I have had a fascination with translation for a long time; I have helped myself and other people since I was a kid in small and relatively unexciting day to day type living experiences where a second language came in handy.
It more or less started when I first saw an episode of "I Love Lucy”, the one where Lucy and Ricky are vacationing in Paris and Lucy is arrested for trying to pass a counterfeit French franc that she had received from a man on the street who was exchanging American currency.
This episode for me is a classic “I Love Lucy” show and I hold it up there with the “Chocolate Factory” and “Vitameatavegamin Girl” although the two latter episodes are always featured in stories about Lucille Ball or Desi Arnaz, but I don’t recall ever seeing the Translation episode among them. It is still my favorite one.
I am taking this ENG-213 as part of the language certificate course of study along with majoring in education in order that somewhere along the line I can be looked upon as a resource in Spanish based on my certificate credentials and not be excluded based on my surname or appearance.
This clip is only a minute or two and is subtitled in Spanish, but it is the only copy with good video and audio quality I could find.
This video was so humorous! One man speaks French. The next man in line speaks French and German. The next man in line speaks German and Spanish. Ricky speaks Spanish and English. Poor Lucy just speaks English. What makes it even funnier is that Lucy was so surprised she couldn't find an English speaker in FRANCE then she calls them all foreigners! Thank you for this clip :)
ReplyDeleteThe video made me laugh, I really enjoyed watching it. I felt bad for Lucy because she can only speak English, while her companions speak up to two languages. The video demonstrated a little ethnocentrism from Lucy. However, I was not surprise by the situation, there are few people who are ethnocentric and believe other countries speak English; they do not need to learn the country's language when visiting. I have heard from other foreigners that Americans tend to think everyone speaks English. Of course, countries that deal with the US learn to speak English, not the other way around. Additionally, in several countries, people speak two languages or more to communicate with their neighboring countries. In Europe and Asia, they are close to each other, while the United States is only in between Canada who speak English and French and Mexico who speak Spanish and some English.
ReplyDeleteIf a person visits another country, one must research the culture and learn their language a little to get by. Sadly, America politicians do not research about other cultures and have made several mistakes when dealing with other nations. Today, we live in a more global society and need to learn about intercultural communication. I believe schools should start teaching students another language at a young age.
This is a wonderful clip. I love "I Love Lucy" :) That's really cool that this clip which was one that so many households were able to see has so much to do with language. I love how translation is demonstrated in this clip. I was expecting there to be a mistake and the clip would turn into a game of telephone but It worked out pretty well.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen very much of "I Love Lucy" That clip made me want to watch the show. Anyways it's interesting how an episode of this show sparked an interest for translation. I wish you much luck. :)
ReplyDeletethe clip is interesting, it is uses body language and emotions to carry out someone's speech.
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