News & Blog
Translating your Book?
7th May 2019
I’m a voracious reader so I’m always keen to see what’s on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction shortlist each year. This world famous literary prize is awarded for the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom. There have, it’s true, been some turkeys – notably James Kelman’s […]
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What do people call Bread Rolls?
23rd April 2019
What is language for? I was having this discussion with one of my class groups a few weeks ago. The commonest answer was simple – to communicate ideas, information and instructions to others. And of course, that’s true. But language is so much more than that. It carries our history, our identity, our social mores […]
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‘Everyone Speaks English’ – should you bother translating your marketing materials?
14th April 2019
Last week I was talking with a friend who is setting up a business selling gourmet foods. We were talking about websites and marketing materials, because he wants to sell both in the UK and abroad. He said ‘Everyone speaks English these days so I won’t bother translating this stuff.’ I nearly fell off my […]
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Bank translation error muddies communication
24th February 2019
On Thursday Banco de Mexico – Mexico’s Central Bank – found a translation error in the minutes of its interest rate-setting meeting. Since 2017 the bank has provided an English translation alongside its Spanish minutes to improve its communication. Rather than improving communication the mistranslation could have had the unfortunate consequence of muddying communication with […]
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Poor translation embarrasses Coca-Cola
13th November 2018
‘Hello, Death': Coca-Cola’s New Slogan? Gareth Seymour was passing through Auckland International Airport in New Zealand when he noticed a Coca-Cola vending machine that said “Kia Ora, mate”. ‘I read with Māori language eyes and thought – they haven’t had this checked by a Māori’. He had spotted the poor translation (actually a half translation), […]
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Website Translation and Design
18th October 2018
Get the right website translation and design Most of us know that at the top or bottom of a web page in another language there is a button labelled ‘EN’. Click and the language will switch to English, thanks to machine-based tools such as Google Translate. But if you do this you will also know […]
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