In addition to translating certified documents, art essays, and ad copy, I’ve been rehearsing and performing in a local production of The Music Man. Pick a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep!
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Party like it’s 1797
Happy 223rd birthday to Franz Schubert!
Hippocratic Oath for the Culture War
We should all kick off the new decade by taking this oath provided by Intellectual Explorers. Here I go: I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will be truthful in content creation. I will not willingly distort or misrepresent reality. I will create content and engage others… Continue reading Hippocratic Oath for the Culture War
Deadly MT
I often run legal boilerplate (with all specifics of the case removed) through DeepL as a preliminary measure. Today’s experiment was from an alimony contract. And I’m pretty sure the person who signed it didn’t intend to agree to this: Because of the fulfilment of the obligations arising from this document, I submit myself to… Continue reading Deadly MT
Crow vs. Raven
Die Krähe Eine Krähe war mit mir Aus der Stadt gezogen, Ist bis heute für und für Um mein Haupt geflogen. Krähe, wunderliches Tier, Willst mich nicht verlassen? Meinst wohl bald als Beute hier Meinen Leib zu fassen? Nun, es wird nicht weit mehr gehn An dem Wanderstabe. Krähe, lass mich endlich sehn Treue bis… Continue reading Crow vs. Raven
Warning: explicit language
This morning someone on my local NPR station said that English is a very implicit language, while American Sign Language is a very explicit language. What the heck does that mean? The speaker, who interprets into ASL at stage productions, cited the example of translating the phrase “a cosmopolitan city”: “Well, you can finger-spell ‘cosmopolitan,’… Continue reading Warning: explicit language
Krabat
“There’s a kind of magic that must be learned with toil and difficulty, line by line, spell by spell, the magic of the Book of Necromancy; and then there’s another kind that springs from the depths of the heart, from caring for someone and loving him. It’s hard to understand, I know, but you had… Continue reading Krabat
Interlingual puns
Some people seem to think (see this post) that a really great machine-translation program would be able to “handle complicated multilingual puns with ease.” But what is a “multilingual pun” anyway? The prefix “multi” implies more than two, and honestly, off the top of my head I can’t think of any puns involving more than… Continue reading Interlingual puns
Homeless in Vienna
Vienna has once again been ranked the world’s best city to live in. Apparently it’s won the Mercer Quality of Living Survey 10 years in a row and from what I saw on my last visit there, I’d say the honor is well-deserved. But Vienna hasn’t always been such a great place to live. In… Continue reading Homeless in Vienna
Puns and jokes
In this post I promised to go through some pun-translation strategies. What makes puns hard to translate is that there is almost never one “right” or “best” solution. Puns give rise to several different scenarios: 1. You just translate the straight meaning and write a footnote about how it was a pun in the source… Continue reading Puns and jokes