Sentence structure & Tuteo

We all know that it is not possible to always translate from one language to another and keep exactly the same word order. Lat week in class we talked about different degrees of correspondence in proverbs and sayings. We could look at different degrees of correspondence in sentence structure.

Compare these sentences:

La mesa es grande The table is big

Pareces cansado

You look tired

Es muy bonita tu casa

Your house is very nice

The degree of correspondence is different for all three sentences. In Spanish we can change the order of a sentence to achieve different effects.

I came across this interesting article on "tuteo".

Ethics of the Tanslator Question 1

Add a sticky to this board with a brief answer to the ethical question posed. At this stage we are just brainstorming for possible issues in the question. Please refer to the Code of ethics before answering.
Click on post a sticky (bottom of the board) and then double click and follow the instructions.

Ethics of Translators: Intervention

An interesting issue in translation ethics is that of intervention. Translator sues boss over sexist translation is a poignant example of intervention (in this case ideological as well as linguistic).

For a more academic point of view, check the video series by Anthony Pym on the same topic. He gave a talk on the ethics of translators at the conference Profession, Identity and Status Translators and Interpreters as an Occupational Group (March 15-19-09, Tel Aviv University & Bar Ilan University). The focus was on Intervention.

Watch the video and answer the questions on this quiz (which is a trial for this quiz maker)

Ethics of Translators » Make A Quiz

TN Translator Notes

Sometimes a translator needs to address the reader about his translation. It could be a technical explanation of the translating approach, explanation of acronyms, etc. We can do this by using a translator note, TN.

TNs are marked by bolding the terms, using [square brackets] and numbering when a footnote is required. Like this example from Elisa Pinto Olivera:

Which is addressed by a NT footnote, marked like this:

Writing NTs is one of the technical skills needed by translators. NTs shouldn't' be overused, neither under-used, but should always be clearly marked as translators' notes. Notice how Elisa Pinto Olivera has included an explanation of how she annotates her NTs at the beginning of her translation.

Some ethical issues may arise from the fact that we can find a document like this one online!
You can write your thoughts in this post's comments.


Not all translators follow the same style of TN, have a look at this slightly different method.

Chile Earthquake: Science Translation

English>Spanish
Visit this article, Why the Chile earthquake aftershock was so big, from the Technology & Science section of msnbc. It is a good opportunity for you to translate a more scientific text.

Spanish>English
Leed y traducid el artículo Pasarán meses antes de saber por qué fallaron los edificios más afectados por el sismo, El Mercurio, Santiago de Chile, martes 9 de marzo de 2010.

A medida que traduzcáis, podéis ir compilando un glosario de términos asociados con terremotos.

Interpreting: Health-Type 1 Diabetes

We are studying topics related to Health. Listen to an interview with a young Sydneysider, Miguel, talking about Type 1 diabetes.

You will find the podcast and suggested practice in our podcasting blog, Let's Talk.

For more health information and worksheets on different subtopics (obesity, skin cancer, etc) visit this post form my ESOL blogs, Health Expo 2007.

Unidades decimales

We were talking about how to write different numerical expression in numbers. Check the side bar of our wiki for several links that show how it's done different countries.

The Spanish Bulletin, Boletin Oficial del Estado (BOE) has published today a royal decree regulating the writing and naming of symbols for legal measurement units.

Below is an summary in Spanish:

Este texto está en el CAPÍTULO III “Reglas de escritura de los símbolos y nombres de las unidades, de expresión de los valores de las magnitudes y para la formación de los múltiplos y submúltiplos decimales de las unidades del SI” del anexo del Real Decreto 2032/2009, de 30 de diciembre, por el que se establecen las unidades legales de medida. El annexo es la corrección de errores y erratas.

Los decimales son con coma, normalmente se usa el punto para las unidades de millar y la coma para los decimales. Ejemplo: 3.987,56

Cuando expresas porcentajes conviene dejar un espacio entre el número y el símbolo %.

Así 3,5 % expresa el 3,5 por ciento, o lo que es lo mismo el 0,035 en tanto por uno.

Pero como se ve en el texto que sigue parece que lo correcto es no usar puntos:

“ El símbolo utilizado para separar la parte entera de su parte decimal se denomina «separador decimal». El símbolo del separador decimal es la coma, en la propia línea de escritura. Si el número está comprendido entre +1 y −1, el separador decimal va siempre precedido de un cero.

Los números con muchas cifras pueden repartirse en grupos de tres cifras separadas por un espacio, a fin de facilitar la lectura. Estos grupos no se separan nunca por puntos ni por comas. En los números de una tabla, el formato no debe variar en una misma columna.”