Category : Translation

A Mistranslation Thanksgiving from Denver to Berlin

WARNING: Content may contain links to mistranslations of Nazi bunker dialog. Being the big shot around here, you would think that I would be able to make my own travel arrangements. But the “powers that be” mixed up my trip to the ATA meeting at Denver. Gavin, looking across a

Extra Spicy with Google Translate

A few months back, Google translate added a reader so that not only could the tool translate into 50 languages, it could now speak them for you as well. Very cool. And completely useless, since the tool can only speak, not understand. Text entry is required. So I was super

Google Translates Dead Languages Better

The article Google Translates Dead Languages Better was originally posted on Technorati on October 11, 2010 by featured Technorati author, Ken Clark. Google’s newest machine translation language is Latin. The announcement was posted on the Official Google Blog in Latin, and when it was translated using the Google Latin machine

UN to Ahmadinejad: Shut Up.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech  has become a regular feature of the first furious week of each year’s session. This year, protesters were camped in front of the UN for weeks in anticipation of Ahmadinejad’s next string of offensive remarks, and the US mission had a release expressing outrage ready

Translator’s Holiday

St Jerome rushes to complete deadline (symbolized by skull) before anxious, shirtless clients and International Translation Day Like all the other good little translation boys and girls, I’m not going to be able to sleep the night of the 29th. It’s like this every night before International Translation Day―as I

Bedbugs and the Translation Business

I’ve been in the translation game for 15 years, and you know, frankly, it feels that way. I mean, I like the people I work with a lot, and the technology and organization requirements are definitely fascinating, but the passion? Well, I don’t know. Sometimes instead of doing what I

Why This Joke Isn’t Funny

They say humor doesn’t translate. Heaven knows, I’ve tried. Ever since I boarded that 747 to Japan thirty plus years ago I’ve been living in a state of borderline culture shock. One of my coping strategies, as you may have noted here, is to act like a jack-ass, but even

Cherry on Top: Translation

Translation Memory is the gravy on top of the translation business, the fat of the translation land, the easy money, the cherry on top…. So who gets the cherry? (Go to 5:58 in “The Fighting 69 and 1 Half,” an old Warner Bros cartoon on YouTube, to see how these

Sci-Fi Predicts End of Translation as We Know It

I’ve watched enough Star Trek over the years to know that all the best ideas come from space opera, which just goes to show that you translators are square in the cross-sights of a professional death ray from a vast conspiracy of Science Fiction hacks. It’s not just that some

Ebonic Translators Wanted

The DEA is seeking Ebonic translators to help interpret drug investigation wiretapped conversations, and that has got some people stirred up. Ebonics, a.k.a. African American Vernacular English (AAVE), is one of 114 languages that DEA agents require to understand in order to conduct investigations in the southeastern US. AP reports