The Dragon’s Revenge?

February 19, 2008 · Filed Under Milan - My Zone · 3 Comments

Anti-Chinese feeling in my area of Milan appears to be running a little higher than usual. Someone seems to be getting some kind of warped pleasure out of scribbling ‘Cinesi merda’ (’Chinese shit’ is the translation) on the walls alongside Chinese run businesses in Via Paolo Sarpi and its immediate vicinity here in Milan.

Oddly enough, the Chinese residents of the area have not taken to writing ‘Italiani merda’ on the walls in the area, or have they? Well, I don’t really know. So, I wondered, how do you write ‘Italiani merda’ in Chinese.

Well, out of sheer curiosity I asked the bar staff of Chinese origin in a bar I pop into on Sundays for a quick coffee to write ‘Italiani merda’ in Chinese. These people chuckled a bit at my request, smiled, and then obliged, with one of them writing the offending words on a paper napkin.

Ah, I thought, now I’ll know if the Chinese are getting their own back. Except for the fact that I discovered, about two minutes later, that I could not even work out which way was the right way up for this group of two, what I assumed to be, words. I don’t even know whether the writing was a translation of the offending words, or a Chinese equivalent, to be honest. The writing could have read ‘Who is this idiot asking such a stupid question’, or worse, for all I knew.

This rather pointless act of abject curiosity has brought me to two conclusions.

First, it really would be pointless for the Chinese to go around scribbling ‘Italiani merda’ all over the place in Chinese, as the Italians would have no idea they were being insulted.

And, secondly, I doubt whether there are that many graffiti artists in China, as it would take them ages, in their elegantly complex language, to write anything on the walls there, especially seeing as the spray paint cans beloved of those who write all over the place are not the most precise of instruments. If anyone would care to correct me on the existence of graffiti artists in China, then please do.

PS We went for a Chinese meal in one of the restaurants near us this evening. And it was very good. Indeed, the fame of this particular place has even reached as far a field as Genova, or so I discovered from a friend of mine from Genova this evening.

Tags: bar, Business, China, chinese, dragon, ethnic tension, graffiti, Italia, Italian, Italians, Language, Me, Milan, odd, Paolo Sarpi, People, tension, translation, Writing

Pasticceria Scarpato - Nice cakes, shame about the website

February 16, 2008 · Filed Under Good Italian Things · 1 Comment

I won’t say how I found out about the site of Italian biscuit and cake maker, Scarpato, but I decided to check it out. Well, I do like Italian food and one of the aims of this blog is to do a little promotion of all things Italian.

So, off I went to have a mosey around.

What I found was a very interesting selection of Italian cakes and pastries, plus a few other goodies, as you can see in this .pdf version of their 2007 Christmas catalogue. Check out the fun turkey and piggy cakes on pages 16 and 18. Very original. However, although these temptations may well tempt you, there is nowhere on Scarpato’s clean looking site that I could find that actually tells you where you can lay your hands on these scrummy looking delights. Neither within Italy or any other countries.

Not knowing where you can find these things is one thing which lets Scarpato’s otherwise nice little site down, the other thing is that the site is only half in English, and even though you may click on the little US/UK flag, this does not guarantee that everything you will see is in English. Maybe I could rustle up a little translation work from them!
What a great shame - lots of tempting treats all locked behind a virtual window. Another wee problem is that many of the cakes are shown on the main site in their decorative wrappings, but you cannot see what the actual cake looks like.

Yes, I know you could try to contact this company via email or phone, but it would save their and yours if they invested a little more effort in their website. I hope they do.

I might ring the Verona based Scarpato up and gently bend their ears over these little oversights.

PS Please let me know if you have heard of this company. I think I have seen their stuff on sale in the shops here, but I don’t think the Scarpato brand has been etched into my brain in the same way as Barilla, for example.

Tags: Christmas, company, contact, email, English, good, interesting, Italia, Italian, Italian food, Italy, phone, products, promotion, translation, website

Wordfast - a translating system - first steps

January 14, 2008 · Filed Under Work · 3 Comments

Seeing as I’m becoming more and more involved in the translation of things like technical due diligence reports and other quite repetitive reports, I’ve invested in a Word add on known as Wordfast. You can discover more by clicking on the link.

What is this thing? Well, it’s known in the trade as a ‘translation memory’ application. Basically what it does is remember things you have translated and then proposes an exact or approximate translation of a sentence or ’segment’, as the jargon goes.

I’ve yet to put this system to the test, but I have been going about the rather laborious task of creating translation memories from translations I have already done. Then, when someone rings me up and says ‘Can you do this by…..?’, I shall reply ‘yes’, and get down to work.

Why use one of these systems? Simple, it can speed up translating work appreciably. And it ensures that translations are more consistent, plus it means that I do not have to go hunting around for some expression or other that will not spring to mind. A great time saver in itself.

Wordfast is a wee bit fiddly to get the hang of, but the more you use it, the easier it becomes. And building translation memories allows me to become more familiar with how the system works. Although I’ve yet to become proficient with it.

I’ve also been creating a few glossaries, which I can then print off, send off, etc and distribute while I’m teaching. Although I’m not sure how many people really use my glossaries. The paper versions are OK, but finding stuff can be very slow. However, put a glossary in a .pdf file or even a Word document and by using the ‘find’ functions you can search quite painlessly for the right expression or word. .pdf files are a little safer, as you cannot accidentally overwrite something or delete it, which could be something of a problem with a Word file. You know, the phone rings and two seconds later you have deleted something you should not have. ‘Undo’ may save you, as long as you are aware that you have mucked something up. With .pdf files this cannot happen.

Of course, putting glossaries on the web is one of the best ways of ensuring that all and sundry can access them. So I may have a go at putting some on the new site I’ve been building.

The only trouble is that producing these glossaries is fairly dull, and slow, work. Something for those semi-idle moments when you can’t be bothered to use your brain, I would say.

I also reckon that Wordfast or a variation may well be useful, not only for translators, but for businesses working in an international environment, especially those working with technical expressions, like lawyers, architects and engineers. However, I’m not too sure how such a system could be adapted to work efficiently. If I come up with an angle, I may post here, but if anyone out there on the WWW, especially those from Wordfast, can think of how to do this, then I believe that there may be one heck of a, growing, market for it.

Tags: Business, lawyers, market, teaching, TM, tra, translating, translation, Useful, web, Wordfast, Work