Reading Udo’s tale yesterday, I remembered that one of my fellow articled clerks (trainee solicitors) in London later spent time in prison in connection with some financial schemes, probably with clients’ money. It would have been amusing to visit him, but I didn’t hear about it till later.
Another one, Simon Zolan (a Czech name), apparently later worked for a commercial law firm with Spanish connections and is now running a flamenco school in Seville or Jerez (well, somewhere in Andalusia). He has red hair so his stage name is Simón el Rubio. The Internet is a great help in tracking these things down.

And I suspect that this David Fletcher is the right one, as he had spent a year in Finland before qualifying as a barrister and solicitor. (But the photograph must be the other man):

‘Mr David Fletcher, solicitor, who has lectured to Scandinavian audiences on these topics on numerous occasions. He combines legal qualifications and experience (he has also qualified as a barrister) with linguistic expertise. He specialises in Company/Commercial and UK and EU Competition Law. He gives contract-drafting courses in a number of different countries including Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland.’

I think some of the articled clerks are working as solicitors, but I’d better not out them.
I am also grateful to Friends Reunited in the UK, which found contacts with a number of people I was at school with. Since most of them had left the area and changed their names, there was no other way I could have done this. You can read the site free of charge, but to post it costs £5 per year for expenses.

One thing I have discovered is that if you scan old roll photos from school, bit by bit, enlarging them in the process of scanning, they are much easier to look at on screen than on paper. Here are some of the pupils of Squirrels Heath Junior School in Romford in 1956.

The word ‘Repetitor’ is mentioned in the Udo extract I just quoted. I translated it as ‘coach’. It is sometimes rendered ‘crammer’, but that may be too specifically British and too harsh. Many German law students go to these institutions to brush up their knowledge before the final exams, and in some cases it is more than brushing up, apparently. I’ve heard that lectures tend to concentrate on what the professor in charge wants to talk about, rather than to prepare students for the exam, and in any case quite a few semesters may pass between the attendance of the first important classes on civil law, criminal law and administrative law and the exam itself. So some say you have to go to the Repetitor to pass.

I found this translation in Romain (Romain/Byrd/Thielecke, Wörterbuch der Rechts- und Wirtschaftssprache, ISBN for German 3 406 48068 3 (I need some permanent links for books – this is the second time I’ve quoted this, but there is nothing in Dietl): ‘Repetitor m/-in f coach, tutor, semi-qualified person who coaches (law) students for state (bar) exam.’
I love the ‘semi-qualified’. Sure enough, the old (pre-2002) edition has ‘qualified’.

Von Beseler-Jacobs-Wüstefeld has ‘tutor, coach’ and for Repetitorium ‘repetition/refresher course’. A good source for some of this terminology is Simon and Funk-Baker, Einführung in die deutsche Rechtssprache, ISBN 3 406 44558 6 (in Germany; but there is a second edition out – maybe they have improved the German-English glossary, which is not very reliable in my edition). I quote:
‘Repetitorien sind private Einrichtungen, in denen der Prüfungsstoff in komprimierter Form dargeboten wird. Die Wissensvermittlung erfolgt nicht systematisch, sondern gezielt im Hinblick auf die Erfordernisse der Staatsprüfung. Auf Zusammenhänge wird kein Wert gelegt. Repetitoren sind eine “typisch deutsche” Einrichtung. Sie weisen sicher auf Defizite der Universitätsbildung hin, zeigen aber auch das mangelnde Interesse vieler Studierender an einem soliden Erwerb der Grundlagenkenntnisse.’
This is nice. When I get down to notaries, which needs more time than I have today, I want to say that however much information is on the Internet, there is often a lack of the comparative element that enables us to put someone else’s legal system in context. Since Simon and Funk-Baker are writing for non-Germans, they do give this information: what here is different from what happens elsewhere.
One well-known Repetitor is Alpmann und Schmidt, some of whose materials can be downloaded free of charge. They sell scripts (including two on English law, Introduction to English Civil Law I and II, but a bit Denglishy – a shame because the layout is attractive and the content good) and a monthly journal. There is an Internet Repetitorium called eJura too. Hemmer is another Repetitor.

