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…
Blog Archives
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
the ghost child
Once upon a time there was a little ghost. It lived all alone in the forest. All the other ghosts were born in the forest because they died there. They were very old or very young, and their families were…
Tagged with: Finnish, Illustration, Language, Literature, Moomins, pubilc libraries, subtitles, Terhi Ekebom, The Ghost Child
Posted in Illustration, language, literature, translation
Posted in Illustration, language, literature, translation
more stories, more words
“One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.”— Evelyn Waugh “Human vocabulary is still not capable, and probably never will be of knowing, recognizing, and communicating everything that can be humanly experienced…
Tagged with: book sculpture, Brazilian Portuguese, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, English, Evelyn Waugh, Fiction, Finnish, Jose Saramago, Justin Rowe, Language, native, Roald Dahl, words
Posted in international, language, literature, words
Posted in international, language, literature, words
silent night
The first time I noticed translation was probably while singing Christmas carols. We learnt to sing Silent Night in something resembling German and Welsh at primary school, and in learning Polish I realised that the fuzzy warm sound of carols I’d heard…
Tagged with: Christmas, Christmas Carols, English, Finnish, Franz Xaver Gruber, German, Joseph Mohr, Polish, Silent Night, Welsh
Posted in Christmas, language, translation
Posted in Christmas, language, translation
hobbit scripts
It is that time of year again – time for the next Hobbit movie, a chance to escape back into the magical world of Middle Earth. The first Hobbit film was too long, but it was also the first film I saw…
Tagged with: Anglo Saxon, Cirith, Elvish, Finnish, Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, Language, Literature, Lord of the Rings, Runes, Scripts, Tengwar, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Tibetan, Transliteration, Welsh, words
Posted in international, language, literature, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, translation, words
Posted in international, language, literature, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, translation, words
selfie, bookshelfie
The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013 is: Selfie (n. informal) a photograph taken of oneself and usually uploaded onto social media. From a short list which included bedroom tax (for UK speakers), binge-watch and twerk, selfie was the clear global…
Tagged with: Dictionaries, English language, Filipino, Finnish, Korean, Language, Oxford English Dictionary, Romanian, Selfie, Word of the year, words
Posted in language, Word of the Year 2013, words
Posted in language, Word of the Year 2013, words
twist your tongue around the world
Sometimes your tongue gets in a knot and the words just don’t come out. But if you can untangle it, you will sound fluent as never before. I tell first time visitors to Finland that they can find the lift…
Tagged with: English, Finnish, Hebrew, Language, Latin, Maori, Polish, pronunciation, Tongue-twister, Welsh
Posted in international, language, translation, words
Posted in international, language, translation, words
like two berries
Idioms are great. But they don’t always translate easily. Finnish idioms differ from English ones according to the culture. In the land of forests, you don’t stand around uselessly like a lemon, but sit like a mushroom (“istua kuin tatti”), and…
more than moomins: illustration and translation
Tove Jansson would be 99 today. I began learning Finnish by reading the Moomin comic strip, which made Tove Jansson’s name around the world. Started in the London Evening News in 1954, the complete collection is still being published in Finnish. Tove’s 1960s…
Tagged with: Alice in Wonderland, Fantasy, Finnish, Hobbit, Illustration, Moomins, Tenniel, Tolkien, Tove Jansson, Translation
Posted in Illustration, translation
Posted in Illustration, translation
found in translation 