The piano part is played by Wiwi Kuan (???). Enjoy!

After viewing activity for some time and reading translations, I have not recently found a certain translation. I would ask for a translation through the website, but this text is an exception. It is a widely known, highly regarded, work of musical poetry. In some cultures it is regarded with a sort of respectful reverence.

I am talking, of course, about the intro theme to the popular 90′s sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

So in an effort to extend this piece of literature throughout the world, I have taken the solemn duty of translating it into Spanish. Some may say this responsibility is not to be taken lightly, and I assure you that extensive work and research has been put into this.

So without further ado, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” by Will Smith “en Español”:

”
Y me gustaría tomar un minuto apenas se sientan allí
Ahora bien, esta es la historia trata de cómo
Mi vida se volcó, al revés
En el oeste de Filadelfia, nacidos y criados
Voy a decir comó yo convirtió en el príncipe de un pueblo llamado Bel-Air
En el patio de recreo donde yo pasó la mayor parte de mis días
Y todos los disparos algunos de fuera de b-ball de la escuela
de refrigeración, maximizando, al todo fresco
Cuando una pareja de chicos, que estaban hacer no es bueno
Comenzaron hacer hacer problemas en la vecindad

Yo metío en una lucha poca y mi mama se asustó
Y ella dijo: “Usted está en movimiento con su tía y su tío en Bel-Air”

Yo llamó un taxi y cuando llegó cerca de la
Placa de matriculación dijo “fresco” y había un dado en el espejo
Si nada yo podría decir que este taxi era raro
Pero pensé que nah, olvídalo, “Yo holmes el Bel-Air!”
Me detuve a una casa cerca de siete o ocho
Y le grité al taxista “Yo, holmes que huelen más tarde!”
Miré a mi reino que finalmente yo era allí
Para sentarse en mi trono, como el príncipe de Bel-Air
”

-Brandon

The people are friendly, but in Pyongyang I always had the feeling they were instructed. We were able to talk with quite a few people, and they upheld quite an interesting opinion on 9/11 which was just two months earlier.. it’s fair to say they are almost brainwashed by all the censored news they get to see.

Marc van der Chijs adds:

Pyongyang itself was a bit different, people seemed to be a bit more affluent, but even there we saw people trying to scrape bark off trees (for food?) and wearing old dirty clothes. Of course you were not allowed to travel freely, there was always a guide with us, likely to avoid us seeing things we should not see. Our hotel was on an island in the river and the only place you walk freely was on the island itself (there was nothing else there anyway). I quickly feel at home in most places in the world, but in Pyongyang it was different. I felt like an alien visitor to a large prison. You were constantly observed, probably even in your hotel room: one day I noticed that the door of the hotel room opposite us was slightly open and when I looked in there were several TV monitors with black and white feeds on it. I couldn’t see what it was, but it’s unlikely that the security would watch the outdoor or lobby feeds on the 20th floor of the hotel. Scary.

You can read all the answers on this Quora thread: http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-visit-North-Korea

A more realistic solution might to be to create a universal language. If everyone would learn this language, then the world would be more connected. Enter Esperanto, a constructed language created by Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof back in 1887. It’s the most successful constructed language created to date, boasting millions of speakers worldwide. The Esperanto Wikipedia has more than 143,00 articles. Esperanto has many strong points:

• There’s actually a culture. There are many books and magazines written in Esperanto, and countless websites and blogs. This means that there’s a vibrant community to immerse yourself into, a key component of learning a language. This also highlights the fact that this language isn’t dying or abandoned.
• It’s easy to learn. Studies by the Institute of Cybernetic Pedagogy at Paderborn have shown that French students who studied 150 hours of Esperanto reached the same level of proficiency as those who studied 2000 hours of German. Another surprising fact is that Esperanto only has 16 grammatical rules. English has many, many times that.
• It’s for a good cause. Esperanto is a neutral language, not affiliated with any country. As such, when you converse with someone in Esperanto there is no feeling of “You have to learn MY language.”

