Something Gained in Translation

 Something Gained in Translation

Key words:  translation, Jerusalem

About 900 words or 3 pages.

My first official memo to the staff at the Jerusalem International YMCA was remarkable.  I have no recollection of what I actually said in the memo—it was 30 years ago, and I was a  20-something manager on my first day on the job.  It was simply the effort behind making the memo happen which left a lasting impression on me of the value of proper communication.

                        Even though the Jerusalem YMCA is the Y’s monumental flagship property, atop Jerusalem’s highest hill, it still had only one computer at the time, in the CEO’s office. The rest of us shared infinitely superior information processing machines known as secretaries.  I was the only American on staff except for the CEO, so I guess they thought I would need the best secretary to help me learn the ropes:  an elderly British lady who politely asked me on my first morning in the office if I wanted to send out any notices to my department before the upcoming staff meeting.  She then whipped out a steno pad and was ready to take dictation.   

             Now I had seen dictation in the movies, so I played along.  After “yes Mrs. Albright, please do take a memo,”  I manufactured something to say.   And after my drivel I remembered—again thanks to old movies—to say, “would you mind reading that back?”  She did of course, with improvements, and then off went my memo to someone else on staff for translation. 

                        You see, there were two languages for the staff¸ Hebrew and Arabic, so the next step was to take my English­—well, more Mrs. Albright’s even nicer version thereof—and translate this into Hebrew.  Fair enough, and after about a half hour, a fellow staff member about my age came in to have me look at his translation of my note into Hebrew.  Now if my Hebrew was all that great, wouldn’t I have skipped English altogether?  Never mind, there was a system, so I approved his Hebrew rendering of my English; now it was ready to go on to someone else on the staff to be translated into Arabic if I would like for that to happen.  Of course, it should be in Arabic too, I told them.

                        About an hour later, another fellow came in, the Arabic translator, with my original memo plus the first translator’s Hebrew translation, and his own notes.  He was stuck on translating part of the letter from Hebrew to Arabic because he felt the Hebrew was not a good translation of my original English.  He wanted to make sure I had approved all of the Hebrew text.

                        Right.  I took the Hebrew text and my English original and put them side by side as if to compare them.  I asked Mrs. Albright to ask the Hebrew translator to come back.  That was a mistake.  I then had the two who were nice enough to do the translations arguing over some nuance of my very perfunctory memo; it turned into cats and dogs.  I took all copies and renditions of my memo back from the two translators and shooed them out of my office.   At lunch in the staff lounge, I noticed the two who had done my translation for me sitting at the same table, engaged in jovial conversation.  I decided not to interrupt the collegiality.

             Back at my desk, I was determined to conquer the communication situation with the memo.   I decided to ask an expert.
            “Mrs. Albright, do the two translators ever agree on a memo?” 
            “Rarely,” she said.
            “How does the chief executive send out memos then?” I asked.
            “He doesn’t,” she said plainly. “He has a grand meeting, and what he explains in English is then interpreted into Hebrew and Arabic by someone on staff without any problems.”
             I tried to figure out the pattern:  what was causing these translators to turn against each other?

                         “Mrs. Albright, do either of the translators speak French?” I asked her.  I had an experiment in mind.

             “I don’t believe so,” she said, “but the lifeguards are from Lebanon, so they speak French.  And the folks at our hotel’s front desk speak French.”
            “And you, Brutus?” I asked her, with a little Shakespeare to make her smile.
            “Yes, my French is a little rusty, but passable,” she admitted. And she gave me a look of inquiry to find out if I spoke French.
            “Well, it’s a long story—something to do with my mother teaching tennis to a neighbor French teacher in exchange for French lessons for me—but luckily I can stay out of too much trouble in French,” I answered her questioning look.
             “Alright then,” I announced, “Preparez vous,” and I proceeded to dictate a memo in French.  She, of course, then read it back, having corrected all my mistakes and missteps.  Boy howdy did that save some time.  Off went the memo to the staff.

                        I should have known to buy stock in the Lebanese lifeguards before issuing a memo in their language, for their value suddenly shot up among their peers.  Yes, even our two translators—the on and off again enemies—were now reduced to begging the lowly lifeguards for translated sentences like handouts.  The whole department looked to be forming a team to tackle the problem. 

                        Thankfully, that was the last memo I had to send in French.  I learned to have more face-to-face meetings for one thing, and the two who had done the earlier translation quit fighting somehow and did their work. 

                        Daily we saw a thousand people pass through the doors of our facility to attend programs of all sorts, from sports to music to bilingual kindergarten (Hebrew and Arabic) to peace conferences and worship services.  We had 120 on staff, a third Christian, a third Muslim, and a third Jewish.  We got along, but it was hard work waging peace.

                        After my two-year assignment in Jerusalem ended and I returned to the States, an envelope came from the Jerusalem Y one day.  In it was a copy of the Jerusalem Y’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize by the Austrian parliament.  My team’s programs were mentioned in the nomination.  There was also a letter from my former staff thanking me for all my patience, hard work, and our achievements.  It was—most remarkably—in the nicest  French I’ve ever read.

©Copyright 2012 JP Harrison, All rights reserved.