A New Language Discovered at the Sochi Olympics: Snowboarder
In the world of language translation and interpreting, you get used to certain challenges: slang and idiom, poor pronunciation and thick accents, regional dialects that aren’t well-documented, and many other standard problems. At the Olympics, many of these problems raise their ugly heads all at once, and it’s not uncommon to double-up interpreters assigned to press conferences because the language load is so huge and the mental stress so acute that a single interpreter often burns out and falls behind.
This past week, though, something altogether unusual and interesting happened when Sage Kotsenburg won the Gold Medal ∈ the slopestyle snowboard event ∈Sochi. His triumphant press conference where he attempted to explain his thought process and the resulting routine that won him the Gold was almost like listening to a new language being invented \right \in front of your eyes – and believe this translation professional when he tells you that every interpreter, translator, and other translation services worker ∈ that room earned their living and then some during that press conference!
A 1620 Japan
Here’s Kotsenburg’s routine as outlined ∈Snowboarder:
“Landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air, then a 1620 Japan.”
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
In the world of language translation and interpreting, you get used to certain challenges: slang and idiom, poor pronunciation and thick accents, regional dialects that aren’t well-documented, and many other standard problems. At the Olympics, many of these problems raise their ugly heads all at once, and it’s not uncommon to double-up interpreters assigned to press conferences because the language load is so huge and the mental stress so acute that a single interpreter often burns out and falls behind.
This past week, though, something altogether unusual and interesting happened when Sage Kotsenburg won the Gold Medal ∈ the slopestyle snowboard event ∈Sochi. His triumphant press conference where he attempted to explain his thought process and the resulting routine that won him the Gold was almost like listening to a new language being invented \right \in front of your eyes – and believe this translation professional when he tells you that every interpreter, translator, and other translation services worker ∈ that room earned their living and then some during that press conference!
A 1620 Japan
Here’s Kotsenburg’s routine as outlined ∈Snowboarder:
“Landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air, then a 1620 Japan.”
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
In the world of language translation and interpreting, you get used to certain challenges: slang and idiom, poor pronunciation and thick accents, regional dialects that aren’t well-documented, and many other standard problems. At the Olympics, many of these problems raise their ugly heads all at once, and it’s not uncommon to double-up interpreters assigned to press conferences because the language load is so huge and the mental stress so acute that a single interpreter often burns out and falls behind.
This past week, though, something altogether unusual and interesting happened when Sage Kotsenburg won the Gold Medal ∈ the slopestyle snowboard event ∈Sochi. His triumphant press conference where he attempted to explain his thought process and the resulting routine that won him the Gold was almost like listening to a new language being invented \right \in front of your eyes – and believe this translation professional when he tells you that every interpreter, translator, and other translation services worker ∈ that room earned their living and then some during that press conference!
A 1620 Japan
Here’s Kotsenburg’s routine as outlined ∈Snowboarder:
“Landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air, then a 1620 Japan.”
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
A 1620 Japan
Here’s Kotsenburg’s routine as outlined ∈Snowboarder:
“Landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air, then a 1620 Japan.”
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
“Landing a cab 270 to switch, half-cab on back 540 off flat down, half-cab layback slide off the cannon back 180 out, cab double cork 1260 holy crail, frontside 1080 off the toes rocket air, then a 1620 Japan.”
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
Yes, that is all technical jargon and it all actually means something. In a situation like this, no amount of translation experience matters: this is simultaneously a perfectly legitimate sentence ∈English and completely untranslatable by anyone unless they share a technical snowboarding background and make sense of the word salad of terms there. That last bit, by the way – the 1620 Japan – is the complex move that Kotsenburg decided to add to his routine just a few minutes before competing, and involves rotating ∈ midair exactly four and a half times.
Disponível em: <http://www.onehourtranslation.com/translation/blog/newlanguage- discovered-sochi-olympics-snowboarder#sthash.0Pd3vMQ6.dpuf> Acesso em: 18 fev. 2014. (Adaptado).
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
Glossário:
challenges: desafios
double-up interpreters: intérpretes trabalharam em pares
The expression “earn their living and then some” refers to the fact that the translators/interpreters