Having said that, I don’t think Esperanto is the solution to our language barrier issues. I’ll counter each of the points I made above:

• It’s not useful enough. Estimates put the number of speakers between 10,000 and 2 million. Look at the list of most spoken languages:
  
  Learning one of these languages will allow you to communicate with many more people. And any of these languages also has a unique culture and interesting content.
• It’s not really easy to learn. Esperanto is based on European languages. This means that if you are a native speaker of Korean, for example, you are unlikely to find Esperanto easy to pick up. Also, another point should be made- don’t choose a language to learn just because it’s simple. You should choose one because you enjoy it or because it is useful.
• I’m not going to deny that Esperanto is for a good cause. However, you should balance this with a pragmatic look at if a just cause is one of your top priorities. There is nothing immoral about learning Spanish or Russian, or any other language.

Most people only have enough energy and time to learn one second language. Therefore, you should choose carefully. If you think Esperanto is a cool and beneficial language to learn, go ahead. There are many in the Esperanto community who will welcome you with open arms.

A short piece that I put together with Scott Scharf and Scott Jaegar for Jay Yim’s “content” class at Northwestern. The text comes from the wikipedia definition of translation. This text is spoken by the AT&T speech synthesizer and then “translated” by some of the electronic translators available on the web. Translation was originally presented in quadraphonic surround sound with each of the four “voices” in its own audio speaker progressing through the permutations of electronic translation in its own unique order.

Translation from casey farina on Vimeo.

1. Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan)

A look shared by two people, each wishing that the other would initiate something that they both desire but which neither wants to begin. This word is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as most succint word.

2. ???? (Kyoiku mama) (Japanese)

A mother who endlessly pushes her children to study, even at the cost of emotional or physical health. Maybe Tiger Mom is the English word for this?

3. Tartle (Scottish)

Pausing while introducing someone because you can’t remember his name.

4. Ilunga (Bantu)

A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. We don’t have an equivalent expression in English because we don’t think about such a person.

5. Schadenfreude (German)

Deriving pleasure from another person’s misfortune. On the other hand, this type of person is easy to imagine, but nobody bothered to come up with a word for it.

6. Tingo (Pascuense)

To borrow objects from a friend’s house, one by one, until there’s nothing left. I wonder if they need to use this word a lot?

7. Hyggelig (Danish)

Dictionaries give the definiftion as ‘coziness’, but native speakers say it means much more. “It’s a matter of mentality,” one speaker said. “You can’t really give it an English equivalent because the English, or you Americans, don’t have the same mentality.” See here for a more detailed look: http://www.hackwriters.com/Denmark.htm

8. L’appel du vide (French)

The unexplainable desire to jump off the edge when you are on a cliff. We all get that feeling to do crazy things, so I’m glad there’s a word for it!

9. Papakata (Maori)

To have legs of different lengths.

10. Sigurista (Tagalog)

Someone who frets that not everything will go the right way. This person will not do something unless he is certain the desired outcome will be achieved. Somewhat similar to a perfectionist, but not quite.

11. Vovohe Tahtsenaotse (Cheyenne)

To prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one’s lips. This is an useful word, I wish we had one similar in English. Come to think of it, we also need a word for licking our lips at the thought of dinner…

Bringing a musical to a new country and a new language imply to do more than a translation: it is a work of adaptation, where rhyme is not the only challenge. You want to be able to translate cultural references that might not speak to your local audience, you want to respect the rhythm that was created by the original lyricist and composer, and of course, you want to respect the meaning of the original song!
However, you don’t need to stick to the exact same metaphors or vocabulary as the original lyrics: what you want is to convey an idea, a feeling etc… and most of the time, you need to get away from the original sentence in order to translate it correctly.

