Metaglossia: The Translation World

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Sometimes comic Joe Wong’s punch lines take a moment to sink in. He waits patiently.

“Both in America and in China, I got this comment, ‘Oh, what you’re doing here is not really comedy; it’s humor.’ People have to think a little bit before they can laugh. But that’s the humor I appreciate the most,” says Wong, who grew up in northeast China, learned English in school there, and came to the United States at 24 as a biochemistry student.

“Also, when I used to tell some of the jokes among my American friends, nobody even would laugh or notice, because they would never expect me to tell a joke. That was one of the most frustrating parts,” he says.

How to Slash Your Translation Costs
We are living through tough times. The EU is in permanent crisis, and America is in debt, and in a deep recession. Many companies understandably want to save cost on translation.

Here is my 7-step plan to help you reduce your costs and save money on translation, no matter what:

1. Treat language as a commodity. Remember, there is no real quality difference in words on a page, between one translator and another. They all write it the same. So, words are just like raw materials, commodities. Why pay more when the product is always the same and there is no difference in quality ?

2. Get a cheap into-foreign-language translator (L2). L2 means into the foreign language. Riding on the above basic paradigm that translation is a commodity, why pay more ? Why pay an American in Paris with an MA in translation to translate your text into English, when you can get someone dirt cheap in the developing world ? That is what the Internet is for. You don't need to know your translator, meet her, or even know who they are ! Just dump the project off to a big translation company and they will figure that all out. That is not your job.

Any company pushing overseas struggles with new demands and cultures. But the most annoying obstacle may be that pesky language barrier.

An A-Z explanation of all the more complicated terms in football...

The new season is almost upon us and that means watching seamless amounts of games, reading scores of match reports and generally breathing and living football. And don’t we just love it? However, the game has changed somewhat in recent years, with different tactics, different formations and different positions all put to use by managers these days. For example, who would have thought Vicente Del Bosque would go through Euro 2012 without playing a striker. After all, David Moyes has tried that one for years…

Still, there’s a number of phrases and terms that still make the mind boggle in the beautiful game and although we don’t have the ridiculous number of names or complicated terms like American Football or in fact cricket for that matter, there’s still a few things that could do with some explanation. To help you out, we’ve put together an A-Z of football terminology that will help you through the season:

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Every translator, linguist, language lover and grammar nazi has been there. Wherever we travel, our eyes are checking everything around us for grammar and translation mistakes. The following...

SCENE John the teleinterpreter: I’ll be happy to interpret for you. Nurse Practitioner: blah-blah-blah John the teleinterpreter: more blah-blah-blah Nurse Practitioner: Mr. Interpreter, we ha...

As useful as the Google search autocomplete feature can be, it seems that one of its greatest functions is as a source of comic relief.

Il est inutile de rappeler ici l'esprit inventif et réactif des Gondwanais. Il a fait le tour du monde et laissé sans voix tous ceux qui demeurent ignorant des réalités de ce pays et de la résilience légendaire des Gondwanaises et des Gondwanais.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Recueil subjectif d'idées non reçues sur des thèmes économiques convenus “Et si le soleil se levait à l'ouest ?

“Et si le soleil se levait à l’ouest ?” Tournant résolument le dos au déclinisme ambiant, les experts du Cercle des économistes, réunissant leur “Davos” solaire à Aix en Provence pour faire plancher, de façon fort académiques, ministres, professeurs et grands patrons, ont voulu, début Juillet faire naître de ce choc de brillants esprits – Jean-Claude Trichet, Hubert Vedrine, Mario Monti, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Pascal Lamy, Patricia Barbizet, Louis Gallois, Lionel Zinsou… – ont tenté d’élaborer des amorces de solutions, des lignes forces porteuses d’espérance. Les “frottements” nés de cette diversité ont été féconds en diagnostics certes – les universitaires de tous pays sont des virtuoses de l’analyse pertinente – mais aussi en recettes pragmatiques, opérationnelles dans un certain nombre de domaines. (Energie, éducation, financement des entreprises…).

Comme si cette alchimie mariant les pratiques de grands acteurs politiques, économiques aux refléxions des observateurs qualifiés permettait non seulement de puiser quelques enseignements sur le récent passé mais aussi de dresser quelques pistes pour le futur proche. Eclairant le débat de faits, d’observations et prévisions parfois surprenantes dont voici quelques morceaux choisis. La vaste diversité des points de vue ne parvient pas à dissimuler un point de convergence : l’organisateur des Rencontres Economiques d’Aix en Provence ne cache pas sa surprise.

“Tous les économistes présents, de toutes sensibilités, se sont montrés unanimes face à l’idée de créer un choc de compétitivité. Cette volonté commune est un enseignement majeur des Rencontres 2012” souligne Jean-Hervé Lorenzi. Et d’appeler le Président de la République à plus d’audace. “François Hollande doit bouger. Il ne peut se contenter d’augmenter les impôts”.

2050, échéance fatale
“A cette échéance, aucun pays européen ne sera plus membre du G8”, prévoit Michel Barnier. Le risque ? “Qu’ils soient relégués en deuxième division : tous les 10 ans, un pays européen est éjecté du Top Ten mondial. Le choc démographique devrait accentuer cette tendance. Alors faut-il baisser les bras ? Certainement pas : il faut imaginer des politiques industrielles par secteur, partager une vision économique, budgétaire commune avec le soutien des peuples. Car comme le dit le philosophe grec, il faut choisir : se reposer ou être libre.”

Afrique culminante
“Seul vrai problème de l’économie de l’Afrique, c’est encore une économie de rente. Elle puise et exploite ses richesses naturelles sans les transformer, sans leur apporter de valeur ajoutée. Nous n’avons aucune usine”, déplore Martin Ziguélé, ancien Premier ministre de Centrafrique, tandis qu’en écho, Lionel Zinsou, CEO de PAI Partners, en voit non seulement les aspects positifs mais aussi d’excellentes raisons d’espérer : “L’Occident est-il devenu l’empire du Milieu ? En tout cas, il n’est plus le centre du monde. L’Afrique, dont les richesses progressent au rythme de 5 % l’an, représente un PIB de 1 000 milliards pour un milliard d’habitants, grâce notamment aux services, financiers ou autres, sans compter les flux financiers en provenance de la diaspora dans le monde – soit 50 milliards d’euros.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

Business Insider is the Internet's undisputed king of breathless stock market analysis. But sometimes it's difficult to differentiate bad news from really bad news or good news from the great. We're here to help.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.

A CEO need to find desperatly someone that knows how to speak 7 languages. Really funny translation from English to seven different languages :) by Butku5 A....

In just a few years, comedian Trevor Noah went from performing at amateur clubs to selling out large theaters in his native South Africa.

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Noah's known for his impressions — of everyone from South African President Jacob Zuma to Oprah Winfrey — and his ability to turn mundane news stories into comedy. In 2011, he moved to California and made his big debut to American audiences with a five-minute set on The Tonight Show.

NPR's Neal Conan talks with Noah about translating his humor for different audiences.

Here's a summary of Judy's interpreting adventures during the month of June. This is meant to be taken with a grain of salt and a bit of Friday sense of humor.

Mox is a young but well educated translator. Two PhDs, six languages... and he hardly earns the minimum wage.