The word ‘Repetitor’ is mentioned in the Udo extract I just quoted. I translated it as ‘coach’. It is sometimes rendered ‘crammer’, but that may be too specifically British and too harsh. Many German law students go to these institutions to brush up their knowledge before the final exams, and in some cases it is more than brushing up, apparently. I’ve heard that lectures tend to concentrate on what the professor in charge wants to talk about, rather than to prepare students for the exam, and in any case quite a few semesters may pass between the attendance of the first important classes on civil law, criminal law and administrative law and the exam itself. So some say you have to go to the Repetitor to pass.

I found this translation in Romain (Romain/Byrd/Thielecke, Wörterbuch der Rechts- und Wirtschaftssprache, ISBN for German 3 406 48068 3 (I need some permanent links for books – this is the second time I’ve quoted this, but there is nothing in Dietl): ‘Repetitor m/-in f coach, tutor, semi-qualified person who coaches (law) students for state (bar) exam.’
I love the ‘semi-qualified’. Sure enough, the old (pre-2002) edition has ‘qualified’.

Von Beseler-Jacobs-Wüstefeld has ‘tutor, coach’ and for Repetitorium ‘repetition/refresher course’. A good source for some of this terminology is Simon and Funk-Baker, Einführung in die deutsche Rechtssprache, ISBN 3 406 44558 6 (in Germany; but there is a second edition out – maybe they have improved the German-English glossary, which is not very reliable in my edition). I quote:
‘Repetitorien sind private Einrichtungen, in denen der Prüfungsstoff in komprimierter Form dargeboten wird. Die Wissensvermittlung erfolgt nicht systematisch, sondern gezielt im Hinblick auf die Erfordernisse der Staatsprüfung. Auf Zusammenhänge wird kein Wert gelegt. Repetitoren sind eine “typisch deutsche” Einrichtung. Sie weisen sicher auf Defizite der Universitätsbildung hin, zeigen aber auch das mangelnde Interesse vieler Studierender an einem soliden Erwerb der Grundlagenkenntnisse.’
This is nice. When I get down to notaries, which needs more time than I have today, I want to say that however much information is on the Internet, there is often a lack of the comparative element that enables us to put someone else’s legal system in context. Since Simon and Funk-Baker are writing for non-Germans, they do give this information: what here is different from what happens elsewhere.
One well-known Repetitor is Alpmann und Schmidt, some of whose materials can be downloaded free of charge. They sell scripts (including two on English law, Introduction to English Civil Law I and II, but a bit Denglishy – a shame because the layout is attractive and the content good) and a monthly journal. There is an Internet Repetitorium called eJura too. Hemmer is another Repetitor.

This is another extract from law blog, becoming known in the blogosphere as Udo, plus translation. I use Site Meter to monitor traffic to my site (results hidden at the moment), and one thing it shows me is that a large number of visitors to my site come from law blog. I think they read on his site that the law blog is now available in English, because I translated one piece, and when they come to my site they must be very disappointed. It also shows me what search words in Google brought people here, what time zones they come from, what browsers they use, whether these support style sheets or JavaScript and much else.

15 May 2003

3 JAHRE

Besuchsvormittag in der Justizvollzugsanstalt.

Ich stehe auf dem Flur vor den Gesprächszellen und warte darauf, dass mein nächster Mandant geholt wird. Da kommt ein Gesicht um die Ecke, das mir bekannt vorkommt.

“Karsten?”

“Udo?”

Wir schütteln uns die Hände. Uni Bochum, juristisches Seminar. Wir haben schon mal in der Cafeteria geplaudert. Und beim Repetitor, waren wir da nicht auch zusammen?

„Wie läuft das Geschäft?“

Er guckt mich verlegen an.

„Um genau zu sein, bin ich, äh, nicht direkt beruflich hier.“

Karsten rechnet mit 3 Jahren. Ein schönes Beispiel dafür, dass man die Finger vom Geld seiner Mandanten lassen soll…

THREE YEARS

Prison visiting day.

I am standing in the corridor outside the visiting rooms and waiting for my next client to be brought. Then a face that seems familiar comes round the corner.

‘Karsten?’

‘Udo?’

We shake hands. Bochum university, the law faculty. We once chatted in the cafeteria. And didn’t we go to the same coach for the final exams?

‘How’s business?’

He looks at me awkwardly.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m – er – not exactly here as a lawyer.’

