Tag: french
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Why not just use Google Translate?
A few days ago, I was discussing my work as a translator with a friend of mine. After going through the general details of what I do, he asked: “So, why don’t your clients just use Google Translate?” It’s a question that I’m sure many translators have faced before, and I doubt it will be […]
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Starting out as a freelance translator
Hello everyone, hope you’re all well out there in translation land and have some exciting plans to round off the year! Today’s post is something a little different. I recently gave a talk to the Translation Studies MA students at the University of Hull and thought I’d share my presentation with you here. As the […]
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Etymology and a Universal Translation
Hello everyone, after a great guest post last time out, it’s time to get back to some of my own content! While I’ve asked ‘What’s in a word?‘ before on this blog, today I thought I’d strike up the discussion again from a slightly different perspective by looking at what is contained within the most […]
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Guest Post: Ten common French-English false friends
Today we have a real treat in the form of a guest post courtesy of the team at Textualis, a linguistic services company based in Montreal. So, without further ado, let’s get into the post! False friends, or “faux amis”, are an obstacle that many of us encounter when we negotiate the vagaries of another […]
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What’s in a word? La rentrée in translation
If there’s one word that stands out for me as a French translator when September comes around, it has to be la rentrée. Literally meaning the return, there’s a surprising amount of depth hidden in this little word and several reasons for its current relevance. At this time of year, the French term la rentrée is […]
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The Fun of Nonstandard Lang-diddly-anguage
Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a big fan of looking at the creative methods translators have used to tackle specific problems in popular culture and today’s post is certainly along those same lines. Today’s example comes from the globally-adored series The Simpsons and provides a particularly curious example emerging from the […]
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The Power of Translation: the Fox and the Grapes
After a bit of a love-in over the Language Lovers competition last time out (don’t forget to vote!), today’s post takes a look at a specific translation example in order to analyse the translator’s role in creating meaning and the potential impact that our decisions can have. As the title suggests, the text chosen for […]
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Trapped in Toyland: Effective non-translation in Toy Story
A far cry from last time’s outing, which listed some of the best online resources out there to help you get better acquainted with translation studies as a discipline, today’s post is perhaps a bit more fun. As one of the defining films of my childhood, Toy Story has always had a special place in […]
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When a third language complicates the translation process: A look at L3 from Tolstoy to trays.
Translation is considered as the transferral of meaning from one language to another, and the entire foundation of translation theory revolves around binary oppositions e.g. free vs literal translation, dynamic vs formal equivalence, source text and target text. And yet there are many situations (primarily in literary and audiovisual translation) that see the introduction of […]
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