EU hiring Irish translators

Shenshen

I was listening to Newstalk this morning and one of the stories that caught my attention was about the EU now hiring translators for Irish - there are 60 open positions at the moment, and they were interviewing someone who claimed it could be over 100 in the next year or 2.

The person was gushing about the great opportunity for people with a degree in Irish, how fantastic it was that there would be all those jobs for them, translating every single EU transaction and live-translating for meetings and discussions.

And there was me thinking I'm normally very happy to defend the EU, I think it's a great institution which has achieved much throughout its existence. But this - sorry, this is an incredible, massive waste of money to keep a small lobby group happy.

By all means, provide translation to delegates who otherwise wouldn't be able to fully follow proceedings, but can you show me 1 person, just 1 person on earth who would require this service as they can't follow the discussions in English?
By all means, encourage people to learn the language and to use it where they can, but to waste resources on providing translation and material in Irish that nobody needs and wants (I'm not sure how many MEPs that lobby group has in Brussels) is absurd.

Here's a link with some details : http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-translators-eu-recruiting-2813266-Jun2016/

seamus

It's not the EU's fault. The Irish Government registered Irish as our official language. The EU is simply doing what it's required to do by translating everything into the official languages of the member states.

The EU can't turn around and say, "Nah, we'll just ignore your official language because nobody reallys speaks it anyway".

We didn't register English because the Brits already did that (whoops), and this is the first time anyone with a qualification in Irish has been able to get a job that's not teaching.

sullivlo

Will they also provide translation for our own MEPs who don't speak Irish?

EagererBeaver

Yup, once the Brits leave, English will cease to an official language.

The bizarre thing is Ireland will now have to spend a small fortune of its own translating to English so people here can read it...

munchkin_utd

seamus wrote: »

It's not the EU's fault. The Irish Government registered Irish as our official language. The EU is simply doing what it's required to do by translating everything into the official languages of the member states.
<snip>

+1

it was the IRISH Government who got unanimous agreement from all countries in Europe to have Irish added as an official language.
So the democratically elected Irish government had a democratic vote involving the democratically elected government of 27 EU countries and all voted yes.

I too think its bonkers, but it was initiated by the irish, and agreed by the countries, so you cant blame "the EU" when they essentially had no hand in deciding the matter.

Winterlong

With the UK leaving the EU I wonder will there be any country that has English as their registered language?

If not then I guess all the english translators will be terminated.
I presume that means Irish MEPs will only have irish translations available to them when listening to debates on the floor?!!

munchkin_utd

EagererBeaver wrote: »

Yup, once the Brits leave, English will cease to an official language.

The bizarre thing is Ireland will now have to spend a small fortune of its own translating to English so people here can read it...

nope, English is also a "working language" and that cannot be changed without a unanimous vote of all countries, which Ireland can veto

Shenshen

seamus wrote: »

It's not the EU's fault. The Irish Government registered Irish as our official language. The EU is simply doing what it's required to do by translating everything into the official languages of the member states.

The EU can't turn around and say, "Nah, we'll just ignore your official language because nobody reallys speaks it anyway".

We didn't register English because the Brits already did that (whoops), and this is the first time anyone with a qualification in Irish has been able to get a job that's not teaching.

I'm not sure who to "blame" here - I know the EU has to follow its guidelines in this case. But it still has me wondering about if it's a good thing the people with an Irish degree now have job opportunities. Personally, I'd soon hate my job if all I produced was paper that nobody would read and translations nobody would listen to. Surely the futility would get to you?

Winterlong

munchkin_utd wrote: »

nope, English is also a "working language" and that cannot be changed without a unanimous vote of all countries, which Ireland can veto

Ah, thanks for that. Looks like a few of us posted the same question/presumption at the same time.

gramar

seamus wrote: »

We didn't register English because the Brits already did that (whoops), and this is the first time anyone with a qualification in Irish has been able to get a job that's not teaching.

That doesn't stop this from being a completely pointless and hollow job. There is no purpose to their work as there is no requirement for it other than a classic example of bureaucracy at its worst.

seamus

Shenshen wrote: »

I'm not sure who to "blame" here - I know the EU has to follow its guidelines in this case. But it still has me wondering about if it's a good thing the people with an Irish degree now have job opportunities. Personally, I'd soon hate my job if all I produced was paper that nobody would read and translations nobody would listen to. Surely the futility would get to you?

