Source: SMB Savings

Worried about language barrier spoiling your holiday? Well, worry no more!

Ever wanted to learn how to fall gracefully? Here’s a priceless tip!

Source: www.lonelyplanet.com

For the sake of sanity, let’s hope it’s not an actual customer complaint that provoked this statement…

Whatever happened to good old-fashioned water and washing powder?

Having to wash your toys in coleslaw salad… Kids (or their moms, rather) just never have it easy these days!

OK, people – you have been warned. Choose any other place but this one!

pinterest.com

Yep, smoking is such a noisy habit! Please smoke as quietly as possible.

Source: jsbr101thursday.blogspot.com

OK, so we agree shoplifters should be punished, but isn’t this a tad too drastic?

(word of advice to shoplifters: either wear full body armour or better yet – quit shoplifting for good. It’s likely to turn out a life-saving decision)

Trust me, no one in their right mind would.

Today being International Thank You Day prompted me to write a few words about the importance of being thankful. And I am obviously not referring to merely displaying good manners by saying please and thank you.

There’s a lot more to the words “thank you” than just good manners. Truth is, we all have millions of things to be thankful for – every second of our lives literally.

To me personally, every single day is a true blessing and I am eternally grateful for all the things I have in my life – my family, my friends, my job, just to name a few – and even basic stuff like having a roof above my head and food on the table every day. We sometimes take basic things like that for granted but it’s important to be grateful for having them in our lives and never take anything or anyone for granted.

Because being thankful brings peace to your soul and makes you feel happy and content. Because if you get a minute to sit down and make a list of all those little “invisible” things you have in your life, you’ll suddenly realize you are one hell of a lucky bugger for being here in the first place! We all are.

Some might say being grateful is easier said than done when you’re struggling or facing trouble of some sort in your life but hey – even adversities sometimes lead to good things for us in the long run.

Having said that, I’ll finish off with this beautiful poem by Edgar Albert Guest.

Or in other words – be thankful for what you have and as for everything else… see it through!

********************************

See It Through

by Edgar Albert Guest

When you’re up against a trouble,

Meet it squarely, face to face;

Lift your chin and set your shoulders,

Plant your feet and take a brace.

When it’s vain to try to dodge it,

Do the best that you can do;

You may fail, but you may conquer,

See it through!

Black may be the clouds about you

And your future may seem grim,

But don’t let your nerve desert you;

Keep yourself in fighting trim.

If the worst is bound to happen,

Spite of all that you can do,

Running from it will not save you,

See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,

When with troubles you’re beset,

But remember you are facing

Just what other men have met.

You may fail, but fall still fighting;

Don’t give up, whate’er you do;

Eyes front, head high to the finish.

See it through!

Here’s our special holiday greeting to all of you – our valued clients and partners!

We look forward to be of service to you again in the New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Warm regards,

Carel Translations team

I came across a hilarious selection of funny/silly Christmas warnings and signs, some of which had me laughing out loud so hard I felt compelled to let others share in the joy.

So here are just a few I’ve picked out for you but you can always dive in for more here:

Silly Christmas warnings / Funny Christmas facts

Hilarious and Funny Christmas Warnings      

Christmas Lights Warning:
For indoor or outdoor use only.

Not suitable for children aged 36 months or less.
On a Christmas card for a 1 year old.

Caution: The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish.
On a bottle of Christmas shampoo for dogs.

Warning: Do not climb inside this bag and zip it up. Doing so will cause injury and death.
A label inside a protective bag containing fragile Christmas presents which measures 15cm by 15cm by 12cm.

Battery may explore or leak.
On a battery found in a Christmas present.

In a restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia, USA: Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager.

In a health food shop window in Los Angeles, USA: Closed due to illness

In a pub in West Sussex which is non-smoking: If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action.

In a Laundromat, seen in Portland, Oregon, USA: Automatic Washing Machines: Please remove all your clothes when the light goes out. 

Santa’s misfortunes

          Dear Santa,

          If you leave a new bike under the tree, I will give you the antidote to the

          poison I put in the milk.

          Timmy.

And we’ll finish off with a good one for all of us ladies:

How do you know Santa Claus has to be a man?
No woman is going to wear the same outfit year after year.

WORD!

