Something new

One of the fun things about assignments is that you may come across things you never practised and never were taught, still apparently need to take on. It does depend a bit on what it is, of course. I’d rather not be expected to fly planes or fix plumbing. Not only because of the risk of casualties, it’s just too far out of my comfort zone. But making a translation of the Polish grid code turned out quite a rewarding experience.

A few years ago, I was part of a team preparing for entry into the Polish day-ahead and intraday markets. The grid code, which is an essential piece of regulation for market parties, was only available in Polish. None of the team members, including myself, had any knowledge of the Polish language. So, I gave it a go.

Obviously, Google Translate or similar services could be relied on to do the bulk of the work. But they never fail to leave you with quite a few mysteries. Logical inconsistencies, questionable terminology, incomplete and incomprehensible sentences, not to speak of blatant nonsense interspersed among humble listings of technical detail. Without a critical review, such translations are unusable. What made this review task seem feasible in the first place? 

In general, my linguistic and philological background makes me comfortable solving puzzles like this. Owing to rudimentary Russian, I had some understanding of the functioning of Slavic grammars, which allowed me to correct a few obvious errors. And of course, being familiar with the subject matter is an indispensable asset in cases like this. 
Still, under different circumstances, I would have left it at a bit of dabbling in the evening hours. In my day job, I wouldn’t have relied on a skill I was exploring for the first time. But I am grateful that I did, this time around. 

I’m not the kind of person who confidently takes on assignments that go beyond his skill set. Quite the contrary, I used to cultivate a rather strict distinction between things I had been taught and the rest, the rest being out of bounds for any serious practice. Blurring that distinction I found quite a liberating experience.

But was it more than a matter of personal growth? It fortunately was. The translations became essential for our preparatory work. At some point, I found myself discussing a grid code change with the Polish TSO at rather a detailed level: “By writing this, you seem to imply that; was that intended?” Slight confusion at the other end: “But you don’t read Polish, do you?” I don’t. But I had learnt something new.
One of the fun things about assignments is that you may come across things you never practised and never were taught, still apparently need to take on. It does depend a bit on what it is, of course. I’d rather not be expected to fly planes or fix plumbing. Not only because of the risk of casualties, it’s just too far out of my comfort zone. But making a translation of the Polish grid code turned out quite a rewarding experience.

A few years ago, I was part of a team preparing for entry into the Polish day-ahead and intraday markets. The grid code, which is an essential piece of regulation for market parties, was only available in Polish. None of the team members, including myself, had any knowledge of the Polish language. So, I gave it a go.

Obviously, Google Translate or similar services could be relied on to do the bulk of the work. But they never fail to leave you with quite a few mysteries. Logical inconsistencies, questionable terminology, incomplete and incomprehensible sentences, not to speak of blatant nonsense interspersed among humble listings of technical detail. Without a critical review, such translations are unusable. What made this review task seem feasible in the first place? 

In general, my linguistic and philological background makes me comfortable solving puzzles like this. Owing to rudimentary Russian, I had some understanding of the functioning of Slavic grammars, which allowed me to correct a few obvious errors. And of course, being familiar with the subject matter is an indispensable asset in cases like this. 

Still, under different circumstances, I would have left it at a bit of dabbling in the evening hours. In my day job, I wouldn’t have relied on a skill I was exploring for the first time. But I am grateful that I did, this time around. 

I’m not the kind of person who confidently takes on assignments that go beyond his skill set. Quite the contrary, I used to cultivate a rather strict distinction between things I had been taught and the rest, the rest being out of bounds for any serious practice. Blurring that distinction I found quite a liberating experience.

But was it more than a matter of personal growth? It fortunately was. The translations became essential for our preparatory work. At some point, I found myself discussing a grid code change with the Polish TSO at rather a detailed level: “By writing this, you seem to imply that; was that intended?” Slight confusion at the other end: “But you don’t read Polish, do you?” I don’t. But I had learnt something new.

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