Research in a second language

[sarahevekelly]

I'm doing a PhD thesis on eighteenth-century Anglo-Jewish women - cool topic, right? Never been done before, right? I'm starting to see why. It turns out that about 45% of my source material is in European Portuguese. I'm just entering the second year of a three-year program, translating this material incredibly slowly, and wondering if there's any

Comments

[tx_cronopio]

Well, the sad truth is that you need to learn how to order tomatoes before you can learn to read academic texts. That's just how language learning goes. I'd say buckle down and do it.

Any chance of an immersion experience in Portugal? Even for a semester?

[biascut]

Not necessarily true: I know fair numbers of people who can read academic texts in foreign languages but can't order tomatoes for toffee. My own PhD supervisor read German far more quickly than I did, but was staggered when I asked the waiter for the bill idiomatically.

But at the same time, learning to order tomatoes can only help if that's all that's available. Go and talk to the tutors of your university's languages for all programme and see whether there's anything that's a bit more targeted at reading skills, but if there isn't, go to the conversational classes and just read like mad in your spare time.

I empathise - I started a PhD on German material with A level German and good conversational skills, as my "I am FINALLY going to learn how to read German properly!" exercise. The first year almost killed me, but after I spent a summer working my way through a 500-page 1911 sociological text, reading 1920s romantic novels suddenly turned out to be easy!

The real question is...

[pansette]

...Does toffee even want tomatoes? And if it did, shouldn't we empower toffee to order said tomatoes for itself, rather than enabling its crippling dependence upon human Portuguese proficiency?

Re: The real question is...

[max_ambiguity]

You're just trying to discourage toffee from having equal access to tomatoes. You need to check your privilege!

[lareinenoire]

I second the immersion suggestion, if it's viable. My French positively skyrocketed after living there, even for a few months.

[rabswom]

I agree with the comments above. You can't do this topic if you can't read the sources. Either take a language class, get some immersion experience (possibly both), or pick a new topic.

I'm kind of surprised that your advisor let you take on a topic requiring proficiency in a language that you don't possess. [And that's not meant to be snarky.]

[sarahevekelly]

This happens all the time. Several of my colleagues are learning languages in tandem with their research - I passed my first-year defence and prospectus with flying colours because I had a Romance language (and at that point, not one whit of Portuguese). My supervisor helped me pursue it, but an assessing committee had to let me pass Go at the end of my first year.

[rabswom]

I just think that not having any experience in your primary resource language sounds like a horrible way to start your PhD research.

[rosathome]

It sounds perfectly normal to me. The expectation is that the first thing you do is learn the language.

[the_lady_lily]

Another voice saying 'there's no easy way out of this one, you just have to learn it'. You might want to see if you can find a class that specialises in teaching reading skills rather than speech skills; these often go under the title of 'German/French/Italian/Fortuguese for Academic Purposes' or similar. In fact, searching for that turns up this website, which may or may not be useful for you and appears to be UK based.

Edit: noting that you appear to be at Cam, UK, I commend their Language Center Portuguese resources to you.

[sarahevekelly]

It was, of course, my first point of departure. I've now got serviceable Portuguese - enough, as I say, to translate very slowly. The Language Centre offers crash courses in languages when the student needs to have a targeted facility with it (viz. translating 18th-c manuscript), but unfortunately doesn't offer such courses in Portuguese. If you scratch the surface of their services in Portuguese, they're all self-teaching tools, and I've used them to get as far as I have.

[the_lady_lily]

Rightio - I wouldn't have mentioned it, only I'm amazed how often people don't seem to know the place exists. Is it worth chasing around your college to see if there's a senior person in Portuguese who might have some undergrads spare?

If there isn't someone who is a Portuguese specialist, then try advertising in your college JCR, if you're not at one of the grad-only colleges, and put a sign up in the entry hall of the MML building (if they still have that noticeboard) - but do be careful about offering money, as Cam undergrads technically aren't allowed to hold jobs during termtime and you don't want to get pulled up for that.

(Again, I might be telling you stuff you already know, but I'd rather say it than not.)

[sarahevekelly]

Oh, believe me, there are nineteen thousand things I don't know about Cambridge resources. I come from a state uni in Canada, and I'm used to a far more service-oriented environment. I'm really grateful for your passing this on - students not being able to take paid work is a hurdle, but I managed to line-edit a bunch of dissertations last year under the table (and under the radar), so I might try to approach people the way I was approached.

[helenseidolon]

I'm not an expert, but I don't know if immersion is exactly what you need - it's not like it's the same vocabulary or period of language you're working with, right?

You need translation immersion. Translate that stuff for at least 10-20 hours/week for a semester. It will get much, much faster.

[sarahevekelly]

This is an excellent thought, albeit scary! Part of the 'no way through it but to do it' philosophy, and probably what it'll come to sooner rather than later... hadn't thought about it like that, though, and it helps. Thanks!