Notes from a mushy brain
Oct. 6th, 2004 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumEven if my laptop were not convinced the internet is a myth, I doubt I'd have been all that active... this has been a busy week. It takes far longer than I thought it would to get from SLO to Sacramento... which ate Sunday.
Since then, well the people running this have no idea what translation takes, much less what it takes to translate something as esoteric as military jargon (general concepts can be hard enough, but things like C4I, and JTF 37 are mystical to many in the Army, much less to decipher and convert to Russian).
So we've been handed sets of powerpoint slides, a good three hours of work, for three people, and asked to produce something in 40 minutes. We also have to not offend people with poor translations. Even though the perfect is the enemy of the good, we have to make certain we get to at least good enough.
I spent most of this morning going over a legal document... the support agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. That is something which does need to be perfect. The English copy is going to be the reference document, but if the Ukrainian version is less than clear, a great, and horrid, SNAFU could occur.
So I have mush for brains (not only does legal english have wonderful holdovers of its past (no part of the foreging is to be construed as limiting the right of the VU to self-defense), but it has words like Secure, and maintain, which have very different contextual meanings when referring to the securing of an accident site, and the security of personnel and equipment).
Add that no small amount of diplomatic and political baggage is attached to a couple of aspects of these nine pages, and I am the linguist working on it (which, given my meagre faith in my Russian, at present, is a great boost to my ego, and burden on my shoulders) and I think tonight not a beer night, but whisky.
Since then, well the people running this have no idea what translation takes, much less what it takes to translate something as esoteric as military jargon (general concepts can be hard enough, but things like C4I, and JTF 37 are mystical to many in the Army, much less to decipher and convert to Russian).
So we've been handed sets of powerpoint slides, a good three hours of work, for three people, and asked to produce something in 40 minutes. We also have to not offend people with poor translations. Even though the perfect is the enemy of the good, we have to make certain we get to at least good enough.
I spent most of this morning going over a legal document... the support agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. That is something which does need to be perfect. The English copy is going to be the reference document, but if the Ukrainian version is less than clear, a great, and horrid, SNAFU could occur.
So I have mush for brains (not only does legal english have wonderful holdovers of its past (no part of the foreging is to be construed as limiting the right of the VU to self-defense), but it has words like Secure, and maintain, which have very different contextual meanings when referring to the securing of an accident site, and the security of personnel and equipment).
Add that no small amount of diplomatic and political baggage is attached to a couple of aspects of these nine pages, and I am the linguist working on it (which, given my meagre faith in my Russian, at present, is a great boost to my ego, and burden on my shoulders) and I think tonight not a beer night, but whisky.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 05:51 pm (UTC)Failure to get agreement on the terms = excercise not happening.
The excercise is going to happen... no matter that some aspects of who seems to be signing things (the sticking point is that the Ministry of Defense for Ukraine is signing it, and EUCOM is signing it. They want DoD to sign, and that's not going to happen, because EUCOM is, in effect, a Roman Consul, and so has the plenary power to sign such things. The hard part is that it looks as though the Ukrainians are being handed off to some flunky, instead of being dealt with as equals).
And my job (for which I was the best qualified... I speak pretty good legalese, and COL Harrel trusts me to 1: get it right (in which she is probably correct) and 2: to come for help if it seems unclear (in which she is decidedly correct).
Now the Ukrainians have it, and in Jan, and Feb, the intermediate versions will be haggled over (with a version, translated into Ukrainian legalese) and a common understanding will be reached, and that will be signed.
If I get stuck with those, well I'm looking for a good Russian/English:English Legal Dictionary right now, and a copy of Blacks. Donations gleefully accepted, in cash or kind.
TK