Translating and mistranslating a Spanish hotel registration form - lost in translation

 

I kept my registration form from a hotel in Spain, Hotel Zenit Coruna, and used it to revise my Spanish vocabulary. I experienced a few surprises, words I had mis-translated in my mind,

1 Datos del viajero looked like dates of the trip. It was not. It was details of the traveller.

2 Segundo apellido was not second name of middle name, meaning second given name. It was second surname or family name. Spanards use their mother's maiden name or family name as a middle name. 

3 Direccion is not directions but address.

4 Fecha is not facts but dates.

5 Firma del viajero is not confirmation of the trip/journey/stay but signature of the traveller. 

Spanish - English

datos - data/ 

detalles - details

direccion - address

direcciones - direcions

fechas - dates

segundo apellido - second surname

viaje - journey

viajero - traveller

https://translate.google.com/

English - Spanish

address - dreccion

data - datos

dates - fechas

details - detalles

directions- direcciones

journey - viaje

Useful Websites

Trasnslate google

https://translate.google.com/

 

What I learned About Watercolour Painting and Pastels at Writers' and Aritsts" Holiday

Self-portrait by Angela Lansbury (a k a Angella).

Art teacher Susan Alison was so full of encouragement and helpful tips that I have been back to her art workshops at Writers' and Artists' Holiday at least twice. I plan to go again so long as they and I and she are all available for the annual holiday.

This year I learned:

Refresh on perspective:
1 HORIZON
Begin with your horizon. You can insert a white wax line which the water colours won't stick to. But it does show up as a white line in your finished picture. So only use this if you like a central white line or have other white in your picture.

2 DIRECTION OF SUNLIGHT
Choose the sun (or light eg from a window). Your shadows under trees, mountains, houses, boats, chimneys, people, are on the opposite side of objects which the sun can't reach where the objects block it.

3 DIMINISHING SIZE IN DISTANCE
Nearby objects are larger. So the nearest trees, framing your scene, are larger.
You can have two or more sizes.

4 REFLECTIONS
Allow space for reflections in water - again taking into account the sun's direction.

5 PLAN & PRACTISE SHAPES FIRST
Sketch out your whole scene first in pencil. Allow space around the picture for your white cardboard frame inside the wooden frame. You can still paint to the edge of the paper. You might move your picture behind the wooden frame and white border card to include the tree on the right but block or mask the tree on the left..
PRACTISE COLOURS
Test on scrap paper to see the intensity of the colour and shape of brushstrokes.

6 WHITE FRAMES ENHANCE
The white cardboard inner frame made of stiff card enhances the colours.

7 LEAVE SPACE FOR FRAMES
Even without a cardboard frame, you will lose approximately a centimeter behind the wooden edge of the frame.

Make sure your signature does not go to the edge of the picture.

Susan suggests that your signature goes on last, before framing, so you can pick the right place.

I like to put my signature on at the beginning so I don't have black tree trunks covering the place where I want to write my name in black.

HIDDEN SIGNATURES
 I also want to incorporate my name subtly, eg in a signpost, or a banner for an event, or inscribed with a heart on a tree trunk, on a litter bin. If you have a sea, your name could be on a boat, foreground signpost, or distant hilltop or even skywriting from a plane or banner towing

8 SIGNATURES TO SIGNAL POSSESSION LIKE NAMETAPES
 I put my name on everything straight away. Otherwise I come back five minutes later, five hours later, a day later, or a year later, and I don't know whether the sketch of  a dog or cat or tree was done by the teacher for me to copy, by me, or fell off the adjacent desk under my chair and was done by somebody else. If my name is diagonally on the right lower corner, I drew it.

9 PAINT PALE DISTANT COLOURS FIRST
Colours are darker nearer. Paler further away. Start with the palest in the distance.

10 DISPLAY
We displayed our pictures, placed around the room on the shelf over the fireplace and on the beading above the lower wall - there's a technical term I cannot remember.
Visitors came in and asked of their husband or friend or a bystander, "Which is yours?" I then had to run from one wall to another. A nuisance and time waster for me. Confusing from them.
One person, (Della - who herself did the course in a previous year and painted an excellent black horse) told me, 'I can recognize your pictures. You have a distinctive style, like handwriting - and reading somebody's words, when you can hear their voice.'

11 What is my style?
1 Bright contrasting colours,usually blue sky, green grass, red somewhere, a frame of trees, teeny stick figures of animals or dogs or people in action, waving or running, or just looking at the scene. Bird against a patch of white sky. Sailing boats with red flags at the top of the sail. People wearing hats obscuring their faces and mean with beards or sunglasses  because I cannot draw teeny faces during a painting course - no time.

2 If you have to explain the picture, or you want to add something, put a succinct place name, person's name, one word or short phrase clue in the title, such as Dream.

Useful Websites
www.writersholiday.net

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, artist, caricaturist. Please share links to your favourite posts.

