Translator Astana

Several days ago I was contacted by a girl named Diana, who is studing to become an interpreter and translator. She asked me if I had a specific method of learning English and what I had done in order to become an interpreter. So instead of sending her back an email I decided to put my thoughts into an article, hoping that this might be somehow useful for other students.

So, Diana, here are my answers to your questions: first of all, I don’t have any specific methods of learning English, no secrets, trust me. But there are some things that I could recommend you.

Most important- read a lot. And not only in English. In order to become a really good interpreter, you should be in command of at least two languages: foreign and native one. So while studying English, don’t forget about Russian (or about Kazakh). You should be able of speaking very smoothly, without words such „well“, „errr..“, „you know.. “, you should know many synonyms, so if one word doesn’t come up easily to your mind, you have 3 or 5 others of the same meaning. Grammar and spelling should always be paid attention to, in both languages again. The easiest way, in my opinion, is to achieve it by reading. Read more »

The whole week I’ve been translating negotiations at the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, where the Vice Minister Uskenbaev had meetings with Judith Luscomb, the representative of the Buzz Buziness, the film production company.

There was made an offer to make a documentary film on Kazakhstan which would show the country in all its beauty, both in winter and in summer. The documentary would touch various topics, such as history and religion, handcrafts and culture, adventures and ecotourism, local traditions and kazakh food. There was elaborated a very detailed plan of filming and Vice Minister as well as the Committee Chairperson seemed to like the idea.

At the next meeting they went into more details about tender processing and legal issues. With such a big project one should take every detail into consideration. My translation went rather smoothly since I am quite familiar with the tender processing in Kazakstan. The next day we met with the chief accountant and went through the whole project again, this time focusing on figures.

While translating presentation from English to Russian I was thinking about interpreter’s role in negotiations. Not only should he/she translate word for word thus delivering the message, it is also extremely important to use the right intonation, gestures, smiles and pauses. What the outcome of the negotiations would be if the presentation is done perfectly in English but it looks pale when translated into Russian because of an interpreter? So I came to a conclusion that an interpreter should also know the bacics of marketing and branding, as well as pchycology. It’s not only the matter of language skills, it’as also about the right personality.

With Judith we also did some shopping because she was interested in purchasing some traditional kazakh clothes. Hats were her favoutire item Well, kazakh traditional hats are something!

I also did some written translation for Judith since she needed me to translate some official letters to the Ministry. In general it was a very exciting assignment since the topic - mass media- was both familiar and interesting.

Last Friday I was translating at the business forum where different Greek companies were presented: marble, olive oil, furs, doors and windows… one could find anything there. I translated to Mr. Alexander Dimitriadis, Managing Director of Balkan company and also I helped Mr. Vasilis Giannakis, who represented another marble manufacturing company.

I already have experience in geology related translation, so words like „quarry“, „shear strength“, „porosity“ and the like were familiar to me. But there is always something new (for example, the term „slab“): Mr. Dimitriadis was so kind that explained to me difference between several types of marble: polished or ancient, with ot without fossils, more strong or more vulnerable and so on. He also had samples of about 20 types of marble from oll over the world: from his own quarries in Greece and from other countries such as Iran, Turkey, India. I was particularly attracted by the so called Snow White marble (the most expensive, it turned out ).

There weren’t too many visitors on that day, but those who did appear were real professionals in marble industry: they knew what they needed and what they were looking for.

After the exibition we went on the short excursion in Astana, visited Baiterek and several construction sites where marble was used.

Why I really like being a translator in Kazakhstan, is because I can always meet people from various parts of the world with different background and mentality. After rendering my translation services back on Friday, I knew a little more about Greece, marble and maybe even more Kazakhstan and its advantages over other countries.

Last week I worked again as an English-Russian interpreter. There was a so-called info-tour for the tour operators from the UK and we spent the whole day on excursion in Astana.

