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Buried Under A Tsunami Of Commercials On Sunday Morning TV Talk Shows
Every time when I drive in my car listening to a music station and the announcer says “we’ll be right back, don’t go away”, I automatically hit the button for the next preset station. If that station...
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You Only Need To Have A Pulse And Say That You Can Translate To Qualify As A...
If you want to be a barber (hairdresser, Friseur, Coiffeur) in the state of California, you need to take a State Board examination before you can hang out your shingle and start using your scissors...
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What Would Happen If America Were Taken Over By China To Pay Off Its Debts?
One beautiful Friday morning not too long ago as I was starting my gas guzzling Town & Country van and turning on my radio, I heard the announcer on my preset music station say something that I had...
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On the Unfortunate Absence of the Word “Czecho” in the English Language
I can understand why one would need several words for the name of some countries, for example North Korea vs. South Korea, although locals obviously don’t call them by their official names among...
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In response to the demand for pro bono translation services worldwide…
GUEST BLOG POST for Mad Patent Translator’s Blog BY FRANÇOISE HERRMANN, PhD Françoise Herrmann is a translator from French and Spanish into English and from English into French. She lives in San...
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Relative Advantages and Disadvantage of Being an Employee Versus Being a...
This May I celebrated 25 years since I’ve been fired for what later my employment coach (this was a big thing in the eighties) Charlie called “incompatibility with corporate culture”. In view of that,...
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Will Recent Trends in Translation Industry Result in Several Levels of...
The modern globalized world has been with us for several decades now. The basic principle of globalization is simple: capital always goes to wherever the labor force is cheaper. For example US...
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After More Than Two Decades of Japanese Domination Chinese Tourists Have...
The last time when I was in Prague 4 years ago, an elderly Japanese gentlemen holding a Japanese guidebook asked me in nearly incomprehensible English on Kaprova Street near Franz Kafka’s house for...
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It Is Now Much Easier To Learn Foreign Languages, But Few People Bother To Do So
Just a few decades ago most people who wanted to learn a foreign language had to overcome many obstacles. Europe was divided into two parts that could not communicate with each other by what Winston...
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To Know Two Languages Is To Possess A Second Soul
It was Charlemagne who said “To know two languages is to possess a second soul”. Somebody told me that there is a German proverb that says “Je mehr Sprachen du kanst, desto mehr Mensch du bist” (the...
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Was Gerard Depardieu Most Of His Life A Russian Temporarily Embarrassed To Be...
Two or three months ago I was watching a program on French TV, it must have been “Envoyé Spécial”, about wealthy French and German people who can avoid having to pay taxes in their home country by...
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How Many Tests of Nativeness in a Language Are There?
Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1842. Most people don’t understand what the concept of being native in a language really...
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Our Translators/Interpreters Must Periodically Pass Rigorous Tests and Other...
About 25 years ago, in 1988 or 89, I passed with flying colors a difficult test administered by Berlitz Languages, a well known translation agency, to aspiring interpreters who wanted to interpret...
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Is a Universal “Fair Translation Rate” Possible?
The subject of a “fair rate” or a “living wage” is often discussed with passion on translators’ blogs and on social media. At least one translation blog is dedicated entirely to this subject. As...
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No Direction Home
This tunnel on the border between a country that was then named Yugoslavia, and Austria, called Loiblpass in German, was the last thing I saw 34 years ago as I was attempting to illegally escape from...
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The Well-Balanced Lifestyle of a Self-Employed Professional
When I lived in Prague, I used take tram No. 20 at around 8:20 AM, Monday through Friday, to Hradčanská metro station to change there to the metro which took me straight to my job at Václavské...
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Admitted as a Refugee, 8-3-82-NYC
More than 33 years ago, I arrived to La Guardia Airport with all of 500 dollars in my pocket as a refugee from communist Czechoslovakia via West Germany. The refugee visa was stapled to page 9 of my...
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What Makes Some People Want to Learn Foreign Languages?
Because I was born in a small country, a country that was controlled for more than 40 years by a big superpower before the superpower imploded as they all eventually do, the first foreign language...
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Collaboration, Autonomy, and Models of Translation (Guest Post by Kenneth...
Today’s guest post is an interesting analysis by Ken Kronenberg of several issues in the current corporatized version of “The Translation Industry” that we all love so much. It was originally...
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It Is True That Most Adult Immigrants Are Unable to Learn a Foreign Language
It is true that most adult immigrants, refugees and migrants are not really able to learn a foreign language. Some of them learn it to some extent, some of them very well, but many learn it only to a...
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