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
In the same vein as ttyl, lmao and gr8, Ideal Nol is a new language created by Enric Cabrejas that combines the simplicity (confusion) of abbreviated text messages and messenger conversations with the simplistic rules of Esperanto. The new form of expression was devised as a way for individuals without a common language to
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
Fiction and folklore throughout the world generally has at least one story of a child living among and being raised by animals. The parents may be monkeys, dogs, and entire jungle family, etc., but the tale usually goes one of two ways. The child is brought up with a certain kind of “savage smarts” and […
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
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 […
In a piece known as “Bad Words,” Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano tells the story of a little girl who was running raucously through the house and tripped and fell. Instead of crying however, the little girl got mad: What’s this shit doing here? Her mother corrected her: No dear, people don’t say tha
The act of translating has changed significantly over the past decade, with the personal computer having replaced the giant multilingual dictionary as the translator’s single indispensable item. If you are starting out as a freelance translator or interested in a career as a professional translator, there are a few th
So you’ve honed your writing skills, you’ve read libraries full of books in the source language and now you’re ready to start translating. You’ve already done millions of mental translations in your head, so it should be a breeze now, right? Almost. You will of course learn as you translate, but armi
According to the dictionary, an editor “edits or adapts a text”: he or she corrects it, improves it. This isn’t an attempt to “improve” the original, but rather an effort to improve the original translation so that it reads less like a translation and more like something originally written in t
Love languages? Looking for a stimulating career path or some freelance work on the side? Becoming a translator may be for you. Professional translation has been growing rapidly in the past decade, yet remains a mystery to many outside the field. What does it take to get started in the translation industry? What does a [&he
The objective of any company making a product or providing a service is of course selling that product or service. To do so, companies hire creative marketing specialists, sociologists and publicists; they perform tests, studies, statistical analyses, advertising campaigns and so on. An astronomical sum of money invested in