This will only take you a minute

How many times have you heard that before?
Don't you just love it?

The phone rings, and one of your regular customers is on the line, offering you a job, or rather, expecting you to take the teensy weensy job he is throwing at you.
You explain that you're in the middle of something, rather a long complicated piece – say about Prospects for Peace in the Piddled East, or the Logic of Life on Lucifer – and you can't right now. Needless to say, his job is urgent.
"There's nothing to it, really," he insists, "it's less than a page. It'll only take you a minute."

So, against your better judgment, you give in.

But it never takes just a minute, does it?

First of all, you save the document you've been toiling over and shove it aside, as it were.
You open the new email. Save the document into the appropriate folder. Glance at it. Realize it's more complicated than you thought. Start translating. Find out there's an unfinished sentence in the first paragraph. Paragraph two contains three unfamiliar names in Hebrew, or in Arabic, or in Ancient Greek, which you have no idea how to pronounce and therefore can't Google them properly. Paragraph three is so vague and convoluted, being made up of one long sentence, that you haven't the foggiest what the writer was trying to say.
You figure out a workaround – after all, you are an experienced, skilled translator – tweak it a bit, and send it off back whence it came.
What with one thing and another, you've spent nearly an hour on the stupid thing.

Never again, you say to yourself… Until next time.

Planning my getaway from literal translations

For the past few weeks, I've been jotting down notes, bits and pieces of rants and ideas, but never getting around to actually posting on this-here blog. My excuse this time is, that I've been preparing for a trip to Canada, and had a "to do" list as long as my arm. By now, after weeks of intensive to-doing, the list is less than a foot long, which is far better than an [adult] arm.

One would think I was going to some god-forsaken uncharted no-man's land, from the amount of errands, shopping and "sidurim*" that I've been doing; when in fact I'll be in a Very Civilized country, where I'm sure every petrol station will carry most of what any Western weary wayfarer might wequire.

I can see myself sitting in a roadside diner, sipping awful coffee (I'm addicted to Elite Brazilian Botz**) and leafing through the local paper. Will I get as upset with the Calgary Clarion, the Banff Bugle, the Waterloo Weather Weport or the Kitchener Kitchen Knews as I do here in Israel with the Jerusalem Post?...
Only Time will tell, and this time draws near, thank goodness. Just a few days away.

Meanwhile, I'll share with you some of the annoying snippets, the likes of which I hope not to encounter when on vacation:

1. An ad for the Mega supermarket chain gave a recipe for a zucchini-pepper-cheese dish. It says :"Oil an English cake dish with olive oil." For those of you who reacted with a "Huh?", this is a literal translation from Hebrew. It should say "Grease a loaf pan…"

2. In the same ad, a picture shows two types of strudel, and the caption says "Apple / Forest Fruit Strudel". Well, folks, there is no such thing as "forest fruit strudel"; what the translator meant was wild berries. Again, a case of literal translation

3. Yotvata sweet cream – it's not sweet cream, it's just plain cream, as distinguished from sour cream.

4. The Bank Hapoalim ad, pushing a new "budget management tool", says: "… a simple tool allowing you to monitor your incomes and expenses in detail, by category without any efforts". Once again, a case of literal translation from Hebrew. Writers in Hebrew tend to use the plural where it isn't really necessary, probably under the impression that more is better. In this case, it should be income and effort. Or use "effortlessly", in the right place in the sentence, of course.

5. The Marker's lifestyle magazine, Active, of April 2009, carried an article about fitness trends. Guess what the latest trend is? Having your own מאמן אישי וקואצ'ר - -- me'amen ishi ve'coacher – "personal trainer and coacher"… Yes, you got it, they mean coach.

6. Camp Kimana Israel is advertising its 2009 summer camps for kids and youth from all over the world. The colorful flier is all in Hebrew, except for… the words summer camp, which are liberally strewn all over the page. I guess the Hebrew words מחנה קיץ – makhaneh kayitz – just doesn't have a posh enough ring to it…

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* sidurim -- inimitable Hebrew word covering a combination of errands and assorted tasks
** Botz - Turkish coffee; finely ground coffee to which you add boiling water and let the coffee grounds settle like mud. But I thought Brazilian Turkish coffee sounded silly.

Pessach Seders Executed Here

First of all, with reference to my previous post: below, with my thanks, are comments and additions by my colleague Ruchie Avital:

Hebrew	English
במסגרת	Also possible if you can't work around it: in the context of.
פריפריה	Actually, the concept of center/periphery is not an Israeli concept. Google it and see.
הטבה, הטבות	And perks, extras and even freebees, register permitting.
לתת מענה	Also: address

As for the title of this post, it refers to my absolute abhorrence of the ridiculous Israeli tendency to overuse the words לבצע, ביצוע – levatze'ah, bitzu'ah.
The other day I noticed that the toy and stationery store around the corner displays a sign saying כאן מבצעים תיקוני אופניים – kan mevatz'im tikunei ofanayim – literally: bicycle repairs executed here. Why, oh why? Why not, simply, כאן מתקנים אופניים, for instance?...

And now, for today's batch of awkward words, not in table format because it's such persnickety work and takes forever. (If you know why a table created in Word does not appear as such when copy-pasted into Blogspot, speak now, or forever… no, you can speak later, too.)

Hebrew
גורם
English
Usually used in Hebrew as a blanket term to mean the person, party or agency involved, or in charge.
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Hebrew
לפנות, פניה, פניות
English
Conveniently unspecific in Hebrew, it may mean: to write, call, contact, ask, inquire, approach. Decide according to context.
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Hebrew
להעביר
English
As a letter, report, information, etc: Send, send on, forward, pass on to someone, submit
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Hebrew
מושקעת
English
(When applied to an apartment.) Grrr… hate that one. We all know what it means – owners put lots of money into the apartment to make it nicer and more comfortable, presumably. But without knowing what was done, how can you safely write "refurbished", "decorated" or "renovated"? Perphaps the owners meant merely "properly maintained"? Or "fully accessorized"? (With thanks to Ruchie.)
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Hebrew
קסום
English
Charming, enchanting, enchanted, magical – and a few other words available in your thesaurus. Not our fault that the word is overused.
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Hebrew
מפנק
English
On principle, I refuse to buy any product or service that is advertised as "mefanek" – just sick and tired of this adjective!
When translating, try to avoid "pampering" – it rarely fits the bill. Again: get out your thesaurus and find an adjective or two that can apply to the specific "mefaneking" item. If it's a body lotion or bubble bath, it can be sensuous, luxurious, rich. And so on. You get the idea.
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Hebrew
יוקרתי
English
Have you noticed how everything in Israel is "yokrati"? All apartments, cars, neighborhoods, appliances, dishes… you name it. Sounds like even if you wanted to buy a simple, modest item you wouldn't be able to find one.
Sometimes the literal translation – prestigious – works. Often it does not. Luckily for the Hebrew>English translator, we have so many adjectives at our disposal! Though do try to resist the temptation to write "pretentious" :-)
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Hebrew
עשיר
English
"Ashir" -- cousin of yokrati and mefanek. Sumptuous or lavish often work well.
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Hebrew
לעדכן
English
Le'adken. Beware of trap. Israelis often use this verb when all they mean is "inform". So don't automatically assume they really mean "to update".
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Hebrew
נחשפנו ל... תיחשפו ל...
English
Beware of overexposure! This verb, originally meaning to be exposed to, has been overused and has practically taken over in contexts where a simple, "old fashioned" verb would do just as well, if not better: We learnt about… we experienced… we saw for the first time… So don't squirm in an attempt to translate the word literally, thus exposing yourself to, er… criticism?