(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Как вас зовут? Как его зовут? Как её зовут? Как их зовут?
Где у вас болит? У вас семьи или друзей здесь?
У вас аллергии на что-нибудь? на лекарствах?

Como te llamas? Como se llama ello? Como se llama ella?
Donde dueles? Se duele aqui? Tienes familia o amigos aqui?
Tienes alergias a algo? A algunas medicinas?

Wie heißen Sie? Wie heißt er? Wie heißt sie?
Wo tut es weh? Tut es hier weh? Haben Sie jede Familie oder Freunden hier?
Haben Sie (jede) Allergien? Haben Sie eine Medikamentenallergie?


So, um. Yeah. This is happening, with more questions and things as I get them to come to mind. And more languages as I get time.

I used to translate at a free clinic for prenatal/post-partum checkups. Well-baby appointments, etc. Since this was a free clinic for low/no income people, there's really no PC way to say this, we ended up getting a lot of Spanish speakers who had no English. Which is fine; my grandmother volunteered as a translator, and I did too. I didn't have much medical Spanish but I did sit at the front desk, take appointments, etc. When everything went down yesterday, apart from fantasies of putting on an Iron Man suit and flying people to hospitals, doing analysis on the remains and flying off to kick ass, etc. (Such are my coping mechanisms.) I also thought, well. If this happened, assuming I didn't freak out completely, I could be of use. I speak four non-English languages well enough to get through some basics. I could be of use. And I imagined going to some triage station, going "Hi, I speak Spanish, German, French, and Russian, do you need me to translate?" And, you know, failing that, I have full use of my limbs and can fetch and carry, but.

Such are my coping mechanisms. I can do this thing that not a lot of people can do? FINE. Put me to use. Please.

Anyway. So for the next few days I'm going to be pulling out all my old skills out and brushing them off and applying them to the other languages I've since learned. I've actually been meaning to do that anyway since part of my backup plan involves translating at gov't offices, which will essentially be the same hundred or so lines over and over, with the occasional random person who comes over and has something completely out of left field. Which is why I'm doing the larger practice, too. But having this dictionary of phrases will be good. It's something I can do, anyway.

So tired. All of my LJ comments for the last I don't know how long seem to have gone into my spam folder, thanks, yahoomail. Still haven't heard from my friend in Boston, pondering shooting him a DM to see. I doubt he was in that mess. I hope he wasn't in that mess. (C, heard anything from zombie_dog?) I'm just really, really tired now. And I have too much shit to do and I don't want to do any of it. And I'm going to be on my own this weekend 'cause the boy's going home for the weekend and. Meh. Just, meh.

Comments

[kikibug13]

OOH I like. You have one more Russian question than Spanish (and German, I believe), and why am I geeking so much for being able to follow the Spanish set?

*snuggles you tight*

[kittydesade]

I do, don't I. I may have been a bit out of this when I started.

I figure, though, it's a useful thing/set of things to be able to pull out of my memory on a moment's notice.

[kikibug13]

Antsolutely useful!