[haiyaxai-deactivated20151103]

This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.

That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.

This is why we download. 

 Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks

Textbooknova 

Reddit

Bookboon 

Textbookrevolution 

GaTech Math Textbooks

Ebookee 

Freebookspot 

Free-ebooks

Getfreeebooks 

BookFinder

Oerconsortium 

Project Gutenberg

[crystalgarbage-blog]

Spreading this shit like nutella because goddamn textbooks are so expensive. 

[referencesforartists]

not necessarily art related but as someone who couldn’t afford their textbooks this semester this is a godsend

[amplifytheworld-blog]

REBLOGGING because after a little digging, I found my $200 textbook for free in PDF form.

[inunchartedwaters-deactivated20]

friendly reminder that this exists since I know we’re all going back to college soon

[1-4victor-out]

Will reblog every time I see it.

[tryingfor100times]

Vocabulary prompts for your target language

Wondering what vocab to learn? Are you curious whether your vocabulary is varied enough?

Here are some of the topics you might want to expand in your target language:

life and death (eg. stages of life, vocabulary for funeral)

family (members of family, family tree)

appearance (parts of the body, clothes, verbs of movement, fashion, diets, hairdressing)

character (eg. adjectives describing character, personality types, temperaments, emotions, feelings of love, hate, interest etc.)

health & sport (eg. parts of the body, diseases, going to the doctor, going to pharmacy, types of accidents, maintaining healthy lifestyle, fitness, gym, cosmetics, going shopping, mental health, sports, olimpics)

hobby and holidays (eg. activities of free time, night life, types of holidays in your country or in your target language’s country, active and passive way of spending free time, friends, games)

art (painting, drawing, films, literature)

house (eg. types of houses, living in a city, on a countryside, different types of rooms at home, neighbors, garden, chemicals for cleaning, activities like cleaning floors, washing the dishes, moving out, renovation)

food (eg. types of food, preparing dishes, traditional meals, writing a recipe, healthy foods, eating out) 

media (eg. TV, press, internet, news, types of presenters, types of programs, social media, ads)

technology (eg. types of jobs in IT industry, computer, phone, internet)

travel (eg. types of vacations, days off, business trips, places to go, travel agency, types of tourism, monuments, summertime, nature, names of countries, weather, plants and animals, foreign languages)

work & school (eg. professions, looking for a job, job interview, office work, dream jobs, balancing professional life with private, jobs in politics, being a celebrity, summer jobs, business, time management, subjects at school, stages of education)

society (eg. culture, social rules, savoir-vivre, law, government, idols, crimes, terrorism, wars, politics, religions, casework, classes in society, race discrimination)

You can add your own suggestions by sending them to me so that I expanded that list or by reblogging.

I hope this helps someone!

[intellectys]

Here’s some weapons for your essay writing arsenal!

Hemingway Editor Calmly Writer  The Most Dangerous Writing App Purdue O.W.L. One Look Thesaurus JSTOR Google Scholar

Reply with your favourite or other great websites I didn’t include!

[catscaffeineandnotebooks]

Great source! 

During most of my undergrad career I swore my loyalties to JSTOR and then one of my English professors (I was an English major) introduced me to the MLA International Bibliography database, and my life was forever changed.

[pietriarchy]

I feel like everyone worships avocado and I’m struggling because it just tastes like compressed wet grass lump but nobody will listen and I’m all alone in this world

[nxnsense-deactivated20170409]

Ya wcw

[sixpenceee]

I hope love, health, inner peace, strong friendships and wealth find you in 2019!

[halosydne]

I hope patience and perseverance finds you in 2019

[pandorasbeautifulbox]

I hope tranquility and fullness finds you in 2019

[mellifexfarm]

Hot hot hot hot chocolate

HEY WE GOT IT

[mellifexfarm]

[jawd]

[jawd]

[jawd]

[jawd]

[loving-language]

World upside down

It is sad and fascinating at the same time that it is way harder to find a job as interpreter or translator with an MA in translation and interpreting (and being a state-certified interpreter and translator in Germany) than finding a dull office job where you are just sitting around waiting for someone to give you work. At the same time, the German government cannot get enough interpreters but the conditions they offer are worse than for a simple office job…and the office job pays better as well. I don‘t understand today‘s economy and labour market 🤦🏻‍♀️

#germany #interpreter #translator #bored

[we-are-not-amoosed]

That’s pretty much why the German public service can’t get any interpreters: pay and working conditions can’t even compare to boring office jobs, let alone conference interpreting. But it’s very true that, in general, getting a job as translator or interpreter is HARD. And I have lots of thoughts on why that is.

