Note: Human trafficking and prostitution are very real and not something to make light of; however, give me grace as I share with you our experience during a school presentation in Ukraine. Also, pray with us that even though this was a funny example of miscommunication on The World Race that the students were still able to leave with an understanding of our mission and that this isn’t the only thing they latch onto from our presentation. Thank you.
For anyone who has been anywhere on The World Race, or really for anyone who has traveled to a non-English speaking country you probably have had some interesting experiences with translators. In Ukraine, we have had our fair share of experience with translators – from our contact, to our contact’s wife, to our contact’s fourteen year old son, to the kids in the schools (to name a few) … they all play a role in helping us to understand one another without playing charades 24/7. Though old habits die hard, so we still do some form of charades everytime we talk anyways.
Well as you read from my previous blog (Hey Now … I’m a Rockstar …), we do many school presentations here in Ukraine. Well, today our presentation was going smoothly in a school that prided themselves on their understanding of English. We started without a translator, speaking loudly and slowly (our mantra for everytime we open our mouths here), but after the first two countries in our presentation we invited a student up to practice translating. It was smooth sailing through Rwanda and the Philippines, but then came Thailand …
We switched to a new translator for Thailand … probably a sixteen year old boy, of course. One of our girls began to share about one of the ministries in Thailand called SHE (Self-Help and Empowerment). You can read my squadmates blog here to understand their actual ministry, but for the sake of this blog let me share with you what happened when our translator autocorrected us.
Student (early in the presentation):
What is the goal you are trying to accomplish in each country?
Us:
Something … Something … we live in the cultures to help meet the needs of the people.
(this is a religious light program so we can’t really include the Jesus answer)
– fast forward to Thailand –
Us:
We worked with the prostitutes
(pause for translation) …
Student Translator:
(awkward pause)
“They worked with prostitutes”
(which translated to the students to mean … “They worked AS prostitutes.”)
Needless to say the classroom erupted in laughter because we not only told them early on that we live as the people do in their different cultures, but then proceeded to tell them we worked as prostitutes in Thailand… Oops!
… and you thought your autcorrect experience was awkward!
Anyone else have any interesting translation experiences from their travels?
