Well, so basically I got a job as an “interpreter”. I work for a Venezuelan company that it’s outsourced by a Mexican company that’s in turn outsourced by a US company. I basically have to translate what Latin people say to some gringos and vice versa.

The pay us breadcrumbs, but since the Argentinian economy is so fucked up, and they pay us in USD we kind of have a good salary. But in reality it doesn’t meet the criteria for even the cheapest US wage in any state.

People from the US are the worst kind of shit, honestly, they don’t give a single fuck about you, as far as they can tell I’m a poorly working computer that translates whatever their filthy mouths have to say. Some people are nice, yeah, but others are just fucking bastards. What’s worst is that since English is such a shitty language I have to be fucking understanding whatever foreign name these people have, so like they maybe have an African name, or French, or I don’t fucking know, but it’s never a John, Jessica or whatever English name, and since there’s English doesn’t have pronunciation rule that’s very constant and also their names may be misspells of the original intended name I’m the fucking asshole for not understanding your name? For fuck’s sake.

Oh, and that’s not all. Guess what, in fucking burgerland microphones must be really expensive, because it seems that every fucking one of them has connected a scientific calculator and used it as a fucking microphone. It’s filled with static, low quality signal, background noise, people screaming, and I DON’T FUCKING GET WHAT YOU’RE SAYING AND IT’S MY FAULT? With the money you save by hiring a third world Latino why the fuck don’t you fucking buy a decent microphone you piece of shit.

    • Soviet SnakeOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, I hope my hearing will become almost perfect at some point so they won’t have a reason to complain.

      • @DerPapa69
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        41 year ago

        From my personal experience, I think it will. When I started my current job (which - granted - is just an office job) I had a hard time understanding my colleagues, too. But once I got used to their specific tone of voice and I guess the acoustics in the office, I had no trouble understanding anyone anymore.

        Good luck with your new job, comrade!

        • Soviet SnakeOP
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          41 year ago

          Yeah, I think my hearing is pretty good, I passed Technical English at uni with a 10, but I’ve always practiced with white people accents from the US or with people from England, here there are a lot of black people who may have accents from various places, plus, the audio quality is shit.

          • @redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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            51 year ago

            I realise you’re not necessarily asking for advice. And I cannot give any personal advice as I am barely bilingual, never mind an employed translator (an impressive feat, by the way), but I have come across some translators who gave advice to people learning languages. If you’re interested…

            Would it help to listen to recordings or other media from people who speak in the accents you’re listening to? You might speed up the adjustment period?

            When I was trying to figure out which Spanish accent to learn, the advice seemed to be, ‘Don’t worry’. I heard a story of someone who learned Spanish in Argentina, then went to Spain. It was difficult at first, but after 2–3 hours of a conversation with one person, the differences between the two accents just ‘clicked’. (Their mind had to work out the different pronunciations of ‘ll’, for example. And afterwards, they did not have to think about it.)

            It will be hard to get the same experience at work because your conversations have a different purpose – you’re (probably) worried about doing your job well, about translating properly and clearly, etc, and the person you’re talking to is not there to have a conversation with you. But if you got used to the accent from somewhere else, would that make it easier to focus on the content (through shit microphones)? Or, if the content makes things difficult, would listening to a few podcasts or talk shows on the topics help?

            You might find Káto Lomb’s How I Learn Languages inspiring. Obviously, you don’t need to read it to learn about learning English. You already speak it (and if your written English is anything to go by you’re already excellent), but Lomb learned (sixteen) languages as a translator and the book has some anecdotes about that work. There is a PDF of the book on the internet, if you search in the right places.

            In the start of this video, Lomb explains how she has been preparing for translating at a conference on artificial insemination (which she knew nothing about): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM95By6tzpQ.

            If you have not yet seen it, this website contains some useful information: https://interpretertrainingresources.eu/preparation/, including this video, ‘¿Cómo preparar una reunión?’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ7Wf_SGeGA&t=1s.

            Down with shit microphones!

            • Soviet SnakeOP
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              31 year ago

              Yeah, I guess I should try to listen to more black people accents, but it’s hard because this also isn’t a unified thing, and I also may find with for example rednecks and the like, I can get calls from people all over the US, I may have some people from Jamaica, too, where they speak Jamaican Patois, which is even harder, so it’s complicated to go for something specific, there also may be Indian people who have yet another accent, it’s really complicated, but I guess with some time I may be able to understand them better. And also I’m studying at the same time because I have exams in March so it’s not like I can devote myself to this, which, hey, I like understanding languages better, but I’d rather a thousand times improve my German/Chinese than improving my listening of an English dialect I will barely use outside of this since I’m not traveling to the US (or probably anywhere) ever in my life. Still thanks for your ideas and I will definitely listen to that talk and I’ll add that book to my to read list, they seem very interesting!

    • Soviet SnakeOP
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      1 year ago

      My bosses don’t do much, honestly, so far they have only told me about the beginner stuff in a couple meetings and that’s it, but they’ve been nice, they are not super formal, they are okay if you are not super punctual or that kind of shit, they do promote that kind of shit of job culture but well, that’s everywhere. Of course they are getting with their sweet profits so it’s not like I like them. They’re all Venezuelans, so yeah.

      • ButtigiegMineralMap
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        21 year ago

        That’s decent to hear, a shitty boss can make a job infinitely worse than it actually should be

  • @Munrock@lemmygrad.ml
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    71 year ago

    With every passing day it seems more likely that the jackasses you’ve had to deal with will still be alive to see their hegemony collapse. It’s just unwinding so quickly, and the fuckheads are still laser focused on short-term profits.