Want another word usage quiz to keep you sharp during quaran-times? Don’t worry; I’ve got you covered.
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If you missed the first three quizzes, you can find them here:
Category: fun
Word Usage Quiz for Writers #3
If you’re like me, any healthy distraction is welcome in these quaran-times. The smaller, the better. And ideally, something I can do without guilt.
So it seems like the perfect time to resurrect “Which Word?”
If you missed the first two of my word usage quizzes, you can find them here:
And now, on to…
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#SongsOfComfort During Physical Distancing
Welcome! This pinned post is where you can find links to my COVID-19 playlists.
Read on to learn about the playlist initiative and what you’ll find in each list, or boldly click on one of these quick links to start listening.
Sacred #SongsOfComfort: YouTube | Sacred #SongsOfComfort: Spotify | Secular #SongsOfComfort: YouTube
Free Ways to Ease Your COVID-19 Experience
My last post, 8 Movies to Distract You from COVID-19, was about catching up on classic movies to distract yourself during this crisis. Distraction is a valuable mental health tool, because it gives us the space to not be anxious all the time. And movies seemed like a good bet, because they only take a couple of hours, which is great for those of us who still don’t have much free time.
But what if you don’t have access to Netflix or Amazon Prime? What if you need something fun and interesting that’s free?
Well, my friend, there is plenty out there to explore. Here are a few audio & visual options from your friendly neighborhood audiovisual translator.
8 Movies to Distract You from COVID-19
Do you need a safe, fun distraction from the global pandemic engulfing all of us? I think we all do, and I love that so many artists are doing their part from within their areas of expertise.
Orchestras around the world are offering free live concerts online. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma has started a #SongsofComfort initiative. Art historian Ada Palmer has popularized the hashtag #SomethingBeautiful on Twitter. And in the crowdsourcing domain, readers of The Guardian have put together a recommended reading list.
As a film & TV translator, the first thing that occurs to me is, why not catch up on some classic movies you’ve always meant to get around to, or revisit your favorites?
So, here’s a list of classics to watch on Amazon Prime and Netflix while you’re quarantined or self-isolating. (…Okay, maybe the sushi documentary isn’t a classic, but sushi is classic, am I right?)
Enjoy!
Translator Exercise Routines?
The whiteboard pictured above made its appearance at this year’s American Translators Association conference, and it kept us entertained all weekend long:
My dog usually walks me three times a day #LifeAsAFreelance #DOGtool https://t.co/XMG5YfrNtN
— Transcripsi (@Transcripsi) October 25, 2018
Mi héroe es el/la que puso crying and breaking things https://t.co/8YB6Hi3lwH
— Evelyn Antelo (@eveantelo) October 25, 2018
As you can see, a lot of us weighed in. There are many gems in there–I’m partial to the one about running from court to jail and back–but the whole thing got me thinking about how this is a really important question. How do we stay healthy and manage our stress?
The number of serious responses both on the whiteboard and on Twitter clue us in to the fact that exercise really does work:
My productivity definitely went up when my physical therapy started including regular exercise. The time it takes us much less than the time gained through the increased energy. https://t.co/hheiMvadeH
— Ada Palmer (@Ada_Palmer) October 25, 2018
We’re all different, but we all need to get this whole fitness thing done somehow. So I figured I’d share the set of tools I personally use to get the job done. Here we go… Continue Reading →
The Best-Ever Response to “What Do You Translate?”
I’m writing this from New Orleans, replete with local food, watching the riverboats and unwinding after the American Translators Association’s annual conference.
No, I’m not just trying to make you jealous. This is all relevant information, I promise.
The ATA conference is fun and productive every year, but this year one of my favorite moments came before the conference even began. I arrived early on Wednesday, dropped my bags at the hotel, and set off with a clear goal in mind: visit the Faulkner House.
This building was once the boardinghouse where Nobel laureate William Faulkner wrote his first novel. Today, his old room is a cozy little bookstore called Faulkner House Books (capacity: 12 people). I don’t have the space, time, or budget for all the books I want to buy on a given day, so bookshops are dangerous. But of course I had to go in and take a peek.
The front door.
I already own the novels that Faulkner wrote there, so I was determined to simply browse and then take my leave… but then the intimidatingly brilliant woman watching the shop asked me what I was in town for. Things went down like this:
“I’m here for the American Translators Association conference.”
“What language do you translate?”
“Japanese to English.”
*her eyes light up* “Oh! Lafcadio Hearn!”
*my eyes light up* “Yes! Yes, exactly!”
I’ve heard a lot of responses to my job and my language pair. No one else has ever responded with, “Oh! Lafcadio Hearn!” This immediately and officially became my favorite response ever. It charmed my socks right off me.
