There are immense savings to be made - and efficiencies created - by giving your language service provider (LSP) control of the desktop publishing (DTP) of the documents you need to be translated. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, quality control and...
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Translation solutions for the non-governmental sector
At QuickSilver, experience has taught us that, when translating documents related to governmental bodies, it is best to produce a faithful translation which strives towards readability. Government documents are often long and – necessarily – complicated; we try to...
The day before yesterday
Nuestro mañana será más luminoso [sic] que nuestro ayer y nuestro hoy. Pero ¿quién pondría la mano en el fuego en cuanto a que nuestro pasado mañana no vaya a ser peor que nuestro anteayer? [Our tomorrow will be more luminous than our yesterday and our today. But who...
Translation Memory: potential pitfalls
We have emphasised the many benefits associated with using translation memories and other computer-assisted translation technology. But, of course, there are certain pitfalls to be avoided when working with TM. The first, most general, doubt people have about TM is...
Root, route and rout
The words ‘root’ and ‘route’ are homophones in British English (in other words, they are pronounced in the same way), whilst most Americans would pronounce 'route' to rhyme with 'out' or 'shout'. The root is that part of a plant which grows downward into the soil,...
The Spanish word for left
Basque loanwords abound in contemporary Spanish. They include caspa, dandruff, manteca, lard (origin of mantequilla, butter), pestaña, eyelash (and now 'tab' in the sense of internet browser), and páramo, moorland, alongside many other less evocative terms. But I was...
The ‘traditional’ translation cycle
We have touched on what the process of translation looked like in the past. Even fifteen years ago, there was often no other option than to work with hard copies of documents, and re-type the finished translation. Apart from the inevitable Luddite fringe, there are...
Same language, different markets
To take just one example: in different forms of contemporary Spanish, a toilet can be indoro, taza de baño, retrete, wáter or poceta. A simple writing pen could be a bolígrafo, birome, lapicero, puntabola, esfero, pluma and lapiz-tinta. In Spain, a coche is a car,...
Tips for localization (1)
The demand for translated, locally-relevant content is growing exponentially across the world. As both cause and effect of this, multi-national companies are churning out, sorry, producing unprecedented quantities of multi-lingual marketing documentation, both on- and...
Translationese and how to avoid it
In an increasingly globalised and borderless world, communicating your global message to local markets is more important than ever. The quality of your translated content — whether in your webpage, marketing collateral or legal documentation — speaks volumes for your...