Cock-up happens

As a popular saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This time I can’t pick on the intentions. Poland should promote itself and its universities abroad and agreeably, it can’t be done in Polish. In order to address foreign students you have to prepare a guide in a language virtually everyone knows and as you guess, the only language to meet this criterion is English.

Study in Poland is a new initiative launched with a view to promote Polish higher education system and aimed at students and scholars from abroad. Perspektywy Foundation which is behind the project has set up a website and printed a guide for the foreign students, both in English. And here’s the hitch. The English language, you know what I mean.

The brochure I’m ranting about is a compilation of general information about Poland (example: actual exchange rates: www.nbp.pl, I have no doubt the exchange rates published at central bank’s website are actual, but didn’t they mean current? And look at the approximate rates. 1 EUR = 3,59 PLN, 1 USD = 2,45 PLN. They’re neither actual, nor current...

My school also has its two pages in the guide. As the editors have written in a disclaimer, they take no responsibility for the information on the particular universities, since they had been provided by the schools themselves.

Let’s take a look at what my school has written…

1) “SGH offers many opportunities to study economics and social studies”. The author of this blog has chosen to study financial studies.

2) “programes”, “buisiness” – has anybody run a spellcheck?

3) “… we also offer post-graduate studies and vocational trainings for…” Is SGH a vocational school? Does it run courses for carpenters, or welders? It is not enough to check how to translate zawodowy into English. But after all there were attempts to turn SGH into a vocational school.

4) “a system of academic grades which are easy to read…” Once again, I thought a phrase “academic degree” is relatively commonly used and is a good equivalent of Polish stopień naukowy.

5) “a first cycle (Bachelor) geared to the employment market”. Bachelor is an unmarried man, Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science are academic degrees, someone can have BA in a certain discipline, but not to be a Bachelor of Arts in sth (yes, I did make errors on this blog). And why “geared to” and not “labour market-oriented”? I won’t have a go at “cycle”, no matter how strange it sounds, it is used in official documents.

6) “cooperating / in collaboration with other universities” – maybe one day Poles will learn a nice English equivalent of współpraca is “partnership” (though it’s not an actual error)

7) “Postgraduate studies, with abundance of faculties…” Once they use hyphen, the other time they omit it, and why abundance? Isn’t it too formal or literary, wouldn’t simple “variety” suit better?

8) “SGH has been a centre for scientific research in economics and management science”. Should it be “of” instead of “for”? Isn’t the word “science” at the end totally superfluous? Wouldn’t it sound better as “SGH has been an academic centre of research in economics and management”?

9) “1,5 thousand publications”. Again, you can tell me I made the same error and I concede. Let’s illustrate it with an example: the number three thousand seven hundred ninety two point seventy eight would be written in Polish convention as 3.792,78 or 3 792,78, but in English it goes 3,792.78, so…

10) “Every year, the SGH publishes a bilingual, Polish & English report on the competitiveness of the country’s economy and around 150 EXPERTISES. Brush aside the first comma, but let’s examine the report. What is a Polish or English report? What determines a Polishness of a report? A report can be published in both Polish and in English. Meanwhile instead of “the country’s”, why not “Polish economy”? And the accursed EKSPERTYZA, which is expert opinion / report / evaluation / examination. Expertise is biegłość, wysoka kompetencja, but it sounds similarly, so a compiler didn’t take a trouble and used a similar word...

11) “faculty”, “dormitories”. The whole text is written in BrE, just some AmE words don’t seem to fit. Choose one type of English and stick to it, replace it with “(academic) staff” and “halls of residence”.

12) “Fields of study in English:” – the vexed question how to translate kierunek studiów. I would stray from the original Polish phrase and apply “programmes run in English:”.

13) And look how deftly those “fields of study” were translated”: “finance and accountancy”, “spatial economics”, “social politics”. They are respectively: “finance and accounting”, “land management”, “social policy”. I thought it would be hard to make an error there, but they knew how to amaze me.

