STRØMMEN BLOG

Recently Strommen tests teamed up with a national company named Pacific Medical Training to help their clients better prepare for certification exams. Our test prep experts were able to create concise guidelines to help their clients that have the most difficulty in preparing due to other commitments such as work or family. PMT came to us with a problem, to help their busy clients do better on tests. Our test prep expert Joe came up with some handy guidelines that have helped their clients immensely. Check out their website  Pacific Medical Training offers ACLS Recertification nationwide to medical professional to see – the variety of clients Strommen helps! 

Refranes, proverbios, expresiones y dichos en la lengua española

La Real  Academia Española define al refrán como “Dicho agudo y sentencioso de uso común”, que en general suele contener un consejo o moraleja. A diferencia del refrán, el  proverbio conlleva un significado culto, como los proverbios bíblicos, aunque muchos de ellos forman hoy parte del refranero popular.  A veces con pequeños cambios, muchos refranes, dichos, expresiones, son comunes a todo el mundo hispanohablante; otros responden únicamente a una región o país en particular.

Irónicas, esperanzadoras, reflexivas,  pesimistas, el número de expresiones parece ser inagotable. Muchas de ellas abundan en coloquialismos que no siempre son sencillos de interpretar y traducir. Muchos vocablos y hasta expresiones cambian de sentido dependiendo del país o región donde sean utilizados, si se piensa que son más de veinte los países de habla española.

Diferencias culturales y de concepto dificultan la tarea de intérpretes y traductores, pero aun así, buena parte de los refranes más difundidos puede encontrarse, con sus variantes, en distintas lenguas.

El siguiente es un listado de refranes, proverbios, expresiones y dichos comunes en la lengua española y su correspondiente traducción al inglés.

A quien madruga, Dios le (lo) ayuda.

The early bird catches the worm.

Dios los cría y ellos se juntan.

Birds of a feather flock together.

De noche, todos los gatos son pardos.

All cats are gray (grey) in the dark.

Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.

A man is known by the company he keeps.

De tal palo, tal astilla.

A chip off the old block.

A (Al) buen entendedor, pocas palabras (bastan).

A word to the wise is enough (sufficient).

Cuando el río suena, agua lleva.

There is no smoke without fire.

Ayúdate que Dios te ayudará.

God helps those who help themselves.

El que a hierro mata a hierro muere.

He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

Perro que ladra no muerde.

A barking dog never bites.

Eso es harina de otro costal.

That’s a horse of another color.

En un abrir y cerrar de ojos.

In the twinkling of an eye.

Es como hablarle a una pared.

It’s like talking to a brick wall.

Ni chicha ni limonada.

Neither fish nor fowl.

By Tony Messina

Lately there’s been some apprehension, among us foreign language teachers, about Rosetta Stone.  Some people I’ve spoken to openly worry that, some day, they’ll be replaced by computer software.

“Well,” I say to them, “Welcome to the world”.

But one way to deal with evolution is to evolve along with it and, bottom line, if you get to be very good at what you do, it will be difficult to replace you, no matter how many engineers and software designers they assign to the cause.

Let’s look at another field and another type of occupation, the TV studio cameraman (this term refers to women as well, I like genders and I don’t like neutering).  Cameramen are smart people; they have to zoom, pan, focus, read scopes and adjust light levels while taking chaotic directions by often-overcaffeinated TDs and directors.

But their particular assignment remained fairly constant; there wasn’t much variation to what they did day-to-day; and that makes them easy prey to the designers and engineers assigned to replace them with robotics.

But many of these cameramen did not become discouraged.  Unlike computers, humans can reprogram themselves by themselves.  And they did.  They became Steadycam operators, where everything was suddenly more complex and difficult.  Steadycam people are used in all types of production, including movies; it will be much harder to replace them with robots.

Which brings me back to Rosetta Stone; they base their teaching on a very simple premise: that all of us, as children, learned how to read and write our own native language by associating words with pictures.

And their software is loaded with words and pictures and you can see how the whole process really works, especially with beginner students.

But like the scope of the studio cameraman, their whole outreach is limited.  There just isn’t very much in the way of nuance, complexity and sophistication.  If you ask Rosetta to show you See Spot Run, she’ll show you See Spot Run.

But ask her why in certain languages and in certain cases, the subjunctive verb tense is preferable to the present and you will See Rosetta Run.  Like a deer in the headlights…..

As I see it, the next wave of foreign language instructors will be specialists, teachers who can fulfill a student’s need to zero in on a particular subject.  We will have Mandarin medical tutors,

French finance tutors and Arabic accounting tutors.

And if these people are good at what they do, no amount of Rosetta (or any other kind of software) will be able to replace them.

Strommen is excited to announce that we are officially translating Marie Ange Faugérolas’ book “La Bible Des Anges” for publication in the US. Although the text is over 566 pages long Strommen is confident that the job will be completed within a rather short deadline of 60 days. Strommen has assigned a primary translator as well as editors to review the text for accuracy and style. The book is extremely popular in France, and Marie Ange Faugérolas hopes that with the new English translation it will have global appeal. English is truly a global language, and Strommen is very excited to deliver a version of her text that will reach a global audience.

I recently visited Italy during the month of August. I usually go during the winter, so it was a nice change from my yearly routine of 10 years. Italy in particular shuts down in August. The national holiday Ferragosto (August 15th) leaves Rome a ghost city, shops forgoe profits and put signs on their shutters reading “Chiuso per Ferie”.

Of course, these establishments all still pay rent, utilities, and the various expenses associated with operating a business. Most of the best restaurants are also closed, and if you can find one that is open you get the impression that the waiters’ minds are still somewhere partying in Greece with their friends, or off at the Tuscan summer house that has been in the family for 3 generations while they serve food in a trance-like state.

