littleworkpage

Dates are unavoidable, unless you’re not showering and changing your pants regularly, or you already have a Mister or Mrs. Translator in your life. Wait a second, wrong blog. Dates are unavoidable, mostly because knowing the date is very handy and lots of people insist on putting them in their documents. As with most languagey things, different countries write dates in different ways, so in this, the first of our formatting and punctuation items, we’re going to look and see how they’re done in the English-speaking world. Commonly, many translators overlook small details like formatting of numbers and dates, and so I see a lot of this kind of thing in PL>EN translations: 1a     Warsaw, 26.09.2005r.           2a     London, 26 September 2005 3a     The next meeting will be held on 26 September, at 5pm. 4a        2011/02/28 5a     (Journal of Laws of 2007r. N...

In a nutshell, persons is being routinely used where people is the more appropriate choice. All of you do this, regardless of age, experience, training or what the weather was doing at the time. The OED has this to say: “The words people and persons can both be used as the plural of person but they are not used in exactly the same way. People is by far the commoner of the two words and is used in most ordinary contexts: a group of people; there were only about ten people; several thousand people have been re-housed . Persons, on the other hand, tends now to be restricted to official or formal contexts, as in this vehicle is authorised to carry twenty persons; no persons admitted without a pass .”   Now let’s look at some examples:   Bad persons 1a The individual persons responsible are in hiding at this time. 2a He was disturbed that she’d been revealing their secrets to untrained persons. 3a Persons travelling with a child qualify for a 10% discount. 4a Even by lunchtime, s...

Regardless of what you have heard, Christchurch Schools are CLOSED until further notice , and definitely closed for the rest of the week. This edict comes directly from Civil Defence. Civil Defence controls all decision making during the National State of Emergency that currently exists. Their edict is definitive, and must be followed. If their ruling changes, we will tell you.

Ahh, Sunday. A time for rest and reflection after a busy 24 hours of hard-core raving and shape-throwing down the local meat market. When the dust has settled and the bacon has fried, it’s time to pour a hot black coffee and settle down with the ‘papers. After that, maybe a nice ramble over Hampstead Heath or, if that’s approximately 1,430 km inconvenient, a stroll around park Jordana * and a quick stop to tag the new Wisła stadium with some good old fashioned Cracovia graffiti. Or if the big breakfast and jug of coffee weren’t enough to motivate you, how about just relaxing here with me whilst we look back over the week gone by, and squint our eyes as we peer into the next seven days... Wednesday the 23 rd of February (note the dramatic inclusion of the and of in that date; two essential items for all but the most hide-bound legalese!) was the magic day that this wonky endeavour cracked open it’s bleary little eyes and squawked ‘mama’ for the first time. A triple bill featuring a...

Most of you who are reading this now are already translators. Whether still in education or having had a few years’ solo flight time under your belts already, you probably don’t need to be reminded of how you got where you are now. But in times to come, other linguistically-minded people may stumble across these words, and it is largely to them that this information will be most useful. However! Always remember, that you can never be too knowledgeable nor too experienced not to benefit from a refresher now and then. In every branch of industry and creative endeavour, it never hurts to go back to basics. So pack your bags and come with us on a multi-week journey from the end of high school to the lofty heights of freelance translating! (or as we call it, sitting at your desk in your underpants all day). And as always, we want to hear from you. How has your experience differed from the précis given here? Let us know, in the comments below! Basic Fundaments Know at least two languages...

            The problem here is one of simple confused usage – using presently when currently is more appropriate, accurate, and correct. It’s a frequent issue that nearly all translators seem to make and so I wondered if there was some sort of answer in the Polish meaning of the word. But as far as my feeble collection of anglo-polish słwoniki are concerned, they’re both very different in Polish. If you have any ideas about this, do comment! So:             Bad presently    1a      Students can presently choose from among 177 fields of study.   2a      The second group is presently in the dining hall.             3a      There are presently no further options available to non-subscribers.        4a ...

Proper translating and interpreting is more than just the transformation of words and sounds from one language to another, it’s the transformation of cultural ideas and concepts. Your formal education in translating (or philology, literature etc) is just one part of your translator training – it’s the bread and butter in your linguistic sandwich. But an interest in and ongoing awareness of the news, politics and cultural trends of the countries of your chosen languages are absolutely vital, beyond any question. Knowledge of history and culture are just as important as a good vocabulary and understanding of technique.   This is the salad, mayonnaise, tasty cheese and fresh slices of ham that make your sandwich better than the next translator’s. Good translators know that the more interest they have in the world of their target languages, the better and more successful they can be. Like the Force, knowledge breeds confidence, and confidence leads to speed. Quicker work output of a r...

castings is a plural noun which, in the most widely used sense, describes multiple items created from moulds, for example statuettes and busts. It has infrequent usage, but one valid example might be ‘Several castings were made of the actor’s face in order to create the zombie mask he wore in the final scenes.’ castings should not therefore be confused with the current popular usage in Polish and European media to describe casting calls made for TV programmes like Mam Talent or Po Prostu Tanćicz . Any time a film or television programme puts out an open call for actors or people to come and audition, this is a casting call . In the theatre, we say auditions instead. Fun thing: When casting calls are put out for extras in, for example, large crowd scenes, these are referred to as cattle calls . 