E-signatures - Why You Should Sign documents Online Whilst Travelling (or at home) -

You can sign a rental agreement with your new landlord or new tenant and conduct business on the move. A year or two back you could not do this because solicitors and others said it would not be legal. Now lots of people are signing electronically.

The HelloSign website has FAQ including 'is it legal'. They say it is in the USA and UK and other places.

Electronic Signatures
The idea of signing with one click is initially scary - at least it was to me. Then I thought about it. You can now do one click ordering of books on Amazon and many other transactions. All the big websites such as Facebook and Amazon and Google and newspapers worldwide think it is legally binding if you click 'yes I agree' to their terms.

Advantages
It does save so much time. You can sign whilst away travelling. At home, sign at home, no need to travel to meet and sign and exchange contracts.

Do You Prefer Paper?
I still like a paper copy. Reading a 26 page contract on a mobile is tedious. You can send and receive contracts and then read them on your  laptop or have it attached to a big screen at home or anywhere later. You could photograph the screen or do screen capture.

Creating A Signature
You create a signature one of four ways.
Sign paper and take a photo of your signature.
Type in your signature and choose a font.
Draw a signature with your mouse.

I tried to create a signature first but the system didn't like that. Then I realised I needed to load up the document before signing. I re-read the email I was sent several times which said the document is attached, looked for the paperclip sign and could not see it. Later I found the click here blue boxp where you click with your mouse to bring up the document.

Then up pops your document. For example, you might have a landlord and tenant agreement. it might need to be signed by three people, a landlord and both tenants, the couple such as a husband and wife, or all the people over 18 years of age.

An icon marks the spot where you need to sign. When you click on the icon, up comes the box for creating the signature. Down the left side of the page are the options listed for the different ways of creating a signature. I chose to click on 'type your signature'. Up comes another box.

Next. Type your name. Choose a font.

I thought a typed signature would be neater than my own handwriting. When I added my middle name, the signature was so long that in half the larger font styles offered not all the signature could be seen.

A few lines further on is another prompt. Create initials. this time I had more options. I looked for one nearest my own signature, not excessively tall and narrow and leaning diagonally. Nor one which looked untidy. I chose a font I liked.

Hey presto - job done.

However, consider which signature is legal. Airlines and ticket agencies may require your signature to match your passport. So Marilyn Monroe might have to sign a document for a bank or airline ticket with Norma Jean. Check if your bank allows two signatures. In the old days you could have two signatures. Then my bank said they would only allow one account in one name. They said it was to prevent fraud.

If the late Lee Kuan Yew, long time leader of Singapore, were using a signature with initials, he might stick to a large L for Lee his family name and the first word when you say it. Alternatively K for Kuan. Or Y for Yew. However, many people are known by their triple name in its entirety, so I think it looks better to have all the initials the same size. 

The system even tells the other party that you have signed.

I held up the whole process by a couple of hours by reading the 23 pages of the contract. I found several typos.

The next stage would be to change the contract. Revise the typos. The same contract is going to more than one person and will be used again in a few months' time. However, for speed, I would prefer to just pick out the errors and add them in a last page additional page as addenda. One page is quicker to read than making three people read 23 pages again. That is quick to read.

Useful Website
app.HelloSign.com
https://www.hellosign.com/electronic-signature
Please share links to your favourite posts
E-signatures - Why You Should Sign documents Online Whilst Travelling (or at home)
See next post on security and e signatures

Re-painting And Finishing Holiday Paintings With Erasers and Signatures

Self-portrait by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

Problem
You arrive home with your paintings done on holiday.

Now you have more time. You have space. No need to pack up and go back to the hotel. Your work can stay on the kitchen table or desk.

First you feel pleased and proud. Then you think:

AMATEUR? / PROFESSIONAL?

AMATEUR?
1 That's a bit basic, amateur. A five-year-old could have done that.

No.

Even if they could, on the other hand, it has a certain primitive charm. Like Rousseau. Like Toulouse Lautrec. Like impressionists.

PROFESSIONAL
Better at a distance. The artist is always painting close up. I can hang it on a wall and stand at a distance. Very effective.

Other people liked it. They didn't just say, "Oh - is that yours? Interesting ..." They said, "That's you! It's a good likeness. I like the frame. Very original."

I didn't think it was original. I thought I'd seen many 'frame' pictures before. There's a famous painting in the National Gallery in London, showing the artist at his easel, in the distance.

Why the frame?
a) I drew exactly what I saw. That included the frame.

b) I wanted to include the frame.  If I see something near the focus of my painting, such as a doorway or window frame I will often include it, or move it sideways or downwards into the picture.

Signature as Metaphor
I must make more effort to make this a signature, or permanent feature of my paintings. My other feature of self-portraits is my hand holding the pen or pencil or watercolour pencil.

