Subtitles by Machine

A couple of months ago, Swedish TV4 caused a bit of a scandal when they said their subtitles were done by machine. They then backtracked on that, but given some of the mistakes they make, it’s hard to know what to think. Here’s an article about it.

A Round-Up of Articles on Children’s Literature

Children’s lit is one of my big passions. I think more of it needs to be translated, and we need greater diversity in the field generally.

Here’s a helpful list of LGBTQ books.

And another piece on LGBTQ books for younger readers.

This article is on diversity in children’s lit in general.

This article is on picture books, but why do they suggest you need to be a child to appreciate picture books? I think good picture books are for everyone!

Bilingualism

I read a couple of interesting articles recently on bilingualism. It’s such a shame that in English-speaking countries, we generally don’t start teaching children another language until they’re on the older side. And yet we know very well from research that the earlier we start the better. When will we learn?

The first article talks about how bilingualism changes children’s beliefs. “Most young children are essentialists: They believe that human and animal characteristics are innate. That kind of reasoning can lead them to think that traits like native language and clothing preference are intrinsic rather than acquired. But a new study suggests that certain bilingual kids are more likely to understand that it's what one learns, rather than what one is born with, that makes up a person's psychological attributes.”
The second piece looks at bilingualism from an older person’s perspective to explore what advantages speaking more than one language has on our brains as we age.

A Round-Up of Articles

Here’s a load of reading/viewing for the holiday season. It’ll keep you busy if you get tired of all the eating and shopping and spending time with relatives!

TED talks can be quite interesting. Here’s a TED blog post about learning languages.

This infographic is on second languages.

Here’s an article about translating Ibsen. The book I edited most recently also has an article on that. 

A piece on translating Chekhov has the headline “Any English-language version of Chekhov is doomed. The nature of translation means that to think otherwise is folly.” What do you think?

This review of a new book by translator and writer Tim Parks refers to translation.

How many words for death are there?

It’s impressive how one actor does accents of the British Isles.

Finally, an article on constructed languages.

A Round-Up of Articles

It’s time for another round-up of articles!

This article is on Gabriel García Márquez and Roberto Bolaño and their translators. Translator Natasha Wimmer says, “A lot of translators enjoy being the power behind the throne.”

Here’s a piece on Yiddish.

I like Oliver Burkeman’s writing and in this article on “invisible” jobs, he mentions interpreter. Translator isn’t listed, but many people think it should be.

Check out how animals sound in different languages.

Are there untranslatable words? That’s a regular topic of discussion.

Here are some collective nouns. What would we call a group of translators?

Multiple Personalities

This article discusses whether people have a different personality for each language they speak. I’ve often felt somewhat different when speaking Swedish than when speaking English. It’s not just about having a different vocabulary and way of thinking about the world; there’s something about me that feels other. Do others feel the same (or, rather, different)?

The Joy of Invisibility

Sometimes it’s good for translators to be invisible. This article is about bad writing about sex, and it names and shames the authors and their books. However, the author (conveniently?) forgets that some works have been translated. So perhaps the translator should get some of the credit (or shame) too.

A Round-Up of Articles

It’s time for another round-up of articles!

I studied Latin when I was in grammar and high school and I’m so glad I did. This article discusses “taking an ancient language associated with the academic elite and reviving it as a remedy for the nation’s reading problems”.

This piece is on the word “literally”, which my students use way too often in speaking and writing. 

This article is on academic writing, which is often quite poor, I think.

Speaking of academia, this post explores the crazy hours many academics work (and some just purport to work).

This list of the best love poems is quite odd. They only list some poems as translations whereas quite a number are clearly translated, so something has gone awry there. What would be on your list? 

Finally, check out this cartoon about how works get translated.

No More 2%?

This article in the Guardian suggests that British readers are reading more translations these days. Do you think that’s true? What about in other English-speaking countries? (And yes, I’m quoted in the piece.)

A Round-Up of Articles

Here are a few articles on language that might be of interest.

This article discusses how learning languages is good for your brain.

