My life as a translator
It's been a long but interesting week. I haven't been sleeping much lately and my body feels like it's running on empty. People used to tell me I could go with less sleep but I wouldn't believe them, but I think now I do. It's not so much a matter of what we want, it's a matter of slowly but surely slipping into a routine where you never really get around to sleeping.
I've been very busy with a project called car2go. Basically, it's a new concept by the Daimler group where they have a fleet of 200 smart fortwo cars which are available for rent in a city called Ulm. This is not like a normal car rental because you pay by the minute instead of based on distance travelled, and you can rent a car and then park it somewhere once you're done - none of that hassle of driving it back to the agency. So anyway, I got a firsthand peek into how the system works because I was translating test cases for the system. While translating this, it struck me how hard it is to use a website when you can't read the language it is written in. My colleagues kept on bombarding me with screenshots to translate (yeah, what can I say...I'm the kind of person who lets my mouse hover over the link and if it says .../gallery.html then I'm guessing that's where the pictures are!). After years of staying in Germany, I find it normal that I can speak and write in German. Just yesterday, I was finished with work and I was walking past the meeting room and I saw a glimpse of the woman who used to teach me German so I popped in for a short chat. For a moment, she wasn't sure who I was, but when we both spoke in German at the same time, I think it was pretty clear who I was. I ended up talking to her for a whole 30 minutes (entirely in German) and neither of us were fumbling for any words, so it was something which I'm rather proud of. The funniest part came when it was time to go (actually, I was supposed to meet my girlfriend for dinner, but I was talking to my German teacher because I haven't seen her in years). Two things happened. First of all, the nepalese security guard (who smiles at me every morning because I always yawn when I come to work) passed by the meeting room, noticed the door was ajar and took a peek at us. He looked inside and realized we were speaking German then screwed up his face when he recognized me. It was a very cute Mr. Bean-like face..."Ehhh! Why you speak funny" expression. The second thing which happened was when my teacher's students walked in. She promptly said: "Er war mal mein Schüler. Er ist mein Produkt. Ein sehr gutes Produkt, muss ich sagen..." ["He was once my student. He is my product. A very good product, I have to say..."]. They just blinked, sat down and listened to us speak to each other. I've never really been called a product, except by my mom who laughs when people say that my older brother and I look alike. Then she just says "Well, they came from the same factory,". But it was a warm feeling, knowning that I finally have some sort of real skill in a foreign language. My work requires a lot of concentration and the work is very sporadic, but there are nice moments when I get feedback saying that my translation has helped people understand things, or that my translations are actually better than those produced by the expensive (30 Euro a page!) in-house translation service which our company provides in Germany.
But the best part was at the end of work today, when I was waiting for the elevator to come. There's 6 elevators, but they always seem to take forever. So I'm standing there alone, adjusting my headphones...when three of the female interns from Germany walk out. The elevator arrives, we all walk in and they start talking. The conversation goes like this:
"Endlich, das Wochenende!" (Finally, the weekend!)
"Yeah, jetzt können wir der Herd ausprobieren..." (Yeah, now we can try out the stove...)
"Wir haben reichlich Tomaten, machen wir mal Tomatensoße," (We've got lots of tomatos, let's make tomato sauce,)
"Ja, aber vorsicht...der Herd knarzt immer...vielleicht magst du das machen?" (Yes, but be careful, the stove always crackles, you wanna try?"
"Nee, schau mal hier..." (nope, look at this)
"Boah, wo kommt das denn her?" (whoa, where did you get this?)
"Nicht vom Herd. Das ist vom Bügeleisen..." (Not from the stove, it's from an iron)
"Das ist ja süß!" (That's so cute!)
"Hmm...nicht wirklich. Ich hab hier noch eins. Ist schon drei Jahre alt." (Hmm...not really. I have another one here. This one's 3 years old)
So yes, three German interns are afraid of the gas stove in their apartment. And then one pulls down her sleeve to show off her scars. It's hilarious. To the rest of the world, they could be talking about the latest in fashionable tattoos, and I'm the only person in the elevator who understands. Towards the end, the iron girl kind of caught on, I think. Because I was smiling at all the right parts. But then again I had headphones on, so she probably thought I was just staring at her because I've never seen European girls before :D