Parlez-vous hexagonal ?
This book about what the French call langue du bois and what we might call "doublespeak" in English is interesting to translators because...
A hidden meaning of "altura"
The meaning of "altura" that you learn in school is "height." But this word has an unexpected meaning: it also translates as "dignity."...
Antes al contrario
Note that the word "antes" is not reflected in the English translation of the Spanish phrase antes al contrario, which means "on the...
Sponsor a word in the Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language
After a visit to the offices of the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (also known as the "WAT" or Dictionary of the Afrikaans Language)...
"Del caso" - an important idiom in Spanish
One of the most frequently misunderstood idioms in the translations from Spanish that I review every day is the phrase del caso, which...
Translation Seminar at University of Johannesburg
Today, thanks to the hospitality of linguistics Professor Dr. Eleanor Cornelius and the South African Translators Institute, I gave a...
Legal Translation in South Africa
Today I had the privilege of conducting a workshop on legal terminology in Afrikaans and English for the South African Translators'...
Dette and debt: a critical difference
In English the term "debt" is used to mean an amount owed by someone or owed to someone. A company's "debts" are the amounts it owes, but...
Translating French Birth Certificates
Translating a birth certificate, c'est simple comme bonjour (easy as pie)--or is it? Over the years I've noticed at least five common...
The French They Never Taught You 23: talk about, read about, write about
"To talk about something" in French is parler de quelque chose. Students learn to replace de phrases with ce dont, so "what you're...
