Lost in Translation

Sheesh...I'm exhausted. I had my very first full-blown, 8 hour interpretation job today. It was for an environmental engineering company (from Spain) at their plant in Northern PA. Needless to say, it was quite a commute; that alone is enough to wear a person out. In addition to that, I had to do bilingual translation (sometimes simultaneous) from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. I was REALLY nervous because it was a job that required technical language that I'm not particularly familiar with and it was my first really important translation job so, I had to prove myself in order to set myself up for future assignments.

As soon as I got there I realized it was not going to be nearly as complicated as I had imagined. For one thing, my contracting agency told me that I was going to be translating a presentation to a group of employees which would involved highly technical engineering lingo. However, it quickly became apparent that what I really had to do was simply shadow a logistics expert from Spain (who spoke no English whatsoever) as he tried to get this new branch of the company in order. At times, it was rather uncomfortable because he was basically chewing out several employees and office managers for their (to be totally frank) incompetence. These people had mis-labeled, mis-sent, and mis-counted just about everything possible in the warehouse. It was really quite ridiculous.

There were definitely moments where there was the need for a specific, technical term but I managed to be able to talk around pretty much everything I didn't know how to say (i.e. When would I ever encounter/need/use the word "skid"--as in a pallet-- in Spanish??) So, overall, I think I did great given my lack of a mechanical vocabulary. I really enjoyed working with the logistics expert (named Emilio) and I think that the company itself is excellent; I would be over-joyed to get the opportunity to work with them again either here or in Spain (especially there). Who knows, maybe I can maintain some connections?

I still can't get over the fact that I'm getting paid (REALLY well this time) for just talking. It honestly blows my mind sometimes. It really makes me think---- communication is so incredibly complicated and, therefore, so important in every aspect of life. Not being able to communicate properly because of language barriers, cultural differences, education level, etc. is not only vital to the essence of who we are, but also how others perceive us. What do you tell people about you based on the way you speak? The words you choose? The things you like or don't like to talk about? Is the old adage wrong--- are we not what we eat but, rather, what we say?