On translations (and other)

Translations are dumb. Whoever decided that translations are a good idea is going to the circle of hell as the person who decided that scooters are a better design than mopeds – that is, the level reserved for the most idiotic of idiots.

“But translations” – you say – “they’re so important!” BZZZZZT. Wrong. Equivalencies are where it’s at. Let me provide evidence of this fact in the form of examples.

In the U.S, when I want to greet someone (say when I walk into a store), I generally say, “Hello.” In Spanish, “Hello” is generally translated as “Hola.” However, nobody really says, “Hola” to greet me (say when I walk into a store.) Instead, they say “Buenos/as dias/tardes/noches” or simply “Buenas.” Translated, that’s “Good morning/afternoon/night.” Occasionally we United-Statesians will use this greeting, but I feel like others are much more common. I mean, you know when people are all “Good morning!” in your face at 7am, and you’re like, “Who is this freak! There’s nothing good about it!” ? Yeah, that’s what I mean when I say that we don’t use those greetings as much, and when people do, they kind of stand out. If I use “Hola,” I stand out. See why the translation is stupid? It’s much better to exchange my common English greeting of “Hello” for the equivalent common Spanish greeting of “Buenas” and just ignore what the exact translation tells me I should say.

For my second example, I can’t give a specific example, but you’ll see why in about two seconds. In, let’s say, my Geography of Costa Rica class, the professor gives a long string of instructions about how we should construct our maps and the features they should have. Now let’s say that a miracle happens and I actually understand her. Would I be able to repeat what she just said? Absolutely not. Would I be able to follow the directions? Definitely yes. It’s not the words I understand so much as the ideas. Not all words are translatable, but ideas are universal. I can take the ideas I have and turn them into an English equivalent that I can follow (and repeat). If you translated my English equivalent back into the original Spanish, it would bear very little resemblance to the original directions. Once again, it’s much better to understand what someone meant (the equivalent) rather know what they said (the translation) because the idea is the same in any language, whereas the words will differ from person to person.

Finally, let's take the example of a sign I saw from the bus. I think I put a picture of this sign on Photobucket, but for simplicity, I'll repeat it here:

Servicios Sanitarios
Bathrooms
Se guarda el equipaje
We keep your luggage

We keep your luggage?! Do you give it back?! "Guardar can be translated into "to keep" or "to save." In this case, they used the literal translation. However, I really don't think they meant it like that. They obviously meant "to guard" or "to keep safe." They would have been much better using an equivalency than the direct translation.

And other:
Um, let's see here. Last Friday we went to Mercado Central, which is this giant, disorganized market in downtown San José where you can buy just about anything. This is the market the Ticos go to when they need to buy stuff, whether it be a new backpack, cooking pans, chicken feet, or a pound of paprika. Honestly, I don't really like Mercado Central. It's not considered extremely safe (lots of pickpockets). I don't have any use for 90% of the stuff they sell there, and it's not worth smelling all the meat, seafood, and other "interesting" foods just to get a look at the 10% of stuff I might be interested in.

After that, we walked around downtown and checked out a few of the smaller independent shops. September is the big month for sales down here, so a lot of places had either % discounts, buy one get one free, or just "Camisas -- 2000 colones" ($4) or whatever. I ended up getting a headband and a few pairs of earrings ($4), a new pair of sunglasses ($1.25 -- no, they're not exactly "quality"), and an Ann Taylor shirt at what is apparently the Costa Rican equivalent of Goodwill ($4). I didn't try it on, but if it doesn't fit me, I'm sure I can find someone who might be able to use it. *coughdearestsistercough*

On Saturday, we went to Parque Nacional Volcán Poás, which is the most visited national park in Costa Rica. As our guidebook says, "It's not often you can look into the steaming crater of a volcano without having to go to the trouble of actually hiking up it." We took a bus from Curridabat to downtown San José. Then we took a taxi to the bus stop for the park. We paid the driver for our tickets ($5-6 round trip) and got a wonderfully short 2-hour bus ride to the volano. For foreign visitors, the park costs 6000 colones ($12) to get in. For people with local IDs, such as our student ID cards, it's 1000 colones ($2). We had fun snickering at all the sad little tourists whipping out the cinco mil bills to pay to get in.

