Visual Poetry
As a reader, poetry is easy to recognize. And it’s always such a wonderful experience to hear it read out loud. Poetry is also quite a challenge to translate; not
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March 3, 2017
Knowledge is Power
When I was 15 years old and learning to drive, I was given access to a pick-up truck with manual transmission. But my attempts at shifting gear were so disastrous
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February 27, 2017
Untranslatable Words from French
There are thousands of words and expressions that, for linguistic or cultural reasons, don’t have an exact equivalent in other languages. When translating, we must use our imagination and our
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February 24, 2017
A Super Bowl of Terminology
There probably isn’t a better representation of American culture than its most popular sport: football. And every year, millions of people gather to watch its culmination: the Super Bowl. This is probably the
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February 20, 2017
Four Memsource Features for Quality Improvement
Memsource is a CAT tool that allows us to work with text in two columns; one for the source text and the other for the target text. It also offers
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February 17, 2017
The Human Element
So, let’s pick it up directly where we left off: “The Diagram for Consciousness” The diagram (simplified to fit the purposes of our analogy) consists of a three step pyramid:
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February 15, 2017
The Personalization of Translation
Imagine this situation: a diner arrives at a restaurant. Upon being seated, the waiter asks him what he wants to eat. To the waiter’s surprise, the diner looks at the
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February 10, 2017
Wordier Than Thou Art
Think of the things in your life that you really cherish. And by things I mean actual objects: your key chain, your favorite gadget, your tennis racquet, maybe a childhood
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February 9, 2017
Preserving a Language: A Doomed Deed?
In biology, there is a well-known movement towards preventing the disappearance of animal species that inhabit planet Earth. In the science of language, there seems to be a similar effort,
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February 3, 2017
What’s so Funny?
We all have the need to communicate. It is an intrinsic part of our human condition. Whenever we want to relate to someone else, or to another group, we often
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January 30, 2017
A World Without Translators?
A translator’s work often goes unnoticed, to such an extent that the phrase “A good translation seems as though it were an originally written text” has become commonplace. However, the
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January 27, 2017
The Formula for Consciousness
Last week I finished watching the first season of Westworld, a sci-fi TV series that beyond its more apparently basic plot, theorizes about the nature of human consciousness and what
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January 25, 2017