Enter dichotomy number 1: Work vs. Bella Vita (beautiful life), or the old adage that Italians work to live, while we Americans live to work. Ferragosto, siesta and other old-world tenets are great on one hand – a kind of sociopolitical forced period of relaxation, a collective nap or vacation. To put it in perspective, Ferragosto is as sacred as a Sunday is in the US. The downside is that accomplishing simple tasks, such as finding lunch, or shopping, can become very difficult.

The other dichotomy that stood out was Service vs. Culture. While this seems a strange pairing, I assure you, for the most part customer service in Italy is completely contrary to the culture. I have heard anecdotes of why Americans “hated Italy” and usually it comes down to “a rude man” working at the information booth in the train station saying “Go away! No English.” I had a few experiences on my last trip that made me astutely aware of this phenomenon. Indeed the worst experiences are always, incredibly, with the very people hired to help foreigners. Let me give you the play by play of my experience:
1) to get a duty free refund you need to visit the customs office and get a stamp. Simple enough. I tried doing this in Spain and they very nicely told me I needed to accomplish this in Italy. (My final European departure city)
2) I find the customs office “Dogana Roma II Sezione Viaggiatori” at Fiumicino in Rome, no line, door open, so I walk in and am immediately yelled at in English “Read the sign! Stop! Read the sign!” a middle-aged woman was screaming at me as if I had mugged her. Another man in the office seems to tell her to calm down and she immediately tells him (in Italian) “no, exuse me, but why do we have a sign then if people don’t read it?”

3) I stop and read the multiple signs. Please note the photos below and imagine that this is your 1st step in boarding for a 24 hour trip.

1st sign at the Dogana

And here is another, just in case your weren’t confused yet.

dogana di roma sezione viaggiatori scritto malissimo

And then just in case you don’t speak English here are the other “signs” professionally translated for your convenience.

Dogana Fiumicino Disorganizato

After reading the signs I answered in Italian, “This isn’t worth the 30 Euros, thanks anyway!” and the other gentleman told me that all I had to do was go get a boarding pass and return. Upon my return I there were now two Korean women and the incredibly ticked-off customs worker waiting outside the door. I asked the other tourists what was happening and they explained that they were told to wait outside while the “floors dried.” When it was my turn to enter I made the mistake of trying to advise the “travelers division” of Italian customs on how to make it better for travelers.

I asked her if I could make a suggestion; her eyes widened. I said that she was obviously having trouble making people wait outside and that a simple sign in English saying “wait here” and another saying “get boarding pass first” would do the trick. She answered, “you want another sign?! In italy a yellow line means stay back! You want..” I left before getting yelled at too much. Of course, this experience left me angry and upset with the woman, the state employee, and by default Italy and Italian culture. I couldn’t help it. This was such a blatant example of how Italy doesn’t work. Government jobs, bad customer service, no recourse. She was happy hating her job and happy doing a disservice to people. She had found a way to make her position much more complicated and intense than just stamping a pice of paper. So that was one side of the dichotomy, the Service side specifically – so where does the culture part come in?

After getting on the plane and settling down for a long direct flight to LA, I was surprized to find a few bottles of open wine made available to the cabin about half way through the flight. As I poured myself my second cup of vino rosso I smiled and realized that Italian culture is about give and take. It isn’t America, and the open wine solidified that fact. From the airport to the plane I had experienced the yin and Yang of Italian culture. The love/hate relationship that anyone who knows Italy well experiences.

Vino su Alitalia

My friend Phillip’s cousin is in town from France and I accompanied them both for an excursion to Venice Beach CA and around Los Feliz for the day. While in Venice we coined a new term that aptly identifies a phenomenon, but more on that later.

Her English isn’t great, and typically I associate a knowledge and understanding of culture with competency in  a langauge. I am expressing that she is very French: she approaches american culture with a sense of awe, amusement, and sometimes reproach.  I find it amusing to see Europeans’ reactions to American culture in real-time. At the Albertson’s in Los Feliz she stares at the pre-cut fruit section, the bags and trays and containers of neatly cut fruit and brightly colored smoothies. She remarks, “so much plastic no?” I simply laugh, feeling that our culture of excess is something that we cannot escape.

It reminds me of when I was “fresh of the boat” from living in Italy for 8 years and suddenly found myself confronted with Panda Express. I remember how quickly I went from a state of utter disgust to eating it daily at the UCLA food court.

This all brings me to the revelation that occurred on our trip to Venice that afternoon and the subsequent term that was coined. When European tourists visit the US for extended periods of time they often let their culinary guard down. They are not accustomed to what many americans, especially californians, practice; self-imposed moderation. Visitors from abroad succumb to our most aggressive ads, or largest portions and our most hydrogenated fats. Gaining, as it was identified that day, the “foreigner fifteen”

Gap and Banana Republic join Macdonalds, Burger King, Ikea and a plethora of other Global companies looking to get a foothold in the Italian market. Will Italian men soon be sporting the east-coast American uniform of khaki pants and a polo shirt? I think not, but the novelty and allure of, I am assuming, low-cost american fashion will most likely be a success. During my last visit in Italy I noticed that the Burger King in piazzale Flaminio was always packed, I also noticed the interesting menu items (San Diego Burger Wrap). More and more companies look to expand into foriegn markets, one would hope that they are localizing appropriately, checking their brand and whether or not they are inadvertently committing a cultural faux pas. Some would argue that a Gap in Italy is in itself a cultural faux pas; I prefer to approach it from a darwinian perspective, if it survives and adapts then the world just successfully became even smaller.

for more info check this link:

http://cocoperez.com/2010-05-18-gap-to-enter-italy