English Language Etymology from a French Perspective

May 18, 2021 | Blog, English language, Language Varieties, Traditions

English is the product of many cultures and despite being of Germanic origin, an important part of English language etymology finds its source in the French language. In Twenty Years After – the sequel to The Three Musketeers by French novelist Alexandre Dumas – D’Artagnan said “English is little more than badly pronounced French”. Several years later, George Clémenceau (early 20th century French PM) said the same. Is there any truth in their claim? To find out, we need to go back in time and look at English language etymology in its historical context. But first, here are a few useful definitions. English Language Etymology: Definitions Cognates Cognates are words that share a common ancestry. True cognates might not be instantly recognizable; they only share the same etymology. But they can also have the same spelling and meaning, or they can be loanwords or calques. They can be close cognates (same meaning but slight variation in spelling) and even false cognates (or “false friends” – same spelling but different meaning). For example: True cognates: to attest < attester, from Latin ad-testari, curfew < couvre-feu, from the Old French cuevrefeu (used in the Middle Ages when fires had to be covered and people had to be home and off the streets by a certain time), coward < couard, Old French.Close cognates: analytique > analytical, créatif > creative, banque > bank.False friends: magasin (FR) = shop (EN) not magazine (publication), douche (FR) = shower (EN) not douche (EN) (medical term or type of person), bras (FR) = arm (EN) not bra (EN) (undergarment). Read more about the etymology of words between...

Multilingual Subtitles: 5 Tips on Foreign Language Subtitles

Apr 11, 2021 | Blog, Communication, Language Services, Tips, Translation

Learn how to produce multilingual subtitles in your YouTube videos Have you ever considered adding multilingual subtitles to your YouTube or company videos in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian or any other language? Do you see yourself or your company as a global communicator and multilingual content creator? Would you like to gain more exposure in different countries where people do not speak English as their native language? In this blog post and video tutorial, learn the basics of subtitling using YouTube Studio and how to easily add English and multilingual subtitles. Learning how to subtitle a video in other languages can be a lengthy process. There is not just the actual translation but also specific subtitling rules to follow. There are various subtitling programs, as well as different ways to display subtitles. Looking to hire professionals to add subtitles to your videos? Get a free translation quote here >>. How can you manage to learn it all? At LingoStar, we’ve used YouTube Studio to translate subtitles from English into French, Spanish, and Czech. We’ll show you the easy way to start creating your subtitled videos in foreign languages. By doing so, you’ll be able to attract viewers in multilingual communities both in your own country and worldwide. Are you ready to become a global entrepreneur? You’ll also find out how to use the closed caption option in YouTube where subtitles can be turned on and off. Furthermore, you’ll get to know about the differences between closed captions and embedded subtitles and how to handle both versions before publishing them on YouTube.YouTube offers the option to add subtitles...

Variations in written Canadian, American and British English

Feb 18, 2021 | Blog

In our previous blog post Canadian English: A Brief History, we set out to explain how Canadian English was formed throughout its colonization. Today, we look at some of the variations in written Canadian, American and British English. Canadian English may have been shaped by its history, but it is also clear that it has its own identity. We’ve had lively debates about the following points among our team members in our office and with our contributors further afield! 🙂 We’re always striving to build on our specialist knowledge of any language-related aspect so we thought we’d share a few of them with you! 1. Spelling variations English has one single spelling system, with two minor subsystems: British and American. In Canada, the British subsystem prevails for the most part. In the historical context of the British colonization of Canada, this becomes easier to understand. However, Canada is equally under the influence of the United States, not least because of the proximity between the two nations. We can therefore find variations from both subsystems in Canadian English, to the extent that there is no defined Canadian standard. Canadian English therefore oscillates between the two subsystems. You can read more about why Canadian spelling is different here. Examples of spelling variations • Nouns and verbs ending in “–ise /–ize”: Canadian English (CaE) favours the American English (AmE) spelling system with “z”, e.g. localization, customize, personalize, finalize civilize, criticize, italicize, itemize, memorize, organize. Exceptions: advertise, advise, arise, comprise, enterprise, exercise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surprise. • Nouns ending in “–our /–or”: AmE favours the “–or” ending, but British English (BrE) and CaE...

Canadian English: A Brief History

Jan 26, 2021 | Blog

A Word on Localization Over the past year, we’ve spoken a lot about the importance of localization. The 14 guides we published in fall 2020 highlight why localizing your website content matters. They explain what to look out for in order to localize your website easily to establish trust and successfully engage with your target audience. Moreover, in one of our social media posts in December 2020, we touched on the differences between Canadian, American and British English. Translations into Canadian English and Canadian French make up the core of our business. As part of our commitment to continuous professional development, we decided to delve deeper into how Canadian English was formed to gain a better understanding of its history. Our findings were so enriching that we had to share them with you! Canadian English: A Rich Heritage The creation of Canada as we know it today is the product of several phases of colonisation. Indigenous people had already been living on the land for thousands of years. In the 10th century, Scandinavian expeditions tried in vain to establish sustainable settlements. It’s not until the 15th and 16th centuries that the French and the English revived colonisation interest. Over the next 350 years, each respective side discovered and won over different parts of Canada through several wars. We’ve produced this handy infographic summarising the key events over this period. 350 Years of Canadian English Formation at a Glance From then on, apart from the important number of French-Canadians in Quebec and its surrounding area, the population was almost entirely British. Indeed, the enormous immigration wave that took place in...