If one is pursuing a qualification in Irish, surely you'd be aware that futility is what awaits you in your future?

munchkin_utd

gramar wrote: »

That doesn't stop this from being a completely pointless and hollow job. There is no purpose to their work as there is no requirement for it other than a classic example of bureaucracy at its worst.

well, blame the Irish government then as they started it !!

Duggy747

Irish person: "agus anois ar t g ceithre...."

Translator: "...*clears throat*...............Ara', would ya ever feck off outta da', ya shíte-hawk ya!"

LeinsterDub

Shenshen wrote: »

By all means, provide translation to delegates who otherwise wouldn't be able to fully follow proceedings, but can you show me 1 person, just 1 person on earth who would require this service as they can't follow the discussions in English?

Translation is a 2 way thing. I can show you 650+ MEP who couldn't follow it an Irish MEP spoke in Irish and this will be also about translating the documents

Hotei

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Translation is a 2 way thing. I can show you 650+ MEP who couldn't follow it if spoken in an Irish MEP spoke in Irish and this will be also about translating the documents

Can someone translate this for me?

cowboyBuilder

Total and absolute waste of money to appease those nazi gaelgoers ..

osarusan

Some years ago, UL lecturers put together a paper on Irish language policy, and one statistic that came up was that since Irish became an official EU language, there had been something like 30 minutes of Irish ever spoken in the EU parliament.

Not sure if that has changed at all since then.

LeinsterDub

Hotei wrote: »

Can someone translate this for me?

Irish MEPs are entitled to speak in Irish. The translators will translate the Irish for the rest of the MEPs . It's not just translating English to Irish or Spanish to Irish

osarusan

Anyway, Ireland would have veto over it:

The European Commission Representation said it “noted” the report that English would cease to be an official language of the EU but said it was “incorrect”.

“The Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, decide on the rules governing the use of languages by the European institutions. In other words, any change to the EU Institutions’ language regime is subject to a unanimous vote of the Council, including Ireland,” the statement said,

Annasopra

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Irish MEPs are entitled to speak in Irish. The translators will translate the Irish for the rest of the MEPs . It's not just translating English to Irish or Spanish to Irish

Yeah how much Irish needs translating?

LeinsterDub

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Yeah how much Irish needs translating?

Every EU and regulation law , Irish has primacy in our constitution.

sullivlo

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Irish MEPs are entitled to speak in Irish. The translators will translate the Irish for the rest of the MEPs . It's not just translating English to Irish or Spanish to Irish

Well then they'll need a really, really specific qualification - fluency in Irish AND another EU language.

Off the top of my head, only French, German, Spanish and maybe Greek are taught in schools. So you'd need people able to speak Irish AND Flemish, Dutch, Portugese, Italian, Swedish, etc etc etc.

Very niche job market.

Shenshen

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Translation is a 2 way thing. I can show you 650+ MEP who couldn't follow it an Irish MEP spoke in Irish and this will be also about translating the documents

How many of them do you think would be able to speak Irish well enough to attempt that?

Shenshen

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Every EU and regulation law , Irish has primacy in our constitution.

Sorry, but aren't those ALREADY translated into English here? You know, so the Irish can actually understand them?

LeinsterDub

Shenshen wrote: »

Sorry, but aren't those ALREADY translated into English here? You know, so the Irish can actually understand them?

Didn't some guy recently get off a speeding fine because there was no Irish version or the Irish version was different? If your not happy with Irish primacy you should ask your TD to raise it in the Dáil.

snubbleste

Why all the EU hate?

LeinsterDub

snubbleste wrote: »

Why all the EU hate?

EU and Irish it's like the perfect storm :rolleyes:

maudgonner

sullivlo wrote: »

Well then they'll need a really, really specific qualification - fluency in Irish AND another EU language.

Off the top of my head, only French, German, Spanish and maybe Greek are taught in schools. So you'd need people able to speak Irish AND Flemish, Dutch, Portugese, Italian, Swedish, etc etc etc.

Very niche job market.

No. It will go Irish -> English and English -> Flemish, Dutch, Portuguese etc.

Like it does with other languages - there will be an intermediate stage. English would be used as the intermediate language currently, and that's unlikely to change. But if it did, it's likely that French or German would be used as an intermediate, so you would only need to have fluency in Irish and French/German.

biko

snubbleste wrote: »

Why all the EU hate?

Because it's ****

Snickers Man

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Irish MEPs are entitled to speak in Irish. The translators will translate the Irish for the rest of the MEPs . It's not just translating English to Irish or Spanish to Irish

As I understand it, they are only entitled to speak in Irish when introducing themselves at the start of an intervention. Effectively Irish can be used for throat clearing in the European Parliament and that's it.

