Lost in Translation

Switching between languages is something that I'm now used to doing. When interacting with English-speakers I think in English and use phrases and slang in English. When interacting with Israelis I switch both my speech and thinking to Hebrew, and use phrases and words that work for them.

But how do I avoid mixing the two (like Eve does) and using the wrong phrases? How do I stop my brain from translating things that simply can't be translated? the struggle is real.

And it's not just the day to day interactions that need to be paid attention to. It's things that seemed so obvious to me in the past, and have now changed completely.

For example, did you know that animal speak different languages? yes, they do!

I grew up thinking that a cow says Mooooo, a dog says Hav-Hav and a rooster says Koo-koo-ree-koo. You can only imagine how shocked I was to learn that a Canadian cows might say Mooo (must be Jewish), but dogs in Canada say Woof-woof, and a maple-drinking rooster says Cock-a-doodle-doo.

De fuk? (Pardon my French). Why are animals so weird? And do Old Macdonald and Uncle Moshe know each other? Do they visit each other's farms?

Once I got over the breaking news, I started noticing it more and more and realized that some Hebrew words are not translated directly into English, and in some cases, they can't be translated at all. And this basically had cut my vocabulary in half. Hebrew phrases/words that I've been using my whole life are now sitting in a box, waiting for someone to translate them into English, and this might never happen.

I've listed some of them below, perhaps someone will take an initiative and do something about it. By the way, in Hebrew we use the phrase "raise the glove" when describing one taking an initiative. Can't think of a better fit for a phrase like this than Canada. Who else uses gloves?!

YALLA!

Although this is an Arabic word, it is very common in Hebrew slang. It means “let’s go”, but in a more rushing manner. Like when you want to urge someone to hurry up, or nearing the end of a phone call and want to signal the other side that it's time to go. I can't think of a word in English that's used in the same way, but Eve seems to be ok with using it in English. She would just say "Yalla mommy let's go" and it makes total sense to her :)

CHAI B’SERET ”Living in a movie”. Used to describe someone who's over the top and unrealistic about a situation. One day Eve asked for a candy right before bed time and I said to her in Hebrew: "At Chaya B'Seret". She insisted on knowing what movie I watched and why she wasn't there when I watched it.

CHUTZPAH  Chutzpah is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. Commonly used to describe someone when they have crossed the line of acceptable behaviour, or someone with supreme self-confidence. In Canada for example, this wouldn't fly. Even if you have supreme self-confidence, they'll be hiding under many many layers of Canadian manners. CHAVAL AL HAZMAN This translates to “shame on the time”. It is used when referring to something great, amazing. But you know what just happened? while writing this I used Google Translate for this phrase and it gave me "Really cool" as the English translation. MIND BLOWN! It has officially been translated and no one told us. Chutzpah.

These are just a few examples out of many many words that get lost in translation, and that can make immigrants feel even more immigranty (is that a word?). To add to this gap, there's a whole new repertoire of phrases and slang words in English that are unique to Canada that I had to learn and continue to every day. Some of them are even unique to Toronto. There are many I can think of, but the one that stands out the most is probably WASHROOM. It's called toilet around the world, but to Canadians, toilet sounds vulgar. Here it's called washroom. Not bathroom or restroom, washroom. A room in which you wash. Ha.

The gap between my English and Hebrew continues to narrow as time goes by, but with all of these things getting lost in translation, it will probably exist forever, and I will continue to stay lost.

Yalla, gotta go to the washroom. See you next time.