood of a movie trailer has been the most difficult and time consuming part of translation so far.  Those whom do this for a living have earned my respect and reverence with their patience and accuracy while doing so at a pace fit for work.  I am looking forward to taking the next two classes in the hopes that I may become very qualified to fill a paid position possibly from home.  I have expressed my interests in becoming a person who can localize medical texts and I will continue these courses with this in mind.  I hope to one day use these skills and my knowledge of English, French, and Spanish to create global websites that are accessible to the major languages of the world.  Notwithstanding, I hope to work and learn from other people who have the same internationalized spirit and open heart as I do.  Working with my classmates, I have gotten a small survey of the localizers and translators of the world; some settle for the bare minimum and some provide more than enough detail to scare you.  I feel as though I fit in between the two extremes.  With the help of Madame Pelletier, I have been able to successfully translate many meaningful texts that connect many cultures.  Overall I would say that this is one of the most important things that I take away from the course.  I have the ability to connect people who have no knowledge of each other for the sake of understanding.  I believe that this job could be the foundation for getting to the “world peace” that all of those beauty pageant queen hopefuls are talking about.  Therefore, I am grateful that I took this class, because I believe that I can earn the price of the course (with what it provided me) in a matter of weeks.  I look forward to the future as a translator and I may one day look back and thank the people whom gave me the tools to do so.

Au Revoir

Jayce Rodriguez

http://www.wix.com/jerkfaceace/ratatouille-fan-site

*Edit!* I could not get perfect spacing for the buttons because they looked perfect on the editing page but they expand on the actual website!

FIELD OF ASYLUM 1812

PROCLAMATION

Galveston.

Reunited by a series of calamities similar to those that moved us away from our homes,suddenly we were scattered in various lands, we have resolved to seek an asylum where we may be able to collectively remember our misfortunes, in order to derive useful lessons. A vast land devoid of civilized men, where Indian tribes have traversed while hunting, leaving great fertile land fallow.

(45)

In adversity,which raises our fortitude above turmoil, we exercise the first right granted to man by “nature’s author”, by establishing ourselves on this earth, so as to cultivate it and reap harvest,  which she can never refuse with perseverance.

We attack none, having no hostile intentions. We ask for peace and friendship to all those around us, and we will be grateful for the kindness that we will testify.We shall respect the religion, laws, customs, and practices of civilized nations. We shall respect the autonomy, the customs and the way of life of the Indian nations,we shall not disrupt neither in their hunting, nor any other aspect of their life. We will maintain good social, neighborly, and commercial relationships with all peoples in agreement. Our conduct will be peaceful, active, and industrious and we’ll be of highest utility capable.

After some background reading, I realized that Texas had such a great connection with France.  During the times of land dispute between the American and Mexican forces, there also existed interest of France in acquiring new land as they have on every other land territory.  During that time, Lallemande led armed French forces into a disputed area in Texas, leading refugees of Bonaparte.  This lead colonists to be interested in Texas becoming a Republic of its own with perhaps french influences.  Armed with this information, we consider the audience to whom the author was addressing the Proclamation.  Wanting to “mobilize the troops”, he wanted to stir their hearts into wanting to establish themselves in an area that would allow them to practice their beliefs and escape persecution.  Because records are readily accessible on the internet, it is fairly easy to find information about this subject.  After a few searches, I found many different sources from which I could draw from.  Also, I can visit the special collections section in our library which preserves many old texts that are donated that often pertain to Texas history.  Because this is Texas history of the late 1800’s, there will probably be a collection concerning these refugees and their migration to U.S.-Mexico disputed land.  Also, this text was not too clear with the picture we were given, so we had to retype most of it so that we could work with it in a digital sense.  Although this was not written in modern french language, it was not too difficult to translate because the root words do not change too drastically over time.  There did not seem to be too many language symbols that were mal entendue but mostly the difficulty was in the way in which the author spoke.   It is as if we were translating Shakespeare to younger children which is comparable to the level of French that we are at.  Nevertheless, the text was not as challenging as some of the longer texts, but it was much more of a historical significant passage that could easily be construed incorrectly.  Therefore, the translation is a very delicate process and very meaningful if you are translating for a nation.

Jayce.

All Programs Considered

par Bill McKibben

New York Revue des Livres

Le 11 novembre 2010

La radio reçoit peu d’attention critique. Des divers méthodes pour communiquer des idées et des émotions – les livres, les journaux, l’art visuel, la musique, la cinéma, la télévision, le Web –

la radio peut être le moin discuté,débattu et compris. Ceci est probable parce qu’il sert principalement comme un appareil de transmission, une maniere de prendre les autres formes d’art (les chansons, les sermons) et les diffuse dans le monde. Ses autres utilisations peuvent être aussi equitablement piétons: Les jeux de ballon et répétitif, si remarquablement efficace, la radio d’animation publicitaire. Rush Limbaugh est le champion de radio notations; selon le revue professionnelle de l’industrie, il atteint 14,25 millions auditeurs en moyenne par semaine. Sean Hannity, en travaillant le même terrain, le suivie.

