The only time that would be an issue outside of “too much, all at once” is when the context doesn’t work well in giving the answer.
I’ve seen it in English, where it’s bad enough (because the whole thing is English and I’m an English speaker) when words have 6, 7 meanings (or are broad spectrum), and the context can allow 3 definitions to work. And then there are times where it doesn’t matter: cleavage or boobs: who cares if it’s a big split or two things clinging together because the whole point in doing that to boobs is to define both definitions, although 1 is meant and the other is not.
When shifting languages, there’s this thing called “dynamic equivalents”. That means something within the culture corresponds to something wholly different in another. It’s how Hades is translated to Hell…and sometimes it should be Hel, an entity, instead of sone Sheol equivalent. It makes for a lot more confusion in those situations.
At those points, though, the author should be able to make a judgement call about exactly how difficult the understanding is going to be. It’s still up to the author to make a decision, not the reader. The reader has little power to force an author to do jack.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems like she’s writing this book for other Mandarin speaking immigrants and exclusively for them. If she doesn’t want to translate those Mandarin words because it doesn’t (in theory) benefit her target audience then that is fair enough in my book but she expresses that in the worst way possible.
Her non-target audience wanting translated footnotes (assuming anyone even asked for it in the first place) isn’t an unreasonable request yet she portrays it as “entitlement” of “white readers”.
Race has nothing to do with this, yet she specifically targets “white readers” for some arbitrary reason.
There are many valid reasons for audiences to request translated footnotes yet she crudely dismisses any and all requests as “entitlement”.
What she considers “entitlement” is wholly arbitrary. Consider her following analogy she draws as to why requesting footnotes is entitlement:
“If a non-English speaker doesn’t recognize the words I use, it’s because they never learned or took time to look up the language.”
Simply put, if you request footnotes you’re entitled because you didn’t bother to learn or lookup the language. Despite so, further down in the comments she happily provides a definition of “BIPOC”. Why is she okay with defining BIPOC for us but not okay with providing footnote translations? If we don’t know what BIPOC means then shouldn’t we be taking the time to ‘learn and lookup’ the definition? By providing it for us, is she therefore enabling entitlement, the very thing she so aggressively opposes? To me what she considers ‘entitlement’ is isn’t consistent.
There is such a thing as Curse of Knowledge. I have some aptitude for languages and was never strained by picking a romantic language, but there are people, my daughter included, who have absolutely no ability to pick up language from context/through immersion. She has fantastic memory, but when I was helping her with French in early grades, I about climbed a wall. She was incapable of capturing similarities or grasping that roots were the same. I experience the same blackout when language is not Germanic/Romantic. Even German, tbh, just won’t stick.
It’s still in it’s infancy, but the educated are beginning to think that Mandarin is a better option than Spanish. (I chose Spanish over French for the same reasons, 2 decades ago.)
That’s estimates for about 1% or less of the age in education.
Assuming that education opportunities are the same (which they are not, for Mandarin, because the classes aren’t as frequently available as Spanish or French), the demographics of the US would put that as, yes, mostly white.
But as the NPR article had it, there was more interest in it outside the white population.
All that’s really not important, it’s the fact that 99% of Americans being educated don’t have access to easily learning Mandarin through the school system, and we are still a majority white nation (though that is changing).
But most of Europe is white, more so than the US…the problem is that Europe often has people that know their ethnicity, so I usually don’t hear people go on about “white people” outside of meaning “American White People”…
And so by that, I’d automatically assume that they have an issue with “American Entitlement when it comes to foreign languages”, which is a huge cultural issue that comes up in Europe/US clashes.
All that for, “Oh, I get it.”…while not liking the way that it doesn’t pinpoint the true target audience of the rant.
I haven’t read anything by her–she doesn’t seem to have written much–but I did take a gander at her website. I definitely don’t think I’m her target audience, but then, I know how to use Google Translate when I don’t understand Mandarin, so I’m guessing I’m not the target of her rant, either…? Who knows. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
I’m not sure I understand your post. Race should not have anything to do with not wanting translated footnotes.
I’m also going to presume the book is internationally published so in theory any English speaker worldwide is a potential reader, not just the white American population.
Canadians aren’t as well known for “Speak English” arrogance, but then they are having “The War of the English and the French”, still…which my people pretty much lost. (Louisiana speaks English and the number of young who speaks French is dwindling.)
I get the impression she wants to be special because she knows another language. And she also wants to feel included by trying to shoehorn herself into BIPOC, which apparently doesn’t include white and Asian people. And probably some Hispanics. It stands for “Black and Indigenous people of color.” Neither white or Asian fit into that.
And anyway I can do the whole other language spiel too. I can write in my native tongue too. I can write to people of my island. I can use words that other people won’t know either. If she wasn’t so bitter and broadened her horizons, she could actually find herself an audience and not need to rant on Twitter.
That’s actually the words (food, clothing) that I would preserve as per that old thread I mentioned. However, if I use other words, that are not traditional food or dress to increase impact of the dialogue, I translate those as a part of the narrative, so people could skim over and read an English sentence. I don’t want to have people to check Google translate or look for footnotes, so I get flavour and immersion that way.
It was at the end. That’s why I warned that it was a ramble.
This specifically. It’s calling the issue “White People” when there’s a “Speak English” culture that permeates the USA more, but may be an issue in Canada.
I recently read a few blogs from Eastern Canada where Mandarin or Cantonese speakers regret their parents push to immerse them into English and their own desire to have better English than their white counterparts because of the racist attitudes (no, where you’re really from?) and perceived accent/ESL issues when the kids were born in Canada… there was a guy who was placed in ESL for years, despite native proficiency. That resentment could definitely be a part of an issue. Personally, I never insisted my child learned Russian, and I am grateful for it now, because of Putin’s government rhetorics that claims every Russian speaker a ‘countryman’. Which is thanks you, but no thank you, can you see that finger?
Both Americans and Canadians tend to grip you with a death grip the second they hear a whiff of an accent, and won’t let go until you ‘fess up where you accent is from, and where you come originally. It’s a club for them, it’s a torture for many of their victims. Even if they see it that you are uncomfortable answering, they interpret it as ‘they—stupid’ and would reiterate question until you tell them.
I’ll cut her some slack since I don’t know the context of her tweet. Maybe it was meant for a particular person or group…I don’t know how to follow Twitter discussions properly with all the replies expanded, and can’t be bothered to learn how. (♯^.^♯)
Okay that clarifies things alot more for me, but I’m not really getting the ‘Speak English’ vibes from this one since her audience is [presumably] requesting translation footnotes which to me implies a willingness to learn and understand Mandarin. ‘Speak English’ to me implies complete rejection of another language.
On a complete sidetrack here, quite a few years ago we had some racist “speak english” rants on public transport once or twice make headlines (yes, nothing happens in Australia so every little thing makes front page news here) but those seem to be very isolated incidents.
Twitter is for outrage and cancel culture. I started using it years ago for Wattpad but I went down a hole and came back up again. I rarely use it to be honest. Only if I wanna tweet something related to my stories.
I only used mine to announce when I was doing NaNo, and lost interest soon after creating my account. Evidently it’s useful for those who want to increase their blood pressure. (>‿◠)
If she wasn’t so bitter and broadened her horizons, she could actually find herself an audience and not need to rant on Twitter.