Here’s a brief overview of the various events organised in celebration of ITD 2012 across Europe.

In London, several British literary organizations are hosting a special symposium to mark the occasion. The event is expected to bring together translators, students, publishers, booksellers, librarians, bloggers and reviewers who will take part in various debates and discussions on popular issues within the sector.
The event will be held on Oct 5th as part of the Notes & Letters Festival (Oct 5th – 8th).
For more details and bookings please see the websites of Free Word Centre and Notes & Letters.

To mark ITD 2012 in Poland, several events are being organized in Cracow (Oct 1st) and Warsaw (Oct 2nd) in cooperation with the European Commission and local partners. Discussions, sector-related film screenings, a book exhibition, translation contest and many more. To find out more about the event’s programme, please visit EUNIC (European Union National Institutes for Culture) website.

In Italy, International Translation Day 2012 is marked by the 10th edition of the Literary Translation Days in Urbino, from Sep 28th  to 30th . Translators, publishers, writers and scholars will have the chance to participate in various conference events, seminars and debates analyzing the issues and horizons of the profession of literary translators. For more information please visit the organizers’ website.

International Translation Day 2012 in Austria will be marked by an event, organised by UNIVERSITAS Austria Interpreters’ and Translators’ Association. The main focus of this year’s event will be the topic of quality in translation.
The event will take place at 8 p.m. on Oct 5th, at the House of the European Union in Vienna.

“Translation as Intercultural Communication” is the theme chosen for this year’s ITD by the International Federation of Translators (FIT), who originally launched the idea of celebrating International Translation Day on the feast of St. Jerome (Sep 30th) and have actively promoted celebrations of ITD ever since it was officially established by UNESCO in 1991.

Sources:

International Translation Day in London (5 October 2012)

10th Edition of the Literary Translation Days in Urbino, Italy (28-30 September 2012)

International Translation Day in Austria will focus on quality in translation

International Translation Day by EUNIC Clusters Poland, 1-2 October

Right. Here we are, yet another full month slipping away without a single post to light up Carel’s blog. Not that there isn’t a whole lot of stuff I could share with those of you kind enough to devote a few minutes to this space every now and then – but lately, time is the one thing I’ve been short of more than anything else. Sometimes I think to myself – if only there were more than 24 hours in a day! Imagine how many more things you could do with, say, an extra hour or two on your hands…But then again, that’s not guaranteed either.

Because procrastination is so deeply rooted in human nature that even if we had 48-hour long days, most of us would still end up doing not much more than we would in a normal 24-hour day.

And because writing – to me at least, has always meant having to devote a significant amount of time to sit down properly and produce something really worth reading – and not simply pour myself onto the keyboard with no particular reason or topic whatsoever in mind, just for the sake of having something posted.

Well, obviously today’s post is going to be an exception to the above because 200 words into it I am still clueless as to what the heck I am writing about today – hence the title of this post. Although “musings” here might come across as blatantly farfetched – considering musings are generally cracked up to be (a tad) more productive type of mental activity than this here.

Common knowledge says musings are supposed to involve “deep thinking”- something which this post is completely devoid of – needless to say, I should think. The “random” part of it though is an absolute winner, I think we’d all agree on that one.

It’s almost like one of those plotless movies (we’ve all seen at least one of these in our lives), where you start watching, sit through half of it patiently waiting for something to happen, then wait a bit more thinking something is clearly about to happen any minute now – no doubt about it; then further into the movie you decide that  - OK, that “something” might still be annoyingly escaping you, but you’ve watched the movie for over an hour now so you might as well stick around to the end of it, meanwhile desparately clinging to the thought that surely, “something” is bound to happen at the very end of the movie so you won’t feel miserable for having wasted an hour and a half of your precious time. And then you find yourself staring at the cast and other end credits and realize you have absolutely no idea what the movie you just watched was all about!

I am sure the exact same feeling is already relentlessly seeping through those of you brave folks out there who have somehow had the patience to reach these final words of random wisdom on my part. Because yes, this is the end of my Friday rant – and I sincerely applaud everyone who remained with me till its (very anticipated) end.

Happy Friday!

Wow – if this space isn’t more deserted than a desert (pun intended), I don’t know what is!

