Tuesday, April 14, 2009
lolcat Bible Translation project
One of our Go Global majors at SNU is the Spanish-English Translation major. Most people probably don't think of studying translation as fun, nor do they think that being a translator can be a fun job. After all, all you do is read what someone else wrote and then write it in a different language, right? However, I have proof that translators can have fun too! Check out the lolcat Bible translation of Genesis at http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_1. There's even an audio version at http://vonkempelen.com/audio/job-16604918-0.wav. Translators just wanna have fun!
Monday, April 13, 2009
Multilingual entrepreneurialism
I recently read an interesting article on the Fort Worth Business Press web site (http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=9962). Catholic Charities in Fort Worth has built up an impressive translation and interpreting capability in response to its refugee and immigrant ministries. A major part of working with immigrant populations is helping them communicate as they navigate various federal, state and local government, legal and social service offices. According to the article, Catholic Charities’ translation/interpretation service handles about 325 appointments a month and is able to provide interpreting in 72 languages. It currently works with about 125 trained interpreters. Now Catholic Charities is using that same resource to help provide financial support for its ministry. The agency recognizes that there is a big demand in the business sector for translation and interpreting services in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. Thus, with a big demand in the market and a well-developed language service capability, Catholic Charities’ Translation & Interpretation Network (TIN) is launching out to become a major language service provider to the business community as well as to immigrant populations. Ninety percent of the fees collected by the service go to support the work of Catholic Charities.
What is happening in Fort Worth is a good example of using entrepreneurial skills and multicultural awareness to support a valuable outreach ministry. I wonder if SNU’s translation major could not also use a little entrepreneurial skill to provide outreach. My experience as a translator in Oklahoma City shows me that there are many immigrants who need simple documents translated (birth certificates, marriage licenses, school diplomas) but who do not have the money that most professional translators would charge for such service. My experience as a translation company owner shows me that translation of personal documents for fees that most immigrants can pay is at best a break-even proposition. However, what if we set up a translation lab at SNU and used advanced translation students, under the supervision of a professional translator, to provide low-priced translations of personal documents? Our students would gain valuable experience and we would provide a much-needed service. Think about it.
What is happening in Fort Worth is a good example of using entrepreneurial skills and multicultural awareness to support a valuable outreach ministry. I wonder if SNU’s translation major could not also use a little entrepreneurial skill to provide outreach. My experience as a translator in Oklahoma City shows me that there are many immigrants who need simple documents translated (birth certificates, marriage licenses, school diplomas) but who do not have the money that most professional translators would charge for such service. My experience as a translation company owner shows me that translation of personal documents for fees that most immigrants can pay is at best a break-even proposition. However, what if we set up a translation lab at SNU and used advanced translation students, under the supervision of a professional translator, to provide low-priced translations of personal documents? Our students would gain valuable experience and we would provide a much-needed service. Think about it.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Eating empanadas and drinking mate in Oklahoma
It seems that the more I think about helping Southern Nazarene University students go global, the more aware I become of the global opportunities on and around our own campus. Just last week while talking with a student who will enter SNU in the fall, I mentioned to her that several of the majors in the Modern Languages Department came from other countries. I was trying to help her see the opportunities she would have on campus to get to know and study with international students. Part of learning to go global locally is learning with and from students who bring completely different perspectives and experiences to SNU because they come from contexts that are quite different from those of most of our students.
The next day, I met for an hour with the Chinese husband of one of our international graduate students. In our conversation, he asked me what I thought about Tibet. My Chinese friend was worried because his father travels frequently to Tibet for work and he had heard about violence directed at Chinese in Tibet. I responded that I only knew what I read in the newspapers and heard on the news, but that it seemed to me that Tibetans were just asking for what most other people want, that is, the freedom to be themselves and to govern themselves. He said that it was a confusing situation for him because all that he knew about Tibet was what the Chinese government allowed to be published. Since arriving in the U.S. in January, he has heard views that give a different side of the story. He is also learning what it means to go global by having to evaluate perspectives that bump up against his own. Later on that same day, I spent forty-five minutes with a student from Honduras and then ended my afternoon by speaking for an hour with a student from Mexico. It was a very international day for me without ever leaving campus.
