A few weeks ago, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, “Whenever some key issue comes up President Medvedev and I, of course, have to have a coordinated position. And as before, I see no problem in calling him and say, ‘Listen, let’s reach an agreement, let’s discuss this.’ We develop a coordinated position and make it even more stable and solid… Mr Medvedev does the same. Sometimes he just calls and says: ‘You know, we need to talk. Let’s think about this. There’s this problem, I would like to hear your opinion’… And believe me, Mr Medvedev and I cooperate very productively.”
As an opening paragraph, that’s what we in the blog trade call a “snoozer.” Then how come the Russian press called in the bomb squad when this French interview [...]

In France, the sun revolves around the earth. This according to the audience of Qui veut gagner des millions, the French version of the game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Regardless of the country it’s shot in, the show follows the same insufferable format: contestants answer multiple choice questions that get harder and harder as more money becomes at stake. If contestants are stymied, they can use one of three lifelines: call a friend, narrow down the answers, or ask the audience.
Recently, a contestant named Henri sailed easily enough through the first few painfully easy questions, but his boat got hung up on the anchor chain when he was asked, “Qu’est-ce qui gravite autour de la terre? (What revolves around the earth?)” The choices: A) The moon,  B) The sun, [...]

I watch the Super Bowl for the ads, which I suppose is kind of like saying I read Playboy for the articles, except that in the case of the Super Bowl ads, it’s true.  “Parisian Love” by Google was by far the best ad, and it was probably the first time I teared up watching someone else do a Google search. (I tear up plenty on my own searches… try Haiti and you’ll know what I mean.)
The Google ad (first TV ad ever for this advertising firm) tells the story of a romance helped along by a series of Google searches conducted by some guy who finds a new life after a plan to study abroad in Paris turns into love, marriage, and a need to know how to assemble [...]

Pierre Lellouche, the French Minister for Europe has caused a contretemps in Anglo-French relations when he was quoted on remarks critical of  “Euroskeptic” Tories in the Guardian, a leading British newspaper.
“They have one line, and they just repeat one line,” Mr. Lellouche was quoted as saying of Conservative policy. “It is a very bizarre sense of autism.
“It’s pathetic. It’s just very sad to see Britain, so important in Europe, just cutting itself out from the rest and disappearing from the radar map,” he said. Convervative policies had “castrated” Britain in the EU, he said.
Needless to say, such thoughtful observations did not go over so well among the British, especially among those representing British autistics and the ink has flowed viciously in the British press, and the French government backpeddling furiously and [...]

When a native English speaker tries to speak it, that’s when. Today, in the US, we’re seeing more and more Hispanic immigrants, and we sympathize as they learn our language, with its many slang words and colloquialisms. And, when the tables are turned? Well, it’s just as difficult to go into a Spanish speaking country and try to fit in.
I was all excited about using my “school learned” proper Castilian Spanish on my first trip to Barcelona. But, as I was preparing for my trip, I discovered that the official languages in Barcelona are both Spanish and Catalan, a mixture of Spanish, French and Portuguese, that is spoken little outside Andorra and the Catalonian region of Spain.  And, what’s more, many people in Barcelona speak very little Spanish on a [...]

Question: Why is it that someone in my line of business, with a blog bearing the name it bears, doesn’t actually do any translating?
Answer: Why, sir, I wear that incongruity and low level shame as a badge of honor.
But sometimes I help. I was very proud to save a translation project the other day, despite my inability to speak Japanese much beyond ordering a beer or finding my way to the rest room. (I learned early on not to ask “Where,” but to ask “Which way…” (a pointed finger is usually the best linguistic clue one could ask for.) They don’t call it body language for nothing.
Okay, so in my house, I’m the one who speaks the worst Japanese. And my fourteen-year-old daughter, who loves to correct my Japanese [...]