Mais un publique tout aussi important se tourne vers la partie du cadran où la radio publique sous ses diverses formes peuvent être trouvées. revendications de la radio publique réclame au moins 5 pourcent du marché radio. Les programmes d’actualité de vaisseau amiral de la radio Publique nationale “Morning edition” et “All Things Considered” contenant des nouvelles et des commentaires a côtés des profond rapports et des histoires qui peuvent se prolonger pendant vingt minutes, sont les deuxièmes et troisièmes plus populaire dans le pays, chaqu’une attire environ 13 millions d’auditeurs uniques au cours de la semaine.Ces spectacles de NPR ont beaucoup plus grrand auditoires que les actualités à la télévision par câble; en effet, tous les quatre réseaux de télévision combinés,tirent seulement un publique deux fois plus grand pour leurs bulletins de l’actualité du soir. “Morning Edition” et ‘All Things Considered” sont complétées par des programmes bien considéré comme ‘The World”, une coproduction BBC avec la WGBH Boston, et l’entreprise de radiodiffusion “Marketplace”. Une programmation produite à l’extérieur de la NPR mais dans le vaste monde de la radio publique.Dans les sondages, la radio publique est considérée comme la source la plus fiable d’actualité dans la nation. Le publique de la plupart de ses programmes diminuent le nombre de contisants à “The New York Times”, “The New Yorker”,ou le nombre de personnes qui même lisent les plus grands best-sellers.

Environ un sur dix Américains ecoutent la radio publique chaque semaine, si vous avez atterri dans un vaisseau spatial quelque part en Amérique, a la recherche d’une culture pensive et indifferente, votre premier arrêt serait les stations de radio publiques qui apparaissent habituellement au-dessous de 92 sur la bande FM. Vous trouveriez pas seulement les grandes nouvelles émissions, mais aussi une variété des émissions d’appel: les nationals, comme “On Point”. “The Diane Rehm Show ” ou “Talk of the Nation” avec sa bien-aimée édition de “Friday Science”, mais aussi un nombre de superbes programmes parler local, avec des hôtes comme Leonard Lopate et Brian Lehrer à New York, Michael Krasny à San Francisco, Steve Scher à Seattle, Larry Mantle à Los Angeles,-la liste est très longue.

Celles-ci diffèrent d’un spectacle publicitaire de la droite.sur le quel ils presentent quotidiennement des invités d’un large éventail de la vie politique et culturelle américaine: Par exemple,le matin où je vous écris ceci,Tom Ashbrook de l’emission “On Point” à Boston, a passé une heure à discuter de la montée du jeu social sur Facebook,Krasny a couvert “l’industrie de la construction en difficulté», et l’emission de “Leonard Lopate” a examiné l’état actuel de la companie Google.La “sine qua non” de ces efforts est un interview sans relâche intelligent de Terry Gross, montrant “Fresh Air”, qui est basé à Philadelphie, qui fonctionne de cela 35 ans passé, est diffusé à plus de 450 stations, et les revendications de près de 4,5 millions d’auditeurs.

Et pourtant, très peu est écrit sur la radio publique. Nous n’avons pas l’équivalent au dernier et déplorant revue britannique “The Listener”,qui a combiné un commentaire indépendant avec des redactions et des fonctionnalités qui originalement avaient été diffusée comme des pièces de radio, et même l’(excellent) NPR journalisme forum “On the Media” se concentre habituellement sur la télévision ou imprimer .Il n’y a pas d’équivalent de radio bien connue de l’Emmy ou les Grammys ou les Oscars (ou même les Tonys). Dans un sens, je crois, ceci reflète le calme professionnalisme la radio publique,elle est devenu si bonne à sa mission fondamentale qu’elle es prise pour acquis, une sorte de service public d’information.

J’ai parlé récamment avec Robert Krulwich, qui a premierement rejoint le réseau NPR quelques années après “All Things Considered”, eté allé sur la station a l’epoque de Nixon et maintenant co-hôte le programme de la radio publique “Radiolab”,et il se souvient de ces jours comme etant remplis d’invention.

La radio était morte, c’était top 40. Tous les intelligents étaient à “Times”, “The Washington Post”,ou si tu ne voulez pas être Woodward et Bernstein, tu es allé travailler pour Walter Cronkite au réseau Tiffany.Ce groupe de personnes dingue avait pensés et disés, faison de la radio. Nous allons la réinventer. Aller trente-cinq ou quarante années à venir et où Walter Cronkite? Que ce qu’est arrivé à “The Washington Post”?Et devine quoi? les gens dingue de la radio soudainement apparue comme le point central d’un vaste public. Et maintenant ils ont un peu de l’arrogance des hommes de “Times”.

