Each month, in an attempt to learn more about a new language, we interview a translator who has recently worked with us. March came quite quickly and we decided to choose Polish as our language of the month.

We are very proud to introduce Dorota Bodganiuk, a bilingual English/Polish linguist. Dorota has been working for us for over 3 years and helped us mainly with Polish into English assignments (legal and life-sciences are her forte) and has been an excellent partner. We are super curious to have a chat with her, unfortunately only Via Skype.

PS: I really like having the chance to have a proper conversation rather than some “cold” email exchanges.

Q: Dorota, thanks for joining us! Tell us about your background…

A: My name is Dorota Bogdaniuk and I am Polish-American. I became a translator after I moved to Europe.

So, I grew up in America and I had never spoken Polish at home (although my family is originally from Poland) and I only learnt it later on in life, when I spent 5 years in Poland. It was during my time in Poland that I was actually told my Polish wasn’t good enough for anything.

On my second year of university in the UK- I took a cross cultural communication module and I learnt a little bit about translation and how communication operates across languages. On my third year, we had interpreting and translation where I qualified as an interpreter with Dacorum Community Action in December 2009. By June 2010, I sat my exam at the Institute of Linguists in London to become a translator/interpreter. I had an accent, but it was also during this period of my life that I realized I am actually quite good at translation. I am quick and I know the relevant words, the jargon due to the fact that when I had to learn Polish, I had to back-translate everything to English to understand it at first.

By learning that way, I ended up being the youngest person to get my A-level (at 17) and an university degree in Poland (at 20). So ever since then, I developed and discovered I had a passion for translation and interpreting. I realised I was helping people but obviously at the same time it was something really interesting for me as no experience is ever the same and you learn so much!

Q) That’s very interesting. Also you mainly work into English these days?

A) I predominately take Polish into English assignments; however, on interpreting assignments it works in both languages. It’s only because I feel that my speed and efficiency is a lot better by going from Polish to English. Don’t get me wrong- I can do English to Polish but I need more time and obviously with deadlines that is not always the best way to approach business so, I would have to assess everything prior to agreement..

Q) Polish sounds a really tricky languages (especially when it comes to reading it all those consonants together LOL), is it very difficult to learn it and translate from/into it?

I think it’s very difficult to learn Polish as a language because there’s a lot of exceptions and also double negatives- which are acceptable in Polish. Furthermore, you don’t have a gender declension system in English as you do in Polish (or like in German/Latin). Numbers have to declined according to gender. Overall, it took me about 9 months to learn Polish. The moment I could understand the news I knew things are OK.

That was my first encounter with Polish and now I understand a lot more about then; but when you are 14, you don’t. I mean like I said, now that I know the language it’s easy to translate from Polish to English but sometimes you sit there double-checking because, a double negative throws you-so you have to think “OK this is what they’re saying”, so you’re actually getting it correct in the source language prior to translating it to the target language.

Another thing that is difficult is the differences between legal systems. The legal systems are different than what the target language has, so you have to find a succinct way to summarize your point or find a relatively similar term within system and then add on to that. I remember from the training with Dacorum Community Action and the pro-tips from the Institute of Linguists said if the term doesn’t exist try to explain it; but obviously with legal documents you don’t want to have a paragraph of explanation (as you’ll lose the reader and not make your point) you want to cut it down as you want to get the message across in a brief manner.

Q: Any curiosity about learning Polish… share them with our readers:

A: A lot! I remember saying “in the sinka” (my interpretation of “w zlewie”) when I was learning to speak Polish, by simply adding the Polish inflectional ending on the English word. It’s funny looking back at it now- but that is genuinely how I was learning to balance between the two languages. I also remember at the time I was saying “celebracje” to mean the English “celebrations” rather than “uroczystość” or “impreza”.

What’s even more funny is that back then, when I was learning Polish, this was considered incorrect and sloppy but of course when you’re learning and you’re transitioning between these two languages that’s how you learn. However, now it’s actually fine to speak this way- and Polish magazines and gossip columns have a lot of “anglicisms” that are being put through the process of Polish declension and rendered a Polish word.

So, you see- in the error of my own ways- I was actually speaking “cool” before it was cool even though that wasn’t my intention. As much as my mother and I have a chuckle at this now, Polish is a beautiful language and it is a shame to see the language fading a bit. As now, when I go to Poland, I can overhear teenagers using words/speaking in a manner that I spoke to help me learn, but now it seems to take precedence over traditional words.

Q: Do you think it was important to understand your target/source culture when translating?

a: I think that being immersed in that culture is very important just because, let’s say something is correct doesn’t mean somebody would actually say it or use it. I definitely do switch between cultures when I speak so if I’m speaking to a Polish person or even an Eastern European person for example Serbian or Russian, you speak differently than what you would do with an English native speaker, because you have that common cultural background. So, distance and respect and the expression of power-distance through the use of honorifics is more present than in English. Even in translation you have to know the setting you are in to fully understand what is being conveyed, for example let’s say in American English you’re more blunt and straightforward but in British English you can’t be so straightforward. It’s a similar case in Polish although they are very straightforward, they still keep distance through language in a way that isn’t reflected when a Pole speaks English. I remember my very first mistake when I started school, I committed the gravest error by calling the teachers with the informal “you”; oh, the looks I got! I laugh now, but at the time I was puzzled by their bewildered looks.

Also, calling someone by their first time, is not that immediate in Polish, as it is in English. Therefore, I think culture is important, that is not to say you can’t understand a language without having lived in the country. This can be seen through Misha Glenny who is the author of the book “McMafia” despite his name-he’s actually British and a former Guardian correspondent during the Yugoslav war but because he immersed himself in that culture he knows how to address the language correctly (as he speaks about language and cultural paradigms in tense situations).

Q) If you could design an “ideal” translation degree, what would you incorporate into it?

A) I’ll start from a previous notion in our conversation and highlight that, just because you speak a language doesn’t make you a translator and you really need to understand what you are signing up to when doing translation as a degree.

Translation is about how flexible your mind is in collaboration with the terminology and efficient & effective code switching; you need to be proficient in both languages.

I have experience from two different degrees and on how this was approached. My Masters focused on literature and was very philosophical, so I wasn’t too pleased with that because I’m not interested in translating “Alice in Wonderland”. Creative writing is not my strongest point, as I don’t have that flexible and creative thinking because I don’t have much of an imagination, nor the vocabulary to paint that picture.

Whereas, for example with medical or legal translations- I find them easier and more suited to me because I have a background in philology, politics, business, finance and law; it’s more straight forward to me. I do agree that it would be interesting to have a secondary language introduced on a course and I wouldn’t say you need to aim to do it to translator standard. On my degree I focused on Polish/English translation and am aware that Russian is fairly similar. If I had Russian introduced even for a year, I’d be very pleased with that being offered because, I feel you can build on those basics.

The second thing relevant to a translation degree is what we touched on earlier, culture. An understanding of cultures helps- as you are able to put across those subtle inferences that aren’t obvious. How you speak and interact with the Polish and how you should adjust your cultural setting is crucial because that will be reflected in your writing.

The last thing I would change is to offer a preference of focusing on a strength, as you are likely to translate your interests. I believe it would be useful to play to your strengths/interests and that should be taken into consideration during studies. Also, the option of an industrial year (on a sandwich course/apprenticeship) would be beneficial as I believe people should possess some basic business skills and know how to operate as a freelancer (VAT, invoicing, business accounts, negotiation skills, time management). That’s not something a degree teaches you directly.

She also believes that continuous learning and perseverance are two of a translators’ best friend.