A book, especially a lace book, in a foreign language is something like
treasure at the top of cliff when you're on the bottom. I am lucky in that
I can usually read French without a dictionary, and Spanish and German with
a dictionary. I well remember trying to translate Ulrike Lohr Voelcker's
excellent Kloppelkurs before the translation came out. Which brings me to
my point. The lace terms are not in a standard dictionary. There is a
lovely lace terms glossary which is still for sale in Europe. It has the
lace terms for 9 languages. Once I got that, it was much, much easier to
translate the book into English. A lot of work, but worth it. I also used
the glossary to translate the most important terms in a Japanese beginners
manual. Couldn't pronounce the words, of course, but I could figure out
what a lot of the important bits meant. First time since I was a very
little girl that I felt totally illiterate, but the glossary really helped,
even in that situation.
The gobbeldygook one can get from the online translators can be very
confusing, but if you have the glossary, it should begin to make a lot more
sense.
While many people have English as their second language, and thus it is one
of the better languages to translate to, not everyone will want to, or be
able to for financial reasons. I think lacemakers have a much better sense
of the global community because of all the different people we meet, either
online, or through books and laces from different areas. While other
countries routinely make sure their children actually can speak at least one
other language, we in the US do not spend enough effort to insure that our
children have that capability. And once you know one language, learning
others is much easier.
Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA where the birds and the sunlight are
announcing the beginning of the end of a very long winter, even though the
snow is still piled high and all around. I have a few brave daffodils
peeking up in a bare spot.
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