Basically, my theory is that (in Germany more than in the UK, imo) our professions have absolutely no visibly in the media and very, very little in the professional world, and that the value of our work is constantly downplayed.

First, there’s the entertainment media. There are almost no interpreters in the media (apart from that one Nicole Kidman film), and if there are, they are not portrayed accurately. In films and series they just have the one guy who once learned that language in school translate documents or interpret at interviews. Then, of course, none of those “interpreters” or “translators” adhere to the code of conduct. They just do whatever the writer, a non-linguist with no clue about our profession(s), thinks we do, and then you end up with people summarizing, speaking in third person, forgetting or purposefully (!) leaving out details, not taking notes etc, a.k.a doing a completely inadequate and shitty job. And thus people think that’s what we do, think that they can do that themselves and the cycle continues. In other situations in films, books, series etc where you would normally have interpreters, the writers just have the other person speak the required language perfectly (which is unrealistic, but better for storytelling I guess). So people don’t think they’ll need an interpreter if they and the other person speak one common language. But what they tend to forget is that that’s fine if they wanna talk about the weather, their weekend or even their field of specialty, but if they want to discuss that one specific clause in a contract, if they want to defend themselves in a court of law or if they need that trademark application translated into German, your average language skills just aren’t gonna cut it.

And in the rare case they have interpreters or translators in entertainment media, they aren’t represented accurately. Examples I’ve seen include the one interpreter in Mar del Plastico, who didn’t take any notes and spoke in third person, the translator in Inspector Lewis, who translated a whole crate of files by herself in two days and called conference interpreting boring and unchallenging, and, of course, the interpreter in Corazón tan Blanco, who interpreted everything incorrectly in a meeting between the British PM and the Spanish president JUST FOR FUN. In conclusion, in entertainment media we’re underepresented or misrepresented, and the value of our work is often downplayed to “anyone who speaks two languages can interpret or translate” With representation like this, it’s no wonder people think they don’t need interpreters or translators.

But of course it’s not the entertainment industry’s job to make us look good and to promote our profession. That’s OUR job and thus also the job of our professional associations. And it’s a job we as an industry have neglected too much, imo. As far as I’m aware, the BDÜ, the German Association of Interpreters and Translators, does have an awareness campaign, which I don’t know much about (which, tbh, is a bad thing for an awareness campaign). I’ve seen a few posters from that campaign which say “Do you need an interpreter/translator?” and then something like “here’s where you can find them” and contact info, and yes, that’s a great thing; it’s good when people who need our services know where they can find us! But we also need to make people understand WHY they need our services, what exactly those services are and how they’re different from the common misconceptions about interpreters and translators. We need to tell them that they deserve something better than the bad portrayals of our professions in entertainment media and show them how we can create value for them. If we don’t do that, the situation won’t improve. So far, the only people who value the work of translators and interpreters are those who have worked with translators and interpreters in the past. Those who haven’t worked with translators and interpreters don’t know about the value our services provide and thus don’t work with us. It’s a bit of a vicious circle.

The latter is definitely the case in the German public service, which is suffering most from lack of interpreters. There is no public service interpreter training in Germany, let alone training for the police on how to work with interpreters (like there is in the UK). The UK has researchers like Jo Drugan who work hard to make co-operation between interpreters and law enforcement agencies easier. We need people to do something like this in Germany as well.

And lastly, machine translation (MT). The tech world has been going on for FOREVER about how they’re soon gonna replace us with machines. I’m not joking, it’s been going on since the 1950s. So, for almost 70 years they’ve been working on that, and while they’ve made progress we’re still lightyears from human parity. The thing is just, you only know this and all the issues with MT and MI (machine interpreting) if you’re involved in the industry. And if you just hear some tech companies talking about how they’re all gonna put us out of job soon, you might be starting to think that the MT available (Google Translate, DeepL, etc) really are enough to translate whatever document you have, or you might say: “How hard can it be if a machine can do it?” Again, the only thing we can do (and should do) is make clients aware that, no, there’s no human parity and there won’t be for quite a while, there’s huge data protection issues if you feed your data into public MTs, etc.