Our tour in Astana started with the visit of ALZHIR (russian acronym that stands for the Akmolinsk camp for the wives of treators of motherland) that was established in what is now settlement Malinovka back in 1937. Our tour guide Elena told us the story of the establishment of this camp, about the women that were sent there and about their harsh lives in the camp. As a translator I sometimes face some difficulties when translating the realities of Kazakhstan (or in this case these of Soviet Union). But even in cases when I can’t use word for word translation, I turn to the descriptive translation. Our guest from the UK were astonished since they had no idea such thing as the camp for wives of treators existed in Soviet Union. We visited the museum in Malinovka that showed how women survived in that camp. I am sure that this excursion touched everyone’s heart beacause I could easily see the shock in our visitors eyes. Every time I go to this museum I am reminded of the black period in history of our country that became the second motherland for million people sent to the exile. Almost every family knows what „Stalin’s repressions“ mean and not only from the textbooks…

After such an emotional start of our excursion we came back to Astana, had lunch with our guests and continued our tour on the left bank. After visiting Baiterek we drove to the Palace of Independance. We stopped by the newly opened monument „Kazakh Eli“ which means „Kazakh people“ and then went inside the Palace, where we were shown the model of Astana and where we watched a short 4D movie about Kazakhstan and its heart-Astana.

We also went on excursion in the Palace of Peace and Accord that is situated right in front of the Palace of Independance. We visited the hall where the Congress of leaders of world and traditional religions is always held.

Our excursion was extremely intensive, we visited almost all the sightseeings of Astana and our guests seemed to be very impressed.

Accomodation is what one looks for when comes to Astana from abroad-that’s obvious. Some people ask translators to help in finding a right place, some people find it on their own.

In most cases a foreigner will go for a hotel, but there is still a big number of those who want to cook themselves and feel a bit more like at home, then they seek for a serviced apartment, apartment for daily rent. What I want to do here is to help those who try to find an apartment or a hotel using the internet.

Why would one chose an apartment and not a hotel room-that’s the first question. In my opinion one can feel freer in an apartment rather than in a hotel room. Usually all rooms in a hotel are standartized and really have no face. Apartments can be very different, with different number of rooms, with kitchen and balcon. Those who travel with their family find it very comfortable in an apartment taking into account the possibility of cooking and less strict conditions of the stay. There are some services that go along with the apartment: from arranging the transfer from the airport to making laundry and ironing. Hotels, on the other hand, have their own advantages. No matter what one chooses, it is easier to arrange the accomodation with the help of Apartamenty.kz, which  contains the big choice of apartments and hotels in Astana and other cities in Kazakhstan.

I’ve recently come back from Germany where I have studied for 6 months as an exchange  language student.

Had  I barely come through culture shock when a representative of a consulting company contacted me regarding remote translation services. Next day I got a document which consisted of 106 pages. The  topic is technical and it concerns the  reconstruction of the power plant in Southern Kazakhstan.

First I was a bit scared because I had never dealt with technical wording like “impeller”, “rotary-blade system”, “hydraulic unit” and so on.  So I had to consult some handbooks and dictionaries.  The more I was workin on this translation the more  confident I was getting.  Also the same words were repeated several times so I got to learn those words without puttting any effords into it.

There was a problem I tackled- from a  synonymic set of terms I had to pick up the right one. It’s a bit difficult when one isn’t very good at this specific field of knowledge.

When translating the document I realised how important it was for a translator to be a specialist not only in  grammar, syntax or vocabulary but also in the various fields of knowledge he or she has to deal with.

Those who were in Kazakstan on the 22 of March may have wondered what was going on in the country. Why were there many yurts (nomadic tent house) and flags, why were people dancing and singing? It may sound strange but the 22 of March is a holiday called Nauryz, that means „the birth of spring“. This day had been celebrated long before Islam was introduced to Kazakhs and therefore it is not of religious nature. The holiday was declared irrelevant and ideologically inconsistent during the Soviet period that it rhe reason why Nauryz was not celebrated nationally from 1926 to 1988. Only in 2001 Nauryz was announced as the national holiday.

Celebrating the awakening of Nature is the core of Nauryz festival. This awakening symbolizes the triumph of good, the Spring that won over the evil forces of darkness represented by the Winter. There is a tradition to thoroughly clean you house on the eve of Nauryz, return all your debts, forgive all offences and resentments and to make peace with all with whom you were at odds. This tradition can be explained by the main theme of Nauryz- the renewal.

When the holiday comes, Kazaks would put on festive clothes, pay visits to each other, exchange congratulations, best wishes of well-being and good luck in the coming year. Traditionally they cook and roast and make all sorts of tasty meals during the holidays, for they should symbolize well-being and abundance in the coming year. The feast is usually timed to the noon, it is preceded and followed by a prayer in honour of the fore-fathers read by the mullah. In conclusion the eldest of those present gives his blessings (bata) so that year in year out prosperity be part and parcel of the family.

