SZABLYA CONSULTANTS, INC.
Translators and Interpreters
Source
Languages: English,
Hungarian, German, French, Latin
Target
Languages: Hungarian,
English
Helen
M. Szablya, Consul General
Consulate General of the Republic of Hungary
President, Consular Association of WA
2901 NE Blakeley St. #500
Seattle WA , USA
Phone: 206-432-9767
Fax:206-432-9774
E-mail: szablyahj@aol.com
Web: www.szablya.com
Although we do
translation and interpretation into English and Hungarian from all the
languages shown on the letterhead, our main line of business is English
to Hungarian, Hungarian to English, and Latin to English or Hungarian. However, we also translate French and German
(text may be in Gothic letters) into English or Hungarian, and, sometimes we
accept translations where the target language is Latin.
In order to assure clear cut understanding, we
often give explanations we call “translating ways of thinking” or “translating
through the generation-gaps.”
We have wide background and experience in
areas of subject mattr including, but not limited to,
medical, legal, energy, environment, waste, business, marketing and
advertising, economics, journalism, scientific, computer hardware and software,
literary, including video translations and voice-over. We did books, manuals, specifications,
software localizations, depositions, annual reports, videos, private and
business correspondence, personal documents, etc.
We can notarize and authenticate documents: Helen
is an Honorary Consul General of Hungary and a Notary Public for the State of
We worked with well over 100 agencies from all
over the
Please give us a call, or send an e-mail, if we
can be of service to you and fax or e-mail a few typical pages of the source
text.
We accept assignments only if we have the
expertise to do a very good job.
We hope to hear from you soon.
SUMMARY OF TRANSLATION
HELEN M. SZABLYA
Raised in a bilingual
(Hungarian-German) family environment in
Translated and
interpreted for foreign guests from an early age. Her first major assignment
was as a teenager acting as interpreter/translator for her father,
president/owner of
Was translator for the
Hungarian National Technical Library and the Technical University of Budapest. She is also an award-winning author and journalist
in both English and Hungarian and has continued with translation/interpretation
ever since she left
Helen Szablya is an
Active (professional, voting) Member of the American Translators Association
(ATA) since 1987, and founding member of both the Northwest Interpreters and
Translators Society (NOTIS) and the Washington Court Interpreters and
Translators Society (
JOINT EXPERIENCE WITH
MY LATE HUSBAND, DR. JOHN F. SZABLYA, P.E.
After the Szablyas had
left
In Vancouver BC they
continued their work with The University of British Columbia (where Dr. Szablya
was appointed to the faculty immediately after their arrival), immigration,
courts, schools, hospitals, etc., and private individuals.
Since settling in the
State of
They have extensive
experience in legal interpreting. They started interpreting
for courts in
OTHER SERVICES
Helen M. Szablya is
the Honorary Consul General of the
___________________________________________________________
Translator, Interpreter, Writer
Consul General of
Past President, Consular Association of WA
Past president Washington press association
Active Member, American Translators
Association
2901 NE Blakeley St. #500 , Seattle WA , USA
Phone: 206-432-9767, Fax:206-432-9774, E-mail:
szablyahj@aol.com
Web: www.szablya.com
RESUME
EDUCATION
B.A.
with distinction (equivalent to summa cum laude) Foreign Languages and
Literatures (Russian, German, French),
Diploma
in Sales and Marketing Management (forerunner of Executive MBA), The University
of British Columbia,
CONTINUING EDUCATION
Several legal credit courses offered by the Washington State Bar Association and courses sponsored by Small Business Administration (SBA) and U.S. Department of Commerce.
EXPERIENCE
1993-present Honorary Consul General of the
1990-1993 Publisher
and editor of Hungary International, monthly newsletter on business with
Lecturer (won first WPA prize).
1989-present Owner - President, Szablya Consultants, Inc., translation agency and trade consulting.
1987-1989
Inquiring Mind Lecturer, on
1987-1988 President
of the
1985-1986 Coauthor and project director of the play "Hungary Remembered", won several national and international awards, incl. George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation, Voice of America transmitted releases in 42 languages.
1984-present Hosted and organized lectures, concerts, as well as publicity, for visiting writers and other celebrities.
1980-1991
Weekly column in
1974 "Energy and Culture" lecture at EUROCON '74.
1967-present Writer, columnist, lecturer, translator: four books, a play, and over 700 articles in English.
1965-present Writer with over 700 articles published in English, others in Hungarian and German, two books, one play, several translations.
1957-1963
Assisted with resettling a Hungarian university at The University of British
Columbia, in
1949-present Simultaneous and consecutive interpreter, and translator: Court, legal, medical, literary, technical and scientific texts, books and videos; e.g. Larry King Show on CNN, AT&T, Berlitz, etc.
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
American Translators Association (ATA), Active (professional) Member
Northwest Interpreters and Translators Society (NOTIS), Founding Member
AWARDS (partial listing)
‘Spirit of
Presidential Order of
Merit from the
First prize for the book "Fall of the Red Star", Washington Press Association (WPA), 1996, First prize National Federatio of Press Women ((NFPW), 1996.
