Steve's sandbox

Tag: Brussels

  • Mai à Bruxelles: Danny Murty, Brussels – May 2019

    Ce mois-ci à Bruxelles fièvre électorale a frappé la ville. Tous les partis politiques ont commencé à faire campagne avec vigueur. Le Parti populaire européen (PPE), le parti des socialistes européens (S&D) et L’Alliance des démocrates et des libéraux pour l’Europe (ADLE) ont tous été extrêmement occupés dans la ville. En outre, même les petits partis comme les verts et le parti de la gauche européenne sont très visibles au sujet de l’endroit avec des bannières, des drapeaux et des publicités. Il se sent certainement comme il y a une bataille pour l’avenir politique de l’Europe. La semaine dernière, J’ai assisté à une conférence de Yanis Varoufakis, l’ancien ministre grec des Finances. Il a négocié le sauvetage de la Grèce avec l’Union européenne en 2015. Il se présente (bien qu’il soit peu probable qu’il gagne) pour être le prochain président de la Commission européenne. Lors de cette conférence, il a parlé de la façon dont il n’avait jamais su d’un moment de sa vie où il y avait tant d’instabilité en Europe occidentale, sans parler de L’est. Il semblait penser que les temps changent! bien sûr, on parle de la bulle de Bruxelles.”Les gens ici sont généralement issus de milieux très similaires et ont souvent des conversations et prennent des décisions sans tenir pleinement compte de l’impact sur la vie “normale des gens.” Quoi qu’il arrive lors des élections de la semaine prochaine, je soupçonne qu’avec le temps, les gens en viendront à considérer 2019 comme un moment charnière dans l’histoire politique de l’Europe. C’est certainement une période très excitante pour être basé à Bruxelles.

     

    This month in Brussels election fever has hit the city. All the political parties have begun to campaign vigorously. The European People’s Party (EPP), the party of European Socialists (S&D) and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) have all been extremely busy around the city. Moreover, even the smaller parties like the greens and the party of the European left are very visible about the place with banners, flags and adverts. It certainly feels like there is a battle for the political future of Europe right now. Last week I went to a talk by Yanis Varoufakis, the ex-Greek Finance Minister. He was the man who negotiated the Greek bailout with the European Union in 2015. He is running (although is unlikely to win) to be the next President of the European Commission. At this talk he spoke about how he had never known of a time in his lifetime when there was so much instability in Western Europe, never mind Eastern Europe. He certainly seemed to think that times are changing! Of course, people talk about the ‘Brussels bubble.’ People here are generally from very similar backgrounds and often have conversations and make decisions without fully considering the impact on people’s normal lives. It is a problem which I did not fully appreciate until I came to the city. Whatever happens in next week’s elections, I suspect that with time, we will come to see 2019 as a pivotal moment in Europe’s political history. This is certainly a very exciting time to be based in Brussels!

  • Printemps à Bruxelles: Danny Murty, Brussels – March 2019

    Le printemps est arrivé à Bruxelles ! Je n’arrive pas à croire à quel point la ville a changé depuis l’hiver. La ville semble tellement plus occupée. Les gens mangent dehors, boivent dans les bars et font du sport dans les parcs. J’ai essayé de suivre l’exemple des Belges. Samedi dernier, j’ai rejoint une équipe locale de football à cinq. Je comprends maintenant pourquoi tant de Belges jouent en première ligue et comment l’équipe nationale a atteint les demi-finales de la coupe du monde l’été dernier. Le standard était incroyable ! Chaque joueur avait un excellent premier contact et pouvait tirer avec les deux pieds. Moi, par contre, je regrette l’éducation “plus physique” que j’ai reçue en jouant au football junior sur les terrains boueux du Leicestershire. Leicester City, mon équipe locale, a un nouveau manager cette semaine. S’ils veulent à nouveau gagner le championnat, je recommanderais à Brendan Rodgers de recruter beaucoup de jeunes joueurs belges.

     

    Je visite aussi les cafés de Bruxelles depuis que le soleil s’est levé. Cette activité a été beaucoup plus relaxante et a probablement annulé une grande partie du bon travail accompli en jouant au football. La bière et les frites belges sont célèbres, et pour une très bonne raison. La bière est très forte (plus de 9% dans certains cas) et les frites sont extrêmement grasses. Des amis belges m’ont dit que l’ingrédient spécial qui est ajouté aux frites est la graisse de porc ; dans le reste de l’Europe, les frites sont normalement cuites dans la graisse de bœuf.

     

    Dans l’ensemble, je passe un excellent moment à Bruxelles et j’ai l’impression d’apprendre beaucoup, à la fois avec mon français et mon travail.

