Today we’ll shift gears a bit and recommend a highly awarded film: “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” directed by Wayne Wang. It earned itself the distinction of Best Film at the San Sebastian Film Festival, it received the Signis award as well as the Cinema Writers Circle award. In addition to all these awards [...]
Archive for May, 2009
Unit of Translation
Friday, May 29th, 2009Units of translation depend on the text itself, i.e. to what point can I understand the meaning.
Both the word and the sentence, the period and the paragraph must be subject to analysis and interpretation in context; when it comes time to translate, we work with an organic semantic whole, the text, which is articulated through [...]
How to Enter the Translation Field
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Becoming a translator is not the easiest thing by any means: not only do certain basic conditions need to be met (such as possessing strong mastery of two or more languages), but furthermore there are long and challenging degree programs geared specifically towards creating translation professionals. In fact, over the last several decades the amount [...]
A New Way to Give: Translations Support St. Jude
Friday, May 22nd, 2009Trusted Translations, Inc. has become actively involved in the fight against childhood cancer by supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Richard Estevez, Trusted Translations’ CEO, is the Executive Chair of St. Jude’s “Chocolat au Vin” gala. The event will be held in New York City on May 28, 2009, and will feature a full performance [...]
Translator Training Programs
Friday, May 22nd, 2009One of the great difficulties I have encountered in my professional career as a translator was moving from someone who can understand a few languages very well to an actual translator. I never studied translation as a field; instead I worked on my abilities in the languages on my own, especially on creating coherent and [...]
The Greek Legacy
Friday, May 22nd, 2009Greece is the center of international attention every time we celebrate the Olympic Games, as they are the continuation of an ancient Hellenic tradition in honor of the gods of Olympus. But what’s the origin of the Greek language?
The Greek languages form the Hellenic subfamily of the grand Indo-European family of languages. It is the [...]
Reading the Text Before Translating
Thursday, May 21st, 2009The translator starts the first stage of the translation process, the understanding stage.
The purpose is to extract all content and expressive value to then reformulate them in the target language. Capturing and understanding the text does not end the communication process opened by the author. Instead it restarts it and the reader/translator becomes a spokesperson [...]
Official Language = Official Nonsense
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009As evinced by the opinions expressed in my previous post, I am not a big fan of language regulators; having given the matter further thought, I realize that I am also not a fan of designating a certain language as the “official” language of a state, country, etc. Though I could honestly care less whether [...]
A Certainly Numerous Family
Monday, May 18th, 2009The Indo-European languages constitute the largest family of languages on the face of the earth: the majority of the languages of Europe and the Near East belong to it. It includes over 150 languages spoken by approximately 3 billion people.The common ancestor language among them is Proto-Indo-European. It presumably originated in Armenia or [...]
My Tips on the Best Ways to Learn a Foreign Language
Friday, May 15th, 2009Most of the posts on this blog have been directed to people who already have a familiarity with or even work with languages other than English on a regular basis. However, I should acknowledge the fact that many of our readers may not be bilingual but have come across our blog due to their interest [...]
How to Kill a Language
Friday, May 15th, 2009In language, few things are as interesting and intriguing as the capacity for innovation and creativity that serve as the basis of a “living language.” Without these properties, languages become paralyzed and inevitably embark upon the path to their linguistic demise. Nonetheless, in many languages there is a minority of native speakers that [...]
Parataxis, Ellipsis, and Litotes in English and Spanish
Friday, May 15th, 2009In English, I feel that I encounter parataxis more often than in the Romance languages (though I have no good evidence to back this up). Parataxis is putting together sentences without any coordinating conjunctions to spice up a text, make it move quicker, and not repeat the same conjunctions over and over. I find that [...]
The Use of Quotation Marks
Friday, May 8th, 2009The principal function of quotation marks is to mark quotes and dialogues. In Spanish, there are two formulas for dialogues: dashes and quotation marks. The latter are used when dialogues are incorporated in the paragraph or within a dialogue that is marked off by quotation marks. Quotation marks are also used with memories and thoughts.
When [...]
Understanding Each Other in Different Languages
Friday, May 8th, 2009Mutually intelligible languages are those which allow speakers to understand each other in both written and oral contexts, without the necessity of studying or having much knowledge of the other language. This is what happens between native speakers of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian; it also is the case for speakers of Afrikaans and Dutch.
The Germanic [...]
Changing Chinese Names
Thursday, May 7th, 2009As I have brought up on this site before, one of the things I most appreciate about the English language is the amount of creativity speakers have due to the lack of a regulating body. Another issue that has never ceased to amaze me is the fact that other countries do not allow you to [...]
Cinco de Mayo: Mexico’s Biggest Export
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009Today is a day worth remembering for a variety of reasons, both contemporary and historical. Today’s date, the infamous “cinco de mayo,” has become quite a notorious and popular occasion to celebrate Mexican heritage and national identity…even though it’s not actually Mexico’s official Day of Independence (that’s the 16th of September).
Evincing his need for a [...]