During the Nauriz holiday it is customary to share generously one’s dastarkhan (table). A special dish – Nauryz koje (yogurt soup) – is prepared for the festival table. In each yurt everyone would have their own recipe. The only rule for making it was the number of ingredients: seven. The guests are served the authentic food: meat dishes such as qazy, qarta, shujiq (lamb and horse meat delicacies), etc. They say that the more you are in celebrating the Nauryz holiday, the greater success will attend you throughout the year.

People in Kazakhstan are very hospitable and they treat a guest with a great honour. Kazakh cookery is extremely various because of the fact that Kazakhstan is a multinational country and the cuisines of all nations (kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Germans, Polish, Koreans and others) combined into one.

Couple days in January I did english-russian translation for an American who came to visit Astana. He had never been to Kazakhstan or any of FSU coutries before, so it was quite a big culture shock, both in a good and bad ways. He wanted to get to know kazakh culture and we started with authentic food and national meals.

I remember his astonishment when I said that horse was one of the national meals in Kazakhstan. Another shock to him was to find out that there was no menu in English and waitresses were of little help. I thought it might be useful to know more about the culture of the country that one goes to. So I would like to present a point of view of an American who was in Kazakhstan and tried many national meals. I hope it can be both educative and interesting.

SAY NEIGH TO THAT

By NADIA WHITE, state editor for the Star-Tribune, Wyoming.

Let me confess right up front: My vegetarian habits are on hold.

Take that one more step: I spent most of November eating horse meat, drinking mare’s milk and marveling at the social niceties involved in serving baked sheep’s head.

I am just back from Kazakhstan, where machismo is measured by how much meat one can eat and hospitality in how much a guest is fed. Suffice it to say, the Kazakhs are extraordinary hosts and I am eating more macho than I used to.

During a month in the Central Asian nation, numerous table-filling feasts were spread before me. A spyglass across time, they recall the days when a guest who arrived at a nomad’s yurt would have traveled very, very far, across the steppe, with little in the way of clothing or fine food.

Read more »

Kazakhstan is becoming more anf more attractive to foreigners that is the reason why translators have more and more work. From the 19^th to 27^th of January I translated from english to russian for an american who came to visit Astana. He must be bery courageous to go to Kazakhstan in the middle of the winter.

We got to know each other at the airport where I came to meet him. Good thing that I did it otherwise he wouldn’t be able to change his money as the girls at the information desk couldn’t understand his southern accent (at the beginning I had a hard time with understanding him, too, I must admit).

I took him to the hotel and showed him around so he could get his breakfast at least. Usually foreigners who come to Kazakhstan for the first time (especially those who have never been outside of Europe or the USA) have a big culture shock. Everything is way too different from what they are used to: beginning with weather and food and finishing with mentality and norms of behavour. In that very moment when one is in a foreign country where people speak the language that he or she doesn’t understand, translator becomes the best friend. Translator is not a person who just transforms a speach from one language to another. He or she is the one who helps to solve all the problem, one who can explain many things that are natural in this specific country but unknown to foreigners.

So after showing where he can get an american food (keep in mind it is close to impossible to find a decent american food in Kazakstan), I explained to Richard that he needed to get registered at the Migration Police even if he was going to stay in Kazakhstan no more then 10 days. The proceedure of getting registered is quite irritating and long-lasting but it should be done anyway and the sooner the better (during the first 5 days of the stay in the country).

Richard’s clothes were not very suitable for Kazakhstan’s winter that is why we went to a shopping centre and got him all he needed.

Another important thing that one can’t live without in a foreign country is a mobile phone with a valid SIM card so we had to get Richard one.

The first day is usually the busiest one. Everyone gets tired and wants to get some rest. Richard’s flight from Los Angelos was exausting so I left him at the hotel, gave him my mobile phone number and told him not to hesitate to contact me whenever he needs it.

Being a third-year student in Eurasian National University in Kazakhstan, I obtained a european scholarship named Erasmus Mundus and came to Germany to improve my knowledge of English linguistics and literature. I just started studying at Freie Universität Berlin but I can already tell the difference between two systems of education.