If that’s the case, then what language should you study?

Why is studying grammar or, rather, understanding language, important?

And what grammar rules can you break?

Round-Up of Articles

It’s time for another round-up of interesting articles and other links.

I love Oliver Burkeman’s weekly column in the Guardian (and his two books based on the column). A recent column was on writing. He notes: “It’s the writer and reader, side by side, scanning the landscape. The reader wants to see; your job is to do the pointing.”

The New Yorker questions whether literature should be useful.

The BBC notes that young people are lacking language skills. “The UK’s education system is failing to produce enough people with foreign-language skills to meet a growing need from business, the CBI has said. Nearly two-thirds of about 300 UK firms surveyed by the business lobby group said they preferred staff with these skills. French, German and Spanish were highly prized but Arabic and Mandarin were growing in importance, it said.”

Test your vocabulary knowledge.

Check out these fascinating graphics on language in the U.S.

And, finally, a piece on slang.

A Round-Up of Articles

This is an interesting post about why some translators fail. You should check out the rest of the blog, too.

This article is about the mispronunciations that changed English.

This piece discusses linguistics.

Whether academic English should be quite so academic is a really fascinating debate. This article seems to argue for it remaining as it is. I, however, believe that accessibility is important. I think academics ought to try to write clearly and simply; sometimes people simply hide the fact that they have no or few ideas behind overly complex language.

This fun animation is on the history of English.

Finally, here’s a piece on English borrowing/loaning words.

Teaching about Translation/Translated Literature

Last month, I had an article in the wonderful Words Without Borders about how I try to raise awareness of translation and translated literature in my classes.

What about you? How do you think we can educate people about translation?

Name the Translator

Lucas Klein, a translator and academic (who, coincidentally, attended the same high school in Chicago I did), wrote a great piece on naming translators in reviews.

This is such an important issue. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve written to editors or journalists to ask them to acknowledge the translator (and no, they usually don’t respond).

What can we do? We need to keep educating people, but are there other practical steps we can take?

“Afterword: The Death of the Translator”

The poet and Hungarian-to-English translator George Szirtes, who was a colleague of mine at the University of East Anglia until he retired recently, wrote this great piece entitled “Afterword: The Death of the Translator”.

Another Round-Up of Articles

Here’s another round-up of interesting, relevant articles!

I don’t often post on interpreting, so here’s an interview with someone who works as an interpreter.

Here’s an article from my alma mater, Bryn Mawr. It’s about a BA-level class that does good and it involves translation. It sounds fantastic!

Next up is a piece about publishing literary translations.

This article about what you look for in a translation. Thank you to Erika Dreifus for sending me this article! 

What are some words or expressions you might want to be using? Check out some here.

This BBC article looks at all the writers in Iceland.

Finally, a depressing tale of how a translator was treated. Read about it here or here or here.

A Round-Up of Articles

It’s time for a round-up of interesting language/translation/writing-related articles! I have so many that I’ll divide them up into a couple of posts over the next couple of weeks!

First, here’s a piece from the BBC on slang.

“Literally” literally annoys me. My students often say (and write) things such as, “I literally died laughing.” No, you literally did not. Read about it here. Then laugh at this poster, which I own and use in class!

What is the coolest word in the English language? Do you think it’s “discombobulate”? Check out this post.

I used to live in Wales and still love going there, so this article on translating from Welsh intrigued me.

Learn English in the Philippines, which is apparently the world’s budget teacher.

My mother sent me this from Car Talk.

Finally, is it harder for women writers to get published? This article discusses that.

Medieval Hebrew Poetry Translated into English

I originally published this review in the Wales Arts Review.

Into the Light: The Medieval Hebrew Poetry of Meir of Norwich

introduction by Keiron Pim, translated by Ellman Crasnow and Bente Elsworth

“Exalted Lord, cherub-borne on high,/in your created heavens/you inspire awe.//My Lord is mighty to uphold./It befits us to serve him/for he is a holy God.” (p. 50)

So wrote Meir ben Eliahu in the late thirteenth century in his long poem “Who Is Like You?” And indeed Meir “serve[s]” this “holy God” through his poetry. He closes the poem by asking “Who is like you among the gods?” (p. 84)

One might ask who is like Meir among the poets.

