In college, I was a language major. I have bachelor’s degrees in German and Russian. I also took some classes in French, Biblical Hebrew, and modern Hebrew.
I knew that working at the United Nations meant I would have to speak five languages fluently. I didn’t know that many past a handful of words.
But, maybe I could be a language consultant for film and television.
I had heard a number of stories about language flubs and I have heard a few of my own. The immersive language class students had to put on skits during the end of the semester events. One skit the guy was supposed to tell a couple, “dein geld oder dein leben” – your money or your life; but what he said was, “dein geld oder dein lieben” – your money or your love.
In one skit the student spoke of the Oester Beagle – Easter Beagle. We weren’t really sure who he meant but did get a good laugh out of it.
In German words that are spelled with an ei, the word is pronounced with a long i; and words spelled ie are pronounced with a long e. There are many words that are very similar with the ie, ei spelling the only difference. There is a popular story of a film with a soldier who is supposed to tell the person “Halt, oder ich shiessen – halt or I’ll shoot…but instead of shiese,…he pronounced it with the ei spelling and changed the WHOLE meaning – what he said was a profane word (poop). Oye veh!
So, I thought, well maybe I could get a job making sure the languageyour life was right.
More than once I have been annoyed by the translations written on productions too. The actor gives an entire dialogue and the translator puts up just one or tow words. What’s up with that???
But, as so often happens, nothing worked out. I lost three years of Russian in abut thirty seconds after Peter’s accident. And I never got it back. I can pick out a few words sometimes when I hear them, but lack of use has erased all of my language skills to the point that I couldn’t carry on a conversation if my life depended on it.