Oh, but I don't read (fill in a language)...

If you want to study any form of European embroidery, you will need to be able to read languages other than English. When you solely rely on the literature available in English, you will miss a lot! For all sorts of reasons, people are often afraid to tackle a language they don't speak (well). However, with a bit of elbow grease, a camera or scanner, free software on the internet and a computer with Microsoft Word, you will be able to tackle text written in foreign languages. And it is good for your brain too. Plus you will have many guaranteed giggles along the way!

Still not convinced you can do it? I, Dr Jessica Grimm, have sucked at languages in school as I am dyslectic, but I love reading and research. And I have come to love (foreign) languages too. Once I stopped beating myself up (and learned to shrug it off when others negatively commented) over the many writing mistakes I make, I discovered that I am actually good at writing and associating. This means that I quickly pick up words that are related to words in Dutch (my native language), English (my second language), German (my third language) or French/Latin (rudimentary knowledge). Some of you will now think that I must actually be an ace at languages. NOPE. If you still don't believe me, you can leave a comment below. My mum, who IS an ace at languages, reads this blog too. And she will happily fill you in on all the language drama of my school years. And now, let me show you how I translate texts written in a foreign language in five easy steps!

Step 1: Start by scanning or photographing the text page by page. Although the OCR software needed later in the process has a capacity to work with multiple pages, you get less muddled-up results when you work page by page. Should you scan or photograph? That depends on two things; 1) when your text contains pictures it is better to photograph and 2) if your camera is poor, it is better to scan. Scans are saved as PDF and pictures as JPEG.

Step 2: Now you will need to convert the PDF or the JPEG into written language. This is done by feeding your PDF or JPEG into OCR software. I like to use this website. You are allowed to convert 15 pages an hour for free. The website itself is available in many languages, just set the correct one at the bottom of the page. Upload a page (PDF or JPEG), set the correct parameters and push the convert button. Your text will now appear in the window below. Mark the text, copy and paste it into Microsoft Word.

Step 3: For the next step, you will have to make sure that you have installed the corresponding language pack in Microsoft Word. This is free when you have a Microsoft Office subscription. Once you have all your OCR converted text pasted into your Word document, you'll need to check against the original text. This is the most time-consuming part. But it is also the part where you will snatch up words that might come in handy should you ever visit the country in which the language is spoken. Think of reading captions in a museum exhibition.

Step 4: Once you have checked the whole text, mark it and set the font and size. This step is very important! On your screen, it might look like the whole text is written in the same font and same size, but this is never the case. If you proceed to the next step without making sure the font and size are corrected, you will get a very poor translation!

Step 5: And now the fun starts! Let Microsoft Word translate the document. It works best to translate foreign languages into English. But translating into Dutch, German or French is ok too. Depending on the original language and the writing style of the author, you might end up with a near-perfect document that you can already easily read. However, as scholarly literature often has rare words in it, you usually will end up with a few hilarious translations you will have to correct. These were the best ones in my latest translation of a Swedish text:

- the priest wears a maniac on his left arm (maniple)
- party mite for a mitre petriosa
- calving scene for calvary scene
- cow cover for cope

It took me a whole working day to get to this stage of translating a 21-page Swedish text (that's A4 in Calibri 11pt). That is not bad when you compare it with the "olden method" of using a dictionary!