So basically, there was an ititial trail that was really wide and nicely paved and not too steep that led to the first crater, which has a hot lagoon in it. The view was beautiful, but the blowing wind was not helping keep our already cold selves from further freezing. Then there was a second trail that led to the cold lake that had formed in an old crater. This trail was narrower, steeper, longer, and cut through undergrowth straight out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. I was quite happy when we finally made it to the top and could rest. After that, we had the choice of going back the way we came or taking a slightly longer loop back to the beginning. We chose the loop, which had the same characteristics as the way up, only this time going down.

It only took us about an hour and half to do all this walking and viewing, so we had another 2 hours to kill before the bus came back. I was starving and cold, so I went to the "cafeteria" to get some food. Unfortunately, "cafeteria" was a kind of generous description. The only hot foods they had were ramen and coffee. They had doughnuts, muffins, a few sad-looking sandwiches, some Tico junk food, and a whole glorious case of Snickers, M&Ms, 3 Musketeers, and Milky Ways. After I finished basking in the glow of the candy, I got some ramen and a doughnut. The doughnut was a major disappointment; it tasted like it was 3 days old. The ramen was overpriced ($2 ... yeah, I know) but relatively satisfiying, although perhaps the fact that it was the only option made it somewhat more satisfactory that it would otherwise have been. When lunch was eaten, we checked out the overpriced gift shop and the informational video they had running. Just before we got back on the bus, we got some candy for the ride home. Overall, it was a pretty neat little trip, if cold and lacking food options.

Classes this week... well, it was more of the same, pretty much. In my Geography of Costa Rica class, my teacher FINALLY asked me what I wanted to do my project on (instead of asking me if I was enrolled in the class). I wanted to do climate change, but apparently how this works is that you turn in the paper when we cover the topic in class, and then the presentation is in November. Somehow I had just assumed that the paper was due in November too. So of course, we're doing climate change right now, and she was like, "But you would have to turn that in today..." Great. Thanks for making me feel like an idiot. I wonder why I didn't know about this before? Does anyone know why I didn't know about this before?

OOO! OOO! PICK ME! PICK ME! I KNOW! Because you spent the first two weeks of class asking me if I was enrolled rather than asking me what project I wanted to do!! (/end rant)

I also found out that I have another project in Cartography that I'm supposed to do. She kept saying it was just a small little project, but when you've got as many other projects, tests, and papers as I do, there is no such thing as a small project. Well, I guess that's what I get for thinking to myself "Gee, it's great I have at least one class without any projects...."

This week, I had my first test. It was in World Geography. It was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I don't even think I'm going to get a score on it. I'm just going to get it back, and it's going to have "NO" written on the top. It didn't help that I was super tired and feeling sick, but I don't think I could have come up with good answers to his questions even if I was on the top of my game. While I was writing the first one, I was like, "Well, the second one will be better" because I thought I had a good answer for it. Then I started writing the second one, and I was like, "Well, maybe that first one wasn't so bad." I'm particularly worried about the second one because it was asking about like trade and the president's vision of the country. Since we'd read a thing about the TLC (Tradado de Libre Comercio, or Free Trade Agreement), I figured that would be a good thing to talk about. Only thing is, that's the ONLY thing I've read about the TLC. Being some sort of government publication, our reading naturally protrayed the agreement in a glowing light. However, it would appear that 90% of the country is against it, and I have no idea why; "NO TLC" and variations on that theme are the most popular graffiti I've seen. So I had no choice but to make something up about how free trade is good and it helps people, even though I'm almost positive that our professor is opposed to the treaty. I remember writing something along the lines of "If it would work, I can't say, but the treaty..." It's a good thing I've gotten two A's on my reflexions for this class, because I think those are going to be the only points I get.