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This blog previously described the pleasure a translator can find in perusing multilingual instructions for a new domestic appliance, which often feature some entertainingly dismal translations. Having said that, the consequences of attempting to dodge translation difficulties by providing an illustration-only user manual suggest manufacturers are best advised to stick…

One of the greatest pleasures in working with language every day is the appreciation you develop for neat turns of phrase or vocabulary possibilities in your non-native language, so this week’s blog brings you a little collection of “Germanisms” that have recently brought me delight. We begin with the application…

We’ve had a New Zealand visitor with us for the last few months, which has provided a great opportunity to revel in regional linguistic differences, in the guise of New Zealand slang. In the UK, our main exposure to dialectal variation is through interactions with US media and culture. So,…

In Part II of our proofreading checklist, we run through some obvious grammatical glitches that can afflict translated text. Word order Sticking ruthlessly to the word order in the source text can result in stylistic oddities. A text I recently reviewed contained the German phrase emotionale Negativmomente, and my instinct…

One of the benefits of doing regular review work as a translator is that it offers useful reminders of things to watch out for in your own translation tasks. It is always easier to spot errors or stylistic glitches in someone else’s work, so this is a great opportunity to…

One of the first things I noticed many moons ago when working as an au pair in Germany, was the way the definite article was frequently stuck in front of people’s names “Die Petra …”, “Der Klaus …” etc. With certain regional variations, this definite article plus name formulation crops…

This blog traditionally closes out the year by offering a round-up of the various dictionary Word of the Year nominations. Arguably the most prestigious WOTY award comes from the Oxford Dictionaries team, and the 2023 selection of rizz flummoxed your blog author so comprehensively that she needed the Christmas holidays…

My ever-expanding list of language topics I should know more about has long since had sign language on it, and my interest increased when my middle daughter selected a university credit in British Sign Language as part of her liberal arts degree. So I was primed to notice a recent…

Back in 2018 Rhodri Williams, the outgoing director of Ofcom Wales, warned that the growth of streaming services such as Netflix could have a detrimental impact on original language content aimed at a “geographically-specific audience”. The power of the market means that global players are most interested in content that…

Every translator understands that dictionaries have their limits when it comes to selecting the right word. A fascinating example of this cropped up recently in a piece I was working on for a German financial services company. The topic was cryptocurrencies and particularly the evolving technologies in this rapidly changing…