Irish is NOT a working language of the European institutions. They have three working languages: English French and German although in practice English and French dominate.

Basically, when speaking in the European Parliament you can only use Irish to say "Ahem..."

(Gobdaw IRish MEP: "A úachtaráin, a dhaoine uaisle. Tá áthas an domhain orm bheith anseo ar shon muintir na h-Éireann agus tá súil agam go mbainimíd rath as an díospóireacht seo. "

Translator: "Er, good morning.")

ted1

Malta are in the same boat , they nominated Maltase as their official language , it'll be interesting to see what The Republic of Scotland does. Same with the liberated state of Gibraltar ,

Riskymove

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Irish MEPs are entitled to speak in Irish. The translators will translate the Irish for the rest of the MEPs . It's not just translating English to Irish or Spanish to Irish

actually we are nowhere near having Irish interpretation at debates/meetings

the translators are being hired to translate (i.e. documents) not interpret (i.e. verbal translation)

biko

We should just be proactive and nominate German as the official language of all EU countries.

Your president Jean-Claude Juncker speaks German.

Riskymove

biko wrote: »

Your president

He is not President of the EU

ohnonotgmail

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Didn't some guy recently get off a speeding fine because there was no Irish version or the Irish version was different? If your not happy with Irish primacy you should ask your TD to raise it in the Dáil.

He tried to but thankfully didnt succeed.

Alf Stewart.

They should hire that bloke from.Mandellas funeral.

"The raspberry truck jumped moose knuckle keyboard." Wha.

swimming in a sea

does there have to be an translator that knows Irish and say Slovakian ready to translate if some Irish MEP decides to waffle on in Irish in the euro parliament so the Slovak MEPs can get a translation? And do this for all the other languages, there must be more translators in the building than MEPs

Riskymove

swimming in a sea wrote: »

does there have to be an translator that knows Irish and say Slovakian ready to translate if some Irish MEP decides to waffle on in Irish in the euro parliament so the Slovak MEPs can get a translation? And do this for all the other languages, there must be more translators in the building than MEPs

As I've said, Irish is not a language used in interpretation (i.e. verbal translation) yet.

You are however, correct that in many cases there can be as many interpreters as meeting attendees.

CrabRevolution

Even as a Gaeilgeoir I reckon it's a phenomenal waste of time. A few weeks ago there was a discussion about them on RnaG and quite rightly one participant asked "Who is going to read these documents?"

I'd imagine the answer is 0. There must be 1000 better ways you could benefit the Irish language using that same money.

riclad

Someone voted for irish to be an official language in the eu,
maybe the vote for brexit was caused by people thinking of the waste of millions of euros on pointless work
as well as concerns about immigration etc
No one is gonna go to an eu office looking to read documents in irish ,
if you are that interested in politics you can speak english or get info
from the web or other sources .
How many millions is spent translating documents to irish every year.
its not like we dont need money for other things
like paying for health care or housing .

Iwasfrozen

swimming in a sea wrote: »

does there have to be an translator that knows Irish and say Slovakian ready to translate if some Irish MEP decides to waffle on in Irish in the euro parliament so the Slovak MEPs can get a translation? And do this for all the other languages, there must be more translators in the building than MEPs

It goes X language --> English / French --> Y language.

And Irish is useless.

CrabRevolution

riclad wrote: »

Someone voted for irish to be an official language in the eu,
maybe the vote for brexit was caused by people thinking of the waste of millions of euros on pointless work
as well as concerns about immigration etc
No one is gonna go to an eu office looking to read documents in irish ,
if you are that interested in politics you can speak english or get info
from the web or other sources .
How many millions is spent translating documents to irish every year.
its not like we dont need money for other things
like paying for health care or housing .

While it's certainly a waste, I doubt it costs that much to be honest. If 60 translators are needed for all the documentation in the EU, I'd say Ireland needs far fewer for the much smaller amount of legislation it produces.

galah

Translators are usually paid by the word though...

Lyaiera

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Even as a Gaeilgeoir I reckon it's a phenomenal waste of time. A few weeks ago there was a discussion about them on RnaG and quite rightly one participant asked "Who is going to read these documents?"

I'd imagine the answer is 0. There must be 1000 better ways you could benefit the Irish language using that same money.

I doubt there's a significant number of people in the UK and Ireland who read the documents even in English.

