yndigo

translation: insights and incites

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Entries from June 2008

Translation: art or science?

June 6th, 2008 · 4 Comments

To what extent can translation quality be measured or judged?
I contributed to a discussion on proz.com where a question was raised about stylistic preferences in translation. The original poster had received corrections from a client that caused him to believe the client was seeking not just translation, but copy editing, too.
Although the general consensus is [...]

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Tags: opinion

Translation Life or Death, Part II

June 5th, 2008 · No Comments

Increasing need for qualified medical interpreters
The Boston Globe today published an article on the growing need in Boston and elsewhere for qualified medical interpreters in several languages.
Where once a medical professional would rely on someone from the cleaning staff to communicate with a patient, MetroWest Medical Center realized the potential danger in this practice [...]

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Tags: translator education

Back Translation

June 4th, 2008 · 5 Comments

A controversial quality control tool
An article in The Ottawa Citizen about the French translation of a license plate motto illustrates how back translation as a quality control measure can often fall short.
Back translation is the translation of an already translated text back to the original language. Normally this is done by an independent translator who [...]

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Tags: client education

Gist Right

June 3rd, 2008 · 1 Comment

Machine translation “gisting”

Gisting is the term applied in the translation industry to the output of certain Machine Translation (MT) programs — whether free on the internet or proprietary — that give a rough idea of the meaning of a text in a foreign language.
The merits of various MT programs or MT in general have [...]

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Tags: client education

Translation Life or Death

June 1st, 2008 · No Comments

When a translator just has to be right
We can all point to instances where a translator or interpreter can’t afford to be wrong: instructions for a medical device; tolerance tests on an airplane wing; planning of a terrorist plot. An article from today’s Boston Globe illustrates one of those times.
It reports on a New [...]

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Tags: in the news