Via the Universal Language blog, an article in Newhouse News Service entitled ‘English is Language of Business, but Americans Aren’t Fluent’.

bq. On a flight from Tokyo to Bangkok, an Indonesian woman speaking fractured English couldn’t make herself understood to an American flight attendant.
But a Japanese passenger could tell what the Indonesian woman was saying.

One should avoid words with several meanings when speaking international English, for example check/cheque, right, plant, and also phrasal verbs and idioms.

It sounds to me as if we should all learn a form of pidgin to speed up the process.

This is something I worry about when I see a series of books published in Germany, in English, entitled ‘German law accessible’.

Perhaps more sociology than law –

bq. Although there is a great deal of informal griping about the long lines for women’s toilets in many public facilities, there is not that much detailed information. In particular, because men and women rarely compare detailed notes about toilet facilities, there seems to be a tendency on the part of both sexes to assume that an equal number of toilet facilities are available to men and women, but women simply take longer, resulting in longer lines. In fact, however, most older public toilets do not seem to offer anything like equality of opportunity to men and women.

People who go out in a mixed group can do the survey posted at the University of Chicago Law School site. It should be interesting if only just to make the comparison, which we don’t usually do.

Via the blawg review.
I suspect it’s only intended for the USA, but it doesn’t say so.

I have just received the 2003/2004 catalogue of St. Jerome Publishing in the UK. It should all be available at their website (I’m afraid the web address on p. 2 of the catalogue is wrong – it has ac instead of co). St. Jerome is the patron saint of translators, which puzzles some Germans until they are told he is Hieronymus in German. They send books mail order, postage included in Europe.
The catalogue also contains books on translation from other publishing houses, which is nice.
The series I have three of is called Translation Practices Explained and is rather down-to-earth (there is another series called Translation Theories Explained, which I am also interested in). I have:

Enrique Alcaraz and Brian Hughes, Legal Translation Explained
Brian Mossop, Revising and Editing for Translators
and
Emma Wagner, Svend Bech and Jesús M. Martinez, Translating for the European Union Institutions

The rest of the series consists of a book on court interpreting, one on conference interpreting, one on electronic tools for translators (but dated 2001), and one on translating official documents, which is dated July 2003 and which interests me because I am a sworn translator and sometimes do this kind of translating.

More about Legal Translation Explained:
Continue reading →

I haven’t posted any photos for a while, so here is one of the building next door – originally the same building, where someone has more plants than I have. How I hate cleaning those windows (as far as I remember).

www.llrx.com has updated its guide to the federal legal system. A nice thing about the updates at LLRX is that they highlight the changed sections.
There is a link to a PDF file describing the U.S. federal court system. It’s available not only in English, but also in French, Russian, Serbian and Turkish (what, no Croatian?!)
There’s even a link to a tutorial on researching administrative law, which is more than I need myself.

Marita Marcano, is a translator from English, French and Spanish to German based in the USA. Together with Ursula Sauer in Germany, she works under the name of MM Translations Inc. I ‘know’ Marita from the pt translators’ group at www.yahoogroups.de.

Marita found the English pages of her website had been copied by a translation agency in Korea.

The copy was rather faithful to the original, even leaving the firm name in one place, and claiming that interpreting is available only in the Kansas city area. Here is an example:

Original (formatting removed):

bq. Update to the new German spelling
On July 1, 1996 the political representatives of German-speaking countries signed a common declaration about the reform of the German spelling rules. The reform took effect on August 1, 1998. There is a transitional period until July 31, 2005, in which the old and new spellings are allowed to coexist. After that only the new spelling rules will be valid.
For more information on the new German spelling go to Related Links.
With all your German documentation updated
you will be up to date linguistically
all of your materials will be consistent in appearance and spelling

Korean copy:

bq. Update to the new Korean spelling
On July 1, 1996 the political representatives of Korean-speaking countries signed a common declaration about the reform of the Korean spelling rules. The reform took effect on August 1, 1998. There is a transitional period until July 31, 2005, in which the old and new spellings are allowed to coexist. After that only the new spelling rules will be valid.
For more information on the new Korean spelling go to Related Links.
With all your Korean documentation updated
you will be up to date linguistically
all of your materials will be consistent in appearance and spelling

Somewhat off topic – Peter Griffin, a long-time member of the CompuServe translators’/foreign language forum FLEFO (and a multilingual one) published a bilingual version (this link shows both languages) of a novel in Catalan, Tocats pel foc – Touched by Fire – by Manuel de Pedrolo. It’s also available on Amazon.

