One of the greatest challenges a translator must face are passages out of context. Without reference materials and context, a quality translation may be completely out of reach. For instance, take the following English phrase: “Crankshaft Line Gantries consist of overhead equipment, such as a Gantry Carriage, Drip Pan, Blow Offs, and Shot Pins.” This […]
Last week was the 400th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s most famous playwrights: William Shakespeare. Why are his plays and poems still read, analyzed and performed so many years after they were originally published? Anyone who has read Shakespeare can certainly not claim his work is overrated. His peculiar style is, […]
During the Middle Ages, a period during which the vast majority of the population was illiterate, the skills of reading and writing were under the responsibility of the Church, and, in particular, the monasteries, where monks transcribed different (usually religious) texts over and over again in order to preserve them over the years. This activity […]
A few weeks ago we talked about Latin and some of its expressions that persist until today, even in daily use. In the title of this post we make reference to the fact that these expressions are the resistance of a dead language. However, aside from these expressions, which are used in all fields, Latin […]
A few days ago we presented a first introduction to the issue of obtaining a word count for translation projects. Today, we will look at some important details that are crucial for further understanding this fundamental process in the industry. To do this, we will use practical examples of common quotes that we may confront any […]
When it comes to determining the cost of a translation, the main factor to take into account is the famous word count. Of course, the format of the text or language involved in the project, for example, will also play a major role in the final price of the translation; however, the word count has […]
To celebrate the Sixth International Conference on the Spanish Language, which took place last week in Panama, the Spanish newspaper El País had writers from the twenty Spanish-speaking countries (as well as the United States) each choose one word that best represents their regional variety of the language. The result of the survey is an […]
In the previous blog post, we spoke about interesting little terms called compound words. These are formed by linking two words together to create new words. Usually compound words are quite helpful in that they usually reveal what thing it is that they’re referring to (for instance, saltwater is water that contains salt!). Sometimes though, […]
Growing up in a bilingual home setting, I was very lucky to learn both Spanish and English from a young age. I never had to think much about what I said in either language, I just said what “made sense”. But, whenever I would speak to non-English speakers and they would ask me the why […]