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Archive for September, 2009
Happy International Translation Day
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009Happy Translator’s Day
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009In commemoration of St. Jerome, the man who had the Bible translated to Latin for the first time, today is Translators Day. So, to all of us who are translators, happy birthday!
If you are someone in need of translation work, simply walk around a public space until you see someone smiling and receiving compliments from [...]
Machismo in Spanish Writing?
Friday, September 25th, 2009I frequently notice in translations from English into Spanish that the translator attempts to make explicit an author’s reference to both sexes with the following type of construction:
Todos los/as niños/as deberán entregar esta documentación.
The idea is that in this way, “las niñas” (the girls) aren’t left out of the picture. However, according to the rules [...]
Happy National Punctuation Day!
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Let us take this time to celebrate National Punctuation Day, wherein everyone must take a little extra time to focus on proper grammar usage and not fill the world with poor style and embarrassing mistakes. Visit the website to brush up on anything if you need to. Someday, I hope that we will live every [...]
Overcoming the Global Economic Crisis with Professional Translation
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009The present global economic scenario is looking pretty dire, and companies all over the planet are looking for clever new ways to maintain their customer base and expand it in new directions. The necessity to reach out into new markets is underscored by the fact that many traditionally solid markets (such as the United [...]
The Role of Interpreters in Afghanistan
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009I recently posted on how the US government is addressing a shortage of translators and interpreters in its efforts in the Middle East, most notably Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Today, Joshua Foust in the New York Times gives us a glimpse into the reality of how interpreters work with the military in these countries. The stories are [...]
Triphthongs in Spanish
Monday, September 21st, 2009A triphthong is a sequence of three vowels making up one syllable. Some examples in Spanish would be: a – pre – ciáis, co – piéis, buey. For a triphthong to exist, two closed atonic vowels (“i” or “u”) and, between them, an open vowel (“a”, “e”, or “o”): anunciáis, guau, miau, confiéis.
Sequences of closed [...]
How to Use SDL Multiterm in Trados Workbench
Friday, September 18th, 2009This video offers a brief, succinct lesson on how to use MultiTerm as a plug-in in Trados Workbench, to create glossaries during a translation project.
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How to Use Two-Word Nouns in Spanish
Friday, September 18th, 2009In Spanish, in constructions made up of two nouns that form one lexical unit in which the second noun modifies the first as if it were an adjective, usually only the first one will be expressed as plural.
Examples:
horas punta (peak hours)
bombas lapa (naval mines)
faldas pantalón (culotte shorts)
ciudades dormitorio (commuter cities)
pisos piloto (model apartments)
coches cama (sleeper [...]
When Translations Get Tricky
Monday, September 14th, 2009It’s common in the translation field to come across projects that evince enormous intercultural differences, obliging the translator to come up with some sort of ingenious solution to the issue. On the one hand, translators can try to tweak the message of the text to render an appropriate final result, but this is usually frowned [...]
Video Tutorial on Importing Excel Glossaries into Multiterm
Monday, September 14th, 2009I would just like to share this instructional video on generating Mutliterm termbase files from an Excel glossary, which is the most important step in the process, in my opinion:
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Pronouncing “c” and “z” in Spanish
Friday, September 11th, 2009“Seseo” consists of pronouncing the letters “c” (before “e” and “i”) and “z” with the sound normally associated with the letter “s”. If someone speaks with seseo, they would say “serésa” for “cereza” (cherry), “sierto” for “cierto” (true), and “sapáto” for “zapato” (shoe).
Seseo is used generally throughout Latin America and in the Caray Islands and [...]
Unique Languages: Maltese
Monday, September 7th, 2009It is often discussed here and in many other places how English is such a unique language due to the confluence of languages from separate families that were brought together into one. This is not the only case in the world, obviously, and it is useful to highlight other examples of how cultures can collide [...]
Writing Years in Spanish
Friday, September 4th, 2009Continuing on the topic of writing dates in Spanish correctly, regarding the use of the article “el” (which includes the contraction “del“) before the expression of years, these are the proper protocols:
a) For years between 1 and 1100, it is common to use the article, at least in spoken Spanish: Los árabes invadieron la Península [...]
Can’t We All Just Get Along?!
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, the bloodiest and most atrocious armed conflict of the 20th century. European leaders gathered in the small coastal city of Gdansk to mark the event, this being the town where German aggressors first opened fire on Polish defenses, setting off six [...]
U.S. Government Looking for More Translators
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009As reported by the Washington Times, there is a worrisome shortage of translators in some languages that are crucial in the operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries of the region. The Director of the CIA, Leon E. Panetta, said that they are looking to double their staff of translators and linguistic workers for languages [...]
