Happy April Fool’s Day! If you’re English, you’ve only got till noon to play your tricks or you’re the fool. If you’re over the channel, your day may involve April Fish, usually made of paper and attached to someone’s back…
april fish!
Tagged with: April Fool, English, Flemish, French, Idioms, Italian, Language, Languages, Translation, words
Posted in April Fool's Day, international, language, words
Posted in April Fool's Day, international, language, words
three per cent: best translated book from German 2014
Just three percent of books published in the US are in translation, and less than one percent are literary fiction and poetry. The University of Rochester is trying to change that, with its three per cent website and Best Translated…
Tagged with: Austria, books, Christa Wolf, Damion Searls, drama, Elfriede Jelinek, English, feminist, German, Language, Literature, Nobel Prize, three per cent, Translation, translator, writing
Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, gender, international, literature, translation
Posted in Best Translated Book Award, books, gender, international, literature, translation
flying stones: the European poet of freedom 2014
The European Poet of Freedom Festival starts in Gdańsk today. The poet’s award is 100,000 złoty (about 24,000 euros), and their translator into Polish wins a tenth of that. Seven nominees, from Kazakhstan to Estonia, face some very sharp judges…
Tagged with: Contemporary, Croatian, Dorta Jagić, English, Europe, freedom, Gdańsk, German, Iren Baumann, Literature, Małgorzata Wierzbicka, Miloš Đurđević, Poetry, Polish, Ryszard Wojnakowski, Switzerland, Translation, translator
Posted in European Poet of Freedom, gender, international, literature, poetry, translation
Posted in European Poet of Freedom, gender, international, literature, poetry, translation
¡habla conmigo! – talk with me!
If you want someone’s mind to grow, you have to start a conversation with them as soon as they’re born. It’s not enough for them to hear language around them, adults talking to each other, people talking on TV or…
Tagged with: bilingualism, conversation, English, language learning, Languages, linguistics, Polish, Spanish, Welsh, words
Posted in Illustration, language, words
Posted in Illustration, language, words
world book day 2014: binge-read or savour?
World Book Day today, and there’s a £1 book for everyone under 18 in the British Isles (discussion of the politics of that short-hand term another time, please). There’s an app, there are trailers for the books, you can win a…
Tagged with: binge-reading, books, Children's literature, Finland, Finnish, Herbert Lomas, Language, Mirkka Rekola, Poetry, slow food movement, words
Posted in books, language, literature, Word of the Year 2013, words, World Book Day
Posted in books, language, literature, Word of the Year 2013, words, World Book Day
more gender pronouns: they
Facebook has finally broadened its pronoun options from 2 to 50. This should theoretically stop those odd posts with the “wrong” gender assignment, and make a lot of transgendered and queer people very happy. The only problem is that you have to…
divided by a common language
I started teaching English while living in Poznań in 1999. I only knew two other native speakers there at the time, Peter and Peter, who were both from the East Coast of the US. And sometimes, we simply didn’t understand…
Tagged with: American, British, English, false friends, Language, Translation, words
Posted in international, language, President's Day, translation
Posted in international, language, President's Day, translation
chocolate for everyone
Valentine’s Day both loses and gains something in translation. For the Japanese, today is the day when the women give chocolate (and only chocolate) to the men. This is because one chocolate company made a translation mistake, switching the genders, when…
Tagged with: cake, chocolate, Estonian, Finland, Finnish, friends, Japanese, Language, Translation
Posted in translation, Valentine's Day
Posted in translation, Valentine's Day
translators are like
If you google “translators are like”, you get: translators are like ninjas translators are like google bad translators are like big hairy spiders. While this has a lot going for it (we’re saboteurs, expert data crunchers – or terribly self-referential? –…
Tagged with: Central Europe, George Szirtes, Ginger Rogers, Hungarian, Kristina Zdravič Reardon, left-handed, shoes, Slovene, Spanish, Translation, translator
Posted in international, language, literature, translation
Posted in international, language, literature, translation
found in translation 