Native or non-native?

My response to a question posed in ru_translate, on whether it is better for the translator to have a native understanding of the source text, or to be a native speaker of the target language:

Your "при прочих равных" [the asker had stipulated "all other things being equal" in his question] is troublesome, but to answer what I think your question is: it is generally better to use a translator who is working into his or her own language.

As any language student can tell you, languages utterances are comprehended more easily than constructed, though here we must tack on the condition "all other things being equal." (An indirect "proof" of this assertion is that language utterances constructed by non-native speakers are generally comprehensible by native speakers despite the presence of linguistic inaccuracy in the utterance.)

Человек, на пример, может плохо писать русский язык. Но не смотря на то, что есть ошибки в тексте, вы всетаки будете его понимать, не так ли?

However, the point of translation is not simply to render a source text in written form. In my opinion, it is to render a source text in a written form suitable, if you will, for publication (which is why being bilingual is not enough to make one a translator, and why native speakers have an advantage in translation).

For non-Russian speakers, the part I added in Russian states, roughly: The person, for an example, can badly write English language. Despite the being of errors in the text, you never the less will understand it, not so?

Cheers...

A long, Excel kind of day...

I managed to write a pair of Excel Macros From Hell™, a set of twins only their mentally unbalanced creator could love. However, they did they job they were intended to do, and that's the important thing.

The major question in my mind is: was it enough?

Moreover, as Galina and I are leaving tomorrow for Houston, a more urgent question rears its ugly head: can I adequately communicate the significance of the results to Drew for him to do something about them while we're gone?

I spent wholly too much time looking for my copy of Excel Hacks, only to give up the effort after about 15 minutes. Apparently, during my Kazakhstan gig of last July/August, Galina "put away" a lot of my books - including computer books - into boxes that either had no label or which helpfully informed you that they contained "Alex's books." When I found two other Hacks books in two separate boxes mixed in with non-computer books, I knew I had a serious search task before me. In the end, I lost patience and went back to my desk and did what I had to do "manually" in Excel.

There's a part of me that doesn't want to go to Houston. Things will get sticky if I am offered any kind of large job while I'm away from home, particularly during the day and a half it takes to get there from here. Even if I'm stationary, I'll have to make sure we stop at some place with Internet access, else repeatedly brave the connectivity rates at 'net clip joints like Kinko's or - heaven help me - T-Mobile.

One thing I am looking forward to is walking into a Starbucks and ordering a "short cappucino." According to a recent article in Slate:

Here's a little secret that Starbucks doesn't want you to know: They will serve you a better, stronger cappuccino if you want one, and they will charge you less for it. Ask for it in any Starbucks and the barista will comply without batting an eye.

The article goes on to say that the drink - which does not appear on the menu over the cash register - has the same amount of espresso as the 12-ounce "tall," which makes for a bolder coffee taste.

Fortunately, there is not much to worry about as far as translation work is concerned. I just have to make sure I take recent files and applicable hardware. And my meds. And the list goes on.

Cheers...