Casualty of the HealthCare.gov Launch: the Spanish Language
Amidst the mind-bogglingly poorly executed launch of HealthCare.gov website in the United States a new monster has reared its head – bad Spanish translations. NBC News reports in this article that countless Spanish speakers trying to enroll in the program need human help to understand the instructions on the website, because the information is poorly written in Spanglish and full of errors. Judging from a few pages, like this one, I would say Spanglish is too generous of a description. Trying to understand this text is as easy as solving paradoxes in 5 dimensional spaces. Well, you get the point. Which brings me to the question: Should failed government initiatives be fixed with failed government initiatives? Consider this solution being deliberated by Korean lawmakers for the current conundrum of poorly translated Korean Government websites: create a government agency that “guarantees the quality” of all translations used on government websites. The “debate” as shown in this Korean video with subtitles seems lopsided to just one side of the argument. What do you think?
Linguistic Geography for the Uninitiated
This handy website combines Google Translate with a map of Europe to generate word maps of Europe. I don’t see much use for this tool as a translator, but for anyone with an interest in mapping words across language families it is useful and fun. For instance, type the word “bread” and you will see the map of the Latin, Germanic, Slavic and Nordic languages. This is another site for interesting etymological maps.
The Top 5 Translation Career Mistakes
Save yourself headaches and watch this useful video to learn about the 5 mistakes that will destroy your translation career over the long-term. Here is the list of the 5 mistakes. For all the details, watch the video:
This handy website combines Google Translate with a map of Europe to generate word maps of Europe. I don’t see much use for this tool as a translator, but for anyone with an interest in mapping words across language families it is useful and fun. For instance, type the word “bread” and you will see the map of the Latin, Germanic, Slavic and Nordic languages. This is another site for interesting etymological maps.
The Top 5 Translation Career Mistakes
Save yourself headaches and watch this useful video to learn about the 5 mistakes that will destroy your translation career over the long-term. Here is the list of the 5 mistakes. For all the details, watch the video:
- Accepting too many assignments
- Lack of cultural knowledge
- Being generic
- Stretching the truth, rather than being honest
- Forgetting your local community (focusing only your online clients)
The race to become the verb with the most meanings in English
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the verb with the most meanings at the beginning of the 20th Century was the word set. Unbeknownst to most linguists, set has lost the coveted title in the World of Verb Dominance. Thanks to several factors, the OED has announced a new winner for the start of this century – run. Read all the juicy details in the NYT.
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