Trouble Translating a Nail File? Hear my story

My first attempts at translation were giving a vote of thanks to our French hosts when I was on a press trip to the Loire valley. I started thanking our hosts in English, saw the smiles from my fellow journalists, but blank looks on my French hosts' faces, and started translating. It was easier to translate almost word for word, kept everybody interested as well.

Translating At Conferences
Later, at a car company tour, we ended up at a conference centre. One of the fellow journalists asked for a translator from French and none was available at short notice. So I sat between two English journalists and gave them both a whispered translation.

Simultaneous technical translation when I was at a French motoring convention had seemed surprisingly easy. The longest most technical words were the same in both languages. If I missed something out, nobody knew or cared. My translation served two functions. It enabled the English journalists to pretend they had heard every word and enabled them to thank the hosts and discuss the gist of the advantages of the latest models of cars. It also stopped them being bored in a conference of long 15 minute, 20 minute, and half hour speeches.

I thought translating with the aid of a dictionary would be easier. I was wrong.

Translating Websites and Packaging
When I was translating French and English websites and packaging, I bought the biggest dictionary I could find in French, Spanish and German. I had thought I could speak fluent French.

Searching
My biggest challenge was the word nail file. I did not want to admit to the company which assumed I was an expert that I was having trouble translating it. So I tried going onto websites selling cosmetics. When I looked it up in translation online, in my big dictionaries, I found nails which you hammer, and files for carrying paper. I then spent time in the cosmetics departments, and photographed products, so long that their store detectives asked me to leave.

Eventually I found the answer. I was very pleased with my diligence and success. However, a week afterwards, after all that time, effort, and money, I discovered that the samples of packaging from the company employing me had already used the correct word in other products' instruction leaflets.

Angela Lansbury is a speaker, website editor, author, photojournalist, caricaturist