I have just started reading Marguerite Yourcenar's Mémoires d'Hadrien (Paris, 1951) in Julio Cortázar's Spanish translation, Memorias de Adriano (Buenos Aires, 1955). It is a beautifully written book, and doesn't seem to have suffered too much in the transition from...
What does it mean to write in a language which is not your own? Here are three, radically opposed perspectives on what it means to write in a language which has been in some way imposed on your culture. Firstly, James Joyce describing the sensation of being a prisoner...
In Budapest, all of the 24 hour shops advertise themselves as 'Non-stop'. A Hungarian friend of mine said, in English, something like 'don't worry, I'm sure there'll be a non-stop we can go to'. Apparently in Hungarian these shops are referred to as 'non-stops' (using...
Frustration with a translation happens most often when the final client (the person who actually uses the translated material) has not been in direct contact with the translator himself. Not knowing who carried out the translation creates a subconscious lack of trust...
Caipirinha, Capoeira, Samba - everyone knows a few words that English has adopted from Portuguese. But there is a notably extensive sub-strata of words which English owes to Portuguese. In the days of their vast maritime empire, the Portuguese propagated many new...
There are a number of potential pitfalls involved in working with Translation Memory (TM). The first, most general, doubt people have about TM is that it seems to go against conventional wisdom about translation; surely, people say, translators should translate the...
Is it worth translating internet content which has a very limited shelf-life? If a blog post has spelling or punctuation mistakes, should you reproduce them in the translation, in order to conserve its 'authenticity'? Should you have a separate Twitter acount for each...
Shakespeare's comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream" takes place on Midsummer Night, the magical night of the summer solstice when anything can happen, including "A Dream". The indefinite article refers to the dream, not to the night, which is not just any summer night...
The financial crisis has had a huge impact on the housing and construction market, particularly in countries such as Spain. In light of the many challenges and setbacks the construction industry has undergone in recent years, it is now more important than ever for...