I wrote on 21 July about quote-marks — how to decide whether you should be using curly (smart) or straight quotes and, once you’ve decided, how to type them using keyboard shortcuts where necessary. Translators, however, need to decide not just which quote marks to use but whether or not to “translate” them. For example, …
Tag archives: quality
The language, or the message… Why not both?
I’ve just read an opinion piece on transcreation by Steve Puttock of Schawk, Inc. in the PopSop brand magazine. The article begins: The global marketplace is providing businesses with fantastic opportunities but also, inevitably, moving into new markets can cause headaches! One area for particular concern is around the creation of international advertising and marketing campaigns. For the …
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The king’s speech — and how to translate it
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a speech-flavoured working week. Translating a speech is a good opportunity for translators to provide added value for their clients. Not only should our translated text read fluently and naturally, it should also be easy for non-native-speaking clients to read aloud (and for their audience to …
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The king’s speech (not to mention the queen and the presidents’)
It’s been quite a month for historic speeches in the UK and Ireland, with the speeches by Queen Elizabeth, President McAleese and President Obama during the Queen’s State Visit to Ireland and President Obama’s to Ireland and the UK. And it’s been the year of The King’s Speech (the film, that is), featuring Lionel Logue …
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Take our poll: should new clients test your skills or hire you on trust?
The Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s 25th Anniversary Conference took place in Birmingham on 7-8 May. It was a fantastic event that gave us all lots to think about and plenty of great ideas to put into practice. One of the workshops, No translator is an island, examined the sort of human interactions translators have to …
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Resolutions for clients
Do our clients make New Year Resolutions? Or, given that as business owners we too are clients (to our accountants, designers, marketing advisers, lawyers, printers…), do we ever make resolutions wearing our client hats, rather than our “own business” hats? Here are some resolution suggestions for anyone wanting to be a better client. Resolution 1 …
Resolutions for small-business owners
If you haven’t got round to making any business resolutions yet for 2011, or are stuck or ideas, here are some belated suggestions. Resolution 1 Raise your fees, if you haven’t already, especially if you live in the UK. See my own Resolution no. 1. If you’re a translator, check out Kevin Lossner’s post on the …
A translation sin of omission
I wrote a couple of posts, back in August, about the Oxford comma (Oxford commas (1), The Oxford Comma dilemma: a solution? and Oxford commas (2): Live dangerously – take our poll!). This post too is about “list” sentences containing commas. It’s also about a way of spotting when an Italian-to-English translator is working on …
Oxford commas (1)
I was puzzled last week to see references on Twitter to the exotic-sounding “Oxford comma”, a new term to me. It turns out (thank you, Mark Allen and Oxford Dictionaries) that the Oxford comma is another name for the “serial comma”: an optional comma before the word ‘and’ at the end of a list: We …
Planning a new website? Communicate! (with your translator too)
One of my clients told me recently that their company is re-doing its website. They’re working with web-designers and -developers, copy-writers, graphic designers and search-engine optimisation (SEO) specialists based in Spain, the US and various Italian cities. The client, a company based in north-east Italy, already works with designers and suppliers based in Spain, Denmark, …
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