Friday, February 21, 2014

Quaker terminology Sp<>En glossary

I imagine very few if any of you would ever have reason to use this, but as a Quaker I'm proud that this glossary exists (thanks to Pablo Stanfield for the link).

As we put it, I am holding in the light Pablo and the other interpreters serving right now in Chalatenango, El Salvador, at the Let the Living Waters Flow meetings of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (Comité Mundial de Consulta de Los Amigos).

Saturday, February 15, 2014

how to self-train to do simultaneous interpreting



In this video Andrew Cliff presents several ways you can practice and improve your simul skills. 

Thanks to cross-cultural communication for highlighting this video in their fabulous intersect newsletter, which I can't recommend enough.

Friday, February 7, 2014

changes in activist terminology

art by Rini Templeton
riniart.org

English language activist terminology has changed significantly in the course of my lifetime, and even more so since the 60s.

This fabulous blog post looks at changes in some key terms, and how those reflect broader changes in the ways we struggle for social change.  It's well worth a read.

I'm left wondering how to distinguish, in Spanish, the difference between the term the people and the term folks.  Would gente work for folks? And what are, um, folks using for check your privilege?

Saturday, February 1, 2014

vivir bonito: living nicely

Nicaraguan politics today is just so bizarre.  I just read this fabulous portrayal of how surreal it all is, which I highly recommend.  In it Julie recounts that the current FSLN (a strange mockery of its former self) promotes 'vivir bonito' and rather than rendering it literally as living pretty, she renders it as living nicely.  I think this works well, since presumably they are not getting at living with more makeup, but living with more collective well-being.  Though really, I'm note entirely sure what they're getting at and how it's different than the much more common term 'vivir bien' widely used in the left in South America, which I've blogged about before.  It seems likely that Daniel Ortega just wanted to distinguish himself from Evo Morales and have his own version of the concept - but maybe there's more to it? Thoughts?