Typically, when translating a new song, I start with a rough translation of the lyrics. I look for the idioms and words that I don’t know, and quickly write a bad first version of the text (in French, in my case) to help me keep track of the general meaning of the song.
Then, I proceed sentence by sentence, letting words come to me. Sometimes, you will be surprise to see how good a basic translation works for one particular sentence, or that the sounds are true to the original rhyme.
Then, I explore the lexical fields, look for synonyms, and write all of my ideas: it’s not because I found a great translation to one sentence that I should stop here and not look for alternatives. I usually build a section around one or two sentences that I really like, but sometimes it simply cannot work and I would find a compromise.
Wordplays, metaphors and idioms can be the hardest to translate, as you might not have an interesting equivalent in your local language.
However, following this process, I usually find myself having almost 50% of the translation. And that’s where the hard work start.
At this point, finding solutions to the challenges I’m confronted with takes more efforts: I will come to the point where I sum up each stanza to its general idea and the way the author(s) have constructed the sentence. From this point, I will start finding all new words to give the same impression to the audience. You need to try (and miss) a lot until the point when you sorted out everything and you have full song!
You’re not quite done yet though: rehearsals and discussions with the director and the actors will lead you to adjust some of the lyrics before you have your dream translation!

As you can imagine, this is a lot of work, and success is not guaranteed (it really depends on the quality of the job that the translator did).

How to tell which language is the best?

Academic Popularity

Quantifying the value of learning a new language is a complex task, but a good place to begin is with the most popular new languages being learned today. Traditionally, Romance languages have dominated college enrollment and to a certain extent this is still true today. Languages such as Italian, French and German are popular. Enrollment in Spanish classes is rising and accounts for roughly half of American students. Not surprisingly, as the geopolitical landscape has changed, so have the demands on language departments; the number of students learning Chinese has grown by over fifty percent in the last decade and Arabic classes have more than doubled in response to a growing demand for speakers.

Number of Speakers

In addition to academic popularity, it is interesting to look at the number of speakers worldwide when choosing to study a foreign language. German and French have been academically popular for years but only boast around 100 million speakers each. In the west, the Japanese and Russian languages are not often studied but are actually more common with around 125 and 250 million speakers respectively. The widespread use of these languages pales in comparison with Spanish, Hindi-Urdu and Arabic languages that each come in at around 500 million native and non native speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world though, with the possible exception of English, is Mandarin. This fact is not surprising when one considers that China is by far the world’s most populous country. Many estimates place the Chinese language at over one billion speakers worldwide even after accounting for several different Chinese languages and dialects.

How hard is it to learn?

Another factor that affects decisions to learn a language is the ease of acquisition. Some languages are easier to learn than others, but this variable is not as easy to quantify as one might think. It turns out that the difficulty of learning a particular language is related to which language the learner speaks first. The more closely related the native tongue is to a new language, the easier the process tends to be. Romance languages are closely related and share many words and have very similar sounds. A native Spanish speaker would have an easier time learning French than they would Japanese. For native English speakers, languages like Spanish, French and German are considered easier to learn than less closely related languages like Russian or Arabic. Even more distant cousins, such as Mandarin and Japanese, are considered quite difficult. One reason that learning distantly related languages is so challenging is that often, the new language requires learners to incorporate brand new phonemes, or sounds, into their speech. Children are flexible with languages, but as adults this skill does not usually come easily.

Conclusion

Futurists are constantly trying to predict trends about fashion, technology, economics and even language use. Which language stands the best chance of being most useful 20 years from now? Linguists will tell you that trying to predict trends in language even a few years away is frighteningly complicated; just like the weather, there are so many variable that small, unpredictable changes can have huge consequences later. The most useful language then for most people will be the one they will use. This depends on where they live, what they want to do professionally and where they might like to go. Spanish speakers in the United States are on the rise and job opportunities for bilingual speakers are also on the rise although an economic study by Albert Saiz shows only a 1.7% wage increase for bilingual Spanish speakers. (See here: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/SmallBiz/story?id=4349200&page=1) When considering economic benefit, the Saiz study gives easy answers: German, Italian, Russian and Chinese yield closer to a 4% wage increase. Considering the languages in highest demand from employers and colleges right now (Chinese and Arabic), Chinese appears to come out on top of the equation for savvy linguistic investors over the next few decades.

