Some Notes on my Life Connected to Dictionary Thoughts

I should start this part with "once upon a time", but this would make you believe it is a fairy tale, well today it is not anymore, it is about to become true, so ... I'll just talk.

My first thoughts about a multilingual dictionary came about when I went to the language school where I had to carry 5 of those huge dictionaries every day. Two monolingual ones for English and French and three bilingual ones for German-English-German, German-French-German and German-Spanish-German. I never took the bus, because carrying all that stuff myself then from and to the bus station would have been really a lot. The only way to carry all that stuff was going by bike, and I did that also at 20°C below zero in winter, when it rained etc. So in that period I really had my first thoughts about a light weight multilingual dictionary ... but then there was no chance to get it ... it was just a dream that really never left me for the rest of my life.

After that period I was a foreign correspondent, but I had to do one thing my parents wanted me to do: do an apprenticeship, since for them languages and being a foreign correspondent did not look like a "real job".

Therefore I started an apprenticeship in a company that produces wood-working machines. Knowing languages on one hand was an advantage, but ont he other it was hell ... there I had to translate the manuals for the machines into English. Even me telling them that I could not really do it, because first of all it was not "my subject" (I did economy and marketing) and then I was not English mother tongue, I had no chance ... I just had to do it.

The funniest thing was I only had an ordinary dictionary available, not even a technical one ... I mean one of those well known yellow coloured dictionaries that are among the most sold ones in Germany and so the only way to eventually get something understandable on the way was talking to the Engineers. This in some way set the way for my translator's carreer some years later, but of course I didn't know this at that time.

Again I had that eternal problem that I needed a dictionary, a technical one this time, and really desperately.

After that apprenticeship I worked for one and half a year for a company and then was offered to follow a full-time Computer Sciences course that then was worth 20.000 DM for free (today that would be 10.000 EUR). I was elegible because of my former education ... so yes, I took that chance and went on with my studies. One of the subjects I had then was programming in dBase III+ and after some time dBase IV. Imagine what I tried? Well ... remeber that dictionary thingie? I then made my first approach to program one myself ... even if it was better then having the books around I then noted that I had another problem: how to get all that data in. I mean: I had to study, besides that I worked to have some money for me to spend and when should I have had the time to add the data? So that project remained there and was not further developed.

In 1988 I moved to Italy for the first time. My Italian then was quite terrible. We found an apartment in Trugnano, a small place in the mountains behind the Amalfi Coast, in Tramonti. The funny thing was: these people did not talk Italian ... I mean: I did not understand a word. They spoke Neapolitan which is one of my working languages today.

Again: a need for a dictionary ... I then had a German-Italian-German one, but that one really did not help. Over time I learnt to understand and speak their language, but at that time it was hardly impossible to find anything in Neapolitan, at least where I lived. Still today they don't bother talking to me in Italian :-) something I really like, because people in this region often underestimate the high value of their language which is part of a very rich culture. Well yes, during the last years things are changing, but there is still a lot of marketing work to be done to have people understand how relevant their original mother tongue is for maintaining the whole wealth of the culture of this very particular region. Well, it is one of thos thing that lead to Vox Humanitatis and these I-iter portals.

In that period I started to work in hotels, because obviously someone who spoke several languages was really interesting for them even if my Italian was somewhat ... ehm ... well: not really good enough for proper communication, but people from here liked that :-)

After some time somebody told me that I could have taught German at grammar schools here ... well, ok, so I tried to get some information and had to learn that all my German exams were not accepted in Italy, just because ther was no analogue study system. Out of all the years I did in Germany they only confirmed primary school!!!!! That was terrible for me. Talking with people and asking what could be done I was told I could do a private exam at one of the highschools and that with that my German exams would become valid and therefore I could teach ... so said done: I decided to take up this challenge and do that exam, but instead of immediately going for the complete one I wanted to go one year to school, since that would help to improve my Italian (which at that time was already fairly good). The school I chose was for tourism specialisation since most of the subjects were already known by me and many things in that period were changing in Italy. Laws for book-keeping and other stuff became very similar to what I knew from Germany, so it made sense. Again I had to deal with some foreign languages: English and French ... so again I had to take dictionaries with me ... uhmmm ... the Italian monolingual one, German-Italian-German, English-Italian-English and French-Italian-French. I really did not like that since here it would have meant to do som 10 kms a day by bike and considering the streets we have ... that was not an option. Again I wanted my multilingual dictionary, but still: no Internet, no way of getting it ... uahhhhhhhhh!!!!!

... to be continued (sorry have to stop now)...