A good translation conveys the meaning of the original accurately and fluently in the target language. Keep in mind that often there is no “exact match” for concepts from one language to another. Despite what many people think, a literal, word-for-word translation...
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How much is a billion?
How much is a billion? In American a "billion" is one thousand million (ten to the power nine). In most of Europe it's one million million (a trillion in America). In England a billion used to mean a million million, like the rest of Europe, but these days it is...
How should I think of COST and VALUE?
Translations are generally priced based on the number of words in the original text. If you see translation as a commodity, comparing suppliers is as easy as comparing their prices. Why are you going to pay $0.24 per word when the next guy offers the same service for...
What is my timetable?
Most projects are “urgent”. Sometimes this is entirely justified, as in the case of an imminent trade fair, client presentation, website launch, or contract signing. By contrast, some deadlines are entirely unjustified, often because they have been randomly set by an...
Translation Blog: Pride, Prejudice and Proust
These comments are about good and bad translations of book titles. First the bad:
Every educated Spanish speaker has read, heard of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Orgullo y Prejuicio. An interesting case of how a badly translated title gets established in a language. It would be impossible to change it now because it is so familiar. But let’s see why it is bad.
What languages do I need?
Which languages you translate your documentation into is a function of your business objectives. This sounds straightforward enough, but the problem arises when you’re not sure whether your potential Chinese customers prefer Simplified or Traditional Chinese (see blog...
Who is the end user?
All business documentation is directed at one or more groups of stakeholders. Understanding who the target audience is will help you shape the type of translation required. If you are producing a marketing campaign, for example, you will need a different kind of...
False friends in business 1: French
Like walking down the aisle with the price sticker stuck to the sole of your shoe, it can happens to anyone. No matter how careful, experienced or fully bi-lingual you are, from time to time a false friend slips through the net, and you end up translating actuellement...
Streamlining the translation process
Most projects are “urgent”. Sometimes this is entirely justified, as in the case of an imminent trade fair, client presentation, website launch, or contract signing. By contrast, some deadlines are entirely unjustified, often because they have been randomly set by an...
Tone, languages and music part 1
Most people are probably familiar with the basics of tone languages, and Mandarin Chinese is the usual example. Briefly, such languages use pitch to contrast vowels (including diphthongs and triphthongs), in the same way that all languages use contrasting phonemes to...