So, you’re working along, deep in concentration, when up pops a value written with units that won’t be understood in the target language. What next? Do you: a) Pull out an old battery-powered calculator and a printed conversion chart. b) Use an online conversion chart and the infuriatingly crummy calculator built into Windows/OSX c) Type […]
Widely acknowledged as the go-to book on American-English style, The Chicago Manual of Style – now in its 16th edition – is an absolutely indispensable resource for translators; however, for some, the very idea of spending 65 dollars* on a book can result in sleepless nights and cold sweats, which is perhaps why the good […]
Wikipedia is so helpful to translators that most of us would rather not admit quite how much we rely on it — partly because, as everyone knows, Wikipedia has a certain less-than-perfect reputation when it comes to accuracy. However, a surprisingly large number of translators don’t realize that the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization that actually […]
A friend of mine (whose first language isn’t English) recently asked me how to contract “they are”, to which I replied “they’re”. The same person then asked how to contract “there are”, to which I replied “there’re” (I was speaking not writing at the time). I was then asked by said person to show them […]
The title says it all really: “Thirty Five of the Very Best Quotes on Translation” – we actually set out to put together a list of just fifteen, but there was just so many that seemed to either make us smile and/or capture the essence of what it all-so-often feels like to portray one language […]
I sincerely doubt there’s a single professional translator out there who needs reminding of any of the following (unfortunately quite common) grammar mistakes – however, I’ll bet there’s also not a single professional translator out there who hasn’t, at some point in the past, made (or perhaps failed to pick up on) at least one […]
Twitter is an awesome means of not only drawing attention to your own online activities (and offline activities for that matter) but also to those of others, such as all the people involved in translation who continue to create great content – much of which we tweet about on a near daily basis @FfTranslators. Here’s […]
It’s no surprise that translators love languages, they/we usually prick our ears up upon merely hearing the word ‘language’ – be it on the news, the radio, a party* or wherever… but combine the word ‘language’ with another word we’re usually hyper-tuned into, like ‘fluent, ‘learn’ or, say, ‘hard’ (as in ‘difficult’) and we’re usually […]
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Our favorite tweets of the year (2012)
Throughout the year we tweet a lot of great content that translators will hopefully find useful and/or interesting. The best way to keep track of all this information is, of course, to follow us on Twitter; however, unless you’re glued to the screen 24-7 (we hope not), you’re bound to miss heaps – here’s a […]
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Best of Food for Translators (2012)
‘Best’ – now THAT’S a tricky word. The Oxford Dictionary of English gives the meaning of ‘best’ as ‘of the most excellent or desirable type or quality’ (was the author a Bill & Ted fan I wonder…), however, what makes something ‘better’ than something else depends on a whole bunch of usually unstated – and […]