    Winter in Brussels

    Spring has arrived in Brussels! I cannot believe how much the city has changed since winter. The town seems so much busier. The people eat outside, drink in bars and play sport in the parks. The phrase ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do,’ seems to apply in this situation. I have tried to follow the example of Belgians. Last Saturday I joined a local five-a-side football team. I now understand why there are so many Belgian players in the premier league and how the national team were able to reach the semi-finals of the world cup last Summer. The standard was incredible! Every player had an excellent first touch and was able to shoot with both feet. I, on the other hand, regret the ‘more physical’ upbringing I had playing junior football on the muddy pitches of Leicestershire. My local team Leicester City have just hired a new manager this week. If they want to win the league again I would recommend to Brendan Rodgers to recruit a lot of Belgian players.

     

    I have also visited the cafes of Brussels since the sun has come out. This is a more relaxed activity and probably has undone some of the good work achieved by playing football. The beer and the frites are famous in Belgium and for good reason. The beer is very strong (over 9% in some cases) and the frites are very fattening. Some Belgian friends told me that the special ingredient they add is pig fat. In the rest of Europe, we use the chips are normally cooked in beef fat.

     

    Overall, I am having an excellent time in Brussels and feel that I am learning a lot, both within my work and my French.

  • Nikki White – Spain, March 2016

    MARZO DE 2016

    A finales de febrero tuvimos todos los exámenes para la traducción e interpretación administrativa y legal.

    Después de hacer esta especialización mis colegas y yo podemos trabajar en el ámbito jurídico, por ejemplo con la policía o en salas de juicio como traductores o intérpretes.

    Una cosa que molesta a mí y a otras personas que trabajan y estudian la traducción e interpretación es que mucha gente no sabe la diferencia entre las dos profesiones. Por lo

    Los traductores trabajan con textos escritos y por lo general sólo traducen hacia sus lenguas maternas. Por ejemplo, yo siempre empezaría con mi lengua B o C, el español o el francés y traducir el texto a mi lengua A, el inglés. El traductor tiene más tiempo para decidir cómo traducir un texto que un intérprete para poder trasladar el mensaje original.

    Our university visiting the European Commission in Brussels

    Los intérpretes (sobre todo en los servicios públicos) trabajan con la lengua oral e interpretan hacia ambos idiomas y entonces trabajan como un enlace entre los dos clientes. A veces se les preguntan a los intérpretes de interpretar un texto escrito, esto significa que tienen que leer el texto y traducírselo oralmente a los clientes (traducción a vista).

    En mi opinión, la interpretación es mucho más estresante porque hay que hacer todo con mucha rapidez sin omitir nada, pero ¡voy mejorando poco a poco!

    Después de terminar los exámenes mis compañeros de clase y yo tuvimos la oportunidad de visitar los departamentos de traducción e interpretación de la Comisión Europea en Bruselas. Fue una experiencia única dónde escuchamos las experiencias de las personas que trabajan allí diariamente e incluso practicamos un poco en las cabinas de interpretación!

    Me (background) and two classmates practicing in the interpreting booths at the EU.

    Dos compañeras de clase y yo (primera de la izquierda) practicando en las cabinas de la Unión Europea.

    Después de volver de Bruselas, nos dimos cuenta de que tenemos que empezar a buscar prácticas en el ámbito de traducción e interpretación y comenzar con los TFM. Pero antes de empezar con todo eso unos amigos y yo decidimos explorar un poco más de Madrid y encontramos este hermoso lago en el centro de la ciudad. Detrás del lago se puede ver el palacio real!

    Entonces se alguien viene a Madrid y necesita un poco de silencio y paz, sugiero que vaya al parque de Casa de Campo!

    Hasta el próximo

    Nikki

     

    ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

    MARCH 2016

    At the end of February we had all of our exams for both Legal and administrative translation and interpretation.

    In doing this specialisation it opens the doors for me and my fellow students to work in legal settings, such as with the police or in courtrooms as translators or interpreters.

    A little thing that has been bugging me and many others in this area is that many people simply don’t know the difference between the two professions. So I’d like to lay it out for once and for all.

    Translators deal with written texts and in general only translate towards their mother tongue. So I would always begin in my B, or C language that being Spanish or French and translate it to my A language, English. In translation you have more time to decide on the correct way to convey the original meaning.

    Interpreters (especially in Public Services) deal with the spoken word and interpret into both languages as a link between two clients and are occasionally given written texts to translate orally to their clients too (sight translation).

    For me, interpreting is much more stressful as it is so fast-paced but I am slowly improving my techniques.

    After finishing our exams my classmates and I had the opportunity to visit the Translation and Interpretation departments at the European Commission in Brussels. This was a fantastic experience as we got to hear from the people that work there every day and even practice in the interpreting booths!

    Lago, Casa de Campo, Madrid

    After coming back from Brussels, we have to begin to start focusing on getting work experience in the field as well as beginning our final dissertations. Before starting that though a couple of friends and I decided to explore new parts of Madrid and yesterday found this amazing lake right in the middle of the city.

