Translators, myself included, seem to give a lot of weight to technology. The tools we use often become more important than the result of our work. I told the owner of an agency, for which I did an editing job recently, that many of the German sentences simply did not makes sense, even though (or because) they closely followed the English source. She shrugged it off by saying that a translator couldn’t be expected to do better than the original.

I happen to disagree and believe that is a cop-out to produce non-sentences in the target language simply because the source consists of non-sentences – and was pleased to see Nick Rosenthal’s (@nickrosenthal) tweet about a style workshop for translators. From the workshop description:

The ability to produce polished prose, no matter how uneven the original text, is one factor distinguishing top-end translators able to command high fees from bulk providers and bottom feeders.

Style does matter, even or especially with technical material. We should have more style and editing workshops.

Among the many useless utilities, this on-line helper called “Flip” is a good candidate for top prize.

Enjoy.

Note: The font flip does not work equally well with all fonts since it depends on the availability of characters and the font style. The upside-down “u,” as it appears twice in “ʎʇılıʇn ssǝlǝsn,” is represented by the letter “n.” My headline style capitalizes letters, and “N” doesn’t look like an upside-down “u” anymore. Effect lost!

Only today did I get around to Gabriele Zöttl’s post on common difficulties in localization jobs, which appeared in her blog Über-Setzer-Logbuch this past March. In it, she refers to an interesting and detailed article by English-to-Czech translator Miloš Průdek.

Průdek’s article, entitled Localization, shows how collaboration between software developers, UI designers and translators is essential for successful localization, and how (and why) you should go about organizing such a team. It explains some common mistakes software developers tend to do unintentionally and is a good primer for anyone planning a localization project or having discussions with clients about the prerequisites for an upcoming localization project.

Can anybody tell me what it is about the German mind slash structural approach to web design slash esthetic sensibilty that leads to most of their websites being based on framesets? I thought frames went out the door when CSS became mainstream. What am I missing?

According to an article in “The National”, all federal laws of the UAE have been translated into English and will be available on-line at www.elaws.gov.ae in the near future. Soon to follow are 1,500 federal court decisions, 500 international treaties signed by the UAE, and 2,000 official fatwas issued by UAE muftis. The goal is to have an easily accessible body of case law and statutes in both Arabic and English.

Am Magengeschwür war früher die Schwiegermutter schuld oder die Kindheit. Dann fand man heraus, es ist ein Bakterium. Das war ein schlechter Tag für die Psychoanalyse!

[Psychiatrist Florian Holsboer, interviewed in SpOn]