 Your new post is loading...
Is it confusing for your son to hear you speak both French and Italian? The answer is No! – you will not confuse your son by speaking both your languages with him. As you describe, you will be choosing which language you speak with your son based on the situation you are in. He will become accustomed to the switching of languages, and you are behaving like a great role model for a bilingual person. Children are actually very apt at distinguishing different languages and you can continue the way you use languages at the moment, if that is what feels most natural to you.
The process of terminology work includes 4 steps: (i) extraction of key terms, names and concepts identified in the source text; (ii) research and documentation of the terms in the terminology management system (TMS); (iii) distribution to vendors or freelancers, which more and more includes an authoring process in which the source text is checked for spelling errors and corporate language; and (vi) feedback and maintenance in which you update your termbase when, for example, a client asks you to change a term. Usually between 5% and 10% of term entries need to be changed, but if you have done an effective documentation process this could take less time.
There are approximately 329 million native Spanish speakers in the world, and they populate some of the coolest destinations in the world. You can leave behind the touristy resorts in Cancun and explore thousands of miles of cheap and beautiful Latin America cities, beaches, and trails. Venezuela, for instance, has the longest Caribbean sea coastline of any nation and is considered one of the most mega diverse countries on the planet, with more than 40 percent of its territory protected. Even if you do go to popular destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean, speaking the local language will help you get off the beaten path and see some real culture. And then of course you can book a trip to Spain and see the wonders of Barcelona, Madrid, Andalucia and more.
If working for the United Nations is your dream, there are a few things you must take into account. First of all, having excellent comprehension skills and being able to remain calm under pressure are two paramount qualities for those who aspire for this job. Before starting the job, the applicant is trained between 6 months and two years (depending on the position) at the UN Headquarters. After completing this relatively long period of training, you have the possibility to be transferred to the translation services of the other main duty stations: United Nations Office at Geneva, United Nations Office at Vienna and United Nations Office at Nairobi, or one of the regional commissions in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Perfect command of one relevant official language of the United Nations; this is considered the candidate’s main language. Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish translators must have excellent knowledge of at least two other official languages, as tested by the relevant United Nations competitive examination. English translators must also have excellent knowledge of at least two other official languages, as tested by the relevant United Nations competitive examination, one of which must be French. Chinese translators must have excellent knowledge of English; knowledge of an additional official language is desirable.
Translators are probably more internationally minded than most groups. Working with languages usually means opening up to different people and other cultures. Learning languages often means living and working in other countries and is difficult to do without coming into contact with people from different backgrounds to your own. Whether it’s the profession that creates the attitude or the attitude that leads to the profession is a moot point, but it makes it hard for us to understand those with closed minds, narrow points of view and negative attitudes towards anything and anyone beyond their national borders.
Language groups have warned of the dangers to lesser-used languages under the jurisdiction of the UK government in the event of a leave vote in Thursday’s Brexit referendum.
An open letter jointly signed by Irish, Welsh, Scots and Cornish groups highlights the benefits derived by lesser-used languages from EU membership and warns that the consequences of a Brexit would be “potentially disastrous”.
The Poetry Translation Centre is delighted to announce the return of Mother Tongue Other Tongue to the London region in 2016. The competition is free and open to 8-18 year olds (Years 4-13) at mainstream and supplementary schools in the Greater London area. Winners will be invited to regional and national celebration events, and their work will be published on the Poetry Translation Centre’s website. Mother Tongue Other Tongue is a multi-lingual poetry project designed to celebrate cultural diversity and the many languages spoken in Great Britain’s schools. It is a national Laureate Education project supported by the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.
Differences in language and culture are often considered to be barriers to communication but the language of poetry is read all over the world and all cultures have their own poets and poetry. In appreciating the poetry of others, or in sharing original poetry in their own language or in a language new to them, fledgling poets bring another perspective to an art form which can break down such perceived barriers.
