Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Archived
>
Librarians volunteering language skills: The Volunteer Thread
message 351:
by
Andrez
(new)
Sep 07, 2010 12:47PM
lol!!
reply
|
flag
Filipino (Tagalog): native/fluentEnglish: fluent
German: Basic/conversational
Spanish: Basic/reading
German: fluentKiswahili: very basic
Dutch: very basic
Spanish: very basic
English: fluent
Finnish: fluentFrench: basic
Spanish: basic
Swedish: basic
Spanish: nativeEnglish: fluent
Catalan: fluent
Spanish: Native/Fluent
Portuguese: Native/FluentEnglish: Advanced
Arabic (High level)French (fluent)
German (very basic)
Norwegian - fluent, native speaker :)
Spanish and German: fluent (native)English: fluent
French: the very basic of basics
I know that there are many people on here who have much greater fluency in these languages, but if you are desperate for help I have a (very) basic grasp of the following (in order from best to worst): German, Spanish, French, and Latin. I know a little bit of Tagalog, and my wife is a native (though somewhat rusty) speaker of that language, so if necessary I can ask for her help. Apropos of this issue, the traditional translation aid for librarians is a book entitled 'DICTIONARIUM BIBLIOTHECARII PRACTICUM'. Most good academic or big city public libraries should have a copy in the reference section. I am fortunate enough to have my own copy (thanx again to the "Free Box" at John K. King Books, Detroit), as well as a small collection of language dictionaries including all the above languages as well as Irish and Vietnamese, so again, if you are really desperate I would be happy to help. Liam
Cait wrote: "This is a list of volunteers who are willing to help with Goodreads book records in languages other than English. For a lot of authors, their books in English are neatened up and combined but thei..."
Incidentally, I've been working on some German and French authors, particularly Hans Hellmut Kirst, Jean Larteguy, Pierre Schoendoerffer, Marcel Bigeard, Erwan Bergot, etc. One difficulty I am having is that I don't know how to make diacriticals. Also, I have noticed that umlauts and the "e" substitution don't show up as the same in a search. Do we have a policy that addresses this?Liam
P.S.: While I am on the subject, I combined Pierre Schoendoerffer's 'The Paths Of The Sea' with 'Le Crabe-tambour/The Drummer-Crab' this morning. The former was the original title of the book, the latter was the name of the excellent film adaptation, and has apparently been used for subsequent editions of the book.
LSW
Liam, I wouldn't say we're desperate -- the list of volunteers is pretty long! You don't have to put your name down here unless you'd like people to contact you directly with help in cataloging in those languages; you can work on any of the books in the GR catalog or respond to requests for help in the "languages and translation issues" section of this group regardless of whether you're listed here or not.As for diacriticals or other characters, if they're not available on your keyboard the best way to get them into a text field is to copy them from somewhere else and paste them in. (You may have a word processor which can produce them, or you could find them on a website.) Authors' names in particular need to be spelled exactly the same on each book, because the spelling of the name is how books are attributed to the author profile, and the policy is to spell an author's name as the author does. (There are some more complicated rules for authors who sometimes use middle initials or who are translated into languages with completely different character sets, such as Japanese into English, but the base concept is that the author's spelling of their own name wins.) The search engine is being worked on to handle these, so you can report any problematic books you find in the feedback group.
And you're correct to combine books with different titles: if they have the same content, we combine them. You might want to double check that the "original title" field is correct in cases like that.
Rivka-Without going too far into political issues, I would just like to point out that the proper English language term for the Irish language is actually "Irish". "Gaelic" can be used to describe the family of languages that Irish belongs to, or to refer to "Scottish Gaelic" (as opposed to "Scots", which is another language of Scotland). The use of the two terms each have political connotations- the use of the term "Gaelic" in reference to the Irish language was a means used by the British to deny the existence of and/or devalue Irish culture, which was a corollary to their several nearly successful attempts at genocide in Ireland. Irish is a root language in its linguistic family; Scottish Gaelic and Manx developed from dialects of Irish. The Irish language, among other things, has the oldest vernacular literature in Europe. The evil Sassenach racist colonialists have tried for centuries to justify their invasion and occupation of Ireland, as well as their brutal ethnic cleansing operations and vicious discrimination against the Irish people, by attempting to establish as part of the historical record that Ireland had no civilisation prior to the coming of the British, and that therefore their actions were justified all along...
Sorry, I guess I got a little bit carried away; pardon me while I wipe the froth off my mouth & the bloody tears of rage off my cheeks... In any case, you can look up information on this in any number of places, including Wikipedia, which has pretty extensive coverage of languages & linguistics.
The late Brendan Behan once said: "They took away our land, our language, and our religion; but they couldn't harness our tongues..."
Liam
rivka wrote: "Irish is actually called Gaelic. Do we have any books on GR in Gaelic?"
Cait-Thanx for the clarification... I don't check in to the Librarians group much, and I had not gone through the entire list of volunteers. Obviously, as I stated, I am going to be comparatively useless given the number of people on Goodreads who are fluent in those languages. I suspected that there might be quite a few. Perhaps I am not correctly understanding the intent behind your next comment, but I assure you that I am just barely literate enough in English to understand the purpose of this list. If I were not willing to help others when able, I would not have posted here at all. I thought the information in my post about the reference book might be of some interest; and, that in the event that a paucity of fluent Irish or Vietnamese speakers existed here, I am willing to do what I can with the dictionaries. Perhaps I was mistaken. Also, thanx for letting me know about the spelling of authors' names- maybe you had better tighten up the criteria for this group, because you wouldn't want to let any more imbeciles like myself in... It must be very difficult to be so gracious in the face of my appalling ignorance. Again, thank you very much, but i'm still wondering about that umlaut issue... Oh well, I'm probably just too ignorant and stupid to understand anyway.
