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Facebook’s move to provide option for Latin translation support to its website has created a surge of interest in the language which is not used anymore by regular folks in daily life. It’s a good time to reflect upon this language which was a major player until the 17th century.
Latin was originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It spread throughout the Mediterranean region and a significant part of Europe as a result of Roman conquests. All the Romance languages including French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian have descended from Latin. Many other languages, especially the European ones, have either inherited or borrowed their vocabulary from Latin.
Latin played the role of an international language and was the primary language used by the academia and scientific community in Europe till the 17th century. Thus it was associated with progress and learning; several groundbreaking works in the fields of philosophy, science and religion were originally published in Latin. These books were so influential that there power has sustained to this day, drawing students from all over the world who aspire to study them and learn Latin for the purpose.
In the present day, Latin exists in the form of Ecclesiastical Latin which is used in edicts and papal bulls that are issued by the Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church is in fact the largest organization that uses Latin language for official and quasi-official work. Science, law and the academia also depend upon Latin vocabulary for their terminology. The Latin alphabet, when combined with its modern variants like the French, English and Spanish alphabets, is the most widely used worldwide.
Though it is not used commonly, Latin is far from being a dead language because of its illustrious history.
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The difference in date formats across various countries of the world can sometimes cause great blunders. As an example, let’s take date formats used in two different countries. Suppose country ‘A’ uses dd-mm-yy and country ‘B’ uses mm-dd-yy then if you have to refer to the 4th day of May in the year 2009, you might write it as 04-05-09 but if the translation is read by someone in country ‘B’ then that person would mistakenly understand it as referring to the 5th day of April in 2009.
People residing in various countries have a tendency to stick to the format that they have always used, many of them are not aware that there is already an International Standard for date format in existence. It has been defined by the ISO under the classification ISO 8601.
The ISO 8601 prescribes an order in which the larger value (i.e. year) is followed by the smaller value (i.e. month, day, hour, seconds). The standard for date is ISO 8601:2004(E). It suggests numeric representations for date and time. This is in order to eliminate the possibility of confusion or misunderstanding. Accordingly the standard notation of the date mentioned in the beginning of this post would be 2009-05-04. If you have to mention hour, minutes, seconds as well, then you would have to write them down in a descending order, as in hour followed by minutes, followed by seconds.
As professional translation services providers we should all do our bit to promote this standard date format which would greatly reduce errors of various degrees in language translations.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Spanish is a complicated language, it is tough to learn as well as translate. But even if one does not take that into account, there are complexities arising out of the wide reach of the language. Spanish serves as the official language in over 20 countries and has more than 350 million native speakers all over the world. So it is natural for the language to have variations across the different regions where it is spoken.
If you only consider Latin America, you will find about five distinct dialects of Spanish. Now these dialects are not very different from each other and people speaking different dialects can certainly understand each other. But then there are chances of misinterpretation due to the presence of differences, especially in the case of translations.
Broadly speaking there are three categories of differences that one can come across in Spanish as spoken in Spain, and as spoken in Latin America. They involve grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. The following are a few samples –
Grammatical differences - The use of pronoun for second person singular is different in Spain (‘Tu’) and in Latin America (‘Vos’). The plural form of the same in Spain is ‘vosotro’ while in Latin American countries it is ‘ustedes’.
Vocabulary differences – Consider the Spanish word for computer- in Spain it is called ‘ordenador’ while in Latin America it is referred to as ‘computadora’. In the case of glasses used for reading, the Spanish word is ‘gafas’. Latin America uses two words for the same- in Argentina it is called ‘anteojos’ while in Venezula people use the word ‘lentes’ for it.
Pronunciation differences - There are remarkable differences in the way native Spanish speakers from Spain and those from Latin America pronounce various letters. For example, those coming from Spain usually pronounce ‘z’ as “th” while Latin American pronounce it as ‘s’, the result of this is the Spaniards have a stronger accent when compared to Spanish speakers in Latin America.
The above makes for a tiny part of the differences that exist across the different dialects of Spanish. Keeping that in mind, whether you are a buyer of Spanish translation or a Spanish translation professional, you should keep in mind that you have to first make sure which dialect of Spanish language your target readers use, and then tailor your translation project accordingly.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
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Most of us practicing and experienced professional translators are well aware of the complexity and delicacy of the language translation process. We know how inexperience or machine translations can change the meaning of a piece of content making it ineffective or worse detrimental to the intended purpose. This is something that translation buyers should always beware of, for they are the ones who would be hurt from botched up translations. The following translation howlers would make my point clearer –
- When Pepsi was marketed in Taiwan with the slogan “”Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” a translation error in Taiwanese led it to be read as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”
- “You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid” - this was found written in English in a Japanese hotel room. Obviously the work of a word to word translator.
- Electrolux, the Scandinavian manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, marketed its products in America with the slogan “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.
- Our wines leave you nothing to hope for – found on a Swiss menu.
- “Schweppes Tonic Water” translated for its Italian marketing campaign to “Schweppes Toilet Water”
There are hundreds of such examples and recounting all of them would probably fill up an entire book and what’s more, countless more translations gaffes are taking shape right now all over the world. In order to avoid such embarrassments translation services buyers need to realize that translation is a complex job and cannot be done by a machine, or by inexperienced translators who are just familiar with a language pair.
Language translations, especially those which are important, like business or academic documents, should be translated by professional translation experts who are satisfactorily experienced and specialized in the required language pairs. If you go for the cheapest rates or get your work done for free then you can expect results which can be categorized along with the above examples. You can however use free services or machine translations for documents which are not very important.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
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I don’t know how to react to this bit of knowledge which has been gnawing at my mind for the last few days. Finding no way out I have decided to share it with you dear reader. Well the thing is that though the effects of recession has been bad everywhere, thankfully our translation industry has not been hit that badly. It’s quite surprising, but a sizeable number of translation jobs have been generated due to the recession!
Yes its true, with the recession continuing to take its toll, increasing numbers of non-English speaking immigrants are losing their homes to foreclosure listings. Now a lot of these homeowners are not fluent in the English language, which has spurred mortgage banks to hire the services of translation agencies in order to keep the channels of communication clear. Even people facing foreclosure have hired the services of professional translators who would help them translate their grievances, appeals and complaints for the official authorities. This has led to a substantial rise in profits for quite a few translation companies even during the recession. If you find that surprising, think about this – about one in every 5 citizens of the country speaks in a language other than English.
However, since professional translators are human beings first, there has been a growing problem of emotional stress among those who are working in foreclosure listings translations. This is because of the continuous exposure to the misfortunes of fellow citizens, many of who are from their native countries.
Let’s hope that this unfortunate situation ends quickly, and the language translation industry continues to rise and grow along with every other industry.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
I recently got to know a Greek translator, and she illuminated me on a number of aspects related to Greek translation which I would like to share with you dear readers. So here you are –
- Greek translations, whether Greek to English translation or any other language pair involving Greek, should always be done by a Greek translator.
- One should make it a point to hire a professional translation expert who is an expert in the subject of the document. For example, if a religious document related to Christianity or Judaism needs to be translated from English to Greek, then the translator should also be an expert in the mentioned religions.
- The completed translation should be read by another Greek translator who is also a native speaker.
- Don’t use free or automatic Greek translation services, especially when you are translating important or complex documents.
- All Greek Translations must be proofread by a second, preferably native Greek translator.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Ans. Typewriter.
Are you a scrabble champ? Then check out the row - “QWERTYUIOP”. If you come out with a longer word, do let me know. This is the Tomedes language translation team’s way of unwinding during tea breaks 