With many new assignments and interesting new projects going on lately here at Carel, I hadn’t even realized a whole month has surreptitiously slipped by since my last post on here! Well, time to rectify that – with yet another piece of our Practical tips for learning a language series.

Read lots of books (in the foreign language): I cannot stress enough how important this is for learning a foreign language. Because learning a foreign language is not just about knowing lots of words and understanding its grammar – it is so much more than that. Books help you develop your “sense” for the language in an astounding number of ways – it enriches your speech, improves the way you express yourself in the foreign language, helps you click into the language with a greater ease, to name just a few.  Some might say – OK, but surely I can only start reading books after I’ve gotten to an advanced level? That’s the beauty of it – you do NOT have to wait until you are proficient at a language in order to start reading books in it. In fact, the sooner you start reading, the faster you will get to that proficiency level you are after.

I remember trying to read my first books in English back in Foreign language school – I was nowhere near advanced, let alone proficient at the time, but I somehow felt this would be a great help. And it was – no matter how annoying it would get, what with all the flipping through dictionaries every now and then, looking up yet another unknown word! And mind you, that was back in the days when there were no computers yet – imagine the amount of time you could spend on a single page of the book, having to stop and open the dictionary every now and then like mad! Eventually though the amount of unknown words will decrease to a point you will no longer need to look anything up, so be patient and just read and read and read. It will pay off big time.

Watch subtitled movies (and listen to the original foreign-language speech).

I loved doing that in my school days – I even sometimes used to turn my back to the TV screen so that I don’t unwittingly look at the Bulgarian subtitles while listening to the English speech. My mom would smile at me in amusement, probably wondering about me and my learning ways.

To date I still prefer watching subtitled movies over such dubbed in Bulgarian.

Practice speaking any chance you get: Now, I realize that this might not be that feasible when you have a full-time job that does not require you to speak the language, and then there are also family and other social commitments in your life that additionally squeeze your free time down to zero. But speaking is the most important of all activities that language learning entails – so you have to make time for practicing if you’re really bent on learning that language.

Be creative, use any moment you can to speak – for example in the morning, while sipping your coffee and thinking about all the things on your to-do list for the day – think about them out loud and in the foreign language. Yes, that means talking to yourself, I know – a notion not everyone might appear to be comfortable with – but it’s the next best thing when you have no one to speak to.

It’s a well-known fact that speaking a language is a lot harder than simply understanding it – and can only be accomplished by practicing speaking as much and as often as possible.

- The Saturday before Easter is called “Lazarovden” (St. Lazar’s day) in Bulgaria and is named after St. Lazar who is believed to have been resurrected by Jesus 4 days after his death. The name Lazar is a symbol of health and longevity.

- Palm Sunday in Bulgaria is called Tsvetnitsa or Vrabnitsa and is one of the most beautiful Bulgarian holidays. А “holiday of flowers and trees”, Tsvetnitsa heralds the arrival of spring and is also one of the biggest name days in Bulgaria as quite a few Bulgarians carry names that are derived from flowers and trees. On Tsvetnisa all Bulgarian churches hand out willow branches that people take home and hang on doors or icons for health and prosperity.

- According to Bulgarian tradition, if you have missed the chance to do some egg-painting on Holy Thursday, you can still have a shot at it on Saturday. Quite convenient for all of us Mon-Fri workers out there!

- Pre-Easter fast (Lent) in Bulgaria begins on a certain day called Zagovezni, which is always the Sunday six weeks before Easter. For the duration of these 46 days, whoever has chosen to fast (mainly the more devout ones) abstains from all kinds of meat and animal products. On Tsvetnisa/Vrabnitsa though you are allowed to eat fish.

- Apart from lamb, typical Easter food also include sweet bread and dyed eggs. In Bulgaria, the traditional sweet bread is called Kozunak and is a must at any Bulgarian table on Easter.

- As per Bulgarian tradition, a table representing Christ’s coffin is set up in churches on Good Friday and people climb underneath for health and fertility.

- A curious Bulgarian folkloric belief maintains that if you hear a cuckoo halfway through fasting period, it means spring is on its way. If you happen to have money in your pocket at the sound of the cuckoo, you will be rich in the coming year; if you have no money though or are hungry, you are likely to stay that way throughout the year.

