Being an essential component to life, food as a subject attracts the interest of students in translation studies programs.That is because people from all backgrounds and cultures feel strongly about this issue. Regardless of the language that a person speaks, everyone involved in translation, from beginning students to highly skilled professionals, have a set of beliefs that pertain to it. The reason is that food involves people emotionally. It is not only an important part of our lives, it also plays an important role in celebrations such as national holidays, religious celebrations, birthday parties, wedding receptions, and gatherings with friends and neighbours.
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. In addition, we all have different thoughts about what we like to put on our food like salt, ketchup, red pepper, barbeque sauce, steak sauce, sauerkraut and so on.
Our activities in our series of articles titled, Eat The English to Russian Translation, are focused on food. The subject is confined to food, but our training activities related to language studies are quite varied. One article may say something about verbs, another may deal with vocabulary, and the next may be about a writing topic. Some days, we will add only a word game or some task that will focus students’ attention on the languages they study.
Many of the activities included in our series of articles encourage the game spirit and creativity. That’s because I think playing with language is so crucial to building language skills. Students need to be initiated in the strange, enchanting and powerful world of the words. English teachers need to do all they can to turn kids on to language. Play has power.
Although this series of articles was my idea, I am not the only major contributing authors. In fact, I was only a small part of the effort that went into making it this possible. Sarah Von Seggern, a German Translation worker and Michael Antipov, a Russian Translation professional, worked alongside me and assisted in so many ways—writing, proofreading, fact-checking, you name it. I also have to thank to Sandra Hernandez, a Spanish Translation professional, who also cooperated with me in the development of this series. I believe you will find Translation Is Ready interesting and useful in your translation teachings.
What are the stories about food you discuss 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 a family member has had an amusing experience in a restaurant? Do you make jokes about the food made by a relative which all of you hated because of its awful taste?
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.
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