Dear All,
It is attitude, not aptitude that usually determines success. We have some solid hints from Don Bosco that he believed this too. Absolutely fundamental for him was that someone acquires learning (including language learning) within a positive emotional environment that does not judge one’s ability, but rather fosters communication. This was an important aspect of his Preventive System.
Salesian work began to spread, first within Piedmont but then very soon into France, so it meant that Don Bosco came into direct contact with French on a regular basis (as indeed he did anyway, growing up in the largely French-dominated Piedmont of his time). Fr Pietro Braido draws our attention to one of these occasions, which exemplifies the “attitude vs aptitude” approach of Don Bosco:
Regarding the language he spoke we have the testimony of Fr Francis Cerruti from the Informative Process for the Canonisation. Cerruti was then the Rector at Alassio: “I always recall him telling me about his first conference at Nice when the first Oratory was opened in the city, the patronage de St-Pierre. ‘I began in French then I slipped into Italian, but,’ he said jokingly, ‘I was smart enough to continue mixing both Italian and French.’ And to think’, he added, ‘that I had my French dictionary in my bag’.” (Pietro Braido. 2005. Don Bosco Educatore: Scritti e Testimonianze. Roma: LAS., 141) .
What is evident from the above is that Don Bosco was not afraid of the judgement his listeners might pass on him for his attempts to speak their language.
What did they think, in fact? On another occasion, we have the comments of a columnist in the Semain de Nice-Revue Catholique that he had “une eloquence apostolique!” Heart spoke to heart. The Biographical Memoirs reinforces this in reference to a meeting with Canon Guiol early in March 1877: “Since Don Bosco’s knowledge of French was inadequate for the matter at hand and Father Guiol did not understand a single word of Italian, an interpreter had to be called in, but this did not prevent both hearts from being in perfect accord with each other.” (BM XIII, 75-76). A little later, when Don Bosco was a guest at the De La Salle Brothers’ school in Marseilles, the comment was that “Although his French was more ingenious than correct, he gradually won their hearts.“ (MB 13, 77). Two years later, visiting the Salesian houses by then established in France, Don Bosco gave a conference in Marseilles. A Salesian (Fr Bologna, also known in France as Père Bologne) remarked: ”He spoke French as though he knew it“!
So we know now that Don Bosco saw the need for direct contact with language through a translator/interpreter. He would often ask for this assistance for written texts that he knew needed to be properly understood by others. Such was the case for his presentation of the Preventive System at the opening of the Patronage de St-Pierre, again in Nice, a document that was and still is a fundamental source text for Salesians. He requested that it be properly translated, using the resources of a local French lawyer (Michel) and a certain Baron Héraud.
The Best Practice continues this topic, with some comments by Braido on the quality of translation of this most fundamental Salesian document. But just remember for ourselves: for Don Bosco, the issue was attitude rather than aptitude, a little point in our charism that we should bear in mind in our sometimes demanding work as translators.
best_practice_33-translator-interpreter.docx