A few years back, it seemed highly improbable that cable channels would modify their lineup in order to offer their content dubbed rather than subtitled. From some point in the late â90s until quite recently, people enjoyed series and movies in their original language, making it possible to appreciate the ânatural versionâ of an episode […]
The strange word that appears in the title of this post, âJabberwocky,â describes a strange monster that is the protagonist of a poem by the same name written by Lewis Carroll and included in his book Through the Looking Glass. The poem is nonsensical, although it can nevertheless be read, understood, and, of course, translated! […]
Happy International Translation Day!
In an era where new online video platforms are undergoing robust growth, a law enacted in 2012 obligated companies such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime to ensure that 100% of their English-language content has subtitles in the same language as the original audio (also known as closed captions) by 2014. As of that moment, […]
Pleonasmsâthe use of more words than are necessary to convey meaningâin oral and written forms of English legal jargon often take on a single meaning. They consist of synonyms taking the form of doublets (e.g. âterms and conditionsâ or ânull and voidâ) or triplets (e.g. âgive, devise, and bequeathâ), which in many cases can be […]
Following on from my last post on the fundamental differences between translation and interpretation, in this entry I shall consider the life span of each, and the traces the professional linguist leaves in each case. Every translation we read has a unique effect on us â especially if we have knowledge of the source language. This […]
Intense debates have taken place to decide whether the Spanish language should be regulated by the Royal Spanish Academy, which, as you may know, is based in Spain and does not include many regionalisms or current uses in existence in its (very) numerous varieties. Historically, many thinkers, philosophers, writers, and translators have considered the Royal […]
In this post, “House Taken Over” is not in reference to the famous story by the renowned writer and translator Julio CortĂĄzar. Rather, it refers to the feeling experienced by human translators in the age of machines. Just as the characters in CortĂĄzarâs story feel displaced by an invading entity, human translators feel displaced by […]
There is a common misunderstanding about those who work in the field of translation and interpretation. Sometimes these professionals are referred to using the umbrella term ‘translators’, and are believed to be linguists capable of providing all kinds of linguistic services simply because they possess a very advanced knowledge of a foreign language. This assumption […]
For many of us, contact with a culture that is different from our own can be rather intimidating â whether we like to admit it or not. This is only to be expected: being afraid of the unknown is something we all experience. Our planet is extremely diverse, and is home to a plethora of […]