I confess that I once had a profound revelation on reading a book by Paolo Coelho. Unfortunately, I don’t think the author intended it. A Brazilian friend lent me The Alchemist in Portuguese when I was learning that language, saying that it would probably be OK […]
You only need one question to trip up the traditional Turing test: “What is 17,352 × 23.78?” The machine will answer immediately and correctly. The human will reply, “Umm…hang on…” and possibly give a wrong answer. That is because it is human to err. This is precisely […]
In any particular line of work, it’s not necessary to state that you’re a professional, unless of course you’re not. It’s a bit like those people who begin sentences with “I’m not racist, but…” and proceed to proffer racist opinions, satisfied that they’ve convinced everyone they’re not racist because they just said so. […]
Seis razones por las cuales las máquinas no podrán sustituir a los traductores humanos Uno Los humanos leen entre y detrás de las líneas. (¿Cuál es la pretensión del autor?) “¿Qúe piensa usted de nuestro informe?” “No está mal, supongo.” Según la cultura de origen y la de meta, esta respuesta se podría entender […]
In modern times, the use of gender in Spanish has become a controversial political and social football as society tries to include male and female genders (and other possibilities in the gender spectrum) in its speech and texts. Traditionally—and some would say correctly in grammatical terms—the masculine form has been used to refer to a […]
This award-winning book deals gives practical advice for freelance translators on how to organise workflows and improve the quality of services we give to our monolingual clients, guiding them through the translation process to meet their needs…and much more. For translators starting out or those who wish to make the leap to a more […]
Six reasons why machines can never replace human translators One Humans read between and behind the lines. (What is the author’s intent?) “What did you think of our report?” “It’s OK, I guess.” Depending on the human source and target cultures, this reply can be construed to have very different meanings. If […]
Sometimes in my talks for translators I give the audience a simple test with a surprising result. I ask for a show of hands to see who knows what a word such as “isomer” means. Usually fewer than 5% raise their hands. I say this is surprising because nearly all of you reading […]
As many who translate scientific texts know, this is one of the very few professions where the world of arts and letters is condemned to cooperate with and understand the world of science and engineering. Let’s face it, the average fine arts undergraduate doesn’t usually hang out with the chemical engineers on campus at […]
Los traductores que trabajan con textos científicos ya saben que esta es una de las pocas profesiones donde el mundo de las artes y de las letras está condenado a entenderse con el mundo de la ciencia y de la ingeniería. Seamos sinceros: los estudiantes de bellas artes no suelen irse de copas con […]