14) I am dedicating a separate paragraph to a translation of międzynarodowe stosunki gospodarcze, translated as “international economic relations”. Once “international economics” (correct translation) was brought into Poland in 1960s, a communist science committee didn’t agree for a name ekonomia międzynarodowa and it was renamed międzynarodowe stosunki gospodarcze, just not to tease one stupid party official.

15) “The teaching facilities of the Warsaw School of Economics campus include five buildings, with the newest of them built in 2006.” They used a good word, but in a wrong part of the sentence. How about: “The teaching facilities of the Warsaw School of Economics campus are made up of five buildings, including the newest one, built in 2006.”

16) And the sentence which crowns the disastrous piece is: “Beside lectures and classes, students cooperate in REALISING PROJECTS concerning all spheres of life…”
I really I wish I had somebody I could take comfort in beside me… And the second glaring error to demonstrate the expertise of a hapless compiler. Leave out the fact that whenever I hear the word realizować I feel like committing a suicide and let me confine to two hints: realizować project (I detest both words) is “to develop a project”, or “to complete a project”, if you want to say zrealizować.
Apart from attending classes / lectures and workshops (since lecture is a type of a class) students develop projects related to all spheres of life…

I appreciate any critical remarks on the ranting above, mostly the ones on the errors I have made.

I can connive at clumsiness and spelling errors, but EXPERTISE and REALISE PROJECTS are unacceptable. Funnily enough, I managed to envisage it (both words are listed in the post dated 14 May 2009). It turns out it is much easier to predict Poles’ problems with English than stock market trends!

At first I blamed a(n anonymous) compiler, but it was wicked of me. I have nothing against a person who wrote it, they may be a good professional with intermediate command of English and what they have done is not blameworthy.
The writer is for me like a third-year student of medicine who performs a complicated surgery in a hospital. They might be a talented student, but not capable of performing a task they had taken up. Here’s what happened, this person shouldn’t have been assigned a task of writing information in English. And who actually allowed this rubbish to be published?
But there is a much more serious problem. What if the third-year student is the best doctor in the whole hospital? Isn’t it the diagnosis of how it was published?

Now a question to native speakers. Let’s assume that you are keen to support a good cause which is a promotion of Polish universities abroad? How much would you quote for proofreading / editing 100 pages in English? Would hiring a knowledgeable English editor ruin their budget? Does it pay off to save on quality assurance? Are they proud of themselves now, when students are laughing their heads off when they’re reading the hapless booklet?

Rozliczać jego mać!

WARNING: Reading this post may be extremely hazardous and may cause a serious mental breakdown, may make you lose your mind or send you to a funnyfarm. Unless you are a PL -> EN translation freak, then you’re quite likely to find the scribble below considerably amusing.

There’s no blogging without pleasure. I decided to write this post to reward myself for passing exam in cost accounting and dedicate it to my lecturer who used the Polish verb rozliczać at least one hundred times during the term. I’m somehow cocksure she won’t find it and read (computer literacy and command of English are essential to access and understand my blog!). Passing this exam might be regarded as an accomplishment, especially when one got a task “rozliczyć koszty” and scratched his head to figure out what it EXACTLY meant. I managed to get it right and apportioned the shared costs to the departments on the basis of the number of workers employed in each of them. I apologise to all fellow students who also found it difficult. I hope I’m not to blame.

For starters, I have to admit I’m not an expert in accounting. I generally don’t like, not to say I hate it and I don’t further my knowledge in it. Moreover, all courses in this field delivered at my school are run in Polish only, with no reference to English terms, what makes my command of accounting lingo limited. Forgive me my incompetence, but don’t expect it will hold me back from writing. This time…

The post you’re reading, in spite of its form, is meant to be semi-academic, so I should give an overview of its subject matter and set a thesis. Alright then. I want to get to grips with translations of Polish verb rozliczać, damned by translators, focusing mainly on the aspects of its use that can be come across in accounting parrot. I’ll omit the uses from common parlance, like the ones that translate into: settle up, pay off, bring sb to account, account for, in the last days of April also file a tax return, as they’re quite easy and don’t cause very serious problems.