Can you guess how many languages there are in the world? Well, maybe surprise, maybe not, there are estimated to be approximately 7,000 different languages in our world. I mean, that’s a lot! Only about 260 of them are spoken in Europe, whereas Asia is the home of about 2,200 languages and Papua New Guinea, a linguist researchers’ paradise, has more than 830 recognized languages, and that is, in one country alone. As much as around 90 percent of these languages are spoken by only 100,000 people. Nowadays it’s common to study foreign languages, but common mostly for the big languages, such as English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian etc.
For many freelance translators, a lifelong love of languages was at the heart of their career choice. Iwona PB comments:
“It just happened, quite naturally. To be honest, being in this business is a like a vocation for me. I studied Applied Lingusitics with translation and interpretation as my core modules. I wanted to be a translator since high school!”
The most famous candidate for a reflection on this situation would be James Joyce, who left Ireland in 1904 aged twenty-two and lived abroad, mainly in Trieste and Paris, until his death in 1941. Other writers one could speak of would be W. G. Sebald, writing in German while living in England, Dubravka Ugrešić writing in Croatian while living in Holland, or Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky, who went on writing in Russian after being forced into exile in the United States. One could go back and look at Robert Browning’s fifteen years in Italy, or Italo Calvino’s thirteen years in Paris. There are many others. Yet the easiest example, the only one I can write about with some authority, and, frankly, one of the most extreme, for length of time away and level of engagement with the foreign language and foreign country, is myself. What has happened to my English over thirty-five years in Italy? How has this long expatriation—I would never call it exile—changed my writing?
How did you decide to become a translator?
I started working after being a stay-at-home mother for 15 years. My education as a Master of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences, along with my interest in languages and writing, lead me to taking a one-year translation course at the University of Helsinki 1998-99. After that, I set up my firm, specializing in texts related to agriculture, and then I started marketing myself to potential clients. I also graduated as an authorized translator with the right to translate official documents and legislation from Finnish to Swedish.
When it comes to language stereotypes, no language takes the cake the way German does. We love to hate German with all of its harsh, angular words and prolific use of the letters ‘g’ or ‘z’. This poor language is called ugly, violent, or scary.
Run a search on silly language memes on Google and most of them will be Differenze Linguistiche panels portraying German as the language of fiery eyed, toothy MS Paint sketched heads with highly suspicious little mustaches.
Do we really hate German? No, not at all. Most people recognize the language’s value, that it has a huge population of native and second language speakers and is one of the most influential languages in Europe and around the world, both historically and recently.
Melissa Murrell, an interpreter who owns Deep South Language Services in Montgomery, said businesses related to education, medical and legal industries have continually added bilingual workers or contracted with interpreters throughout the Southeast over the last several years.
According to the bureau, the demand is expected to be strong for several languages, including French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, and other Middle Eastern and Asian languages. Murrell said it is essential interpreters and translators be properly trained in order for businesses to avoid liability that could arise from speech barriers and misinterpretations. She is partnering with the Small Business Development Center at Troy University to host an introductory interpreter training course at Troy University Dothan on Oct. 2 and 3 that helps workers understand the difference between interpreting and being bilingual.
|
Think about language-learning as a gateway to new experiences. To Spanish translator Sebastián Betti, learning a language has always been about focusing on the experiences that the new language would open up, from “visiting theme parks, attending air shows, enjoying cowboy poetry and folk-rock festivals, to learning about photo-essay techniques.” In other words, he thinks of fun things that he wanted to do anyway, and makes them into a language-learning opportunity. Many of our translators shared this advice. Italian and French translator Anna Minoli learned English by watching undubbed versions of her favorite movies, while Croatian translator Ivan Stamenković suddenly realized he could speak English in fifth grade, after years of watching the Cartoon Network without subtitles. So the next time you need a vegan carrot cake recipe, find one in the language you’re trying to learn.