Karsten expects to get three years. A good example of why we ought to keep our hands off clients’ money.

This is another extract from law blog, becoming known in the blogosphere as Udo, plus translation. I use Site Meter to monitor traffic to my site (results hidden at the moment), and one thing it shows me is that a large number of visitors to my site come from law blog. I think they read on his site that the law blog is now available in English, because I translated one piece, and when they come to my site they must be very disappointed. It also shows me what search words in Google brought people here, what time zones they come from, what browsers they use, whether these support style sheets or JavaScript and much else.

15 May 2003

3 JAHRE

Besuchsvormittag in der Justizvollzugsanstalt.

Ich stehe auf dem Flur vor den Gesprächszellen und warte darauf, dass mein nächster Mandant geholt wird. Da kommt ein Gesicht um die Ecke, das mir bekannt vorkommt.

“Karsten?”

“Udo?”

Wir schütteln uns die Hände. Uni Bochum, juristisches Seminar. Wir haben schon mal in der Cafeteria geplaudert. Und beim Repetitor, waren wir da nicht auch zusammen?

„Wie läuft das Geschäft?“

Er guckt mich verlegen an.

„Um genau zu sein, bin ich, äh, nicht direkt beruflich hier.“

Karsten rechnet mit 3 Jahren. Ein schönes Beispiel dafür, dass man die Finger vom Geld seiner Mandanten lassen soll…

THREE YEARS

Prison visiting day.

I am standing in the corridor outside the visiting rooms and waiting for my next client to be brought. Then a face that seems familiar comes round the corner.

‘Karsten?’

‘Udo?’

We shake hands. Bochum university, the law faculty. We once chatted in the cafeteria. And didn’t we go to the same coach for the final exams?

‘How’s business?’

He looks at me awkwardly.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m – er – not exactly here as a lawyer.’

Karsten expects to get three years. A good example of why we ought to keep our hands off clients’ money.

Some translators like to quote bad translations by other translators, or egregious examples of machine translation, on their websites or in their advertising materials. I wonder if this tactic doesn’t backfire. The average client may be left with an impression that translation is a minefield (which it is) and that no translators can really be trusted – a message one doesn’t really want to give. I can quote a website I found once that is an example of machine translation gone wrong, a U.S. site advertising cheesecake. Since I last looked at the site, it has acquired the following note on its home page, making a virtue out of necessity I suppose:

‘To help make our recipes more accessible to the rest of the world, we have translated this page into Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese. The translations were done strictly with Machine Translation, so they are not as exact as professional translation. You may find them to be somewhat humorous. We are in the process of professionally translating them, but that may be a few more months…’

Incidentally, when I was looking for the link, since the author has decided to leave it online despite being informed by a large number of translators that it is unintentionally funny, as well as being intentionally funny, I found it quoted by Christiane Sprinz on her food translators site – but my criticism is not directed against her and I think it’s OK to quote such a thing on a food translation site (Christiane is a food technologist by training and a specialist translator). The kind of thing I object to is a collection of ‘funny translations’.

I was wondering about this when I followed up an advertisement in the new MDÜ (publication of the BDÜ) I received today, for an online shop for translators. In fact they sell calendars with a whole series of different photos (mainly women, but not all) and texts about translators, it’s just that the first you encounter is Vanessa, from Asia (influenced by the Vanessa in Deutschland sucht den Superstar?!), with a text quoting a really bad machine translation of a software manual.
They also sell some software, for instance T.O.M. (Translator’s Office Manager), of which I have heard positive reports.
The Übersetzershop is apparently connected with LS Fachübersetzungen in Herford (clicking on ‘English’ has no effect).

Das Übersetzershop (Anzeige in den neuesten MDÜ) bietet Software und vor allem Kalender für Übersetzer. Man muss keine großen Stückzahlen nehmen – auch einen einzigen Kalender (oder Poster) kann man bestellen, mit Bild und Spruch. Der Kalender mit Bild von Vanessa macht sich über schlechte Maschineneübersetzung lustig. Ich frage mich, ob das nicht kontraproduktiv ist, dem Kunden nicht suggeriert, dass Übersetzungen dazu neigen, schlecht zu sein. Dabei zitiere ich eine Website über Käsekuchen mit gewollt und auch ungewollt lustigem Text auf deutsch (und in anderen Sprachen auch).