My thesis is that the words rozliczać and rozliczenie are overused and misused by the Poles and often they can’t precisely explain its meaning. They have become catch-all words, if you don’t know which verb to use, use rozliczać and watch your interlocutor’s and reader’s face turning red from anger. Many people think it’s intuitive and everybody understands it. Polish verbs like je*ać or pie**olić, used by lower tiers of Polish society also cover many meanings and are intuitive, the more educated fellows have their rozliczać. In between there’s a middle class who have their załatwiać and kombinować.

Let’s set the ball rolling. Before I analyse my cost accounting notes, I’ll give you small warm-up. Here’s the instruction for students published recently by my school (in Polish). In case the link expires I’ll give you a screenshot. I underlined the sentences I’m grappling with.

Before I beheld this guide I had thought I had known all possible uses and misuses of rozliczać. They proved me wrong and I’ll thank them cause that was a good job!

First sentence goes: According to the resolution of SGH senate, passed on 22 July 2009, the second term students must complete only the courses listed in curriculum and plan of Master’s studies at SGH,.

The second one goes: Before you do this, check carefully your timetable and the list of courses you will have to get credits in.

Why the hell they used the verb rozliczać remains a secret. I put this example here because I fear the worst – they might try to translate it into English and the effect might be devastating.
No wonder they have problems with English, if they can’t even express themselves in Polish clearly and correctly.

1. Strata poniesiona w danym okresie może być rozliczana na zyski z pięciu kolejnych okresów sprawozdawczych. = A loss incurred in a given period can be offset against profits made in the next five reporting / accounting periods.

2. Rozliczenia międzyokresowe kosztów bierne i czynne = accruals and prepayments. Still quite simple.

SHOUT: a thought for today. Once again you are provided with a screenshot. The framed maxim reads: “Accounting exists because we must not trust one another”. I blame mistrust for many things in Poland so may it be the scapegoat blamed for the existence of the rozliczać.

3. Prenumarata ”Tygodnika X” jest rozliczana w czasie = The subscription of “X Weekly” is amortised over a period of time.

4. Wskaźnika tego używa się do rozliczania kosztów na komórki przedsiębiorstwa = This ratio is used to allocate the costs to firm’s departments.

SHOUT: Bilans wsadu i uzysku. Sporządź bilans wsadu i uzysku w przedsiębiorstwie przemysłu tłuszczowego, wiedząc, że ilościowe zużycie nasion na jednostkę oleju surowego o 100% zawartości tłuszczu wynosi 23 000 kg, a współczynnik zawartości tłuszczu w nasionach – 45,2%. Normatywny współczynnik zaolejenia śrutu w stosunku do wagi nasion to 1%, a normatywny wskaźnik strat oleju w stosunku do wagi nasion wynosi 0,5%. Dodatkowo uzysk z produkcji w postaci oleju surowego – 10 000 kg. Clues: bilans wsadu i uzysku = input and output balance, normatywny = standard, zaolejenie = oil content. If you know what śrut is, how to solve this problem, or why Poland is plagued by Siberian frost, or have any other useful or useless remarks, please leave a comment.

5. Konto rozliczenie kosztów. This is the really a hard nut to crack. In this example I found it really difficult to comprehend what the ultimate goal of keeping this account was. I don’t even know, if it has any equivalent in International Accounting Standards. I can only tell you its used to aggregate and then to break down the costs into other accounts and this account has to be reconciled at the end of each reporting period. My first white flag here, I won’t dare playing at word-building.

6. Rozliczenie kosztów wydziałowych, działalności na koszty produkcji, na inne wydziały, etc. – Here I can tell you the correct English verb once again seems to be ‘to apportion’, I would consider using ‘to divide’ or ‘to allocate’.

SHOUT: I haven’t realised this obvious fact that takes place every week. The next time I hear the word rozliczać I’ll ask myself: “Wednesday, Thursday, Friday does it mean?”

7. We wzajemnych rozliczeniach jako pierwszy rozlicza się ten wydział, który świadczy najwięcej usług na rzecz innych wydziałów = A department which renders to the other departments services in the highest value should account for its costs as a first one. I’m not satisfied with this piece, it sounds clumsy, like the source sentence in Polish.

