Medical translation pitfalls

A few pitfalls in translating Nepali medical terms I've come across in my work as an interpreter. A language like Nepalese, which is the common lingu franca of a hilly region with about a hundred differentt languages -- not just dialects, mind you, 100+ distinct languages! -- well, it'll naturally pick up different linguistic influences in different regions.

1. First of all, the word for medicine, as listed in various Nepali dictionaries, is aushadhi. But I soon learned another word in common use, dubai. I was only able to find this listed in one of the many dictionaries I use, the old Warren dictionary from 1991. I've found a couple of other words for medicine as well, okhati and ilaj, but I've never come across anybody knowing or using these words!
   
2. Another pitfall is the translation of the word infection. It's used in two different ways in English: (1) When one person transmits a disease to another person, it's said that he gets infected. (2) When parasites go into a wound, the wound is said to be infected. In case (1) the Nepali translation is saruwa, in case (2) it's listed in dictionaries as suj(-ån) or jålån... But nobody understands these words. Rather, sankarmod seems to be the better word, but it baffles me 'cause I haven't found this word listed in any dictionary.
   
3. The word allergy, to my knowledge there's no proper Nepalese translation. In stead, I'm explaining that allergy is when the body reacts negatively to having eaten/taken/come in contact with food, medicin etc...

Just goes to show how ambiguous translating can be, I think especially a language like Nepali.

Words that look alike (part 2)

A more extensive list of 10 tricky words / word pairs from the Nepali vocabulary that look so much alike that it becomes rather confusing when trying to remember what's what - especially, of course, in a 'sharp situation'! But it might be an advantage, might help fascilitate learning (see previous post, Nepali words that look alike)

pathaunu      pataunu gala gåla khanu khannu adha adhar ha(n)s ha(n)s-nu hindnu hernu dant dhad chora chåra båndå bånda dori tori

to send to convince chin neck to eat to dig half base a duck to laugh to walk to see tooth back(bone) son bird closed cabbage rope/cable(/male gender) mustard

possible source of occational confusion!!

Words that look alike (part 1)

In learning Nepali, I'm stumbling across a lot of words that look quite similar, but are completely unrelated anyway. It's a source of some confusion, I must admit. Just makes no sense. It's also a bit funny though, in some language geek-kind-a way... But I got this idea, if I list these similar looking words together, they might be easier to remember and it will help in learning new vocabulary. Because, there's no way around it, you need to memorize words one way or the other if you are learning a language... So here is the first little set of similar looking Nepali words (and their translations):

1.   2. 3. 4. 5.

nokar noksar nåksa noksan    nåkåli

waiter  (?) map loss false

Nepali language podcasts

I'm compiling this list of Nepali language podcasts available on the internet. Could be good for many purposes, but for me, personally, I'm mainly interested in learning the spoken language, and this is a good way to do it, of course! I learn new words and practice pronounciation. At the same time, it's my chance to keep up with news, cultural issues or whatever we can find Nepali podcasts about. And I'm saying "we", because I hope readers, YOU, will help out and add any link you know to good Nepali language podcast!

So far I haven't found that many, but here's the 'list' of sites with downloadable podcasts:

• SBS Nepali
• Namaste Radio
• Radio Nepal
• Kantipur Daily News (where did this one go?)
•  Litterature and poetry, Nepali

And I'll also list some video podcasts sites:

• IRIN (few, but subtitled!)
• YouTube (there's loads of Nepali on YT, most of it poor quality, esp for learning though)
•  

And then there is the Nepali language live broadcasts (online/net radios) as well (not downloadable):

• BBC Nepali Sewa
• Image Channel online
• Kalika FM
• Radio Kantipur

The Nepali numbers

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but even after 5-6 years of learning Nepali language (quite casually), I'm still not able to count to a hundred in Nepalese! Sounds amazingly stupid, doesn't it? But only until you see the words for the Nepali numbers! They are tricky, to say the least. At first glance, there's no system in it at all. Like in English, if you can count 1-9 and you know how to say '50' then you can easily figure out how to say fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three etc... Not so with the Nepali numbers!

In Nepali, for instance, '30' and '50' are tis and pachas.And '1', '2' and '3' is ek, dui, teen.

• 31, then, is simply ek-tis
• 32, do you think it's dui-tis? Wrong! It's båttis. (Where did that bå- come from?)
• 51, logically, must then be ek-pachas, right? Wrong! It's ekaunnå. (Where did -aunnå come from?)
• 52, now, is baunnå. There's a little logic to it, since b-something apparently means '2-something', and the unexplained -aunnå apparently means '50'...
• 53, so you think you've figured it out now?... The system changes slightly, and '53' becomes tri-pånnå... (What happened to the -aunnå that we just figure out?)..........

Beginning to see my difficulties?

But I actually have a solution! All the teach-yourself-Nepali books and materials I've seen, simply list the numbers from 1-100 in a long list. Sometimes broken into 10 small lists. But it still doesn't make sense. Instead, try arranging the numbers in a grid. I can't explain it, but you can start to see some sense in the words for the Nepali numbers! At least I could! Finally!

