Accent marks can be somewhat of a mystery to non-Spanish speakers. Even if the Spanish student (or translator…) remembers where in the word to put the accent mark, he or she still might not be sure how to do so. There are three basic ways to write Spanish accent marks. 1. Keyboard Setup (Windows) –Go […]
The Apple Ipod has taken the world by storm and, along with its sibling the Iphone, become the must have accessory for the 21st century. Each new Ipod has brought along a fresh idea, be it video capabilities or an insanely compact size. It has been heralded for much more than its entertainment capabilities, with […]
Twitter, tweet and tweak your heart out globally now with a number of new products and services. If you have not yet heard, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows people to stay connected, and according to the New York Times, Twitter is “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.” Friends kee
George Bernard Shaw once said that “England and the United States are two languages separated by a common language,” and in the Canterville Ghost Oscar Wilde stated, “We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” I don’t know who was first, but it’
What is a glossary? A glossary is basically a catalog of words from a select discipline or area of study in which the terms are arranged alphabetically and defined, discussed and/or translated into another language. There are general glossaries on subjects like medicine, economics or art, for example, and then there are mor
I often wonder about the future of language. And yes, the singular “language.” In 2003, Hollywood released Code 46m a film that discusses something very similar to what I’d been wondering about. The movie takes place in the not-so-distant future with people “inside” and “outside” of
Some kids in the U.S. these days are helping their parents in a unique way: by serving as their personal interpreters and translators. Parents that do not speak or understand English get assistance from their kids in everything from ordering a pizza to medical exams. Is this a useful skill for kids or does it […]
The subject of bilingual education in the US is a hotly debated topic, but news source are frequently unclear in their definitions of what exactly bilingual education is. The general public is largely unaware that there exist a wide variety of programs for students whose native language is not English and assume that biling
After having received several valuable comments from readers, I’ve looked into Ideal Nol and Esperanto a bit more in an effort to differentiate their purposes, current and projected usage, and challenges that the languages face. Esperanto was created with the most honorable of ambitions: promote international understa
How many words are there in Spanish? How about in English? Depending on who you ask, there are different answers… There is a certain tendency (among Spanish-speakers) to overestimate the number of words in Spanish as well as the overall variety of the language’s forms. Some say that it is out of a need to [&hell
This little box here is the prototype for what Fuji Xerox claims will revolutionize the translation industry. How does it work? You put a document written in one language into it and the translated version pops out in the EXACT SAME FORMAT. Currently, the machine only “reads” Japanese, but can translate into Eng
A small yet difficult subject, especially for “rookies”: what to do when you come across an abbreviation, initials or acronym while translating. (This article does not differentiate between initials- the first letters of a group of words from a full expression or name, and acronyms- initials pronounced together,
“Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.” —- Yevgeny Yevtushenko The quote above is from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, author of Babi Yar and known critic of the Soviet government. While this quotation is undeniably mis
Several colleagues who spend day after day, week after week toiling as editors- that is, correcting translations day after day, week after week– and I have gotten together and after much discussion, we have set down this list of guidelines and suggestions that we feel will be very useful for translators, especially th
No matter how beautiful your translation, there are certain errors, most often made by someone just starting out in the trade, that will peg your work as “rookie level.” Most of us are guilty of one or more of these seemingly innocent, yet disastrous mistakes. This article will hopefully point out a few of these
As we’ve talked about in previous posts, while it is possible to drag out the old typewriter and our trusty Simon & Schuster’s and put a translation down on legal paper, we live in the twenty-first century and these days we have: a) a computer, b) a fairly high-speed internet connection, and c) one or [&hell
Those in the translation industry have long laughed at machine translation and its incorrect wording, awkward sentence choice, etc., so when Google Enterprise product manager Cyrus Mistry proclaimed that the new Google Translate would be “analogous to giving every employee in a business 34 translators sitting at their
In 2004, a translation company surveyed linguists from all over the world to find out what the hardest words to translate. They took every language into account. The winner was ilunga (from a language spoken in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo: tshiluba o luba-kasai), and means ” a person capable
The final step in this series is on the most crucial step for any aspiring translator- finding translation jobs. You basically have two options here, you work freelance or are on staff at a translation agency. In this post, we will go over some of the pros and cons of these two paths. Translation Agency […]
It is common knowledge that language changes over time, and we can easily see that it is not immune to the effects of globalization. Nowadays, the use of swear words has become more standardized: on TV, in movies, in sports, etc. These are areas that reflect the way people actually talk. There are certain channels […