TSM Translation Blog

            Translation is a very challenging activity as it is about transmitting intentions, feelings, and implicit messages while respecting the subtleties, idiosyncrasies and inherent beauty of the language.       The quality of the translated document must be higher than the original one . In this manner, translators must be very careful about the comprehension of their translated document as it must be as clear and concise as possible without changing the meaning of the original text. Structure and language       Every lan guage has a defined structure and translator s must focus on this aspect in order to be idiomatic and for the readers not to notice t hat the text has been translated. For example, Korean has a structure of placing subject, object and then verb while English follows su b ject, verb and object stru c ture. To overcome such an issue, you first need to under...

Following the boom of globalisation, translation services are being more and more in demand by companies who want to relocate their business to new areas or want to propose their products to a wider public. Technical translation is, in its narrower sense, a specialised field of translation dealing with any texts related to technological areas. Such documents contain very specialised key terminologies. One could think that this type of translation would be the simplest one of all, arguing that each term is factual and represents exclusively one specific object or action invented by humans themselves. But actually, w hen I encountered the opportunity to translate technical documents and interpret manufacturing processes in a chocolate factory, with hardly any knowledge on technical translation, I though the same along with my boss. I was aware this would be a tough task, yet I agreed on this project. We did not know how wrong we were. Where do the problems of technical tran...

Translating, editing and proofreading: the process for a ‘good’ translation Have you ever wondered if translating a text was as easy as just translating it? Well, as it turns out, many professionals argue that that is just not enough. As a matter of fact, there are three steps in the process of translating a text that need to be followed in order to achieve a high-quality translation: translating, editing – or copyediting – and proofreading. So, if you are ready, let’s talk about this ‘simple’ process. §    Translating: the obvious first step The first and most obvious step is translating. However, this is a complex process that needs some effort and time in order to properly do it. At its core, it can be basically defined as carrying a message from one language – the source language – into a target language. Many theorists have argued this idea for centuries and the discussion is still going on through the several waves of translation studies that keep evol...

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the job of a translator is a person working alone in their tiny office surrounded by shelves filled with a variety of books, monolingual and multilingual dictionaries, sitting in an uncomfortable chair behind their desk, furiously typing on their computer as their eyebrows furrow in concentration and they huff and puff in frustration. And although this arduous task is indeed part of a translator’s life, translating is much more than that . The translator's career is quickly evolving, developing and spreading to different new fields. In the modern world where communication is key, the demand for translation and interpretation services in various sectors is growing. One of the fields that is currently undergoing significant change is medical translation, and more specifically translation and interpretation in hospitals and emergency departments (EDs). A civil rights issue  Today, it is more and more expected of ...

Picture credits: www.adme.ru                Game of translators Translations are a series of choices that can cost life, money, relationships and reputation. That is what today’s recruiters forget while paying a layman instead of a professional translator or interpreter.  There is a tendency to take translators for granted, assuming they only need to know how to use CAT-tools in our age of technology or, even worse, treating a good command of two languages enough for a good translation or interpreting. This approach can only be acceptable in regards to love letters where the only danger is two broken hearts. However, when such matters as safety, politics or religion are concerned, the degree of translators’ responsibility is much higher. Here are a few examples that illustrate how prudent the choice of a translator should be and how strict the rules in the game of words are.  1. It’s not personal - strictly interpreting ...

Picture credits: topbots.com Machine translation (MT) is getting more and more effective everyday. Some online translation tools, such as Google Translate, are developed on a daily basis thanks to their users, who can correct wrong translations or add new ones to the system. The more data these translation tools get, the better they become at translating texts from one language to another. Other mobile apps and softwares, seemingly not related to translation at first glance, use translation as a part of their marketing strategy. Skype, for example, promises its users to translate 10 languages in real time during calls, and more than 60 languages for text messages. With the expansion of these machine translation softwares and services, any person who is unfamiliar with the world of translation could wonder if translators are really necessary, when a machine translation tool can translate long texts in just a second, free of charge. Companies would then be right t...