Vol/51 No/2 2012APRIL/MAYTheLinguist23FEATURESone of the most fascinating parts of theproject. At the summer school, Ros Schwartz.recommended internet searches in the firstinstance, and investigating how certain termsare used via Google, both of which haveproved invaluable.The aspect that has been most challenging,however, is Garnier's use of wordplay. There isoften more to a phrase than meets the eyeand this is a particular concern for me as anon-native speaker. Two instances, both from apassage describing Yolande's paranoia aboutstrangers calling, were particularly testing.Yolande decides the two women areGermans disguised as French, unless they are'des Fifis grimées en Boches'. This is a play on'members of the French Interior Forces' and'girls', even 'prostitutes'. My initial translationsincluded 'French tarts' and the over-ingenious'Toms dressed as Jerries', neither of whichtakes account of the FIF element. I finallysettled on 'the girls from the Resistance doneup to look like Boches', choosing the lessspecific 'Resistance' over 'FIF' as I thoughtthe latter insufficiently familiar. Yolande then accuses both the 'Fifis' andthe 'Boches' of needing guilty people 'pourfaire fonctionner leur grosse machine à broyerdu noir'. Finding broyer du noirin the sense of'to feel depressed, worry obsessively', I initiallyfavoured 'to fuel their misery machine', as thiscould apply equally to the authorities and the'guilty people'. Internet research suggested possible racist,colonial connotations - 'to crush the blacks' -and this might fit the context: both Germansand FIF are concerned to keep the French'natives' under control, at least in thedelusions of Yolande, to whom France is stillunder occupation. I decided that was too far-fetched, however, and happily remembered'black' in the sense of illicit. My finaltranslation 'to fuel their morbid obsessionwith stamping out clandestine goings-on'suggests both the psychological aspect -depression, negativity, worry - and thepotential overtones of crushing noiractivity:collaboration, the clandestine, etc.In both these cases, my approach was to research all the possible meanings thatcould be involved and mull them over,judging which to keep in play by whatseemed appropriate to the situation andcharacter. Overall, my translation aims tocapture the immediacy of Garnier's writingand my working methods reflect this: I readthe text repeatedly until I feel I have gotinside it, noting any words or phrases thatsuggest themselves as particularly 'right'translations. Next I produce a draft,incorporating these 'nuggets'; at this stage Ialso keep several alternative translations formany sentences. Later versions entail choicesand polishing, with or without reference tothe French. As a translator I am first a reader,and I try to capture my reading in order torecreate it in English.I read the textrepeatedly until I feel Ihave got inside it.Later versions entailchoices and polishingMEMORIES OF WARFrench resistance fighters in La Trésorerie, 1944 (left); andPascal Garnier (above) The treatment of French terms andquotations also raised some interestingquestions. At one stage Yolande is makingcrêpesand I initially kept the French termsince it is so well known in English. However,the sentence La seule façon de conjurer cemauvais sort était de faire des crêpes, descrêpes et des crêpes' made me change mymind: only '.pancakes, pancakes and morepancakes' sounded suitably conclusive. When Bertrand shoots Roland's dog - at hisrequest after it is run over - Garnier quotes aline from Rimbaud's war poem Le Dormeur duVal. I was guided by the publisher's style sheetto leave the line untranslated, despite itsimportant ironic effect. A footnote currentlyidentifies the quotation and notes the irony,but in another part of the novel Yolande recallsthe poem more explicitly and I may welldecide to dispense with this note.Authenticity and comprehensionWhen the radio announces Depuis le débutde la semaine, le CAC 40 n'a pas cessé.' itseemed vital to keep the same term forauthenticity, but I was concerned that Englishreaders might not understand it. A fellowsummer school student led me to the solution.She had explained a reference to Bernard'sSNCF uniform by slipping in the phrase 'heworked for the French railways' and I adoptedthe same approach, prefacing the sentencewith 'Stock market news': 'Stock market news.Since the beginning of the week, the CAC 40,has been on a continuous.'For just ten pages of the novel, I foundmyself learning about guns, the Swiss textileindustry, the Resistance, homing pigeons,Brittany, estate agents' jargon and 1930sholidays, and such research is proving to be© DONALDI GRANT/NATIONALARCHIVESOFCANADA