Signature as Signature
I also have a signature in which my hand is drawing the signature. But that takes up space. The frame and the signature can distract from the subject of the painting.

Yet, when I am painting a self-portrait, a hand holding a pencil is appropriate. Why? Firstly, because it mirrors reality at that moment. For that moment in time, I was stopped as a painter. I was not busy, active, laughing, moving, cooking, cleaning, chatting. I was still, frozen, silent, concentrating, contemplating, peaceful, painting.

Secondly, the hand, although secondary to the eyes which want to engage with you, makes an additional statement that I want to be permanently known, remembered, identified, classified, honoured, as a professional painter.

However, when I am drawing somebody else, I want to concentrate on them, their eyes, their mouth, not distract. However, you should be able to come back to a painting later, or a second time in quick succession, and notice details which you did not spot at first glance.

Years ago I read an article or book about photography which said that you should look for a frame for your photograph. Now I always look for a tree to frame a photo of a building such as a skyscraper or church or group of people.

In a painting, the artist always has the opportunity to be creative and insert a frame for the top, sides, and often forgotten bottom front of the picture.

Susan taught us to draw a pencil frame about an inch around all four edges of our paper so that the picture would not have details at the edge which end up covered by the frame nor an inner mount.

(I have often found that y signature is half covered by the mount or frame. I have so many paintings and photos that I have run out of space on my walls.

My family are tidy-minded. They keep removing pictures because they hate clutter. They want space and uninterrupted clean walls.

Perhaps unconsciously they want no distractions from little squares behind when they are talking to you.  They also want you to focus on them when they speak, not admiring paintings over their shoulder.

b) I Like a picture to be self-framing. I like the arch of a doorway or arch in a church. Trees surrounding a lake.

The traditional parallel lines of the railway. Or path from the front and sides of the picture narrowing almost A shape to the centre of the horizon. Do you remember the classic advertisement for Start-rite shoes, little feet have far to go, showing a pair of boy and girl toddlers or small children, seen from back view walking into the distance, down a pale road edged by darker trees?

PENCIL LINES
I must be more professional. I must rub out the pencil lines.
I often get out a sketch book from last year and look at a caricature. I immediately notice pencil lines and start rubbing them out.

COLOURS
I must intensify the colours. Add colours. Edge with black waterproof pen.

WATERPROOF PEN
I always buy washable pens. I put pens in my pockets and they leak over my clothes.

However, on Writers' Holiday, Susan Alison loaned us waterproof gel pens. The advantage is that if you want to add watercolour paint afterwards, you black pen outlines, eg across the top of the head, don't leak into the colours or blonde hair below nor smudge uneven grey into the white paper above.

I must tone down the absurd unnatural oblongs on the sky.

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author, illustrator, caricature artist. (I have several more posts about paintings and painting holidays. Please bookmark and share and tweet your favourite posts.)

How Long Does It Take To Write A Blog Post?

I have spent three hours editing photos and writing two travel blog posts. What takes so long?

Photo editing
Loading or rather downloading the photos from mobile phone to laptop. Deleting out of focus photos. Removing accidental photos of my feet, ceilings, and total blanks.

Putting a black heart to mark favourite on the best of three photos.

Adding names of people. Checking correct titles (such as worshipful mayor, mayor or mayoress).

Adding and correctly spelling names of places. Adding addresses and checking the numbers of the address and phone are correct.

Cutting parts of photos showing too much empty road in street scenes. Cutting blurred moving hands waving across corners of crowd scenes. Adding light so you can read names on bottles and shop fronts. Adding light so you can see people's faces in dark rooms.

Editing Layout of Photos
Inserting a photo at the right section of the text. Going to view to check it looks ok. Finding long areas of text and moving a photo or adding a photo to break up the long text.

Editing Page Layout of Text
Inserting side heading to break up the text.

Where I now have two identical sub-headings, cutting and pasting to move the paragraphs together and deleting the second sub-heading.

Labels
Adding labels. When I have too many and the post won't load and tells me I have more than twenty words, counting and deleting a couple of words.

Addresses and Websites
Adding an address and website so the reader can find more facts. Adding websites I have used in case I want to go back to them later and add more facts or pictures.

Checking the restaurant website address if valid. Finding out what it covers such as a menu, to tell the reader and add more facts to my blog post.

Adding a photo from Wikipedia. Checking whether I need to add the attribution of the photographer's name.

Signature
Adding my signature at the end. Remembering a call to action. Directing readers to other posts or blogs or websites.

Saving
Checking number of readers today, compared with yesterday. If numbers of readers are dipping, checking the nationalities of readers and which posts are favourites. If I have extra facts and photos, writing a second post.

Sharing
Sharing the post.

Break
At the tend of every hour setting a buzzer for an hour. Standing up, folding my arms behind my back to straighten my shoulders and prevent myself developing a hunchback. Focusing my eyes on a distance.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.