June 2004
Mews
June 30, 2004
Around Brighton, there are lots of mews, or yards or streets surrounded by houses. This name has always intrigued me; I know most mews were originally built as stables, but wasn't sure where the word was coming from. I found...
Synecdoche
June 25, 2004
Here's a sentence from a recent translation with a good example of a synecdoche and how I chose to deal with it. The context is a football tournament involving schools from different countries: All the games were played in good...
The most untranslatable words
June 23, 2004
Thanks a lot to Zoe for bringing my attention to this article on the most untranslatable words in the world (full article here). The winner is.... ilunga : Tshiluba word for a person who is ready to forgive any abuse...
Nautical expressions
June 21, 2004
Here I was, on my windsurf board, gliding along the reservoir, proud and happy, feeling like a starry-eyed Kate Winslet in Titanic (the Queen of the world bit, not the sinking bit). Then my instructor shouts at me: "Céline, you're...
The Modern Language Association
June 18, 2004
Thanks to Caroline for sending me the link to a CNN article about The Modern Language Association. It gives a map of the languages spoken in the USA. I did a search on "French" and it appears that some of...
Suvivalist and shallow
June 17, 2004
You may remember a blog entry I wrote a few weeks ago in which I mentioned the fact that French translations are always longer than their English source texts. Well, yesterday I had to translate the word survivalist. It must...
England's greatest icon
June 14, 2004
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport's Culture Online project is looking for icons representing England. The cup of tea is one of the candidates and it's my personal favourite. I didn't drink tea when I arrived in England but...
A solitary job
June 10, 2004
Recently, my little routine has been shaken up. I've been interpreting more than usual, a friend has been destroying our bathroom (with a view to make it nicer) and I've even met colleagues from Brighton. It has been a shock...
Copse
June 7, 2004
During an extremely pleasant walk in the South Downs this weekend, we came across a copse. After hearing a description of what a copse is (a small thicket), I realised that I knew another word for it: coppice. It turns...
How to become a translator
June 2, 2004
Through this website I've had quite a few emails from people wanting to become translators and asking me for advice. It's quite difficult to know what to say, because unlike most careers, there is not one way to get there....