Not much is known about Meir. He was a Jew in Norwich (or Norgitz, as the Jews called the city) during the Middle Ages, and lived through the expulsion of the Jews from  his town and from England at the behest of King Edward I in 1290. As Keiron Pim, a writer who put in motion the translation and publication of Meir’s long unknown poetry, puts it in his introduction to this bilingual edition of poems, in his work, “Meir captures the Norwich Jews’ psychological tumult: the oscillation between hope and despair, devotion and doubt, pride and humiliation; the infighting, the confusion, the terror. He catalogues his people’s predicament in ‘the land of the heavy-hearted and exhausted’, where they are scorned and labour under an ever-heavier yoke.” (p. 13)

You can forgive Meir for sounding angry and defiant in turns in his poems (as in “His foe will meet him in his filth/with the rod of his oppressor,/only evil lurking, in warp or woof.” (p. 38)). But despite his justified pain, he still “steadfastly/ declare[s] the kindness of the Lord./We, his beloved, trust in Yahweh/and in his holy servant, Moses.” (p. 84)

This work is important both because of the quality of the writing itself and also for what it can tell us about a period in time that is quite distant from today and about which not much is known. As Pim writes, “Meir’s is the only confirmed Anglo-Jewish poetic voice known from the far side of that lengthy hiatus [i.e. from 1290 until 1656, when Jews were readmitted to England] to describe the social conditions of the time. It is of considerable historical and cultural value.” (p. 10)

This publication includes 16 short poems and four long ones. The original Hebrew – complete with vowels – is printed alongside the English translations by Ellman Crasnow and Bente Elsworth (the former has worked on Walt Whitman and the latter has written textbooks on Danish and also translated poet Michael Strunge from Danish to English). The book might appear scholarly, given the historical context, the detailed introduction by Pim, the note from the translators, and the other paratexts, such as explanations of some of the poems and the poetic features, but in fact it is a work that is for any audience.

In many ways, the poetry feels fairly modern. For example, Meir writes, “Afire with longing for the rains of Love,/here I am, thirsty in my inner heart;/with dew drops of desire the folk are fed,/I too, perhaps, will sip a lover’s cup.//My true Love threatens; faith shrivels in drought,/withers, like reeds, from want of water./O sprinkle upon it healing balm/that impure man may be made clean.” (p. 90) Although Meir often refers to his god an dhis faith in his work, the romantic overtones might remind a reader of Rumi, and surely these sentiments are ones that many can relate to.

The final lines of Meir’s poetry are “Take pleasure in my precious meditations,/these songs of exultation and of awe.” (p. 118) A reader doubtlessly does take pleasure from Meir’s writing. 

A Round-Up of Articles

Here’s a round-up of recent articles on translation or related topics.

In this article, some authors pick their favourite translated children’s books.

This piece looks at long words.

I’m a fan of the apostrophe, so my mother sent me an article on just that topic. As the author points out: “How would you distinguish between my brother’s wives and my brothers’ wives ? Between The military claims we’re wrong and The military claims were wrong ?” My students sometimes say apostrophes don’t matter, but clearly they do.

Here’s one on neologisms.

This is a piece on the translator as advocate.

And finally, one on translation mistakes.

A Round-Up of Articles

My colleague Jo Drugan, who also teaches translation, sent me this fascinating story about historical vocabulary and anachronisms. For translators, finding language that suits the context can often be very challenging, and may require research.

This is another article sent by a colleague, this time Kate Griffin, who also works for the British Centre for Literary Translation. Happily, this article discusses how translation is becoming more visible in the US in academia.

Research often suggests that knowing multiple languages is good for us, but this article states that speed-learning a language is good.

If you can read Swedish, this piece claims that “poets are dangerous as translators”.

And sticking with Scandinavia, if you a want a laugh, watch this video to learn some Danish.