Wounded by fear, injured in doubt

It has been an affection, it has been a both-sided, reciprocated affection. It’s been longing and yearning, hoping and trusting. But each affection, each fascination must evolve into a friendship if two people are to share the daily life without going mad under one roof. And after all, two people must really fit each other, share the same values and, arguably, exhibit the same approach to down-to-earth stuff. Some say if not, burning-hot romance ends in an ice-cold break-up…

Once I have been told at the age of nearly 30 after half a year of relationship you should already know whether your girlfriend or boyfriend is a potential life companion or not. At such time you cannot wait for years, enjoying the carefree going out until it gets really serious. When you are 30 there is little time to waste, so either you keep it going forever or let it burn down in flames and walk separate ways to give yourself more time to find a better opportunity (out of those already scarce).

We have decided to keep it secret. Under the current circumstances hiding us from some part of the world seems an optimal solution, but I am sick of concealing the joy you bring out in me.

But joy is not the only feeling that haunts me because of you. My closest friends realise it is not as rose-coloured as it ought to be on such early (fourth month) stage of relationship when butterflies should still fly in a stomach and a girlfriend should be idealised.

Since between the lines you suggest one day we would get married, I need to ask myself whether I would imagine daily life with you, running a house, sharing household duties and particularly, raising children. Admittedly I have doubts and wonder how to share them with you, mindful after all you are very sensitive and you care much, though you show it so peculiarly…

So what fills me with so much dread…?

Firstly, your nutrition habits. No, not that you are vegetarian, but that you eat so little, not because you are not hungry (I wonder how often you actually are hungry), but because for some reason you do not come by food. If somebody arranges you the food and puts a plate under your nose, you eat with alacrity. In the long run not bringing enough calories to your body would be to the detriment of your health.

Secondly, fending for yourself, or rather not doing it. I was shocked to learn one day when you had your period you cycled 120 kilometres without changing your sanitary towel, ate one bar of chocolate and ice-cream and drank less than a litre of beverages along the way.

Bringing back the above, I cannot imagine you being pregnant (I would worry you miscarry) or looking after our children.

Thirdly, what turns you on (not in bed…) when it comes to spending free time, where and how you would like to travel, what you would spend money on and what to save on…

At times I wonder whether you have not painted an idealised picture of me in my head and whether you are not confronting it with reality. If I am to be happy with you, I need to be myself and you have to embrace me the way I am, with all my shortcomings (not meaning I would not fight them). I could strain myself you live up to your expectations, but pretending to be someone else would lead us nowhere. Maybe if I do not fit your notion of your ideal life companion, breaking up should be an option and little room for compromise should be left.

Yes, I am afraid of breaking up. But I should strive to seek reasons to keep it going. To have somebody to copulate with (recently even this gives little pleasure)? To have somebody to spend my free time with? To avert loneliness and returning to sad, yet stable life I led before we met? I heard sticking to a lousy relationship and making concessions not to let it terminate proves one’s low self-esteem…

My friends tell me to give it up. They claim since the onset of this relationship I have been emotionally mangled, instead of bursting with joy, I have been apathic, not a typical symptom of infatuation… Someone who has spent some time with you told me if I am to carry on, I should be prepared for rough rides just like parents who decide to adopt an orphan who might be genuinely good, but with a burden of past harms and hurts, might turn out to be a problem child. Another friend has told me I should not delude myself I would shape you or teach you things your parents failed to teach you. They might all be right, but I have invested too much time and emotions into this relationship to take the path of least resistance and break it up. No one promised an easy deal…

Freaks of the dicts – linguistic confusion all the way!

Equipped in three-volume Polish monolingual dictionary (Słownik Języka Polskiego), a bit outdated, published in the middle 80’s and my beloved English monolingual dictionary (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary), 2006 edition, I set out to track down the words, which “wipe the smile off translators’ faces”. I’ve compiled the list of 11 words or phrases and two “industry supplement” – an analysis of the English versions of the websites of Polish mobile telecom operators and banks.
Disclaimer: I’d like to stipulate that all my ideas below might not be correct, might need amendment or consultation and should be treated as constructive criticism.

1) W RAMACH – an expression overused in Polish these days. Poles love putting everything they can into a “framework” – w ramach projektu, w ramach organizacji, w ramach programu, w ramach funduszy, w ramach tradycji, w ramach działania, w ramach odchudzania, w ramach umowy, w ramach kontraktu, one can enumerate endlessly. In the terms and conditions / terms of use (regulaminy) on the website of my mobile operator the phrase “w ramach” can be find almost in every clause. The Polish dictionary defines it as “ograniczony zakres, zasięg czegoś ustalonego, przyjętego, granice” – this definition (I left out other meaning, e.g. frames of the painting, etc.) which surely does not cover the current use of the phrase “w ramach”, but justifies the phrase that can be found in older dictionaries “within the confines of” – it squares with the definition from Polish dictionary! Current use of the phrase should, in my opinion be translated as “within”, “under”, or “in”, depending on the context – because in some cases compiler used “w ramach” when they had had no better idea of formulating their thoughts…

2) RUCH WAHADŁOWY – referring to the temporary traffic arrangement. There are probably so many translations as many translators tackled the phrase. “Contraflow” doesn’t fully fit, with both its meanings from BrE and AmE. Shuttle run / traffic? Any other ideas?

3) REALIZOWAĆ – just like “w ramach” strays from its dictionary definition. In many cases might be translated into “realise”, but depending on the context words that can be used to render the meaning are: implement (if we refer to the future), execute, carry out (present), accomplish (past), and possibly a few more. Watch out folks, realise in English means also “upłynniać”. My jaw dropped a few weeks ago when I beheld a phase “liquidate the assets” as the translation of “upłynniać aktywa” (realise the assets) – liquidate makes sense, but means something different…

4) AKTUALNY – in many poor (Net) dictionaries still translated as actual (horrific!), depending on the context – present, current, up-to-date, but how should I ask in English “czy to ogłoszenie / oferta, itd. jest nadal aktualne”?

