Why do texts need to be retranslated?
As publishing houses don’t want to lose their readership, some of them choose to retranslate literary material that might not sell well anymore. Some word categories such as slang grow old very fast, so literary material containing slang will need to be updated often in order to make sense to present-day audiences. One example of […]
Humour in Subtitling
Humour can occur on different levels, through words, images, the interplay of both, or it can also reside inside the plot itself. They can be: Linguistic jokes (or language-specific humour/jokes, e.g. puns) Cultural jokes (or culture-specific humour/jokes, e.g. ethnic jokes) Universal jokes (the unexpected) Translating and subtitling humour is a matter of priorities and choices. […]
Error 404 – Gesture not understood
Hand gestures are a big part of the Italian language. They are not taught actively, but Italians acquire them as they grow up and they always – yes, always – accompany any type of conversation. Gestures in Italian are used in conjunction with speech but they can often replace the spoken word altogether. But what […]
Happy Chinese New Year!
According to The Independent, around one sixth of the world’s population still observes the Chinese New Year. Some festivities for this important celebration include visiting family and friends, wearing red to ward off the mythical creature named Nian, sleeping with money under one’s pillow for good fortune, cleaning the house and releasing red lanterns into […]
The Roots of the Mannequin Challenge
Even though the Mannequin Challenge is thought to be a new trend, the same concept was actually trendy in the 1800s in Victorian England. At the time it wasn’t called the ‘Mannequin Challenge’ as such but its concept was especially famous. This era also marked a time for tattoos and piercings, ouija boards and all […]
Why don’t subtitles always match the spoken word?
What many viewers don’t realise is that there are strict guidelines in place when it comes to subtitling. First and possibly most importantly, subtitles cannot exceed a certain reading speed. A reading speed is a sophisticated calculation of how many words per minute or characters per second a person can comfortably read, which takes into […]
The Localised World of Disney
Disney’s exporting agenda is at the heart of this ‘magic’. Indeed, the company started translating and localising in the early 1930s. This process occurred very early, at a time when it was very rare for any company in America to export anything at all. Companies never wanted to take the risk of selling abroad. Both […]
Google Translate’s Happy 10 Years
It’s true that given a large sentence or paragraph that it can struggle with the correct translation, but in recent years its accuracy has vastly improved, helping millions of people around the world understand what that crazy bit of text actually means. Together 500 million of us have translated over 100 billion words, with Brazil […]
Roehampton Uni Visit on Voice Over and Translation
David captivated the crowd with his presentation, where he gave a background about himself and his background in translation and voice over, detailed the ins and outs of the GoLocalise headquarters, and explored the pros and cons of working as an in-house versus freelance translator. He then gave some helpful advice on how students can […]
International Translation Day
The event takes place on the saint’s day of St Jerome, which is no coincidence, as he is considered to be the patron saint of translators, having been celebrated since his translations of the Bible. He is also known as having contributed to one of the early debates in the field of translation which was […]