Under the best of conditions, the call would have been hard work. It was very long, and it was full of service dates, claim numbers, diagnostic codes; proper nouns for providers, medical centers, streets, small towns whose pronunciations borrowed from both languages; and quasi-legal insurance terminology. But with a rough start, poor sound quality, and a week of stored-up interpreter bitterness, it was exhausting. What was especially hard to want to bother about were the little pleasantries that surround requests for repetition and the clever turns of phrase that suggest developing rapport between the caller and the insurance company rep. The only thing that made it tolerable was knowing my shift would probably be over when the call ended.
Children pick up languages very quickly when immersed in them. The younger they are, the easier it is to fit in, even if they do not know the language. My daughter was six years old when she started school in English, a language she only knew a few words of. It took her about three weeks to start understanding what was happening at school (based on the answers she gave to my questions about her school day) and after three months she started to speak, little by little. It was onwards and upwards from there. Especially with your 4-year-old you will be speaking about your move in advance, so I would take this opportunity to also speak about the new language he or she will be learning. Bilingual children have the advantage of understanding the concept of different languages early on (something which may be much more difficult for monolingual children to grasp). If at this point your child shows interest in knowing more about Swedish, then go ahead and introduce some everyday vocabulary such as mum, dad, eat, play, sleep and so on.
Language skills. It’s fair to say that we tend to be united by a love of language – some might even call it pedantry. Whether they’re covering the news, sport or the Diamond Jubilee, you can be sure that nothing will make a live subtitler’s heart sing more than rendering a correctly-punctuated [comma] readable sentence containing no errors [full stop]. And water cooler chat has been known to cover discussion of the Oxford comma as much as last night’s TV. That’ll be the pedantry, then.
Punctuality. It’s no use sauntering back from that water cooler at five past three if you’re due on air at 3.01 – and our schedules are indeed planned that precisely. Channel 4 and the BBC’s commitment to provide subtitles for 100% of its output means we have to be prepared to subtitle the very second a live broadcast begins, or to take over from a colleague who’s already on air at exactly the right moment. Resilience. As explained in an earlier blog, subtitling live speech can result in words being misrecognised. It’s understandably disappointing for the audience to see mistakes because it impairs their viewing experience. For that reason – not to mention the linguistic pride we take in our work, as mentioned above – those mistakes are frustrating for us, too. Staying calm and maintaining that other useful skill, a sense of humour, is often the best way for a subtitler to remain sane!
Si quieres conseguir información de primera mano sobre lenguas, la lista del Top 25 Blogs Profesionales de Idiomas es perfecta para ti. En esta categoría intérpretes, traductores, organizaciones dedicadas a los idiomas así como otros profesionales lingüísticos, comparten sus conocimientos. En algún momento puede que necesites un traductor profesional o una traducción certificada de español a inglés que no sabes a quién encargar. En estos casos, la solución puede estar más cerca de lo que crees: en estos blogs profesionales. Todos ellos ofrecen información de excelente calidad y resultan de gran utilidad para cualquiera que trate o trabaje con idiomas. ¡Buen trabajo, ganadores
Here are many translators out there. Some aren’t even human! Of course, that variety doesn’t mean that every translator works the same way or turns in work with the same level of quality. Whether you’re thinking about hiring a translator, or are considering becoming one, yourself, here are the essential characteristics you should look for (or possess):
— A thorough knowledge of the languages you’re working with. Whether they’re bilingual/multilingual from birth, or learned their non-native language(s) later, translators should have a passion for the languages they work with, and a solid educational background in all of them. That means a large vocabulary, and an excellent knowledge of grammar and idiomatic expressions, among other things.
— Intimate knowledge of the cultures associated with their languages. As we regularly discuss on this blog, a good translator has to know the history, politics, pop culture, customs, even details of daily life, that are behind the languages they’re working with. This will help them convey a text’s meaning in the fullest sense, so that not just words, but ideas and context can be translated, too.
– Curiosity – This means not only accepting, but being downright happy to learn new things for a translation job.