8. Koszty zmienne są rozliczane według rzeczywistych rozmiarów produkcji, a koszty stałe są rozliczane według planowych rozmiarów produkcji = Variable costs are calculated on the basis of real output, whereas fixed costs are calculated on the basis of planned output. Hence, we have just discovered the next application of the hapless verb.

In this post I tried to prove that rozliczać is a translatable word. It’s a verb, not a noun. The words that tend not to translate are usually nouns. May radish serve as an example. This vegetable is not known in Japan and Japanese language doesn’t have a name for it. A verb express a certain activity which has to named somehow. As long as you understand the meaning of a word precisely and have a sufficient command of another language, you are able to translate it. Click here to see how the professionals are confused by the word – approximately each fourth query concerns this accursed verb, or noun.

Professional translators have a different perspective. They are graduates of English language or applied linguistics and their insight into the topic they deal with is rarely as good as economist’s, I’d hazard a guess. This gives rise to their confusion and pain which is hardly ever eased by dictionaries or colleagues.

It sometimes occurs to me that the best solution would be to cross out this accursed word from dictionaries and make people forget it. But hang on, it actually has its core meaning, as far as I’m concerned represented by the English verb ‘to settle’. I generally avoid using rozliczać like the plague, but I sometimes use it, but in the correct context only. In other instances I replace it with other verbs to get my message across precisely. This problem can be traced back to Polish and or rather its users, native speakers who nurture inaccuracy and low quality of their language. We should change it, unless we want our language to become a pack of rubbish… Am I oversensitive? Read the official documents. Year by year, they are getting harder to understand, more complicated, not to say convoluted. Those officials who draw up those turgid regulations should be fined and then dismissed. More labour force to build motorways or road sweeping crews would do this country much better than a group of layabout who sit behind their desks and come up with twenty-second use of rozliczać!

That word

Note: I didn’t develop this post on my own. One wise man gave me some inspiration and knowledge, I just combined it with my own ideas and made use of it.

It was a bit silly and a tad mean of me, but I got my courage up and did it. After the last lecture in cost accounting I waited until everyone left the auditorium and went to my lecturer, acting as a daft student, who didn’t understand one certain word (which had been used around twenty of thirty times during almost each lecture), and asked his wise lecturer to enlighten him.

“You know”, she said “I do not know to explain it to you, that word means, what it means”. Dissatisfied with the answer I insisted on further dwelling on the topic and made a second step – I asked for some particular examples. At that stage, the issue of that word cleared up in most of its instances. I was in a hurry, as in a few minutes I had to show up four floors down to take a first exam in this winter’s exam period, so I gave up quite quickly and kindly thanked.

The goal of this weird experiment was not to prove my lecturer was incompetent or something like that (though sometimes something tempts me to do so, but immediately I perish such thoughts – it brings no benefit nor it proves my superiority). It had to highlight a kind of linguistic trap or rather a certain imperfection of Polish language which comes up, whenever the word I asked about has to be translated into English. And don’t think a good dictionary will help, PWN Oxford falls down on it.

I have to admit I do not tolerate that word. Firstly, because it is considered to be intuitive and understood by everyone, only I seem to be slow-witted, cause it does not always seem that obvious to me, and secondly because it is too general and unclear – it has at least a dozen meanings, each often to be distinguished only in a broader context. For example, in cost accounting it often goes together with a word “cost” used in plural. Hence, you can deal with costs in many ways and even though each time you do something different, you almost use that word.

The real problem is that we sometimes tend to use words we have heard many times and which have shaped concepts of their approximate meanings. Or we don’t know other words that could render the same message in a different way. The point here is, apart from linguistic paucity, the inaccuracy. Words which are overused and cover a multitude of meanings tend to be imprecise. It the case of those crucial words, in my opinion, we should try to reformulate our thoughts to give them a unambiguous shape and use clear and precise vocabulary.

The Polish verb I’m ranting on can be translated into English probably in (almost) as many ways, as many meanings it has. The most popular that come to my mind are: to pay, to pay off, to pay back, to claim, to claim back, to settle, to settle up, to expense, to apportion, to account for, to report, to reconcile, to clear, to clear off.