Germany	Kazakhstan
1. There is more freedom in terms of what you study and how much. Students can choose whatever they want: there is always an opportunity to take a course in politics even if the major is philologie.	1. All courses are compulsory.
2. There are no fixed groups, every student has his own schedule that he can change on his own. There is a tendency to individualism.	2. Groups are formed of 15-25 students (depending on a major) that study together all the time. There is a schedule for the whole group for the whole period of study. Groupmates spend lots of time together not only at university but also go out very often. Thus in 4 years they become good friends and keep in touch after graduating from university.
3. There is no fixed time of graduation from university. Courses can be taken as many times as needed, exams can be delaid. In my opinion it is not always good to have no restrictions at all. Sometimes student graduate from university being 30-year old. At this age they only start building their career.	3. Everyone is supposed to study 4 years (except for those who are going to become doctors). Course can be taken one more time in case of failing an exam. Exams can only be postponed in case of disease. Usually students graduate from university at the age of 22-23. Bachelor degree is enough to get a highly-paid job.
4. Professors can be argued with. The atmosphere in the classroom is too liberal: students can eat and drink in front of a professor.	4. Professors are regarded as authorities whose opinion can not be wrong. Students’ attitude to professors is very respectful.
5. Personal relationships are not involved in final assessment: when a term paper is being read professor has no idea who this work belongs to. Sometimes it happens that a professor doesn’t know names of all his students.	5. Personal relationships have a lot to do with the final assessment especially when it comes down to oral examinations. Professors and students can be very close though there is always a distance between them.
6. Most students study 4-5 days a week and have 3-4 lectures or seminars a day. Each class lasts 1,5 hour. Homework is not given. Everyone has clear understanding of what he is going to listen to on a lecture. Handouts are available couple days before the lecture, they can be printed and read before hand.	6. Everyone studies 6 days a week and has about 5-6 classes a day each of those is 50 minutes long. Homework is something thar every student is supposed to do every day. Material given on a lecture is absolutely new to students. Notetaking is compulsory.

To conclude, it can be said that though a new system of education was introduced in Kazakhstan about 5 years ago, it still looks a lot like an old soviet system (not necesserily bad one). For me it is a great chance to get to know a western system with all its freedom and innovative technologies. But there are usually two sides of the medal that I am sure I’ll face.

Let me share my experience with you: if you are in a foreign country and you don’t know the language spoken in this country- you are totally dependent - that is exactly what I understood being as an exchange in Germany. Local people give you no respect no matter how smart you are. It takes you much effort to do  some basic things: starting from charging your sell phone with money and finishing with registration at the migration police.

Even if you had  an intensive course of a foreign language before your trip and you can say “Help me please!”  it was not garantied  that you would be understood. Even a  phrasebook  is of a little help. Sure you can ask how to find way to your hotel but can you be sure that you will understand the answer? Good thing if  you came from one european country to another. Languages can be different but there are still many similarities  (not only in terms of languages by the way).Now imagine you go to China….Can you grasp 4 tonalities? In order for you to feel lost you don’t even need to go to China and deel with its specific signs.  Try to go to a country where another alphabet is used.  If you are not familiar with cyrillica, you can’t even read the street names in most of  FSU countries.

That’s all well-known information but still - if you go to a foreign country make sure you know at least some elementary phrases and you can pronounce them correctly.
Thank God almost everyone speaks English in Germany otherwise I won’t be able to communicate. Though I have a German course it takes much time to come to a level of expressing your thoughts freely. Hopefully by the end of my trip in Germany I will have talked to German peolpe in their native language.
To sum up I can say that the more languages one speak the more useful it is. Also the more languages one understands the easier the process of studying a new one goes.

I’m  just wondering if the principe “Quality not quantity” can be applied to languages?

These are ten really useful rules that every interpreter should know.

Rule № 1
Not to spread any information which you possess. Watch out for notes that were taken while translating.

Rule № 2

It is advisable to set up very trusting relations with the principle (the person you are interpreting for). Keep in mind that “trusting relations” does not mean “friends”.

Rule № 3

It is necessary to keep patience even in extreme situations in order to be always polite and tactful. Be ready to face some difficulties.

Rule № 4

Not to add any information from yourself to the translation and not to miss any information while translation. Not to distort any information and not to express your own point of view.

Rule № 5

If it necessary to explain peculiarities of the national character, cuisine, mentality, culture known to an interpreter and unknown to a partner, an interpreter should increase the usage of communication and mutual understanding.

Rule  № 6

It is necessary to help those people who need help in any situation especially abroad even after work and without extra payment.

Rule № 7

Constantly improve your qualification, professional skills, to expand and deepen your erudition in different spheres of knowledge specializing in only one direction (law, finance, ecology and on).

Rule № 8

To share your knowledge and experience with younger and fresh interpreters or from time to time give some advice to students studying interpreting.

Rule № 9

To keep solidarity and professional ethics, to increase the prestige of the profession. Keep in touch with other interpreters.

Rule № 10

Having broken one of these rules shouldn’t be caught