According to Peter, ‘ Pedrolo was … one of the
most productive, the best known and the most acclaimed Catalan writers of
the twentieth century. ‘

Apparently the novel has received practically no advertising, partly because the publisher specializes in doctoral dissertations. The paperback is a little expensive, the publisher’s choice, and a positive review in World Literature Today, Summer 1994, misstated the price as $39.95 rather than $29.95.

So if any multilingual bloggers or Catalan speakers out there would like to make this book better-known, please take a look at it.

Overleaf I quote a bilingual extract. Continue reading… Continue reading →

Somewhat off topic: an article in the Sueddeutsche reports that most under-25-year-olds in the Munich language area don’t understand dialect; in contract, two-thirds of those over 65 under words like Irta (Tuesday) and Pfinzta (Thursday).

According to Hermann Scheuringer of Vienna University and others, the universities in Bavaria proper, Munich and Passau, do nothing to encourage the use of dialect (‘wie Scheuringer kürzlich selber in Passau erleben musste: „Hier kommen nur noch Theoretiker und Preußen zum Zuge“’). Augsburg University encourages Swabian and Würzburg University Franconian.

In the 1970s, the use of dialect was discouraged in schools because it was believed to hinder education. Now it appears that speaking dialect and writing standard German makes people express themselves more flexibly and makes it easier for them to learn a foreign language. Continue reading →

Two articles on legalese in court: from the ABA Journal, RITUALISTIC BOILERPLATE – Simplicity Beats Legalisms in Communicating With the Jury, BY JAMES W. McELHANEY:

bq. “Directing your attention to the 14th of August, 2002, I ask what, if anything, you did on that occasion?” Instead of starting a question with “Directing your attention to” a particular date, just tell the witness you are going to ask some questions about that day.
Then get rid of “if anything”—an annoying habit that prosecutors all over the United States have developed on the thought it keeps a question from being leading. But it’s unnecessary boilerplate because the question isn’t leading in the first place, and if it were, “what, if anything” wouldn’t fix it.
Now your question sounds natural: “Mr. Johnson, we are going to start by talking about Aug. 14 last year. What did you do that day?”

Then the Los Angeles Times (registration required but free) on July 18, has an article by Jean Guccione, ‘Relief Coming for Jurors Ill at Ease With Legalese –
A state panel OKs simple civil jury instructions. Criminal courts are next.’ New California jury instructions – example:

bq. Existing: ” ‘Preponderance of the evidence’ means evidence that has more convincing force than that opposed to it. If the evidence is so evenly balanced that you are unable to say that the evidence on either side of an issue preponderates, your finding on that issue must be against the party who had the burden of proving it.”

bq. New: “When I tell you that a party must prove something, I mean that the party must persuade you, by the evidence presented in court, that what he or she is trying to prove is more likely to be true than not true. This is sometimes referred to as ‘the burden of proof.’ “

I permit comments on this weblog, and sometimes a comment appears on a really old post. I’m not sure what to do about this cry for help in a comment to an entry on June 11:

Does anyone know where I can buy blue backing in Los Angeles? My e-mail address is …

I have omitted the email address to avoid it getting harvested, but it’s under that entry.

Now, however, at least I know what blue backing is, after asking someone who worked for a lawyer in California.

It’s a sheet of thin card slightly larger than a brief (old BE pleading) that California local rules require the brief to be attached to. For more information read on (but I haven’t found an email address to order it at – any office supplies store should do). Colour is not necessarily blue. Structure of card allows room for personal taste. It’s laid under a document for the court (brief/pleading) so that it projects by 2 cm at the bottom. The upper edge is folded forward and the whole thing is stapled or bound in some way at the top – but without punching holes, which would be felt to be unaesthetic. Continue reading →