The custom in English today of having expository clarity give precedence to short sentences that are separated by periods, whereas in Spanish the are considered as subordinate elements within a main sentence.
The greatest extension of the period in English in relation to Spanish is seen in the capacity of English to construct a series of [...]
Archive for April, 2009
The Extension of the Period and Links Between Sentences
Thursday, April 30th, 2009The Chinese Language, Numbers, and Ability in Math
Thursday, April 30th, 2009I have already brought up the idea of how the language you speak can shape you mind, and it is a topic that continues to add layers of depth and possibility. I was reminded of this last week when I reread Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” (he doesn’t pay me, but I definitely think that everyone should [...]
The Use of the Article in English and Spanish
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009In English, unlike Spanish, uses the indefinite article before the generic predicate. The article plays its essential role, which is to singularize an object among the class designated by the noun, which is a possibility that does not exist in English, since it uses the article in both cases. The individualization becomes apparent, and in [...]
UAE Translating their Laws to English
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009In an effort to make its relationship with non-Arabic countries more transparent and friendly, the United Arab Emirates (officially consolidated as a nation in 1971) is working on translating all of the laws it has passed into English. Access to this work will be essential to encouraging companies to invest in the territory and make [...]
More Symbology: Arabic
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Arabic is a macrolanguage of the Semitic family, as are Aramaic, Hebrew, Acadian, and Maltese. It is the oldest of the Semitic languages, which is to say the closest to primitive Semitic. It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with almost 180 million speakers, known internationally as the [...]
Languages with Symbols: Chinese
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009Chinese is one of the languages with the most native speakers in the world (1.2 billion people). It is spoken in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Chinese can either be considered a language or a language family. In the latter case, it makes up one of the two branches of the Sino-Tibetan languages. Chinese [...]
Commas in English and Spanish
Monday, April 20th, 2009In English, we generally use a comma in front of the conjunctions “and” and “or”. The structures in English allow for us to skip the comma when working with other conjunctions. In certain sentences, the pause indicated by the comma will not be enough and a semi-colon must be used instead.
Subordinate adverbial clauses between two [...]
A Beginning…Cuneiform
Friday, April 17th, 2009Though spoken language has been in existence for tens of thousands of years, it was not until the end of the fourth millennium before the common era—according to the best calculations of experts on the matter—that written language was invented. One of the earliest known forms of written language emerged from the region of Sumer [...]
Esperanto: a Language with a Good Cause
Friday, April 17th, 2009Esperanto is the international language created by Polish doctor Ludwik Zamenhof so that all people might be able to communicate with each other on an equal footing. He published a brochure in 1887 that he signed with the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. Thus was born the Esperanto language, which means “he who has hope.”
Over more than [...]
Easter
Monday, April 13th, 2009In most languages, the word “Easter” is derived from the word “Pesach,” the Hebrew name for the Passover holiday, a Jewish festivity that is directly related with the Catholic celebration. The Jewish Passover lasts between 7 and 8 days during which the exodus and liberation of the Israeli people from Egypt is remembered.
Early Christians transformed [...]
Compensating and Compromising
Thursday, April 9th, 2009In the field of translation, there are inevitably going to be phrases and meanings in a Source Text that will not be able to be conveyed (at least not with complete fidelity) in the Target Text…that’s just the way it is. Even the best translators in the world will encounter fragments of text that simply [...]
When Knowing a Language Is Fun
Friday, April 3rd, 2009Portuguese is a Romance language spoken by 240 million people. The international expansion of this language took place during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries with the Portuguese Empire, whose borders stretched from Brazil to Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, East Timor, Cabinda, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Angola, Guinea Bissau, [...]
Is 1,000,000 words possible?
Friday, April 3rd, 2009The Global Language Monitor, which was born from the ashes of yourdictionary.com, focuses on trends in the use of language, primarily through automatic algorithmic readings of texts on the web. The latest news from the site (and you’ll notice, should you visit the site, that most of the “news” on the homepage is articles where [...]
Adjectives: Differences in English and Spanish
Friday, April 3rd, 2009In English, adjectives are always spelled the same and, syntactically, are almost always placed before the noun. In Spanish, there are a few that are generally unchangeable, but the majoirty aren’t, and nearly all of them denote the number of the subject (singular or plural).
Its expressive value differs depending on if it is placed before [...]
Cogency: Am I Making Myself Understood?
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009The ability to formulate an argument (written or spoken) that logically sustains itself is not perceived the same way in every part of the world, a fact which makes the work of a translator quite peculiar in certain instances. In fact, the intersection of language and culture yields some incredibly interesting dilemmas, with regards to [...]
Favorite Words in Other Languages
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009The majority of the people I have exchanged emails and comments with on this blog are not just translators of one language pair, but polyglots who love and appreciate many languages. As such, we all have an affinity for words we learn in other languages that express things much more succinctly than any word in [...]
