I’ve got Google.com set up as my browser home page. I usually just glance at the little announcements under the logo and search box. However, this morning I noticed the announcement on the changes to their terms and conditions. It said:
We’re changing our privacy policy and terms. Not the usual yada yada. Learn more
I was curious to see if the UK site also used the term “not the usual yada yada”. It didn’t:
We’re changing our privacy policy and terms. This stuff matters. Learn more
The French site has:
Nos règles de confidentialité et d’utilisation évoluent. En plus clair et plus concis. En savoir plus
And the Italian site has the bald:
Stiamo cambiando le norme sulla privacy e i termini di servizio. Ulteriori informazioni
So in Google’s view, do Italians dislike a touch of informality in their terms and conditions announcements ? Is the concept of “clearer and more concise” anathema to them? (Judging by the material I translate, I’d have to answer “yes” to that one).
Any thoughts? Italian readers, your views are very welcome! What do other countries’ sites say?
Filed under: English, Italian, Language, Translation | 3 Comments
Tags: cultural adaptation, Google, localisation, Translation
January will soon be here and it’ll be time to make yet another New Year’s Resolution to declutter. But sometimes it pays to be selective about what you throw out.
I submitted a bid recently for a contract to translate “documents relating to the policies and administration of the European Union”. To take part, you had to demonstrate your experience through “Letters of reference from customers, invoices, book covers, contracts clearly indicating the subject, language combination and number of pages or specimens of translations carried out by the tenderer”.
I’ve been translating for various Italian Government organisations on EU affairs since the 1980s (I know, that really dates me!). But how to prove it? Thankfully, my annual decluttering exercises are anything but successful and amongst my old papers I found an old invoice book. It contained an invoice from February 1996 (not quite the 1980s, but better than nothing) addressed to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for “The translation from Italian to English of an article on Information, Communication and Culture during the Italian EU Presidency”. (I can’t believe I was still writing invoices by hand at that time).
I’ve no idea how I’ll get on with the tender but at least I had some evidence of long-standing experience to back up my bid. Phew!
Filed under: Life and work, Translation | 2 Comments
Tags: contracts, decluttering, tenders, Translation
I spend a lot of time singing the praises of language learning and trying to encourage school pupils to keep up their language studies. So it’s good to see more evidence that bilingualism is good for the brain, including in non-linguistic ways.
According to a new study by researchers based in Barcelona, Hong Kong, London and Milan and coordinated by Jubin Abutalebi, bilingualism tunes the anterior cingulate cortex for conflict monitoring. Essentially, learning two languages (not necessarily from birth) helps bilinguals reach decisions more rapidly, flexibly and with less effort than is the case for monolingual people.
I blether on to people about language learning being a sort of work-out for the brain: just as your body benefits from physical exercise, your brain benefits from the mental exercise required to switch between languages. Well, the study found that bilingualism actually increases the volume of your dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the part of the brain linked with language control and resolving nonverbal conflict. So just as you can tone up your muscles by going to the gym, you can build up your brain — and your decision-making abilities — by speaking two languages.
You can read a report (in Italian) in “la Repubblica’s” article Bilingui, più rapidi ed efficienti nel prendere decisioni critiche.
Filed under: Language | 1 Comment
Tags: bilingualism, brainpower, language learning
Alexander Anichkin’s blog post, When the Poet Died, was written a few months ago (June 2011) but makes timely reading today, Remembrance Sunday.
Alexander’s post starts from his translation of Gilbert Bécaud’s song “Quand il est mort, le poète” (lyrics by Louis Amade). So it gives us an insight to the challenges faced by translators in translating songs (or poetry), and the creative ways in which they resolve them.
But it’s interesting on other levels too. The song itself has an anti-war message and touches on the symbolism of remembrance: red poppies here in Britain, blue cornflowers in France. The video Alexander has chosen for his post shows Gilbert Bécaud performing the song for (and teaching it to) a German audience.
Alexander’s comment:
Whatever difficulties united Europe is going through, Franco-German rapprochement has been one of its greatest achievements.
could hardly be more topical.
The Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano, has become a front-page name outside Italy in view of his role in guiding the country’s change of leadership. Like his predecessor, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Napolitano belongs to the generation that lived through the Second World War and saw a united Europe as much more than just an economic community. In a speech last month at the Collège d’Europe in Bruges, President Napolitano said:
We need to cast some light on the progress made in the audacious project announced on 9 May 1950. This is especially true nowadays, since my generation is the last one to have lived through the tragedy that the Second World War unleashed on our countries, already battered by the First, Great War. Mine is the last generation to preserve a keen memory of the fatal divisions and destruction from which we had to raise ourselves up once again.
For President Napolitano, and President Ciampi before him, the European Union was and is a way to ensure that European countries never again go to war (with each other). It’s maybe hard for those of us who didn’t live through World War II to fully grasp that sentiment, but it’s worth remembering that “Europe” is based on more than just markets and economic interests. Isn’t it?
