Thanks – very insightful. It sounds like you guys are having a tough time over there! As I am about to head over for a few days’ holiday in New Caledonia, I must once again dust of my high school French – should be fun!

I’ve just scanned your posting on translation and it resounded strongly with me, as I’m currently learning the French language in an intensive course at a French language school in Montpellier, in the South of France.

It’s hard, very hard, and it makes me think about the issues we face in translation; how much of it is in the syntax and construction of the languages and how much of it resides within us. For example, I learnt to conjugate verbs in English when I was too young to be introduced to the word “conjugation” let alone the concept of what it does. Consequently, it was learnt by rote, I don’t remember learning it and I just do it automatically without thinking (much).

Now I’m trying to do it in French for the first time in my life and it is a totally different experience. Some of the problems result in trying to translate everything into English, re-construct it into another syntax, dredge up the words I need, and then actually speak an answer that makes sense to someone who did all this in French as a child!!!

I will read your blog in detail when I’ve completed my homework.