Nothing to report

Just working, like Sam.

Reading the clues

For a sum of money, translators can buy a list of translation agency addresses to spam with their CVs. This is not the famous one that has been around for quite some time, but a new one. Some linguistic clues on their website allude to the established one, so I suppose they are trying to imitate the success of the original.

Is it worth it? Judge for yourself. I find another certain linguistic clue quite telling about their attitude to quality. From their FAQ:

Are there any hidden fee's?

No, you will only pay for the database one time and you will have access to the guide for life. There are no hidden or recurring fee's. We don't feel it's very professional to have hidden fees.

Well, personally, I don't feel it's very professional to show a total lack of understanding of apostrophes if you're selling a language-related service.

Geography lesson needed?

*jaw drops, hits floor*

Client with keen grasp of the essentials

Sometimes clients commission a translation job without really knowing what is involved. This was certainly not the case with this job which appeared on an internet forum:

Buenas tarde, andaba buscando alguien que me pudiera ayudar a traducir las descripciones de [...], a ingles. la traduccion consiste en expresar en ingles exactamente lo que dice la descripcion de las [..] que ya tengo. asi como la traduccion de los temas vistos en cada [...]. todos los documentos ya los tengo, nomas es cuestion de traducirlos.

{Hi, im looking for someone who could help me translate the descriptions of some [...] to english. the translation consists of expressing in english exactly what the descriptions of the [...] say. also the topics covered in each [...]. i already have all the documents, its just a question of translating them.}

So easy! I mean, client already has the documents! All you have to do is express what they say in English! All translation assignments should be so straightforward.

Elements and Spices

Thanks to Michael of Translate This, here is a pointer to Elementymology & Elements Multidict by Peter van der Krogt, a site which gives the entymology of the elements and their names in 72 languages.

I remember reading an anecdote about a translation of a major literary work in which the translator wasn't familiar with chemistry, didn't know the names of the elements in the target language, didn't bother to look them up, and got many of them wrong. I'd like to be more specific, but unfortunately I didn't save the article and could never find it again in spite of much searching. Does anyone remember the specifics? That translator would surely have enriched his translation, as well as gotten it right if he'd had a resource like "Elementymology" to consult.

Diverting from the initial subject in another direction, Gernot Kater's Spice Pages does basically the same thing as Elementymology but for spices and herbs; history, chemical constituents, etymology, photographs, and names in 72 languages.

What Book of Mine is This?

Did you know that if you're an author popular enough to have your books translated into many languages, not only do you have no control over the image of your foreign language editions but you may not even be able to tell which ones they are? And no one fills you in, either. Meg Cabot, author of the Princess Diaries and other popular series, shares some of her foreign editions and wonders which is which.

How to advertise machine translation (not)

I saw an ad for a machine translation system and thought it would be interesting to try it out. Machine translation is supposed to be getting better and better as it makes ever more sophisticated use of statistical algorithms, making it more effective than free methods like Babelfish. So I tried translating a paragraph at the program's website. The instructions read:

1)Enter your Source Text (up to approx. 500 words)
2)Select the Source & Target languages from the drop down [sic]
3)Select the dictionary & formality for the translation
4)Press Translate'
5)After 5 translations you will be asked to register, this is free and provides you with a 14 day trial of XXXXX award winning software.

Here is the result, and here is the result of running the text through Babelfish. Can you tell which is which?

The space between stars is not empty; in him there is tenuous matter, formed by a mixture of gas and solid particles, mainly hydrogen and helium, and dust particles, which can be cold, it warms up, or very hot. This matter forms giant clouds, that can be cloudy dark cloudy brilliants or. First they can be of emission (they are fed on the near star energy and they return it to emit) or of reflection (they only reflect the light of stars that is near them); the dark nebulas form of colder and dense gas, and block the light of the stars that are behind them; this way its presence is detected. From the very cold gas mixture and little dust is the molecular gas. Of this one new stars can be formed: the cloud begins to be contracted, helped by the mutual attraction of the particles that form it; the density of the part of the cloud that undergoes this call gravitational collapse increases until it consists of a very dense nucleus that will form a star.

The space between stars is not empty; in him there is tenuous matter, formed by a mixture of gas and solid particles, mainly hydrogen and helium, and dust particles, which can be cold, it warms up, or very hot. This matter forms giant clouds, that can be cloudy dark cloudy brilliants or. First they can be of emission (they are fed on the near star energy and they return it to emit) or of reflection (they only reflect the light of stars that is near them); the dark nebulas form of colder and dense gas, and block the light of the stars that are behind them; this way its presence is detected. From the very cold gas mixture and little dust is the molecular gas. Of this one new stars can be formed: the cloud begins to be contracted, helped by the mutual attraction of the particles that form it; the density of the part of the cloud that undergoes this call gravitational collapse increases until it consists of a very dense nucleus that will form a star.

Right. Then I noticed the not-so-small print at the bottom of the XXXXX website: “Note that this is ‘Raw’ Machine Translation and does not represent XXXXX ‘Next Generation’ Machine Translation Quality.” I guess you have to at least register for the trial period if you want to actually see what the program can do.