Getting Hungry For Russian Translator Skills
We all know how important food is to every human being, so it is natural to attract the interest of students involved in translation studies programs.The reason is that people from all nationalities and cultures have an opinion on it. Regardless of his or her native language, everyone involved in translation, from beginning students to experienced translation workers, have their own opinion on it. The reason is that food involves people emotionally. While it is an essential part of our lives, it also is an important part of various celebrations: national holidays, religious celebrations, wedding receptions, birthday parties as well as entertaining of friends and neighbors.
All translation students and professionals have opinions about food and just about everything related to it. While Russian Translation Professionals enjoy talking about borscht, German Translation workers are proud of their sausage, and Medical Translation workers just want us all to eat healthy. Besides, all translation workers have some own preferences as regards fast food, cafeteria food, junk food, ethnic food, restaurant food, and the snacks and popcorn you buy to eat while watching a movie. Moreover, all of us have different preferences about what we like to put on our food like salt, ketchup, red pepper, various kinds of sauces, sauerkraut and so on.
In our series of articles titled, The Russian Translation Is Ready, food is the focal point of our activities. The topic of the series is food, however, we offer a wide variety of language-related instructional activities. One article may say something about verbs, another may deal with vocabulary, and the next may be about a writing topic. Sometimes only a word game will be added-something that will make students pay attention to the languages they study.
Many of the activities in our series of writings involve games and creativity. The reason is that in my opinion language games have a crucial role in building language skills. Students need to develop an interest in words and their quirkiness, versatility, and power. English teachers have to do their best to get children involved in language. Play has power.
Although this series of articles was my idea, I am not the only major contributing authors. In fact, my contribution to making it possible was quite humble. It was created with the help of Sarah Von Seggern, a German English Translation professional and Michael Antipov, a Russian Translation worker, who gave assistance to me in so many ways – content development, proofreading, fact-checking and many other. Here I have to mention and to thank to Pedro Moreno, a Spanish Translation professional, who also lend assistance to me in many ways. I hope you enjoy The Translation Is Ready and find it useful in your translation teachings.
What stories about food are discussed in your classroom? Do you talk about a time when everything went wrong while you were making a special meal? Do you relish remembering the great homemade ravioli of your great-grandmother? Did something funny happen to a family member in a restaurant? Do you laugh at how you all hated to eat the food that a relative made because it tasted terrible?
In the first task, we encourage you to write a story about food. If you need some help thinking of one you may ask your classmates, friends and instructors. If you still find it difficult, share any kind of memory you have relating to food – maybe a special meal, or a special occasion.