Here they are, the smart way to learn Nepali numbers:

0 shunya	10 dos	20 bis	30 tis	40 chalis	50 pachas	60 sathi	70 såttri	80 åsi	90 nåbbe
1 ek	11 eghara	21 ekkais	31 ektis	41 ektalis	51 ekaunnå	61 eksåtthi	71 ekhåttår	81 ekasi	91 ekannåbbe
2 dui	12 bhara	22 bais	32 båttis	42 båyalis	52 baunnå	62 båyåsåtthi	72 båhåttår	82 båyasi	92 båyannåbbe
3 teen	13 tærdå	23 tæis	33 tættis	43 trichalis	53 tripånnå	63 trisåtthi	73 trihåttår	83 triyasi	93 triyannåbbe
4 char	14 chowdha	24 chowbis	34 chårtis	44 chåvalis	54 chowbånnå	64 chowsåtthi	74 chowhåttår	84 chowrasi	94 chowrannåbbe
5 panch	15 pandra	25 pachis	35 pointis	45 pointalis	55 påchpånnå	65 painsåtthi	75 panchhåttår	85 påchasi	95 pånchannåbbe
6 chhå	16 shordå	26 chhåbis	36 chhåttis	46 chåyalis	56 chåpånnå	66 chåyåsatthi	76 chåyåhåttår	86 chåyåsi	96 chåyannåbbe
7 saath	17 såtra	27 såttais	37 sointis	47 satchalis	57 såtaunnå	67 såtsåtthi	77 såthåttår	87 såtasi	97 såntannåbbe
8 aath	18 åtharå	28 åthais	38 åthtis	48 åthchalis	58 åthaunnå	68 åthsåtthi	78 åthhåttår	88 åthasi	98 ånthannåbbe
9 nau	19 unnais	29 unåntis	39 unånchalis	49 unånchas	59 unsåtthi	69 unhåttår	79 unasi	89 unannåbbe	99 unansåy

Vocabulary, Vocabulary, Vocabulary!

Learning the vocabulary is an essential part of learning Nepali -- and any other language, for that matter. Compared to the other stuff, such as grammar, pronounciation and sentence formation, learning vocabulary is much less complex and much more straight forward. Not easy, though. And althought there are some smart ways to do it, it still requires brute force. But I've realized how inefficient my methods have been so far. Basically what I've done is:

1. Read word lists -- such as those in a dictionary.
2. Copied word lists -- by writing down other word lists.
3. Organized word lists -- into different subjects.

And of course repeating, repeating, repeating...

But honestly, it has required L O T S of time and not given me much benefit. I just figured that I wasn't good with words and language. But now I know I was wrong! There is much better ways of learning vocabulary.

The smart way
The 'secret' to learning vocabulary is simple: Involve your brain! You need to store the words you are learning in your long-term memory, and you're simply not doing that when you learn words one by one. Instead, just learn 7 words at the time. How I do that is by first finding 7 Nepali words that I want to learn. Usually I read a text in my 'base' language, Danish/English, then think about how I would say that in Nepalese. When there are words I don't know, I look them up in Nepali and write them down. Here, for instance, are the latest 7 Nepali words I've learned that way:

1. dhatu
2. nåksa
3. jånjir
4. ådål-bådål
5. bimira
6. læsilo
7. ghochnu

After I've found these 7 words, sometimes I've already forgotten the meaning of some of them. But I try to remember. Now I'm actively using my brain, you see! I go through the little list a few times until I know all of them. The important point is to resist the temptation of writing down the translation of one word, when you remember that one. You have to remember all 7. Then, in one go, I write down the translations:

1. metal
2. map
3. chain
4. change
5. rash
6. sticky
7. to sting

Then I stand up, go into another room, take a glass of water or something, and then return and sit down. Do I still remember the words? Well, I cover the first column of Nepali words and try to remember. I have to use my brain again now. If I remember all 7 words, fine, I write them down in Nepali again in a third column. If I don't remember all of them, I try, using my brain, looking them up, until finally I think I remember. Then wait another minute, see if they're still there, and write them down again.

That method really works for me!

I learn 7 words every morning, 7 every evening. That's a hundred new words every week! My target is to learn 5000 Nepali words, and with the 1000 I already know, that should take me 10 months. And knowing 5000 words is going to get me pretty far, I think! That's actually a vocabulary equal to some native speakers!

Still, it requires brute force and many small repetitions. But the method is much more efficient than anything else I've tried!

Estimating your Nepali vocabulary

As I set out to improve my Nepali, I'm curious to know: How many Nepali words do I actually know already? And how many words are there to learn? If you want to know your own vocabulary size -- for any language -- this is what I did and you can do to:

It's easy to estimate vocabulary, although it's not very exact. I took out my pocket dictionary, ran through 3 pages Nepali-English and 3 pages English-Nepali. I found that I knew 16 words in the Np-Eng part which has 227 pages, and 11 words in the Eng-Np part which has 308 pages.

• Estimate 1 : (16/3 words pr page) x 227 pages = 1211 words
• Estimate 2 : (11/3 words pr page) x 308 pages = 1129 words

That's a pretty consistent estimate of my vocabulary! Let's just say it's somewhere in the range of 1000-1500 words. A good start!

What's the total size of Nepali vocabulary then? Tough question. Again, reaching for my pocket dictionary and multiplying the number of pages with the entries per page, I quickly find around 10-15.000 words. The Nepalese people speak with a wide range of sophistication levels, where a 'simple' person perhaps has a vocabulary of 5-10.000 words, and a more educated person has a more advanced vocabulary of some 20.000 words. Just guessing here.... If you include all sorts of academic stuff, combinations etc., there might be 100.000 words.

The interesting thing here is, I can actually get by and talk with people in Nepalese with just a thousand word vocabulary! No where near fluently though. I'm constantly asking people to clarify, rephrase, explain etc.: "Feri bhånnuhos, må bujhdeina"! So really want to improve my Nepali vocabulary and get to know at least 5000 Nepali words. Only 4000 to go then! Thats 10-15 words a day for a year!