Category Archives: localisation
Is this the new ‘age of translation’?
This year has seen literary translation hit new prominence on the news and feature pages. Earlier this week the BBC marked the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, noting how its turns of phrase have permeated everyday English: The Sun says Aston Villa “refused to give up the ghost”. Wendy Richard calls her EastEnders [...]
Also posted in literature, Stieg Larsson, translation 1 Comment
British English translation that’s not bad at all
President Obama’s visit to London seems to have led to a timely resurrection of the Anglo-EU guide. This graphic gives an amusing sideways glance at phrases commonly used in business and bureaucracy with the “translation” of British: • Jim Dickson is a director of WorldAccent Translation, London
Also posted in British English, funny, London, Obama 1 Comment
American & British English translation? It’s behind you!
(Click for professional American to British translator) Even when two people apparently speak the same language, regional variations or a lack of local knowledge can lead to total misunderstanding. • Jim Dickson is a director of WorldAccent Translation, London
Also posted in American English, British English, English, funny, London 1 Comment
Colour coding cultural translation
Pic: Stéfan via Wikimedia Commons At first glance, do you think this picture shows a predominantly good or a bad day for investors on the Tokyo stock market? When working on your multilingual publications or websites it is worth considering the cultural significance of colours used in design and imagery. • Jim Dickson is a [...]
Also posted in Japanese, pictures, translation, website design, website translation 1 Comment
Does foreign language have a place in translating literature?
It sounds a mad question, but “Does foreign language have a place in translating literature?” Put differently, when translating literature, how many words should be left in the original language? Should “foreign” words in English-language texts convey a sense of a culture, or be used as a last resort for the “untranslatable”? These questions are [...]
Also posted in foreign language, literature, Stieg Larsson Leave a comment
Oh! What a lovely translation design
I came across this picture gallery of classic movie posters, as part of a recent Guardian article called ‘The Story of O’, a diverting little piece about the letter O in type and design. Designers would probably start thinking how about how the ‘O’ cleverly combines textual and visual representation to deliver a single message, [...]
Also posted in graphic design, multilingual 2 Comments
How do you spell Portuguese?
How do you spell Portuguese? In English, many people forget to put in that second ‘u’, but Portuguese speakers across the world, whether in Portugal, Brazil, Angola or Macau, are likely to spell it correctly: português. One reason it’s easy to get correct is because Portuguese spelling, unlike English, is largely phonetic. But what happens [...]
Also posted in Portuguese, translation Leave a comment
Why FIGS translation matters to business
Look up figs in a dictionary and it will describe a fruit or the tree that produces them. In translation and localisation the word has a quite different meaning. FIGS translation is simply an acronym describing French, Italian, German and Spanish translation. This combination of languages opens any document or product up to a wide [...]
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