Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Lost in translation...


Have you ever felt lost? Okay, dumb question. What I mean is, have you ever felt like you just aren't getting your point across? Like no one really understands what you mean when you say or do something? Like everyone is trying to help you, but they're attempting to mend a broken arm with a butterfly band aid? My greenie and I used to joke about how words and phrases in Spanish don't translate well into English. The meaning doesn't hold the same weight in one language as it does in the other and visa versa. A simple one is when someone says "Tiene sentito..." in Spanish it means "You're right" but directly translated it means to have sense. I say it all the time, "Oh yeah, that totally has sense..." A simple example of being lost in translation language wise. Any RM who spoke a language and even some who didn't completely understand what I mean. So often I feel emotionally lost in translation. I try and try to explain what I'm feeling, what I mean by certain things, but I never can seem to get it out right. Mallorieish (yes, I'm cool enough to have my own language and you can be too...for the low price...okay, joking...) never really does translate into English very well, or any spoken language for that matter. I wonder why that is. This feeling has ever present over the last few months. How is it that someone who loves words as much as I do has such trouble expressing herself? It just gets lost, somewhere between me feeling it and my brain trying to explain it. It's a strange phenomenon, thought I'm sure it's common. I can't be the only person with this problem...Or can I?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't worry. You aren't.

macbezz said...

Definitely not. I have the exact same problem. Which leads to things like me yelling things at people in 5 languages (english, french, spanish, hindi and mandrin) trying to make them understand. It never seems to work for some reason.

aubrie said...

You're certainly not the only one. It happens to me all the time and I don't even speak another language. I just forget words. And how to form them into a logically sentence. And how to make the right noises so it sounds like words rather than incoherent babbling. At least in your case it's real words, even if it is the wrong language!

Annette said...

Yea! I found you! As pathetic as this seems, I have been cruising blogs to try to find you Miss Mal Meacham! I had heard you were back (I guess the timing makes sense) but here's the confirmation. You can't get rid of me now. Good luck getting used to English again!

Brit Bennion said...

Mal, did you know the picture in the sign is written in polish? I'm a bit curious where you got the pic.

Adam

Related Posts with Thumbnails