Lost in Translation

Anyone who has lived in a country where their native tongue is not the first language, will appreciate that many times things we want to say get lost in translation or we totally misunderstand what has been said to us.

I remember that on one occasion many years ago in Argentina, a lady who frequented the church community that my husband and I were responsible for, had attended a special ‘do’ and so had left some of her personal belongings in our home (that was situated behind the communal building) for safe keeping.  When everything had been cleared away and the helpers were going home, this particular lady came and asked me for her ‘cartera.’  As at that stage I was quite new to the language and didn’t have a great vocabulary, I tried to work it out in my head.  I knew that a ‘cartero’ was a postman and knowing that many words ending in ‘o’ were masculine while the feminine equivalent ended in ‘a’.

 So to my logic a ‘cartera’ must mean a post woman.  I insisted that I hadn’t seen a post woman that day at all.  In fact our delivery person was always male.  ‘No’ she kept saying ‘mi cartera’.  (All Argentinians can stop laughing now, please)  Finally, after he stopped laughing, my husband explained that she was looking for her handbag!

The following day she sent her son to collect something she had left.  He asked for ‘la pizzera’.  The only word that sounded anything like that that I knew was ‘lapicero’ that was pronounced the same (apart from the final vowel).  I knew that ‘lapicero’ was a sort of pencil, so I was searching for a pencil.  It turned out that what the boy came for was his mother’s tin for cooking pizzas.  With hindsight, the written word gives more of a clue to its meaning than the spoken word.

Old and new pizza tins

The child returned home with the pizza tin telling his mother that ‘she doesn’t understand anything!’  Even if you think you have quite a good knowledge of a language, living with people in a local situation can be so different.  I’m sure at the time people saw me with a permanent expression of confusion on my face.  Looking back I can smile over many incidents but at the time often felt acute embarrassment.  Patience and sign language go a long way!