24 TheLinguistAPRIL/MAYwww.iol.org.ukFEATURESI arrived in Florence in September 2006 forthe third year of my Italian and History of Artdegree at the University of Edinburgh. Theterm dates were finally posted on theUniversità degli Studi di Firenze website fivedays before the start of the course so I wasquite flustered; I still needed to set up anItalian bank account, buy a mobile phone,enrol at the university and apply for mycodice fiscalein order to find somewhere tolive, all without anyone to ask for advice. I didn't know anyone in the city who wasgoing through this process, and I couldn't findanything useful either on- or offline to guideme. It turned out that many of my classmates,who were distributed across the country, werehaving the same problems. Clearly, somethingneeded to be done to make the process lessintimidating. I filled a notebook with sketchesand ideas about my dream website. InNovember 2006, barely two months after Ihad arrived in Florence, I incorporated ThirdYear Abroad Limited and bought the domainThirdYearAbroad.com (TYA).The idea began as an online year abroadguidebook; for each city you could find outabout accommodation, student discounts,enrolment and extracurricular activities tohelp you make the most of your time abroad.But I soon realised this would require a lot ofresearch and that it was the students in eachcity who were best placed to write thecontent. Year abroad students visit the touristattractions and make local friends within theirfirst few weeks. It occurred to me that if theycould pass on advice to future year abroadstudents about how to settle in their city, theycould make a real difference to the future ofthe year abroad and the numbers applying. Idecided to start an information network.Now, universities update us when theirstudents experience problems so that we canwarn other students. For instance, theUniversity of Oxford got in touch when a fewof their students in Paris had scammingissues with the accommodation searchplatform CraigsList, and we sent out an alert.Building a business I found Twitter to be the most useful,student-focused, free marketing tool at thatstage. Using the search term 'year abroad' Icould identify students who were tweetingabout their year abroad-related problemsand send them a direct link to the solution onour site. I also asked them to tell me theiryear abroad destination and sent them auseful link in return. This method received apositive response and prompted manywritten contributions to TYA. When Natacha Cullinan joined us as Editor,she transformed the site, writing freshcontent from her perspective as a yearabroad graduate, recently returned from aLanguage Assistantship in Mexico. She wrotefeatures on banishing the year abroad bluesand long-distance relationships; interviewedanxious parents to garner their survival tips;and researched job sites, accommodationand the best student deals for each country.Meanwhile, I focused on developing thebusiness model. We wanted to find alanguage sponsor and I approached Collins,who agreed to support us despite the earlystage of the business. We then needed tomarket the site better to get more users andencourage advertisers. I came up with fourslogans: 'It's all Greek to me!', 'When inRome.', 'Russian Around?' and 'No Spain,No Gain', and a designer turned them intoAfter completing my degree I got someinvaluable experience working for two onlinestartups, and launched ThirdYearAbroad.comin January 2010. The aim of the site is toprovide free information, case studies, adviceand a networking platform so students canlearn from each other's experiences by openlysharing advice and tips. We want to pass onstudy and careers advice from academics andindustry professionals, and to help solvestudents' problems in such a way that otherscan benefit from our research. We also try tokeep our members up-to-date with eventsand opportunities in the languages world. Surprisingly, getting the support ofuniversities was one of the most difficultaspects of starting the business. I began bycontacting university departments by email,but it was not until we had the backing of theErasmus Programme that they could see wewere a serious enterprise, offering a valuablefree service to students. Yet it was still difficultto get their support. Fortunately, we had atwo-pronged attack: the universities mightnot have been responding but the studentscertainly were, and they played a big role ingetting their departments on board. Lizzie Faneon making a successful business out ofhelping students on their year abroadVenture abroad