FBI’s lack of translators
An article in Reuters reports: The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost 3 percent of its linguists and failed to sift through millions of documents as the agency’s workload of terrorism cases grows, according to a report issued on Monday. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies were widely […]
The Use of Neutral Spanish for the U.S. Hispanic Market
There is little doubt about the growing influence of the Hispanic demographic in the United States. According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos comprise 14.8% of the population for a total of 44.3 million people. What’s more, Hispanics are projected to account for almost 25% of the total U.S. population by […]
British companies relying too much on the English Language
English may be the leading international business language and UK companies may still have a head start in the 53 Commonwealth countries where English is spoken, but the National Centre for Languages says that three-quarters of the world’s population speak no English and 94% of English speakers do so only as their second language. Chinese […]
Machine Translation or Human Translation?
CNN published an article explaining the different approaches from Google and Facebook to translating their webs. Below you will find some highlights: Facebook aims to translate the Web using an army of volunteers and some hired professional translators. Meanwhile, Google plans to let computers do most of the work. Which method will ultimately prevail remains […]
Payment Methods for Freelance Translators in US and Abroad
Translators around the world have never had it so good. With the translation business blooming, they seek to stand a lot from their work. The methods by which translators get paid are many and varied. Many agencies prefer to pay their clients through ACH or Automated Clearing House, in which, it is possible to deposit […]
Delicate work in translation
A letter to the New York Times Book Review complained that Gerald Martin, the biographer of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, had not given due respect to Marquez’s translators. Martin raves about Marquez’s “gorgeous sentences,” but the letter writer complains that he “neglects to mention whether he read those sentences in Spanish or English.” I have often […]
LACMA learns to tweet en Español
Today, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art officially went bilingual on Twitter. The museum launched a Twitter account, @enLACMA, that will provide Spanish-language tweets to online users. “We were looking for new ways for Spanish speakers to engage in the museum, and this is the next natural step,” said museum spokeswoman Allison Agsten. LACMA’s […]
Translators Wanted at LinkedIn. The Pay? $0 an Hour.
About half of the 42 million members of LinkedIn, the online professional networking Web site, are outside the United States, and to further expand internationally, the company hopes to be translated into more than its current four languages — English, Spanish, French and German. But when LinkedIn asked thousands of its translator members to complete […]
Offline Resources for Translators
As a freelance translator, you probably have both a virtual library of resources and tools as well as an actual resource library. Most likely your virtual library is beefier because so much of a translator’s work is done on the computer. Translation memories, glossaries, forums that help you with difficult terms, translator community forums all […]
Spanish-English Translations: Pitfalls to Avoid
As with any field, newbies at freelance translation will make mistakes. But being aware of possible mistakes and correcting those errors is a part of any freelance translator’s journey from novice to expert. This list of tips will focus on errors of content and the nuts and bolts of translation work, not on the freelance […]