- This year’s Good Friday (today) in Bulgaria falls on the much feared and referred to by many as “fatal” – Fri 13th. The day of Jesus’s crucifixion coinciding with the “fatal” Fri 13th – an extremely rare event according to astrologists, surely must be causing many superstitious hearts to skip a beat or two today in anticipation of all sorts of apocalyptic events. Personally I prefer to look at it as an extremely lucky day – and let’s hope I am right!

Here’s to a great Easter weekend!

Today we’ll focus again on some more practical tips for learning a foreign language – in continuation of our first post of this series.

1. Time management: yes, the constant lack of time is a chronic issue for most of us in today’s hectic world. When you’re pressed for time due to a plethora of factors in your everyday life, try finding alternative ways of studying and be creative in terms of finding time. You’ll be surprised how much you can get out of, for example, your daily commute:

• Public transport: Whether it’s the bus, train, subway or whatever you are using to get to and back from work, this daily commute can be very useful in many ways. After all, you can’t do much while sitting and waiting to get to your destination – so why not make time pass by faster by, say, learning a few more words?
This is something I’ve practiced many times when I was a student at the University of Economics here in Varna. I am not originally from Varna so each time I’d travel to my hometown to visit my parents, I’d bring a stack of those word-notes I mentioned in the previous post with me (very handy as it’s neither heavy nor space-consuming), and go through them several times during my two-hour trip.
Another option is to bring a book (in the respective foreign language) with you on your daily travels.

• Use your car as a learning center: this one’s for all of you drivers – bring a language-learning tape or CD with you, and play it in your car while driving to/back from work.

2. Practice writing any chance you get, as much as you can.
I realize that in the highly technological time that we live in, writing things down by hand is increasingly being replaced by typing on the computer keyboard. Having had the chance to grow up and graduate from high school in the pre-computer years though, I know just how invaluable handwriting is when learning a language.

I remember back in my days at Foreign language school, some of the homework our teacher would give us would be writing words repetitively, or the so called “copywork” – after school, we had to write each word we had learned that day for a certain number of times (usually about 2-3 lines) in our notebooks. Back then I considered it somewhat tedious and boring a task, often mumbling to myself “oh is this really necessary”, nevertheless still painstakingly writing each word down line after line; but later on I came to realize how powerful these hand-written repetitions are for keeping the word firmly imprinted into your memory. Because the more you write it, the more your hand “memorizes” the way it is spelt, and next time you’re wondering if that word was spelt with a single or double “s”, etc, you just get a piece of paper and start writing it – your hand will remember and write the word down correctly.

Even now, when typing has taken over most of our writing, not to mention Google and all the online dictionaries out there, I still sometimes practice this when in doubt as to how a certain word is spelt – I take a pen and paper and write the word down. This technique just never fails to produce the correct answer – even years after you have first sat down to exercise writing that particular word.

A good read related to the above which I came across while writing this post, is Softpedia’s Writing Helps Memory More Than Typing.

No wonder Guinness is currently attempting to get St Patrick’s Day officially recognized by GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ as ‘The Friendliest Day of the Year’ – I mean, does anyone know of another country’s national holiday that is so widely observed and celebrated around the world? It’s a rhetorical question, of course – we all know the answer is no. Each year on March 17th everyone becomes Irish – and we’re certainly joining in!

Here’s a selection of some brilliant Irish quotes and toasts that we’ve put together for you.
Let’s enjoy some Irish wit and wisdom!

Famous Irish quotes

“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
Oscar Wilde

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.”
Oscar Wilde (A Woman of No Importance)

“I am a drinker with writing problems.”
Brendan Behan

“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”
Brendan Behan

“The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.”
William Butler Yeats

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Oliver Goldsmith

“I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversations.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”
George Bernard Shaw

“A life making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.”
George Bernard Shaw

“The Irish are a fair people; they never speak well of one another.”
Samuel Johnson

———————————————————-
Irish Toasts

Health and a long life to you.
Land without rent to you.
A child every year to you.
And if you can’t go to heaven,
May you at least die in Ireland.

*********************
May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past.

*********************
May the face of every good news and the back of every bad news be towards us.
*********************
May the leprechauns be near you,
To spread luck along your way.
And may all the Irish angels,
Smile upon you on St Patrick’s Day.
*********************

Happy St. Patrick’s day, everyone! May the luck of the Irish be with you!