Blogging Translator » Translation blunders and linguistic gaffes http://blog.philippahammond.net Translation, Linguistics and Freelancing in the 21st Century Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:00:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=8557 en hourly 1 New Twitter tool: Twitrans http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/01/14/new-twitter-tool-twitrans/ http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/01/14/new-twitter-tool-twitrans/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:04:03 +0000 philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/?p=221 TechCrunch announced today (kudos to @matthewbennett for the link via Twitter) a new free service on Twitter called Twitrans. Twitter users are able to send their tweets to this service and a few minutes later a translation is received which the user can post to followers who speak another language. Unlike many similar tools, this is not an automated service. The translations are done by humans. The company that provides the service is called OneHour Translation. I really wince at the image of a network of translators madly typing away translations of the world’s tweets – not exactly a professional translator’s preferred way of working when they have multiple other large documents on the go, but I welcome any comments from translators who do work in this way.

Looking at the website of OneHour Translation, I’m sceptical (to say the least) about their ability to turn around larger documents (projects they say they can take on include websites and presentations) within just 1 hour. To me, the best use of this type of service is for something like Twitrans, not important or lengthy documents. What do others think about this type of service?

]]> http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/01/14/new-twitter-tool-twitrans/feed/ 5 Translation blunder #4…the curious case of the sex changes http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/04/08/translation-blunder-4the-curious-case-of-the-sex-changes/ http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/04/08/translation-blunder-4the-curious-case-of-the-sex-changes/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:08:17 +0000 philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/?p=40 In line with my occasional series on linguistic gaffes, I was intrigued by an article published in The Telegraph on Monday about the translation into Galician of the famous book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. As the article mentions, the book “won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 2003 and has been translated into more than 40 languages”. It is a personal favourite of mine, and I’m thrilled that it is now so widely read that it’s even being translated into Galician.

I was surprised to read, however, that the translator was fired for ‘changing the sex of several of the book’s characters’, including Toby the rat, to female. Her translation was deemed ‘feminist-biased’ by the publishers, who she is now taking to court. Hers did seem like a *curious* (geddit?) translation technique, but perhaps the case isn’t quite as black and white as it first appears. There’s been a lot of discussion about the case on translators’ forums, and the consensus seems to be that the translator herself should not necessarily be to blame, that it’s simply a confusion over the lack of neutral gender in Spanish grammar. Perhaps others would disagree….?

By way of example, the word ‘rat’ in Spanish is actually a feminine noun (‘la rata’) so it would just have been plain incorrect to use the masculine gender, and quite tricky to inform the reader that ‘Toby’ was in fact male, when presumably a Galician readership would not be familiar with the name ‘Toby’ .

The crux of the issue is whether the translator was sufficiently faithful to the original text, which is after all the primary concern of all translators, but I think it would be nice to see a translator get some good press for a change!

]]> http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/04/08/translation-blunder-4the-curious-case-of-the-sex-changes/feed/ 1 Major Presidential gaffe or mere translation blunder? http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/02/27/major-presidential-gaffe-or-mere-translation-blunder/ http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/02/27/major-presidential-gaffe-or-mere-translation-blunder/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:38:24 +0000 philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/2008/02/27/major-presidential-gaffe-or-mere-translation-blunder/ Whilst I enjoy the blissful first days of freelancing, optimistically arranging my new stationery on my desk and honing my business skills before the real work begins, it would seem that across the channel feelings are turning a little sour. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, has provided the world’s media and Francophiles such as myself with a topic for discussion. How, exactly, should Sarkozy’s remark “Casse-toi, alors pauvre con” be translated? Is it quite as rude as it first appears? Whichever way you look at it, as Matthew Weaver points out on his newsblog at The Guardian, this is not the ideal behaviour of any head of state.

Watch the offending remark:

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