Now a quiz for Poles reading this blog. What word does this post revolve around?

Hint, and another example of use: “I think I won’t be brought to account for my misdeed.”

Uplifting, devastating

Today I’ll let you take in a blend of praising, grumbling and dissomething.

I was delighted to read the report published on Wyborcza.biz, in which Maciej Samsik, journalist of Wyborcza’s business column, x-rays commercials, mostly those of banks, shark loans, financial advisors and telecom operators. Such actions are essential in the education and in the civic society, cause people should be aware of the pitfalls of advertised “bargains” and all “catches” in the suspiciously beneficial contracts. I hold it dear and would love to see more such analyses.

The opposite feelings in me were evoked by the real estate guide by TVN Warszawa. Their report on residential area of Nowa Iwiczna is full of factual errors and misrepresentations. Many of the shots in the footage do not actually show Nowa Iwiczna, bus service 739 does not run through Nowa Iwiczna, its nearest stop is half a mile away from the boundary of the village and distance from the nearest public facilities are much higher than given in the video. And the language, both the voice of the lector and the very content of the report are stilted. Dabbling in translating has sensitised to me that ugly style of Polish – clumsy syntax, bombastic, but trite collocations and illogical sentences are asking for being polished up. I got worked up and posted a comment on journalists’ dependability and erudition.

Ludność wzrosła poprzez budowę nowych osiedli i chęć mieszkania na obrzeżach Warszawy.

This is the most appalling example. In English, a population can rise, but in Polish we use “liczba ludności” and in the context of a small village, it is better to use “liczba mieszkańców”. The corrected sentence will read: Liczba mieszkańców wzrosła na skutek budowy nowych osiedli i mody na mieszkanie na obrzeżach Warszawy.

The poorly written texts lie the core of translators’ ordeal. If the source writing is crappy, the target one is more likely to sound badly. Unless a translator cares and does the editing job. This sentence might also illustrate what many translators grapple with, when they are translating from Polish into English. Polish language gives its user a large dose of freedom when it comes to syntax, German has very strict rules, English lies in the middle, but somewhat closer to German. The fact that it has a correct syntax and lots of constructions is used stylistic devises is often omitted in the teaching process, just like another issue of “natural flow”. The basic problem of the sentence I’m taking into pieces is posed by illogical links. It sounds very dubiously that the rising population is the effect of the new development. Those building were put up because there had been the demand on houses or flats in NI.

A Pole could translate the original sentence without taking any pains to produce anything up-to-standard:

The population grew through the construction of new estates and the willingness to live in the suburbs of Warsaw.

It would be also possible to translate the sentence edited by the author of this blog:

The number of residents rose, as a result of the construction of new estates and the fashion for living in the suburbs of Warsaw.

This also sound poorly, “of” appears three times in one sentence and it surely lacks natural flow, not to mention the syntactic trap.

I came up with two, rather decent translations.

1) Newly built estates and the trend to settle down in the city outskirts have brought about a rise in the number of residents.

2) Springing up development and the suburb-living fad have led to a rise in the number of residents.

It took me around a quarter to get to grips with one sentence, still the biggest flaw is the link between newly built estates and the number of residents. Some elements of those two sentences may be combined to reach a better outcome. If you have any suggestions on how to improve this translation, I will welcome your advice. But fifteen minutes? I think I wouldn’t make a living on translation working in such sluggish pace.

And why the hell haven’t the mentioned clogged up Puławska and commuting nightmare that has become a part of living here?!

The Wednesday afternoon brought the news that Ben Bernanke, the governor of Fed had been awarded the prestigious Time’s Man of the Year title. He is credited with averting a total collapse of financial markets, but the prize reflects only on his past accomplishments and leaves out the ramifications of the current US central bank policy. Economy will sooner or later bear the brunt of excessively low interest rates and quantitative easing. Those who benefit from such policy are the government, which finances and will pay its debts cheaper and financial industry, which uses cheap money to speculate. The ordinary people will sooner or later damn him, like they did with Alan Greenspan (look at the amount of criticism towards him in his wikipedia biography note), if not for the next crisis, then for the inflation tax they will have to pay.