I attended a meeting tonight (Saturday) that reminded me again of the global opportunities in our backyard. The church of which I am a member is making plans to start a new Hispanic congregation. The new congregation will be led by a bilingual/bicultural couple. The husband is from Argentina and the wife is from Oklahoma, although she has lived in Argentina and speaks Spanish with a decidedly Argentine accent. (I am definitely going to have to learn to speak “argentino” and drink “mate”. I already got a little practice being argentino because the hosts served us Argentine empanadas…very good!) What sets this planned congregation apart from the other new Hispanic church starts in which I have participated is that it is planning to be a bicultural/bilingual work from the start. The group wants to do this because many Hispanic families include family members who are not comfortable using Spanish. They may be children of Spanish-speaking parents or non-Hispanic spouses of Hispanic immigrants or second-generation Hispanic adults who want to maintain their ties to the Hispanic community but who cannot communicate well in Spanish. Thus, when we start our home groups, we are going to be ready to have two groups meeting in the same home at the same time, one group using English and one using Spanish, if we need to.
I am excited about being a part of the new Anglo-Hispanic congregation. I am also excited about being part of a university that offers its students such great opportunities for broadening their understanding of the world while they are on campus as well as when they study or participate in summer programs abroad. What a great place to study! What a great place to teach!
P.S. The NY Times is running an interesting series about an Iraqui translator/interpreter who has immigrated to the U.S. Check it out at http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/leaving-iraq-an-iraqi-christian/.
The next day, I met for an hour with the Chinese husband of one of our international graduate students. In our conversation, he asked me what I thought about Tibet. My Chinese friend was worried because his father travels frequently to Tibet for work and he had heard about violence directed at Chinese in Tibet. I responded that I only knew what I read in the newspapers and heard on the news, but that it seemed to me that Tibetans were just asking for what most other people want, that is, the freedom to be themselves and to govern themselves. He said that it was a confusing situation for him because all that he knew about Tibet was what the Chinese government allowed to be published. Since arriving in the U.S. in January, he has heard views that give a different side of the story. He is also learning what it means to go global by having to evaluate perspectives that bump up against his own. Later on that same day, I spent forty-five minutes with a student from Honduras and then ended my afternoon by speaking for an hour with a student from Mexico. It was a very international day for me without ever leaving campus.
I attended a meeting tonight (Saturday) that reminded me again of the global opportunities in our backyard. The church of which I am a member is making plans to start a new Hispanic congregation. The new congregation will be led by a bilingual/bicultural couple. The husband is from Argentina and the wife is from Oklahoma, although she has lived in Argentina and speaks Spanish with a decidedly Argentine accent. (I am definitely going to have to learn to speak “argentino” and drink “mate”. I already got a little practice being argentino because the hosts served us Argentine empanadas…very good!) What sets this planned congregation apart from the other new Hispanic church starts in which I have participated is that it is planning to be a bicultural/bilingual work from the start. The group wants to do this because many Hispanic families include family members who are not comfortable using Spanish. They may be children of Spanish-speaking parents or non-Hispanic spouses of Hispanic immigrants or second-generation Hispanic adults who want to maintain their ties to the Hispanic community but who cannot communicate well in Spanish. Thus, when we start our home groups, we are going to be ready to have two groups meeting in the same home at the same time, one group using English and one using Spanish, if we need to.
I am excited about being a part of the new Anglo-Hispanic congregation. I am also excited about being part of a university that offers its students such great opportunities for broadening their understanding of the world while they are on campus as well as when they study or participate in summer programs abroad. What a great place to study! What a great place to teach!
P.S. The NY Times is running an interesting series about an Iraqui translator/interpreter who has immigrated to the U.S. Check it out at http://baghdadbureau.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/leaving-iraq-an-iraqi-christian/.
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