The current problem is that the three working languages of the EU are English, French and German. That means that not only do all the official documents get translated to those languages (as is the case with the EU's official languages) but all the proceedings, publicly released internal documents, and a huge amount of the spoken proceedings get translated and released in those languages.

If the UK leaves there would be very few people who speak English as their first language in the EU, and there could be debate as to whether the EU keeps English as a working language.

I think it's worth it keeping it as an EU language because English is the most widely understood second language of people in the EU. And it's an internationally significant language, especially with the US and the Commonwealth countries.

maryishere

It is just a small example of EC waste. Brussels wastes so many billions of euro you would just not believe it, and they were not much help to us in our banking crises either -they shafted us.

sullivlo

sullivlo wrote: »

Well then they'll need a really, really specific qualification - fluency in Irish AND another EU language.

Off the top of my head, only French, German, Spanish and maybe Greek are taught in schools. So you'd need people able to speak Irish AND Flemish, Dutch, Portugese, Italian, Swedish, etc etc etc.

Very niche job market.

Before Irish was made an official language, Irish speakers needed to be fluent in four EU languages. Now that Irish is an official language they, like citizens of most other EU countries, need to be fluent in three. No matter what the usual drones say, that situation joined the very long list of discrimination against Irish speakers. I'm glad my taxes are being used to support an intellectually and culturally Irish community - after all, far too much of them are given to funding a myriad of intellectually and culturally English endeavours. As unpopular as it is to say it, there's zero point in having an independent Ireland without intellectual and cultural independence. Zero. It's a misnomer.

CrabRevolution

CrabRevolution wrote: »

A few weeks ago there was a discussion about them on RnaG and quite rightly one participant asked "Who is going to read these documents?"

I'd imagine the answer is 0. There must be 1000 better ways you could benefit the Irish language using that same money.

I was a bit apprehensive about posting on Boards what with disturbing all the English speakers beavering away reading official EU documents in the English language, God bless them.

maryishere

maryishere wrote: »

It is just a small example of EC waste. Brussels wastes so many billions of euro you would just not believe it, and they were not much help to us in our banking crises either

How refreshing that you're not engaging in Europhobia again, Mary. Not. In a very globalised world, Ireland's membership of the European Union is the only hope for the intellectual independence of this deeply anglicised state, and the myopic anglocentric outlook of far too many of its citizens. The sooner we become more European and less anglocentric the better. That's a major step towards real freedom that beats the almost 100 years of verbal republicanism (Dev's government between 1932 and 1937, a genuinely radical government, excepted).

Iwasfrozen

Deleted User wrote: »

How refreshing that you're not engaging in Europhobia again, Mary. Not. In a very globalised world, Ireland's membership of the European Union is the only hope for the intellectual independence of this deeply anglicised state, and the myopic anglocentric outlook of far too many of its citizens. The sooner we become more European and less anglocentric the better. That's a major step towards real freedom that beats the almost 100 years of verbal republicanism (Dev's government between 1932 and 1937, a genuinely radical government, excepted).

Take a look at our geography. We aren't going to become any less "anglocentric" any time soon. And translating documents into Irish isn't going to help revive the language.

shane9689

Jesus, the hate for your own language is real...sick of boards... full of complainers who don't even understand their own culture...off to Dublin with the lot of ye

LordSutch

Shenshen wrote: »

I was listening to Newstalk this morning and one of the stories that caught my attention was about the EU now hiring translators for Irish - there are 60 open positions at the moment, and they were interviewing someone who claimed it could be over 100 in the next year or 2.

The person was gushing about the great opportunity for people with a degree in Irish, how fantastic it was that there would be all those jobs for them, translating every single EU transaction and live-translating for meetings and discussions.

And there was me thinking I'm normally very happy to defend the EU, I think it's a great institution which has achieved much throughout its existence. But this - sorry, this is an incredible, massive waste of money to keep a small lobby group happy.

By all means, provide translation to delegates who otherwise wouldn't be able to fully follow proceedings, but can you show me 1 person, just 1 person on earth who would require this service as they can't follow the discussions in English?
By all means, encourage people to learn the language and to use it where they can, but to waste resources on providing translation and material in Irish that nobody needs and wants (I'm not sure how many MEPs that lobby group has in Brussels) is absurd.

Here's a link with some details : http://www.thejournal.ie/irish-translators-eu-recruiting-2813266-Jun2016/

Oh the irony, specially 'post Brexit' when we're claiming to be the only English speaking country left in the EU.