When I asked her if she had any Lafcadio Hearn, she brought me this:
I’d only ever heard of Lafcadio Hearn in the context of his work documenting the spirits and ghosts of Japan. But as it turns out, he was also an influential writer in and about New Orleans.
So now I’m in Faulkner’s old apartment in the Big Easy, finding out an author I respect for Japanese reasons is actually a New Orleans writer, and realizing that if I buy this book, I can go to a café and read about 1800s New Orleans while drinking coffee with chicory? Bonus: he was also a translator.
Yes, she made the sale. I paid the full list price and have no regrets.
Best translator moment ever.
PS – The alleyway outside Faulkner House was swarming with bees instead of mosquitoes, but it was close enough to make me smile.
Not mosquitoes, but…
Word Usage Quiz for Writers #2
It’s baaaaack… Following up on my first quiz on commonly confused words, here is a second set of ten word-pair errors I see during proofreading. As always, the theory is that even if you already know the difference between the words in each pair, practice making deliberate choices may help prevent mistakes in the future.
New for this quiz: by reader request, you can now see the link to more information when you answer correctly too, instead of only seeing it if you answer incorrectly.
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Note: If you’re concerned that I’ll be able to see your answers, don’t be! This quiz doesn’t collect your name or email address, so I only receive anonymous data.
If you have any trouble with the quiz functionality, let me know!
Word Usage Quiz for Writers
When you choose the right word for the right situation, your writing looks polished and professional, but sometimes it’s almost like English is out to get you with all its little pitfalls.
It’s easy to read advice about commonly confused words, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get them right later. Yesterday I started wondering whether seeing the two next to each other and making an active, deliberate choice between them would help people store the information where it can be easily reached the next time the choice needs to be made.
So… I taught myself how to make quizzes embedded in my blog. Here, have a quiz!
You’ll see no preference-based rules like “as” vs. “like” or “that” vs. “which,” because they’re just not worth the worry. In the words of Paul Brians: “Like you care.”
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Note: If you’re concerned that I’ll be able to see your answers, don’t be! This quiz doesn’t collect your name or email address, so I only receive anonymous data.
I’m planning to do a series of these with different word pairs, so if you have any trouble with the quiz functionality, let me know!
Demon Parades and Career Beginnings
The contemporary: Kurama, the fox spirit from Yu Yu Hakusho. (see alt text for copyright)
The old: New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji by Hiroshige
Though I didn’t manage to post about it before due to computer issues, I had two public speaking opportunities in January that were pretty fun.
First, I gave a workshop at Texas A&M University’s Stark Galleries. They’re hosting an ukiyo-e exhibit called “The Floating World” through next month, so part of their family-friendly event series is currently focused on Japanese arts and culture. The museum was kind enough to invite me down to TAMU to give a presentation on yokai–the legendary ghosts and goblins of Japan which played a big part in ukiyo-e traditions and still play a role in Japanese pop culture. (And, of course, to talk a little about anime.)
It’s a fun topic that I really like, though I worried about how it was going to go over–turns out it’s challenging to plan a family-friendly workshop about ghost stories when many of them are rated-R-worthy! Cue anxiety over how I could make it interesting enough for all ages at the same time.
But attendance was great: we had a full room, with an age distribution from about 10 to 75. We talked about how to survive an encounter with a kappa, how fox spirits possess humans, and who might show up in the deadly processional called the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. The audience didn’t visibly react much during the lecture, which worried me, but it turns out they were just being quiet and polite. There were lots of thoughtful questions afterward, with people wanting to talk one-on-one and saying they really enjoyed learning about all the ghouls. Win!
Hyakki Yako (The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons), artist unknown
The other January “speaking engagement” was an informal video-chat interview with legal and academic translator Carolyn Yohn about how I got into my field. It went up on her blog this month (here’s the link) as her first video interview. Definitely not her first interview, though: Carolyn has an ongoing series of interviews on her blog with translators of all different fields about how they chose their specialties. Be sure to check it out!
I already knew that I far prefer delivering video/audio interviews to written ones, because written ones take more time as I get obsessive about getting just the right phrasing for everything. But I did learn something new doing this one through Google Hangout: good lighting for a girl in glasses is hard! Toward the end there are some truly epic shadows on my face. Next time, I’ll definitely ask the professionals for advice before I try to do my own lighting. ^_~ Lucky me that I work in an office with lighting professionals.
Talking to others about culture and translation inevitably means learning something new yourself, even after many years in the field. I highly recommend it, even if you don’t feel comfortable doing it on camera. Carolyn’s interview on camera was great for me: I may have a new fear of facial shadows, but I also met new people on Twitter who watched it and commented, and now I get to read cool new things they post.
The most fun thing, though, was probably finding this Night Parade a la Pokémon.
A night parade with a Pokémon spin, by Pixiv artist “nojo.” (Artist page http://www.pixiv.com/users/548497 – some images contain adult content or are NSFW.)