Category: Travel and culture

Over the years I have translated a number of cookery books and back in 2017 I wrote about some of the challenges involved in this area. My most recent immersion in the world of food and recipe translation prompted me to reflect again on how subject-area expertise is crucial for…

Most of us working in the translation industry will have long since forgotten the journey to acquiring a second (or third, or more) language. Quite honestly, learning a new language can be painfully dull. Before you become reasonably proficient, you can’t say anything particularly interesting because you lack the vocabulary…

I’ve been meaning to write about the translation genius behind the Astérix books for a while. Anthea Bell died in October last year aged 82, so this seems a fitting moment to revisit her extraordinary body of work, for which she was awarded an OBE for services to literature and…

Somerset House in London is hosting a cultural celebration of the Peanuts comic strip in its “Good Grief, Charlie Brown!” exhibition. It is well worth a visit and there is plenty for the linguist to enjoy. Schulz helped immortalise words such as “Augh”, “good grief, “rats” and “blockhead”. He was…

In early November 2018, CNN launched another of its banana series of commercials. It features a banana in a number of situations where an apple would be expected, such as on a medical advice notice now proclaiming ‘A banana a day keeps the doctor away’ or a banana falling on…

Wes Anderson’s latest movie, Isle of Dogs is a fabulous stop-motion animation set in a dystopian near-future Japan where the authoritarian regime has banished all dogs to Trash Island in a bid to contain an epidemic of dog flu. A linguistically interesting quirk in the movie is that the dogs…

With a teenager in the house currently deep into GCSE revision, the concept of time looms large in our lives. On the one hand, X days till exam time – cue panic. On the other hand, Y days till total freedom and a 10 week summer holiday – jubilation. The…

Are you looking for a gift for a translator friend or acquaintance? Then look no further, because David Bellos has written a wonderful book which explores the challenges and joy of translation. He doesn’t shy away from thorny academic issues around translation and some of the content is pretty weighty…

A recent trip to see family in Wales took me first into Shropshire (still in England) and then into Clwyd (over the border into the north eastern corner of Wales). As we drove, the road signs reflected the mixed linguistic heritage of this region and prompted lots of queries from…

I sometimes wonder if the Winter Olympics are the sporting event watched by the greatest number of people with absolutely no knowledge of the sports involved. Or maybe this is a peculiarly British perspective because our lack of snow and ice hampers any skiing, skating or snowboarding aspirations. At any…