This post was made possible by the native speaker: Arlette Kanonga, whom I worked with.  She had to correct a lot of things for me, but that is what the assignment was all about.  So credit to her and the French language itself.

-Jayce

My translation of the Borax Poetry!

“Que pouvons-nous faire plus,

né au les déserts qui sont

occupé au hasard

par les négociants de borax

qui désireux à une

élégance du stuc

s’ ils ont vraiment de la chance?

Il faut quelqu’un qui

arrive avant la mythologie, pour

la mythologie, pour être

heureux dans les premières

résidues de l’industrie

et bien sûr seul

et susceptible aux

avis des

ânes puisque les ânes

sont les principales compagnions

ici parmi les

proprietes. …”

Even in English, poetry is a difficult art to understand.  Each poem in its own respect, has a very unique tone, rhyme scheme, and even syntax that can carry meaning.  Therefore, translating an English poem into French is very challenging.  Again, we have seen the theme of Translation loss from the Source Text.  Stucco, as we mentioned in class, was another challenging word to define as it has a meaning in French but no direct translation.  The tailings of industry was also very difficult to define because tailings can mean many different things in English, therefore the connotation in English must be deciphered before we can actually translate into French.  There was not too much creativity on my part because I often propose other words than the ones given by my partners so that we can consider all possibilities of the meaning of the word.  Sometimes, my word is a better word and will be used.  Ms. Ryan could define culture as something that very few can be in favor of.  Because life is unfair, you must be very lucky to obtain a positive outcome of “being stucco elegance”.  Nevertheless, I suppose she has an opinion that is not favorable toward society and how culture is defined.  Personally, I see culture as a mixture of repeating trends that were once created by original minds.  We often see things of fashion, toys, health, and many other aspects of life repeated or re-tooled from the past to amuse people in the present.  I feel that culture is necessary in the sense that it maintains our status as higher order thinking mammals but it also inflates our egos to think that our presence dominates the Earth.  I drives us into certain “courtesies” such as saving the children and women first but it drives a species to extinction so that we can have more parking space for commercialized products.  It’s a double edged sword with poison on both sides so try to be in a position where it doesn’t hurt so much.

Jayce

This newest translation assignment, although a slight change in M.O., has been very interesting.  Not only must we call upon the help of machines, we must also call upon the help of “strangers.”  We are simply given a text in English, of not difficult prose, and are told to fashion it into a piece that a French speaker would understand.  Previously, we had to tailor our translations to an American or English speaking audience, but now we must relate to a group of people that we do not know.  For the most part, I see that the Google Translator Toolkit provides a pretty good translation.  Albeit the translation comes from a “machine”, the algorithm parses many different uses of the word or phrase and provides the most commonly used one(s).  Interestingly enough, if enough people do this translation before I do, it will raise the translation percentage and the work could do itself.  But, the error in that reasoning is that I cannot rely on others to carry the same meaning of words that I have acquired over my 2 years of studying French.  I have spoken to a few Francophones in my class and will be working with them to produce a polished translation.  Although I am asking help of these native speakers, I still feel as though I should check their usages as well.  Sometimes, only a native English speaker can understand the true meaning behind certain phrases that are used in the source text.

To begin with, the title “All programs considered” was translated to toutes les programmes considere’s which is necessarily the same words but does not quite carry the same meaning.  Also, “Sean Hannity, working the same turf, trails him slightly.” does not translate very nicely because turf has many different connotations in English therefore French.  Another, “commentary alongside in-depth reports” was translated in a strange way in which the depth is related to water and not of “deep meaning and correlation”.

The style of writing is that of a journalist, as to be expected, which is usually not very convoluted.  This reporter used a few linguistic techniques that threw the translator off (machine).  Even when the reporter used the Latin  “…sine qua non” it did not pick up that this was not French because it was not tailored to do so.  This assignment shows the limitations of MT as would any source text that is written above the level of simple sentence structure.  Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the end of the year project in which we will translate a ton of words which seemed very daunting a long time ago.

Jayce

www.wix.com/jerkfaceace/localizationwebsitejaycerod

This newest translation has actually been much more challenging than the last two.  It is obviously much more difficult to translate metaphors from the target text.  One major thing I have been wondering is if the title “Ombres heureses” refers to happy shadows or silhouettes.  I think that silhouettes will be the choice that I make based on the description that the museum has given.  It says that the author of the graphite art sort of mocks the working and functional life of the people around him and juxtaposes this reality with his own world of grey where life is a continuum of meaningless events.  I believe that it is somewhat of nihilistic but silhouette seems the most appropriate.   The previous paragraph was slightly difficult but it was much more forward in its language.  I am looking forward to the next paragraphs and the challenges that they offer.  I have also decided to pursue the localization certificate so that I may earn some money from this language that I am learning and possibly use it for another language that I speak as well.