If you work in translation, conferences and forums are a great way to network with your peers and understand the pulse of the localization industry. Here are some events held in North America over the next two months that allow you to do just that. February – GlobalSaké Conference...
No matter what language pair you choose, translating is hard. That’s why professional translators are in demand. But what justifies the higher rates we see for some language pairs? For the same word count, translating from English to Japanese is usually more expensive than translating from English to French....
If translating documents is not part of your daily activities, you might have a few questions. Is the amount on the quote a good deal? What deadlines should you set for your project? Should you negotiate the quotation you received? If you’re not used to the process, the list...
While the original prayer was written in ancient Aramaic, it has been translated several times over the eras. The current English version is much more the result of a translation from Latin, itself the result of a translation from Greek. But it has always been subject to debate. And...
Next week we are going to see a list of the hardest languages to translate to and from English. Before revealing our list though, let’s have a look at a few selection criteria. Here are five elements that helped decide whether a language would be hard or easy to...
There’s a sign at my garagist’s saying: “The service you’ll receive will either be fast, inexpensive, or good. You can only choose two.” The message is clear. If you want inexpensive service, you’ll either wait more or get a lower quality. Makes sense, right? But if you’re looking to...
While Italian isn’t necessarily as prevalent as English or Chinese, it’s still an important European language. In video game localization, we often used the acronym FIGS. FIGS stands for French, Italian, German and Spanish. And we used it because these languages were recurring in many multilingual translation projects. So...
When you’re operating on a budget, it might be tempting to choose the lowest quote for your translation project. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Everybody loves a bargain. However, you should not just compare prices, but the level and quality of service as well. Cheap translations, while attractive,...
If you ask a professional translator what he thinks of machine translations, he might say: “You might get accurate translations sometimes. But it won’t replace human translation anytime soon.” It’s a fact: algorithm-based translations are based on translation memories and focus on translating words. Human translators focus on meaning. They...
Chinglish is a 2011 play written by David Henry Wang. In it, an American businessman arrives in China with the hope of scoring a contract for his firm. His business? Sign-making. And it sounds like a good business to be in. If you’ve ever travelled to China, you’ve seen...
With all the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies, more and more companies are turning to initial coin offerings (ICO) to fund their ventures. It was then only logical that someone in the translation industry turned to the world of cryptocurrencies for funding. What's an ICO? You may already be familiar with...
Japanese is a tricky language to translate. Not only do native Japanese speakers use widely different levels of speech and register, they also master non-verbal communication and subtle vocabulary choices that would be unnoticed by non-native speakers (unless they trained really hard). It just so happens that one word...
In part 1 you saw 23 examples of movies with an English title for the French market. What's unexpected about these is not that the title stayed in English, but that it actually is a different English title than the original. And that's pretty common too. We promised you 56...
Localizing a video game is hard work. Writers, developers, translators, and linguistic testers all have to work together to create the best outcome possible for the end-user, usually on a tight schedule. And they all cost you money. If a tester finds an issue in the LQA stage, they’ll...
If you hear a French person talking about "Happiness Therapy" and the plot seems familiar, there's a good reason for it. See, in France, instead of translating movie titles in French, it's not uncommon for translators to give movies an English title different from the original one. Needless to say...
If you've ever looked into the translation services industry, then you've heard about "localization". The two words are so linked they are often used interchangeably, so you’d be forgiven for thinking they meant the same thing. Intuitively though, you might be wondering if that’s really the case. After all,...
Translations usually come at the end of a long process involving text creation, corrections, revisions, and finally localization. Every one of these steps has a cost. With all that time and effort put into your source text, translations often feel like they take most of the remaining budget. And...
Red Sox TV host and analyst Jerry Remy is not a big fan of having a translator on the pitch. According to him, it should not be allowed and players should learn “baseball language”. The player concerned is Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka joined the New York Yankees three...
When you look at translation agencies’ price tables, you may notice premiums on some text categories. If you’ve never tried to translate marketing content, you might wonder why it’s usually in the same category as legal translations, medical translations, academic translations, and the other usual suspects. Let’s shed some...
Last November, Montreal citizens registered over 423 complaints for English-only websites to the OQLF. Complaints targeted companies in the Saint Laurent and Ahuntsic districts. The OQLF, or Office Québécois de la Langue Française, is in charge of supervising language policies in the Quebec province. They basically ensure French is...
The further apart two languages are, like Japanese and English, the more likely you are to come face to face with it. A word that’s completely natural in a language, that’s common vocabulary and tends to be used in a specific context. Everybody who speaks that language knows what it...
Star Wars fans have had a question since January 23, and the answer might actually come from the latest French translation of the movie. In a press release, the franchise had released the English title of its eighth episode: “The Last Jedi”. Ever since, fans have been wondering who...
Translation history is fascinating and full of interesting anectodes. From translation gaffes in the Bible to the challenges of translating ad campaigns creatively, there is no shortage of tales of success and failures in translation. And the MuCem (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations) in France is dedicating a whole exhibition...
It’s easy to budget for a conference. You add up the booth and tickets costs, the hotel if necessary, the marketing materials, the transportation costs, and daily allowances for your employees. All this information is readily available and you can make comparisons almost instantly. But if your company doesn’t...
Instinctively, you know that some documents are harder to translate than others. Sometimes there’s not much you can do about it. Medical and legal translations require specific knowledge and research. But in most cases, there are steps you can take to make your documents translation-ready. Even for complex projects....
Today let’s have a look at a translation that’s technically correct and grammatically flawless, yet that surely raised a few eyebrows when it was displayed: “We take your bags and send them in all directions.” It dates back quite a bit and only anecdotal evidence remains. It could have...