5) OBOWIĄZUJĄCY – most often translated as “in force”, “binding”, these phrases are not out of place, although for mean something slightly different, but why does almost every dictionary omit the word “effective”?

6) GROZIĆ – in a legal language – how to translate “mordercy grozi 25 lat więzieni”? “Twenty five years of imprisonment are threatening the murderer” – sounds more than awkwardly, “The murderer is under threat of twenty five years of imprisonment” denotes something different once again. Maybe transform it into: “murder carries a sentence of twenty five years of imprisonment”? Who’s to dispel my doubts?

7) PGR (abbreviation for “Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne”). Why does nobody use the term „collective farm”, but several other phrases, including “state owned farm”, “state land farm”, “state agricultural farm”? The English surely new the crazy ideas of collectivisation in the countries of communist bloc, so they must have come up with their own name for PGRs or could also used original names…

8) PAKIET – confuses translators hired by mobile telecom operators, mostly translated as “bundle”, I’d suggest “package”, or “pack”, “pakiet” is an invention of Polish operators trying to rip-off customers by offering them “bundles of 3700 minutes to Orange and landlines valid for nine days, seventeen hours and eight minutes for only 16,99 zł + VAT, to activate the bundle dial *123*88*11*2#, to check the balance dial *106*5#, bundle can’t be combined with bundles “500,000 messages within Orange”, “free weekends calls (between 1 a.m. and 2 p.m.)” and can not be activated from your top-up benefits. Orange – take a hike!

9) EKSPERTYZA – why do so many dictionaries translate it as “expertise” – the next false friend or am I so poorly educated no to know that “expertise” has another meaning than “proficiency”, “experience”, etc.? I don’t know which of the alternative equiavalents (expert’s report / opinion, evaluation, assessment) is the most appropriate, depends on the context once again I’d say.

10) REWALORYZACJA – the most common translation is “revaluation”, which for me, economist, stands for “ponowna wycena”, so shouldn’t the phrase “coroczna rewaloryzacja emerytur” be translated as “annual pension increment”?

11) AGD (abbreviation for “Artykuły Gospodarstwa Domowego”), dictionaries don’t include the phrase “white goods”, it seems to be more suitable than “household appliances / commodities (!)) – I don’t know, I got lost in the maze I had built with my own hands…

Undoubtedly languages permanently evolve, their users continually create new expressions, change meanings of the words, apply them in new contexts, etc. Dictionaries should keep up with this evolution, that evolution requires constant upgrades, revisions, adjustments.

People often poke fun at the infamous Great Dictionary by professor Jan Stanisławski, infamous for its literal translations of collocations and lack of upgrade. I’ve never seen it on my own, but my most knowledgeable English teacher would say: “On no account should you buy Stanisławski’s dictionary, unless you have some money to throw around”…

Is there any recommendable PL->EN dictionary at all? The ideal one should be compiled by the clued-up natives, whereas editorial teams of the dictionaries published hitherto consisted mostly of Poles, a Pole has always been a chief editor…

To my bewilderment I discovered that out of 4 Polish mobile operators only one has a well-developed English version of its website. Play doesn’t have any, Orange has some information for visitors who use its network as a roaming one, Plus provides extract of its website’s content. Only PTC got it right (partly). The English version of Heyah website is impressing, but the section “for visitors” of Era website has let me down – are the strange phrases like “fixed line” (landline), “promotion” (bargain, special offers, perks – false friend), “recharges” (top-ups).

In case of banks I noticed that translators were probably attempting to convert the content word for word. The English versions were perhaps prepared by either linguists with little notion of banking, or by bankers over-relying on dictionaries.

My piece of advice for the ones translating specialised text – your task is much easier than twenty years ago – in the era of Internet the best and most simple way to get the English equivalent of specialised terms is to refer to the websites of enterprises operating in the same industry. If I were to translate (I almost certainly never will – maybe it’s even better – I’m just an economist!) the website of a mobile operator or a bank the first thing I’d do would be studying thoroughly the web pages of as many mobile telecom operators or banks from English-speaking countries as possible.
The next my piece of advice would be to avoid intricate translations. We, Poles, by using too many words, building complex sentences, are trying to prove our wisdom – the more convoluted the text is, the more educated the reader is. The most eye-popping it is in academic textbook, which are generally full of “viel gesprochen, nichts gesagt” (literally – spoken a lot, but nothing said), as the German say – in case of books authors write a lot, but from my experience I can say that the content of 600 pages long wordy book could be fit into 200 pages long, concise book. But academic workers are verbose, or just the publisher pay them depending on the number of pages they’ve produced…

The conclusion “too few natives around” seems to be painfully true. With our rehearsed English we (Poles) will never match up to them.

To conclude, there are too few people who can eat the humble pie. If I’m wrong – challenge me, I’ll concede my mistake…

It’s not a hill, it’s a mountain...

…as you start out the climb!

You would be dead wrong to think I’m in a peak form today, although I should. But I see one glimmer of hope – after I pass it I’ll finally be able to indulge in learning English as a hobby, without worrying about stupid certificates. You know what I think about them, but as long as they’re recognized it’s useful to hold them. Every exam, including today’s and tomorrow’s one is a matter of luck. Moreover, today is April Fouls’ Day, so presumably everything can happen – but apprehensive Bartek doesn’t feel like playing pranks today, I’d rather be teased by them.
Keep your fingers crossed, if anybody still reads this blog. Some say positive approach can work wonders. As my teacher used to say: JAKOSZ PSZESZYJEMY