Lost in translation
Learning to cope with multilingual situations
Greta Brown, For The Mirror
Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: Perspectives
One of the most challenging and entertaining aspects of studying abroad is the language barrier. I find that being lost in translation makes life so much more amusing.
Having the ability to learn languages is a gift that I will always find remarkable. For some "lost in translation" is just a meaningless phrase. And I'm hoping I can someday have the ability to navigate comfortably in almost any language; it would be quite useful in today's interconnected world…
Interconnectedness seems to be the theme of my life at the moment. My friends here consist of students from France, Hungary, Russia, and many others. So, you can imagine the number of miscommunications that occur within this bunch.
One of the first days I was here, I was walking with my friend David, from Mexico, and was laughing uncontrollably about who knows what and told David that he was absolutely hilarious. As we walked, he spoke less and less and sort of distanced himself.
I really didn't think much about it at the time but a few hours later I received a phone call from an apologetic David telling me he had thought hilarious meant "weird" or "awkward" instead of really funny.
So, naturally since he thought I was repeatedly calling him weird, he stopped talking as we strolled down the street.
Being the scholar that he is, he rushed back to his computer and began typing various spellings of the word hilarious into the online dictionary until he finally found the true meaning of hilarious.
The next day his facebook status was "Hilarious Awkward". Every time I say the word hilarious now I think of that moment of lost in translation. We term these moments "Lost in Translation Chapter (insert # here)"; that moment was chapter one. I think now we are on about chapter 65 or something.
Laughing is really the only solution to the struggle that comes from trying to muddle through foreign languages.
I have been trying to speak with French students in order to perfect my French. Well, maybe I'm not quite at the perfecting stage, more of the still trying to communicate without sounding like I am reciting lines from a textbook.
Having the ability to learn languages is a gift that I will always find remarkable. For some "lost in translation" is just a meaningless phrase. And I'm hoping I can someday have the ability to navigate comfortably in almost any language; it would be quite useful in today's interconnected world…
Interconnectedness seems to be the theme of my life at the moment. My friends here consist of students from France, Hungary, Russia, and many others. So, you can imagine the number of miscommunications that occur within this bunch.
One of the first days I was here, I was walking with my friend David, from Mexico, and was laughing uncontrollably about who knows what and told David that he was absolutely hilarious. As we walked, he spoke less and less and sort of distanced himself.
I really didn't think much about it at the time but a few hours later I received a phone call from an apologetic David telling me he had thought hilarious meant "weird" or "awkward" instead of really funny.
So, naturally since he thought I was repeatedly calling him weird, he stopped talking as we strolled down the street.
Being the scholar that he is, he rushed back to his computer and began typing various spellings of the word hilarious into the online dictionary until he finally found the true meaning of hilarious.
The next day his facebook status was "Hilarious Awkward". Every time I say the word hilarious now I think of that moment of lost in translation. We term these moments "Lost in Translation Chapter (insert # here)"; that moment was chapter one. I think now we are on about chapter 65 or something.
Laughing is really the only solution to the struggle that comes from trying to muddle through foreign languages.
I have been trying to speak with French students in order to perfect my French. Well, maybe I'm not quite at the perfecting stage, more of the still trying to communicate without sounding like I am reciting lines from a textbook.
Article last update: 2/17/09 at 8:18 PM CST
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