In conclusion; what our profession(s) need is way more visibility and for us to get out from behind our computers and tell people WHY they need us and how hiring us will benefit THEM.

And yes, I’m aware of the irony that I’m writing this on my phone, but in my defense, I’m on holiday and if as many people as possible reblog this we might actually get a bit more visibility.

[we-are-not-amoosed]

So, a friend and me went to a job fair today, and there I realized that there really is something going fundamentally wrong in the language sector in Germany; something which is probably due to lack of visibility and lack of understanding what we (translators and interpreters) actually DO.

EVERY TIME we introduced ourselves to the company officials at the stalls, they were completely baffled, as if their mind had suddenly gone blank. They had no clue what to do with us. But after they had some time to think they either told us they didn’t need our services (which is fair enough) or, strangely, we got a positive reaction. One woman told us they had one translator and they were really glad they did, sometimes she had the feeling they could do with another one, but they’re not hiring at the moment. Another guy also told us they’re not hiring, but they could definitely do with translators/interpreters quite often.

Now, what I don’t get is: Why are they not hiring? They obviously seem to have a demand. There’s no lack of supply on the market. My friend and me were there, actively looking for work. Out of all my fellow coursemates from both undergrad and postgrad I’m the only one working as a translator (apart from maybe one guy who wanted to go freelance, but I don’t know how that’s been working out for him), because they couldn’t find a job in that field.

So there’s plenty of supply and there seems to be demand, but somehow they’re not meeting. And the confused, out of their depth, “what-the-hell-do-i-do-with-something-as-exotic-as-a-translator/interpreter?!?” -reaction of the company representatives might be an indication why that is.

[robertphilip]

Edward, to Bella: you’re the reason I have something to fight for. a family.

the Cullens, who put up with his emo ass for over a hundred years: damn, fuck us I guess

[hyunijinremade]

[bitchycode]

[liamdarlinstewart]

dropping a chandelier in the middle of an opera because someone sat in my unassigned assigned seat is the level of pettiness i aspire to achieve

[mandarinmostly]

me: how do I practice my talking and listening skills?

everyone ever: talk to a native speaker

me: …..no…….. that …. that can’t be it ….. there’s gotta be something else

[sprachtraeume]

me: *never studies my target languages* my language abilities: *dont get better* me:

[perksofbeingjackson-deactivated]

In school

[homesicklinguist]

French vocabulary: hello, bread, to cook, house, street, left-right, friend, …

Latin vocabulary: to stab, murder, war, god, unlimited power, soul, torture, punishment, …

[geschiedenis-en-talen]

me: this is all going pretty well, nothing too difficult

language book: 

me:

[felderwin]

my favorite thing i’ve learned in college is that way back in ancient china there was this poet/philosopher guy who wrote this whole pretentious poem about how enlightened he was that was like “the eight winds cannot move me” blahblahblah and he was really proud of it so he sent it to his friend who lived across the lake and then his friend sends it back and just writes “FART” (or the ancient Chinese equivalent) on it and he was SO MAD he travels across the lake to chew his friend out and when he gets there his friend says “wow. the eight winds cannot move you, but one fart sends you across the lake”

[agnesmontague]

i googled this bc i desperately wanted this to be real, and guess what…it is.

the dude’s name was su dongpo (also known as su shi). his original poem went like this:

稽首天中天，

毫光照大千，

八風吹不動，

端坐紫金蓮

(Humbly bowed my head below all skies Minutest lights shine through my deepest bounds Immovable by strong winds from eight sides Upon purplish gold lotus I seated straightly by the low mound) (x)

on which his friend wrote “放屁” (fart, literally), and you know the rest.

(here’s a chinese source for the skeptics)

[hexmaniacmareen]

can you imagine having your brutal murder described in detail to future generations

[lizawithazed]

this is my new favourite story from history

[thacmis]

Just an addition: “fart” also is slang for “bullshit” in Chinese, so his friend was basically writing “BS” on the dude’s ego poem