English no, Communication si.

[claudia castellani]

I enjoyed very much translating for my friends on the Camino, but actually
they almost never asked or imposed me to do it: it just happened. We got to
know on the Camino and decided to walk together and in order to allow the
Spanish friends to get in communication with the American one, I started to
translate for them from Spanish into English and back.
But on the Camino there were many people needing translations from different
languages and I thought it might have been good trying to help them. But
after a while it became really heavy: everybody wanted to tell something
"fundamental" to other pilgrims or ask something to the hospitalero (in one
case, the hospitalero only spoke Spanish!!), so I started to avoid
"translation-situations" as much as possible.
It is very true what Rosina says: you lose concentration. I think that if
you work as a volunteer on the Camino (as hospitalero, for example), then it
is ok to translate for everybody. But if you do your Camino, then you should
only translate for friends (if you enjoy doing it, as I did) or for nobody!

The funny thing is that two of the most popular languages in the Western
world, English and Spanish, are spoken by populations that normally do not
learn foreign languages very much. So, English-speaking and Spanish-speaking
peoples would never communicate if it was not for ....third parties: my
Spanish and American friends on the Camino could communicate just because
there was an Italian (neither Spanish nor English mother-tongue!!!!) who
could build a bridge between them. Foolish, isnt'it?

Claudia  ;-)


From: Rosina Lila <BlaroliaAOL.COM>

(...)  Most people who travel with multilinguists who translate for them
are,
indeed, lucky; but I wonder if they realize that their fortune is an
unwelcome
imposition on the translator who must interrupt his/her trend of thought and
focus
of attention to attend to someone else's.  I do not know anyone who enjoys
serving as a translator when traveling; one of my closes friends is from
Granada
and married to a monolingual American, another is an Italian-Brazilian
married, also, to a unilingual American; neither travels with her husband
when they
go to Spanish, Portuguese or Italian speaking countries because having to
translate all the time "ruins" the trip for them.  I understand all too
well: one
may be lost in reverie, contemplation, introspection and so on, of one's
own,
and being asked to translate for others is an intrusive interruption.....
translating a few times when the need arises is ok.... but doing it all the
time
for a constant companion is a real pain.
Also, the world is getting too small for anyone with any cultural or growth
ambitions to speak only one language.  Don't you think so?  And just as one
learns to swim by being thrown into the water, I intend to let my relatives
pretty much on their own, with their little translators; maybe they'll
profit by
it.
Besides, I've got a whole lot of serious praying and meditating of my own to
do.
Big hug!
Rosina

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