With 11 official languages in South Africa, we live in a culturally diverse society and when you need help, you need help…
I confess. I have never had ability with languages. I struggled with Afrikaans at school and nearly lost my university exemption to it, only to discover to my horror that my chosen career had it listed as one of the required subjects. There I sat after lectures at 19 years of age with a set of headphones on my head repeating after a no-nonsense type of voice the correct syntax of a sentence…
I have always felt a flash of envy when watching translators in action – they possess a freedom of communication that opens borders, cultures and whole networks of business and lives. Effortlessly, they seem able to switch not only languages and accents but the very way the tongue and jaw forms the sounds, mysteriously and instantaneously taking on the haughtiness of a Parisian or the gung-ho adventurism of an Alpine-climbing Bavarian.
Source: shopsa ( Southern African Association for Stationery, Home & Office Products )