This means that the task of finding a professional translator is a serious one, and something you should engage in wisely. In this short guide, I want to share a few sound strategies for choosing a professional translator, whether it is an individual freelancer or a full translation agency. Look at the points mentioned as steps in your quest to find the perfect translator to complete your project.

What Makes A Good Translator?

Let’s define what makes a good translator. Most of the time, when you want to find a good translator you must look at their experience and related accreditation. While it is true that you can post your translation project on common freelance sites where anyone can bid, you may not get professionals knocking on your door. In that case, you might as well post it on WikiTranslation for free. A professional is more likely to produce a quality or “good” translation without any mistakes.

Part of evaluating a freelance translator or a team is to secure samples of their work. You should do this before you sign any agreements. Focus on getting samples translated into the native language you are targeting. It makes the most sense to hire a translator who is a native speaker or someone who has proven their facility with the target language.

You should find out as much as you can about the translator’s experience and track record. This can be a drawn out process if you want to review the profiles of multiple providers in order to get a sense of their ranking among other professional workers. At this point, you will also be evaluating their rates, turnaround times for projects, as well as additional skills like proofreading and editing.

Your decision about the type of translator may take time. Most pro translators strive to be competitive in all of these areas. You need to recognize that a quality translator may charge more for their services. Translators may charge by the project, the page, or even by the hour, depending on the overall parameters of the project.

You should do thorough research online and elsewhere to find a translator that meets good standards of quality text conversion. As was already mentioned, the task is the same whether you choose an agency specializing in translation services or you contact a freelancer directly. Take the time to evaluate providers carefully.

Evaluating The Work

This may not come up until after you’ve worked with a translator and the content has been completed. Still, if you want to ensure that your translated document meets quality standards, you may want to get a second opinion. Again, bringing in another native speaker such as another translator will help you evaluate the work itself. They will be familiar with the source language and will be prepared to pick out weaknesses or obscured passages in the text. Proofreading will cost less than a full translation, and you have another guarantee that the translation is what you wanted.

Why take this extra step? Look at this way: even if you hired a native speaker to begin with, you cannot guarantee they will do a stellar job. It’s about covering all of the bases.

The Value Of A Pro

A professional translator can be a valuable asset for your business. Of course, when a mistranslation can lead to dire consequences, professional translation is the best choice. Translation is about communication. You need to have effective communication in order to share your message with your target audience. Moreover, translation services allow you to broaden your reach and influence a broader audience.

I was wasting time in the vast hinterland of the Internet when I came across this website: http://accent.gmu.edu/

It is a database of more than 1400 voices around the globe reading the same paragraph:

“Please call Stella.  Ask her to bring these things with her from the store:  Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.  We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.  She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.”

Everyone speaks with an accent and there is no “correct” one, but that doesn’t mean we can’t analyze different accents, or just listen to them for amusement. No offense to our dear Australian readers, but your English sounds very funny! Don’t worry, you can laugh at my accent if you want, it’s this one: http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=137

You can select a voice by native language or by region. It then takes you to a page with a voice recording (requires Quicktime), a phonetic spelling of the reading, facts about the speaker, and generalizations. There’s a wealth of information in these pages. Who knew comparing accents could be so scientific? Here is the phonetic transcription for the way I speak:

Facts about the reader who read this:

• Born in Wichita, Kansas, United States
• 21 year old male
• Other languages: Spanish
• English learning method: naturalistic

Seriously, I could waste a lot of time exploring this. Here’s a breakdown of where WikiTranslation’s visitors come from (click for larger image):

I suppose most of us have an American accent, followed by Indian and then British. What’s your accent?