When words are strung together in a way that can be used often, that’s called a phrase. Some phrases are easy to use and understand, while others are a bit confusing.
Idioms are phrases that might not make sense on their own, but which have a specific meaning. For example, if “it’s raining cats and dogs,” it’s not actually raining down animals—it’s just raining very hard.
Cliches (pronounced “clee-SHAYS”) are sayings that are used so often that they become overused. If you use a cliche, the phrase isn’t original (unique). These are phrases like “happily ever after,” “time will tell” and “brave as a lion.” Some idioms have also become cliches from too much use.
Over time, cliches and idioms are repeated over and over by different people. Sometimes along the way, some of the words or meanings become altered (changed), and people end up using the wrong phrase.
Remember that even if everyone says a phrase in a certain way, that does not always mean it’s the right way to use it.
Un gruppo di ricerca dell'università tedesca Uni Saarland ha creato "Dialog Box", un applicazione che supporta la collaborazione e cooperazione tra coloro che prendono parte a videogiochi online pur parlando questi lingue differenti.
Grazie a questa nuova applicazione i giocatori possono porre al computer domande intuitive, dargli degli ordini e ricevere informazioni. Il Dialog Box agisce in pratica da agente mediatore tra i diversi giocatori, che possono essere localizzati in qualsiasi parte del mondo, e permette loro di capire parole e condividere informazioni che siano in inglese, francese e tedesco. L'applicazione, che è stata concepita in particolare per quei videogiochi che richiedono ai partecipanti di lavorare in gruppo e di affrontare missioni con ruoli ben precisi, nelle intenzioni dei suoi creatori dovrebbe poter essere utilizzata su tutte le piattaforme online che richiedono una conversazione multilingue e obbligano coloro che vi navigano a risolvere un problema comune.
Why am I reading so much in English?
The answer came right away – because it’s convenient. Because it’s so damn convenient.
I’ve subscribed to newsletters of over 15 websites. All in English.
They come straight to my e-mail box. No effort whatsoever is required from my side.
What’s more, I read English books because
a) there are more of them than in any other language I know
b) because I got stuck in my comfort zone
Does it ring a bell? Do you find yourself consuming most of the media in just one language?
Then read on!
I knew that the first thing I had to do was to minimize the required amount of energy to take action.
In families which use the one parent, one language (OPOL) family language strategy, children are usually simultaneous bilinguals. If both parents speak a minority language and have chosen the minority language at home (mL@H) approach, and if the child does not learn the next language until after the age of three or four years, the child is a sequential bilingual. Note that these are just names for the order in which languages are learnt, and children can become equally fluent in their languages independent of whether they are sequential or simultaneous bilinguals.
The decision of course depends on what languages each parent knows and what language pattern is viable in the family. Each family is unique and will have to adapt any suggested approach according to their circumstances.
English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world: approximately 360 to 400 million people speak it natively, while another 470 million to more than one billion claim English as a second language.
But not all of these speakers necessarily understand each other. With more than 50 regional dialects in Great Britain alone, Expedia’s accent map proves just how tricky understanding English can be.
How would you fare travelling around the British Isles? Do you know your Cockney from your Geordie? >LEGGI TUTTO
Translanguaging pedagogy requires a different type of teacher, a co-learner. Classrooms are increasingly multilingual in the world. It is impossible for teachers to know all the languages of students. But it is possible for teachers to build a classroom ecology where there are books and signage in multiple languages; where collaborative groupings are constructed according to home language so that students can deeply discuss a text in the dominant school language with all their language resources; where students are allowed to write and speak with whatever resources they have and not wait until they have the “legitimate” ones to develop a voice; where all students language practices are included so as to work against the linguistic hierarchies that exist in schools; where families with different language practices are included. Any teacher, including a monolingual one, can take up translanguaging to enable their bilingual students to make deeper meaning and legitimize their home language practices.
|