    So if any of you come to Madrid and are in need of some peace and quiet I definitely suggest Casa de Campo park!

    Until the next post!

    Nikki! J

     

  • Derek Platts – Case Study, Brussels (1954)

    Derek Platts, Brussels 1954

    “It was wonderful to see that the Trust is still going and providing the same opportunities to young people after all this time.  May it long continue to do so”, Derek Platts. 

     

    Sixty years ago in 1954, I was 23, had recently completed my national Service in the RAF and was working in my first job in the export department of a large tool manufacturer in Sheffield when I saw an advert in the local paper inviting applications for a language scholarship with the John Speak Language Trust (it was called the John Speak foundation in those days). As I met the criteria of working in export and having a basic understanding of a foreign language – French – I decided to apply. After a rather scary interview at the Bradford Chamber of Commerce with a group of gentlemen who I understood were all involved in the wool trade, I was fortunate to be selected.

    My employers agreed to give me 6 months leave of absence and arranged for me to work with one of their agents abroad. I was hoping to go to France, but in those days there was very little export business done with France due to restrictions imposed by the French government, so they arranged for me to go to Brussels.

    The first thing I had to sort out was how to get there. That will seem an odd thing to say now, but back in 1954 there were no budget airlines, and normal airlines were far too expensive. One way would have been to get the train to London, then to Dover for the ferry to Ostend, but again this was quite expensive, so my firm came up with an alternative. We shipped a lot of tools from UK ports to Antwerp, so they fixed it for me to go as a passenger on cargo boat . I was the only passenger and we sailed late one night from Goole bound for Antwerp. I awoke the next morning somewhere in the middle of a very rough North Sea and did not feel good at all. Around mid-day I was invited to join the captain for lunch. I managed to sit down at the table with him but that was as far as I got before I was finally overcome with sea sickness, much to his amusement.

    Brussels, 1954

    Eventually we got to Antwerp and I made my way to Brussels and found the office where I was going to work. I stayed the first few days in a youth hostel until I found a room with a lady who also provided full board. She had a shop with rooms above it in the Chaussee de Waterloo which was 10 minutes walk from the office and the centre of Brussels. Couldn’t have been better.

    Also staying there was a German chap a Belgian student and also the landlady’s son, all like me in their early twenties. The only problem was that we didn’t have a language in common. The landlady and her son only spoke French, the student only Flemish & French, the German English & German but no French. So we had some very interesting conversations when we all sat down for a meal together!

    In the office I found that although Belgium is bi-lingual, the business language used was French although the staff was a mixture of native French and Flemish speakers. It was interesting to note that the native Flemish speakers all could speak French, but very few of the native French speakers could speak Flemish, and even in those days it was not unusual to find that some native Flemish speakers would not speak French even though they could. I even had one occasion where a Flemish speaker would not speak to me in French but was quite happy to do so in English. Sadly I understand that the division is even more marked nowadays than it was then.

    Everyone in the office was instructed to speak to me in French which was hard for some of them who could speak English as they wanted to practice it. However, it all worked out very well and at the end of my six months I was able to carry out a reasonable conversation and also found it fairly easy to read anything written in French. I must admit however, that I was not very good at actually writing in French which was only to be expected considering that I had been learning by listening to people speaking without any actual tuition.  Not long after my return to the UK I had to accompany a senior executive of my company to Paris to act as interpreter as they had appointed an agent there in the hope of starting some business. I thought I was doing quite well but the French people I was talking to seemed to find it amusing which was a bit disconcerting, until one of them told me the reason. He said he had never heard an Englishman talking French before – with a Belgian accent!  I was quite pleased actually as it was a lot better than being obviously an Englishman trying to speak French and proof indeed that the best way to learn a language is by living and working with people who speak it.

    I continued in the export trade for a number of years after that where my French continued to be of use until I had a change of career and went into the advertising business. At first there was no opportunity to make use of it until I got the job of organising a photographic shoot for a major car manufacturer. A basic requirement was to find a location where the weather was better than the UK, not too far away, with a variety of interesting scenery and locations and where it was possible to find places with not to many people about. Where better than France? So that is what I did, and it was so successful that over the years I repeated the exercise several times. Needless to say my knowledge of the language was invaluable.

    I eventually retired and found that without regular use my French became more than a little rusty, but now I have found it returning again as my eldest daughter has been living in France for the last 7 or 8 years and I spend quite a bit of time there so I get plenty of practice.

    I will be forever grateful to the John Speak trust for that scholarship so many years ago as my life has been so enriched by the opportunities it gave me.

    It was wonderful to see that the Trust is still going and providing the same opportunities to young people after all this time. May it long continue to do so.

    Derek Platts, 2014