September 2004

Negative auxiliaries

September 30, 2004

<rant> I find the way in which people tend to treat the French language in English books and films bewildering. Today, I finished The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, which is set in France for the most part, and...

Animal noises

September 24, 2004

The following dilemma is tormenting petite anglaise, an English 30-something living in Paris : should she teach her daughter animal noises in English or in French? It is a tricky issue, although I'm sure the little girl will grow up...

Screw

September 22, 2004

This weekend I filled an important British culture gap: I watched Porridge, the cult series set in a prison, for the first time. I also finally learnt why prison wardens are called screws. The explanation Gabrielle gave me (some kind...

Bridging the culture gap

September 20, 2004

The Guardian published an edited version of an e-mail correspondence between an English author and the Russian translator of her book. It gives a great insight into the difficulties a translator is bound to encounter if he or she hasn't...

Practice makes perfect

September 17, 2004

You know when you're looking for an expression, and you're convinced it's there, in the recesses of your brain, but however much you hit yourself around the head to try and dislodge it, it just won't budge? How infuriating is...

Collective nouns

September 15, 2004

I'm jealous of my friend Becky Crow. Not just because she's a talented jewellery designer, but also because I love her name. She was telling us that one day, she was in church with her extended family when a member...

Badges and giggles

September 10, 2004

I spent the last two days interpreting, which I wasn't looking forward to, as my last two interpreting jobs were very difficult and stressful, for different reasons. One of them I mention in this entry, it's the one with the...

Translation business practices report

September 7, 2004

Back from holiday and sifting through a very full inbox, I found a link provided by Dyran from the business practices discussion group to a translation business practices report written by the World Bank. It is based on a survey...