Translations

Today is an unexpected day off. Yes, yes, the protests are important. But the rate at which life is flying by right now, I am simply delighted to have a day to go to the bank (yeahhhh... I bounced a six-euro check) and do the laundry.

By the way, I dream - simply DREAM - of having a washing machine in my house. I promise, I would never, EVER take it for granted. I love doing the laundry itself -- whenever I am in the US, I throughly enjoy the entire process. But here? With the climbing and the packing and waiting for the machine while the stinky bum tells me about his last trip to Poitiers? If it's not the jabbering bum, it's the old lady who needs me to push the "start" button because she can't see it (although I sort of love her, in a way) or the creepy guy in the corner who is obviously trying to gatch a glimpse of my skivvies as I load them into the machine.

Plus - with that whole bounced-check episode under my belt, I'd really enjoy not paying 20 euros for clean socks.

Anyway, I've spent the morning catching up on news, contacting some publishers, selling some books, yada yada. Very productive morning, and I love feeling semi-accomplished before the day is even half over (or have started?). I've done it all with RFI in the background - first in Spanish, then in Arabic. Adjusting the ear, if you will. The teachers say this is necessary... I don't know how much I agree, but I figure it can't hurt. With Spanish, in particular, it's important, as it's my only regular exposure to the language these days.

So I got to thinking about translations while I was reading the article in Spanish entitled "Los j�venes franceses no encuentran trabajo". This would translate without any problem into French: "Les jeunes fran�ais ne trouvent pas de travail."

But when I went to mentally translate it into English, it didn't work:

- The young French don't find work
- The young French find no work

Both sound weird and off to me. The most natural next step is to say, "The young French can't find work." But then that changes meaning, doesn't it? That would imply they're trying, and I'm not totally sure that's the case, right? At least, not given the Spanish title, or it's French translation.

It's always interesting to spot semantic differences. Can anybody think of making this sentence work? Maybe it's obvious and I'm just missing it.

Anyway. I'm not there yet with Arabic. Maybe by next year, I'll be able to translate that sentence. However, I will say one thing: it is very surreal to listen to a broadcast in Arabic about Johnny Cash "The King of Country Music" (I actually understood that, which is also quite surreal).

UPDATE: I didn't bounce the check. You have no idea how proud I am of myself.
UPDATE II: I get so much done on days where I don't have to go to school or to work. I should do this every day!