By the way: Gilbert Bécaud, Giorgio Napolitano and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi all took part in their countries’ resistance movements.
Filed under: Translation | 4 Comments
Tags: Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Europe, France, Germany, Gilbert Becaud, Giorgio Napolitano, Italy, Remembrance Sunday, Translation
Punctuation botheration (2)
It seems Birmingham isn’t the only city having bother with place name apostrophes, as shown by the Londonist website’s post on Should King’s Cross Have An Apostrophe?. Unlike Birmingham City Council, however, the various London authorities haven’t reached a unanimous decision.
The simple truth is that there is no ‘official’ stance on the name. Or, if there is, no one pays any attention. While apostrophes are often crucial in written language, they are less important to place names. No one reads ‘Kings Cross’ and assumes that multiple monarchs must be crossing the street. It’s a label and nothing more. If you need a rule, try using an apostrophe when talking about the stations and no apostrophe when describing the area. It makes no sense, but that’s often the case with rules.
Do you live in an area with punctuation dilemmas? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
Filed under: English, Writing | 2 Comments
Tags: apostrophes, King's Cross, London, punctuation, writing
The “As a Linguist” blog has a new post, Wait, who just died?, on the problematic pronunciation and spelling of Colonel Gaddafi’s name.
I’ve been “translating” his name (from the Italian version, Gheddafi) just about every day since the Libyan uprising began (I work with another translator on the English version of the Italian Foreign Ministry’s website). So when the rebellion broke out we had to decide quickly on which version to use.
We opted to follow the European Commission’s lead, Italy being a European Union country, and use Gaddafi.
From a quick search, NATO and the British Foreign Office seem to prefer Qadhafi, with some instances of Gaddafi. The BBC and the Guardian, Times and Telegraph newspapers mainly use Gaddafi. What about the rest of the English-language media?
Confession: although I write the country’s name day in, day out, I still have to stop and think if it’s Libya or Lybia (I’ve had to add it to my auto-correct list in Word).
Filed under: English, Italian, Language, Translation | 3 Comments
Tags: English, Gaddafi, Gheddafi, Libya, Spelling, Translation
Floundering in fonts
How do graphic designers do it?
I’m working on a new logo, for personal rather than business use. Or rather, Zoë Shuttleworth of Rude Goose is working on it, and I’m no doubt driving her round the bend with my contradictory input.
This probably sounds like a vanity project but there’s a motivational reason behind it. I badly need to get my papers sorted out in a clear, rational manner: separating the business from the personal from the household files. I’m a great believer in the power of a good logo. So, my thinking is, if I’ve got a gorgeous logo on my file boxes, I’ll be more inclined to actually file stuff away in them. I can but hope…
Anyway, I’ve been looking at typography websites this afternoon and I just don’t know how designers ever make a choice. There are so many gorgeous fonts out there — I could spend my whole day looking at them.
How do you do it, designers? Have you got a mental categorisation method? Favourite sites? I’d love to know!
Filed under: Architecture and Design, Life and work | 6 Comments
Tags: fonts, graphic design, logos, typography
It seems that Italy too has got problems with spelling and punctuation, though in this case at graffiti rather than local authority level.
The text in black above should read “L’orgoglio non serve”. Roughly translated, “Pride doesn’t serve any purpose”, to which an Italian Lynne Truss has responded “But apostrophes do”.
This picture is from a gallery of graffiti grammar and spelling errors published by Italian newspaper la Repubblica. The mistakes include attempts at writing to one’s beloved in French, hence the title of this post.
Filed under: Italian, Language | 2 Comments
Tags: graffiti, grammar, punctuation, Spelling
Urgent. It’s a relative concept
A client phoned me at 4pm the other day (Tuesday 4 October) asking if I could translate 2800 words (12 “translation pages”) on The International Monetary System and Financial Stability: The implications for Latin America. For 8am the following day.
Another client asked me that same afternoon for a translation of 6170 words (4 pages). Apologising for the urgency, they told me they needed it “as soon as possible… Monday [10 October] would be great”.
I suppose urgent means different things to different people.
Filed under: Translation | 6 Comments
Tags: client expectations, deadlines
Recent Entries
- Google adapts its terms and conditions – and its language
- Don’t throw the baby out with the bath-water. Or, go easy on the decluttering
- Brainy bilinguals: language learning makes for snappier decision-making
- When the Poet Died: on translating remembrance
- Punctuation botheration (2)
- What’s in a name: spelling “Gaddafi”
- Floundering in fonts
- Ge tem, mona mour…(?) Punctuation (and spelling) botheration, Italian style
- Punctuation botheration
- Urgent. It’s a relative concept
- Macs. Thank you.
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