This month I was very pleased to be back at the Career Fair of a local junior high school for the third year running, giving a morning of presentations about the translation and interpreting profession. As well as being the month of International Mother Language Day, of course February also sees Valentine’s Day, and it turns out that both women and men rank grammar as more important than confidence in a potential relationship! Anyway here’s a round-up of the most popular articles about translation and language that have appeared online this past month.
- The Wall Street Journal recently published an article saying The Language Barrier Is About to Fall. Really? Here’s Interpret America’s reply to that.
- More respect please. Would clients ever say to their baker what they say to freelancers?
- Here are two women bridging the gap between businesses and their language needs.
- Two articles in the Guardian: How are new words born? and more light-heartedly Can Google Translate understand a Liverpool accent?
One of the many recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
- BBC programme The Forum recently broadcast a thought-provoking episode: Machine Translation: the end of the human translator? Another article on the BBC’s website looks at how the ‘Queen’s English‘ has evolved, and what fundamental changes this reflects in British society.
- How do US & UK English use double contractions differently? Linguist Lynne Murphy explains all.
- Colleague Amanda Williams created an interesting infographic showing 10 common misconceptions about translation.
- How should you answer ‘you’re too expensive’ e-mails? Find out here.
- Colleague Valentina Ambrogio shared her experience with translation scammers.
- How many French words and phrases do you know contained in English words? This clever video by Mental Floss shows us some examples.
- More fun: 13 foreign words that sound rude in English.
The Dutch word for whipped cream is ‘slag room’…
In French:
- Est-ce que vous acceptez de faire les tests de traduction ?
Related articles:
A Smart Translator's Reunion 