"Special Articles", WPA 1992, in tie with The Seattle Times.
"
"Community Woman of the Year", American Business Women's Association, 1990.
"Excellence in Journalism" - Editorials, Society of Professional Journalists, 1990.
"Public Service Group Achievement Award", National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), 1989.
"
"George Washington Honor Medal", Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge, 1988.
"
"Senator
Tom Martin Memorial Award for Literary Achievement in the Field of Social or
Political Commentary",
LISTED WITH (partial listing)
Marquis Who's Who in
COMPARING
THE ENGLISH
©2000
Dr. John F. Szablya
The Hungarian language
is not related to any of the Indo-European languages. It is a Ural-Altaic
language. The grammar and structure of Hungarian differs basically from
almost all other European languages. In
The following presents
some of the major differences:
o To start with, the
Hungarian language does not have the verb "to have." One can say in
Hungarian "it is mine", "it is my property", "it
belongs to me", but the concept "to have" does not exist.
(Try to speak for five minutes without using the verb "have.") By the
way, it takes a long time to make a Hungarian fully comprehend the concept of
"to have" when he/she first learns an Indo-European language.
o Hungarian makes
compound words galore. E.g. "file name," a word used extensively
today, is "fájlnév" in Hungarian.
o The Hungarian language
uses prefixes and suffixes. For example, "I love you" is one word in
Hungarian: "szeretlek" which includes
"love", "I", and "you" and expresses the relation
between the three. Or the eight words "they may have let him/her play the
role" is only one in Hungarian: "szerepeltethetnék."
o By using compound
words, prefixes and suffixes the number of words is less in Hungarian (usually
between 20 to 30 percent less) than for the same text in English. For the same
reason, the average word length is longer in Hungarian by approx. 35% (7.5 character per word in Hungarian versus 4.5 in English). The
combination of the two results in a Hungarian text which is usually longer (has
more lines/pages by about 5 to 10 percent) than its English equivalent, but its
number of words is less (by approx. 20 to 30%).
o Hungarian has only
one present, one past, and one future tense. Phrases like "has been",
"have been", etc. do not exist. Or "I am eating" can be
translated only as "I eat". If this is not sufficient, it has to be
circumscribed e.g. "I still eat." Furthermore Hungarian uses present
tense for future tense most of the time and uses future tense only when it
wants to emphasize that the event will occur in the future.
o There is no
passive structure in Hungarian. "I was told..." can be said only as
"They told me..." (another feature of
Indo-European languages that Hungarians have to struggle with when learning a
foreign language).
o The verb "to be" is omitted in many
Hungarian sentences which means that there are sentences without predicates
(verbs). E.g. "She/he is beautiful" in Hungarian is "szép" ("he/she[2] beautiful").
Explanation given in grade school : it is
obvious that she/he is beautiful, why say it then.
o Consider a
sentence which includes a numeral, or any term which indicates amount, like
"many," in conjunction with a noun e.g. "six eggs."
In this case singular is used in Hungarian: "hat tojás"
i.e. "six egg." Grade school explanation: if it says it's more than one,
why repeat the plurality. (Languages have their own rules which many times defy
common logic.)
o
If the letter "t" is attached to a noun it indicates that the
word is a direct object. Consequently, the direct object can always be
identified in the sentence and, therefore, the order of words (which in English
is: subject, predicate, direct object, modifiers) do not have to follow any
pattern.
o As a consequence
of the preceding, the order of words plays a significant role in the Hungarian
language. The same words put into a different order can mean something
considerably different. E.g. "Tudunk temetni" means "We know how to bury (the
dead)" but in reverse order "Temetni tudunk" means something different "How to bury
people - that is one thing we really know"[3].
o There is one
feature which makes the Hungarian language easier to use: it has no gender. In
third person it distinguishes only between a person (ő) and not a person (az). Again, it is difficult to
learn for a Hungarian that, particularly in German and French, and to some
extent even in English, objects have a gender (country and ships are
"she" in English).
The above is by no means a complete
listing.
All these indicate why it is by several
levels more difficult to translate from/into English into/from Hungarian than
it is with German-English, French-English, Spanish-English, etc. language
pairs.
In closing, for the fun of it, an R
rated example is presented:
To do (something) is "csinálni." However, with prefixes the word will have
considerably different meanings.
"Megcsinálni"
= to do and complete it, also to repair (that's not too far from the original
meaning).
"Becsinálni"
(verbatim: "do into") = to wet your pants.
"Összecsinálni"
(verbatim: "do together") = not just wet your pants but No.2 also.
"Lecsinálni
(verbatim: "do down") = shit onto someone (Sorry, I warned you...).
"Felcsinálni"
(verbatim: "do up") = to make a woman pregnant[4].
And that's not all, but probably enough for
today.
Footnotes:
1
Hungarian does not have gender. See last bullet.
2 The
Man Who Loved Numbers (book) by Paul Hoffman, Hyperion,
3 Frequently used slang.