Common PL Usage* 1a) Complex Services    2a) We provide complex building services across the industry.   3a) We offer complex consulting services, including:       Good EN Usage 1b) Comprehensive Services 2b) We can provide a complete range of building services… 3b) We offer a wide variety of consulting services, including: OED Definition of ‘complex’ 1c) (adj) Consisting of many different and connected parts. 2c) (adj) not easy to analyse or understand; complicated or intricate.                  What’s The Problem? ‘Complex' is very often mistaken for ‘complete’ or ‘comprehensive’. Compare example 2a above with the dictionary definition of ‘comprehensive’: “(adj) including or dealing with all or nearly all aspects of something”. Although this meaning bears a resemblance to the first definition of ‘complex’ (1c above), for English native speakers it's the second definition  (2c) that c...

In any translation process there are numerous small words, phrases and bits of punctuation that, for one reason or another, come through in the target language still smelling of the source language. These are mostly false friends (chef/szef), and literalisms (sympathetic/sympatyczny), but are also sometimes the result of simple time pressure or ingrained learning. For example, putting an unnecessary comma before ‘that’ in English, because we usually say ‘comma że’ in Polish. This results in grammar, punctuation and other technical problems in the Target Text. Another common source of trouble stems from the fact that Polish lacks the heavy contextualising of English, and often uses more words than are strictly necessary to do the job in English. Apart from the eternal frustration of microscopic deadlines and clients who neither know nor care (or worse, think that they know better than the language professionals!), the constant, speedy evolution of vocabulary and usage is the other grea...

Greetings traveller, pull up a chair and put your dogs up. Here, have some refreshments and rest a while. Allow me to introduce myself. My name's Jim and I'm an Englishman by birth (shh, don't tell anyone), although I've been living in Poland for the last eight years and I have no intention of leaving. I work from home as a freelance proofreader and copy editor. I specialise in texts for computer and video games, as well as multimedia and technical documentation, although I’ve also ghost-written books for adults and children alike, and if I could remember even a tenth of what I’ve read, I’d probably be an expert on Polish history to rival Norman Davies. I also work mornings in a translating office in town, checking the PL>EN translations and advising, when requested, on the EN<>PL translating process. Through the office I used to run seminars on this subject too, and the notes and exercises I prepared for them partially form the basis for these blog posts. Mos...

"If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear" - Paul Valery With a pack of cards you can play bridge or patience, you can foretell futures, gamble, perform tricks, or build towers. Like card-playing, poetry is an overlapping range of pursuits but you never know when one turns into another. Asking for the wrong card you get the king of hearts. Well, in crosswords you do, the answer's 3 words - (4, 2, 6). "card" is the literal clue, and "wrong" is an indication that there's an anagram - in this case "Asking for the" mutates into "king of hearts". Poetry also lets you take apart something that has meaning and re-assemble it into something new - a life into verse perhaps. It both transforms and projects so that others can see, like an item gran arranged family slides into . Here the whole phrase is the literal clue, and the answer...

Symbolism is seen as a reaction to Realism, attempting to capture more absolute truths which can only be accessed by indirect methods. Here I'd like to look at how readers and poet position themselves along this Realism-Symbolism dimension. How do Symbols acquire meaning? Symbolic thought is of course not restricted to poetry. When someone says "Let x=2 ", x is a symbol. When someone says "Let x=Pain and y=Tears . Then y/x is a measure of cry-babyism" they are beginning to think symbolically. Here the symbols are introduced explicitly and what they "stand for" is clearly presented. Language uses words as symbols ("candle" to represent a candle for example), but in poetry we're used to reading more into words. In the charged atmosphere of reading a poem, a lit candle represents the fragility of life. These conventional meanings are common in non-poetry, and occasional readers of poetry are good at detecting them (indeed, they might expec...

The writer, formerly mythologiser, prophet, or at least specialist on love and death has become expert in subtle and wayward intellectual sophistries. Of these, poetry games are the most advanced. Often they are acknowledged only at a subconscious level - but the reader is always the innocent victim (see Tag below.) Piggy in the Middle - The author and text engage in teasing allusions - the reader in the middle never catching on Snap - The poet quotes from other poets without acknowledging sources openly. Recognition by readers convinces them that they have won some of the 'cards' Murder in the Dark - A traditional poetic form has been slaughtered: readers must discover which one, how, and (the hardest bit) why. Sonnets are frequently the victims. Ain't it Awful - The game is borrowed from Berne, who suggests it is also played on a social level. Also known as I can make you cry . Hunt the Thimble - The poem suggests a hard nugget of eternal truth can be found...

"The phenomenal growth of interest in poetry of all kinds since [1992] has been one of the most rewarding aspects of running the Forward Prizes", wrote William Sieghart in 2008. But despite the hype, poetry sales are low. Though sales aren't the only metric of success, they indicate something about the nature of the "interest" that poetry attracts. It seems that neither the public or other poets rush to read the latest work of established experts. In a recent Telegraph article , Philip Hensher points out that Sean O'Brien's "The Drowned Book" has (according to Nielsen BookScan) sold 2,715 copies in Britain to date. How can this type of poetry be made more popular? Before this can be answered it's worth asking why we should try to popularise it, and whether reading or writing should be prioritized. Possible responses include Greater booksales and more workshops will lead to poets becoming richer. Workshops and university courses are far mor...