When you're recording a language you don't understand, and reading along
phonetically, after a while, you pick up certain patterns and phrases.
For example, when a really long word is about to come up, I notice some
readers will increase the pace at the beginning of the sentence, much
like one tries to get up speed before running up a short hill.
It's almost comical to notice that pattern..... speeding up how
fasttheyreadherecomesabigword...big word...relax..slow down...... pace
decreasing.....
After sensing these patterns, somehow you know when a mistake is made.
Or at least I do. The guys I'm working with get a huge kick out of me
seeing an error that they don't catch.
For example, I noticed today he said 'ke' when he should have said 'be'
and my pointing it out, got us all laughing for a few seconds. But I had
no idea why they were laughing.
Were they laughing at me? Did I say something funny? Stupid?
They later explained they were laughing because they forget I don't know
their language, because I tend to point out so many mistakes, and today
I was correcting the reading in HIS language.... not knowing it
myself... and the hilarious part was.. I was right!
I kept telling them 'I'm not correcting, I'm asking, if he said it
right, I don't know the language."
But it didn't help in convincing them at all when today, I heard a small
click in the recording during replay. I stopped playback, and went to
silence the click... when the guys looked at me astonished.
Apparently right around that click was a grammatical error or a
mispronunciation that neither of them caught, but upon my repeated
playback (while I was removing the click) they heard it, and looked at
me completely amazed.
We re-recorded the part, and now I'm pretty sure the guys are convinced
I can read Arop-Lukep.
This isn't the first time that's ever happened. It's just that when
you're not concentrating on the meaning of the words, you can
concentrate on the patterns, and other noises. Things the recording
technician is supposed to pay attention to.
Anyway, these guys have an infectious laughter, and we had fun today
doing 3 chapters of Matthew before lunch.
