A blog about translation, writing and language in all its glorious aspects
One of my first ever posts, “Translators’ time-warp“, was about the confusion that arises when you work with clients in different time zones and with different public holidays from your own. Well, it’s happening again today. It’s bad enough getting back into work mode after the Christmas and New Year period (although to be honest …
Continue reading “Out of kilter: confusing times for translators”
Do you ever get annoyed with your clients’ manners? I often do, for example when they don’t acknowledge, far less thank me for, a translation I’ve delivered by email. If I were to walk into the client’s office and hand over the translation in paper format, I’m sure they’d say “Thanks”. So what happens to their …
What do you think of the Oxford English Dictionary’s choice of “selfie” as Word of the Year for 2013? I’m not mad about the word itself, although that’s probably an age/generational thing. In my young day (indeed, in most people’s young day) the technology for selfies wasn’t available: you took a photo of yourself, alone …
Continue reading “Who’s not happy with “selfie” as Word of the Year?”
Twitter can be a great source of inspiration for blog posts. I spent some time this afternoon looking at Italian websites for a project I was working on and found only one that included the translators’ names among the credits. Indeed, with most Italian sites if you click the “Credits” link in the footer you’re …
Continue reading “Getting credit for our website translations: A good thing, surely. Or maybe not?”
Today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg address, delivered by Abraham Lincoln on 19 November 1863. Cordelia (aka Dilly or Dill) Ditton, a Glasgow-based actress, director and communication coach, wrote an interesting blog post about the Address back in February, entitled “Abraham Lincoln, the power of sound and maybe the greatest speech ever written“. …
Continue reading “The Gettysburg Address: lessons for writers (and translators!)”
Small-business owners and freelancers talk, and worry, a lot about pricing: how to charge a decent rate without frightening potential clients away. Price is certainly important, but it’s not the only factor motivating clients. I had confirmation of this recently from a new client. An Italian company had contacted me for an urgent translation of documents …
If you’re interested in fonts, and especially if you don’t like Arial but do like having your prejudices confirmed, you might enjoy a couple of articles written by typeface designer Mark Simonson. He describes Arial as: actually rather homely. Not that homeliness is necessarily a bad thing for a typeface. With typefaces, character and history …
Do you have a favourite font for on-screen work? Or do certain fonts hurt your eyes the minute you open the file? I’ve been working on a short translation project consisting of two interview transcripts of about 600 words each. Both of the source texts were in Arial 12-point, justified, without a single paragraph break. …
Continue reading “Workable fonts, and a tip for proofreading”
Today is apparently National Burger Day. For those of us more interested in words than in food (who am I kidding?), here’s the etymology of burger (and of hamburger), courtesy of the Online Etymology Dictionary. burger (n.) 1939, American English, shortened from hamburger (q.v.). hamburger (n.) 1610s, “native of Hamburg;” the meat product so called …
Gary Muddyman of Conversis has written an interesting blog post – Is Britain becoming a nation of monoglots? – on the decline in language learning in UK schools. The post includes links for further reading (and viewing) on this worrying subject. Is there anything we, as people who love language and languages, can do to encourage …
Continue reading “Language learning in decline? Spread the language love!”