Since I'm obviously of no use here, I'll just go back to being neither seen nor heard.
Liam
Cait wrote: "Liam, I wouldn't say we're desperate -- the list of volunteers is pretty long! You don't have to put your name down here unless you'd like people to contact you directly with help in cataloging in..."
Abigail-Sorry, I must have missed your earlier post... You are right, of course, obviously most of us in the Irish diaspora have at least heard of the Gaelic League, etc. I applaud your bravery in studying Irish- I'm sorry to say that personally, I find even Russian and Arabic easier to grasp in terms of both pronunciation & grammar. My Great Grandmother spoke Irish (she came from Co. Down), but when I begged her to teach me, she always said it would "...only get you in trouble!". As a result, I figure I'm doing quite well if I can get through the first verse of 'Eamonn an Chnuic' phonetically...
Liam
Abigail wrote: "Liam wrote: "Without going too far into political issues, I would just like to point out that the proper English language term for the Irish language is actually "Irish". "Gaelic" can be used to de..."
Abigail wrote: "Liam wrote: "Without going too far into political issues, I would just like to point out that the proper English language term for the Irish language is actually "Irish". "Gaelic" can be used to de..."
Liam, I'm very sorry that my previous post was unclear; you are welcome here! I wanted to make sure that you understood what this list was for, because other people have misunderstood in the past, and I apologize again if the way I said it made you feel like your help was unwanted. I've now added you to the list as basic in the languages you listed: French, German, Irish, Latin, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese.On the translation dictionary, would you be willing to start a new thread on that? I'm not familiar with its use, and I'd be interested in hearing more about it. You'll get a larger audience with a new thread, since there is not usually discussion in this thread so most people don't follow it.
Latin (basic)
Romanian: fluentEnglish: fluent
French: near-fluent
Italian: intermediate
German: basic
Korean: fluent/native
German: fluent
French: intermediate
German: fluent
French: intermediate
[Just to let everyone know, it's going to be a little while before I'm able to update the master list with these new additions. I've been in the hospital for surgery, and while I'm doing fine I think it prudent to wait until I'm well off the pain meds before I go editing the permanent lists....]
[Just to let everyone know, it's going to be a little while before I'm able to update the master list with these new additions. I've been in the hospital for surgery, and while I'm doing fine I think it prudent to wait until I'm well off the pain meds before I go editing the permanent lists....http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
]
Sky wrote: "Korean: fluent/nativeGerman: fluent
French: intermediate"
youre a new librarian? congrats!!Im sure youll do some awesome work
A Vida é Bela (Stray) wrote:"youre a new librarian? congrats!!Im sure youll do some awesome work"
Actually, I've been a librarian since August :)
Thanks though :D
Actually, I've been a librarian since August :)
Thanks though :D
Okay, let me know if I missed you, but that should catch everyone up!
Hi!I'm new :)
Italian: Fluent/native
German: Basic
Latin: Intermediate
Cait wrote: "Liam, I'm very sorry that my previous post was unclear; you are welcome here! I wanted to make sure that you understood what this list was for, because other people have misunderstood in the past,..."Cait-
No problem. I apparently overreacted a bit to your reply. Just to clarify: I am not even basically fluent in Irish, Tagalog, or Vietnamese. I only know a few words & phrases in those three languages. However, Tagalog is my wife's first language, and it would be a simple matter for me to ask for her help in the event it is needed. To reiterate, I have a very basic fluency in German & French (particularly in reference to military terms and their abbreviations, for example "2eme REP", "StuG IV", etc.). My ability in Latin consists of whatever small amount of fluency I still retain from two years of study in high school more than twenty years ago; My Spanish fluency is slightly lower than the above. As I stated before, these are fairly common languages, and there are many people (even in this appallingly ignorant country) who are much more fluent than I.
On the "DICTIONARIUM", I would be happy to share what little I know of its use, but we all might be better served if someone were found who was trained in Library Science prior to the last 25 years or so. Such an individual would no doubt be far better qualified than I to explain the use of that book.
Incidentally, on the issue of diacriticals which I mentioned earlier, they are actually quite easy to use for European languages, at least in Windows XP. That may just be something that everyone already knows, but if any "recovering Luddites" like myself have had the same problem, the answer can be found in the control panel via your start menu.
Italian - Fluent/NativeFrench - Basic
German - native speakerRussian - native speaker
Hi, I'm a new librarian. I am fluent in Spanish.
Italian - mother tongueGerman - fluent
French - basic
Lithuanian - fluentRussian - fluent
Polish - fluent
And also if someday somebody will need it Belarussian - intermediate
Gertruda wrote: "Lithuanian - fluentRussian - fluent
Polish - fluent
And also if someday somebody will need it Belarussian - intermediate"
I wish I could speek Russian or Lithuanian. I'm fluent in Polish, nearly fluent in English and basic in German.
Spanish: FluentItalian: Basic
French: Basic
Tagalog: Fluent
Portuguese: Basic
Italian: fluent (native speaker)German: basic
Greek: fluentFrench: basic
German: basic
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Goodreads Librarians Group
Books mentioned in this topic
I Cried, You Didn't Listen (other topics)I Cried, You Didn't Listen (other topics)
