Lucía Ringuelet
Originally from Argentina, I arrived in Montreal with a very basic knowledge of French. While I used the translation dictionary a lot, particularly in the beginning, I also learned a great amount of vocabulary in a fully immersive context: attending high school in French, surrounded by francophones. In other words, the majority of my knowledge of French was acquired in a naturalistic way.
As a consequence, at some point I started to have tiny moments of revelation. These came when I made a connection between a French and a Spanish word, often while talking with my family and looking for the Spanish translation. Although many words share the same etymology in French and in Spanish, some do not. My episodes of revelation consisted thus in matching two words that were etymologically different in each language, yet shared the same meaning. Having learned the equivalents in different contexts and societies, I understood them in slightly different ways. Making the connection would bring a new level of comprehension (ex. “Oh! ‘Handicap’ means ‘deshabilidad’!”).
For fun and to clarify my experience, I came up with a little list of possible pairs (omitting the basic ones such as chien / perro):
- handicap / deshabilidad
- foyer / hogar
- calendrier / almanaque
- piège / trampa
- émiettement / derrumbamiento
- placage / enchapado
- fourberie / trampa
- entorse / esguince
- quête / búsqueda
These occurrences have not happened in a very long time, as today both languages are quite deeply ingrained in my worldview. I must admit, I do miss it a little bit! Similarly, they have never happened in English, a language that I learned later in life in a more structured way…
Your turn!
Has it ever occurred to you to be surprised by a translation?
How much do you rely on translations while learning a new language?
Have you found similar or different peculiar occurrences in naturalistic learners of more than one language?
I think that when the two languages are quite closely related (as in Spanish and French) or even not–so-closely (as in English and either one of those two Romance languages) the phenomenon is probably different for the speaker than if we’re talking about languages that are completely unrelated (for example, any two of English, Chinese and Japanese). I wonder what your classmates whose first language is Chinese or Japanese would have to say? Wouldn’t they EXPECT a complete lack of similarity/correspondence? I wonder if they experience the same kinds of context-dependent flashes?
The other day I was doing my last assignment for my sexual education class, I was doing a module on sexual education. One activity would be doing an activity using the term love and like. This unit that I was designing aim students that are in Haiti, most likely if I were to teach this unit I would need to translate everything in French and Creole. I find myself thinking how I should translate love and like in French both of them translate to aimer. I always find myself in surprise when I am not able to find the appropriate words when translating a word.