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While misconceptions about translators and interpreters are common, they can also prevent you from hiring the right professional for the job. In this article, we’ll share seven of the most common misconceptions about translators. Stay tuned for next month’s post, which will cover common misconceptions about interpreters. No matter what your needs are, learning more…
Who doesn’t love the movies? They transport us to another time and place… until you watch a movie about something you really know about, that is. Imagine being a soldier watching a war movie. Yes, certain aspects of battle scenes might be similar to what soldiers experience, but there are also many fallacies embedded in…
What do Arabic, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Swahili, Wolof and Amharic all have in common? They are all languages spoken in Africa, and this list doesn’t even begin to cover all the myriad of smaller subsets of various language and indigenous languages and dialects that pepper this vast continent – There are thousands! Indeed,…
Your company has a mission statement – and we bet that statement is compelling. At the core of every professional mission statement, however, is a thrumming mantra: We need to be profitable! If you’re not careful, that mantra will overpower the essence of your brand. It will cause you to make seemingly savvy, cost-effective decisions…
To the outside observer, it can appear that interpretation is a simple process of going from language A to language B via an interpreter versed in both languages, and that any interpreter could take on any job. But there is much more to the story than that. In fact, interpretation is not created equal at…
Like any industry, translation and interpretation is filled with terminology and lingo that is unfamiliar to the large majority of our clients – or that may have a slightly different meaning than they are used to. While learning these terms is not required, a cursory understanding will be helpful as you meet with various translation…
You’ve probably heard of the Hippocratic Oath, by which physicians vow to “first do no harm,” and uphold certain ethical standards. Lawyers are also sworn in using an Attorney’s Oath. In the state of California, among other standards, new lawyers pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States and also to conduct themselves…
Google Translator is an incredible tool for a “quick and dirty” translation, but it completely lacks cultural and linguistic nuance. Automated language translation tools – or even fluent but non-native translators can take a website or document and smear it with proverbial mud. If your current language service does not have the cultural knowledge…
It was a wandering French geographer with a vision of language as a unifying and deeply generative cultural influence who coined the term “Francophonie” (French-speaking world). His name was Onésime Reclus, a 19th century booster of French culture and language who traveled widely and wrote books primarily about the French colonies in Africa. His vision…
Slightly larger than the continental United States, Brazil is a vast country with epic beauty and immense natural resources. It is also the birthplace of the Girl from Ipanema, the archetypal beauty whose winsome walk has charmed many as she saunters along that shimmering beach so memorialized in song. Certainly she is symbolic of Brazil’s…