Explore LingoStar’s Selection of Multilingual Translation Projects

Dec 17, 2020 | Blog, Language Services, Projects

Translation is all around us thanks to client-driven multilingual translation projects At LingoStar, we love the variety of multilingual translation projects we work on. Translation is all around us, even if we don’t realize it. Thanks to advanced technologies, companies have many more opportunities to make their products and services available online. Therefore, many decide to localize and offer their products to a significantly larger number of speakers of various foreign languages, rather than resorting to English speakers only. Now more than ever before, people worldwide are using online tools to purchase and download products. Naturally, they want to do so in their native language. Interestingly, this presents an opportunity for many small, medium and freelance businesses to share their expertise and services as well. So, are you ready to localize your services and products into foreign languages and expand your online business? If so, find out how to localize your website in our ebook. A Beginner’s Guide to Multilingual Website Translation Multilingual Translations Help You Expand Internationally Many of our Canadian clients realize the potential for global expansion and entrust us with multilingual translation projects on a weekly basis. So let’s have our projects speak for themselves. We’ve selected a few projects to show you the variety of multilingual projects we carry out on behalf of our clients. We regularly complete translations for corporate documents, operating manuals, marketing materials, as well as multilingual phone recordings, professional voice-overs and so much more. Have a look at what we’ve been up to! If you need our help, we’ll be happy to issue a free translation quote here >>.Also, check out...

3 Top Tips for a Beginner Freelance Translator Resume

Nov 25, 2020 | Blog, Communication, Tips for Translators

How to Present Your Freelance Translator Resume to Small Translation Agencies – From an Agency Perspective Have you sent your freelance translator resume to numerous translation agencies but have never heard back? Are you starting out as a freelance translator and are trying to market your services to translation agencies? Would you like to work with a translation agency but find it really hard to get your foot in the door? How translation agencies process freelance translator resumes Sending out resumes to translation agencies can be daunting. You’re likely to send out a lot of applications and only receive a few replies. Translation agencies receive hundreds of applications every week and many of them don’t take the time to respond. When you finally do manage to get in touch with a vendor manager, it’s best you don’t get your hopes up. Your resume may be piled up among many others and you may not hear back with an actual job for a while. Are you wondering why? The truth is that there may be nothing wrong with your freelance translator resume, expertise, education or rates. One of the simplest reasons why you don’t hear back is that a small translation agency has scarce resources to handle vendor management. Therefore, processing your application may be at the very bottom of their list. Until they really need somebody very particular for a very specific translation job. And that could be just you! So make your freelance translator resume stand out! Whilst the purpose of this article is not to source new translators for our company LingoStar in Canada, we wanted...

Translate Your Website To Drive Engagement

Nov 20, 2020 | Blog

How language affects online user behaviour Translating your website has never made so much sense and here’s why. Did you know that: 90% of online buyers will ignore what you have to offer or say if it’s not in their native language? Most internet users don’t speak native English? English speakers only make up 25% of internet users? 2020 has seen the online world grow exponentially and with Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, Indonesian, Malaysian, French, Japanese, Russian and German in the top 15 most popular languages online, can you really afford not having a multilingual marketing strategy? Translation is all around us We all benefit from translation in one way or another, we just sometimes don’t realize quite how much we do. Take booking holidays or event tickets for example. We all love to travel but would you risk booking your next holiday destination if you didn’t understand the description or couldn’t compare different trips? What about playing the latest video games, or binging on the latest trending series? Not nearly half as enjoyable without the required dubbing or subtitles! But it doesn’t stop there. From being able to read food labels to ensure you can make the right choices to suit your own diet requirements to sourcing reliable personal protective equipment, or helping people access critical health information in a language they understand… The list is endless. From entertainment to culture, healthcare to food & drinks, right across the spectrum. These industry sectors could not reach their audiences the way they do without translation. The truth is that translation helps us stay healthy, keeps us safe, informed and...

How to write and publish a foreign language blog post in 24 hours

Oct 14, 2020 | Blog

Writing a foreign language blog post: now you don’t need to put it off any longer with these 5 simple steps. Do you speak a foreign language well? Do you have thousands of ideas for your foreign language blog posts or articles? You may be thinking about writing a foreign language blog post in other languages every time you meet a new client. Do you think it’s about time you made your website available in a foreign language?. Do you keep trying to get it done but work always gets in the way and your foreign language website ends up at the bottom of your to-do list again? Is your website already available in foreign languages but you struggle to find the time or motivation to actually start writing articles in those languages? If you’re a frequent blogger, then your English articles are most likely very popular. Naturally, you want your foreign language blog posts to be popular as well! At the same time, are you a little worried that your foreign language writing may not be perfect? Writing a foreign language blog post does not need to be your worst nightmare. You don’t need to hold a university degree to start writing. A sound knowledge of a foreign language is usually sufficient. Sometimes, you can even do without it! The secret is to know a few tricks about how to do it right. WATCH OUR VIDEO ON HOW TO PUBLISH A BILINGUAL BLOG POST ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL >> Once you do, you’ll finally get a sense of pride when hundreds of readers suddenly visit your...

Foreign Languages | How a Small Country Reached a Multilingual World

Oct 1, 2020 | Blog

Speak Foreign Languages – Learn from the Perfect Country where Precision Rules Picture a country where everything is perfect. Trains run on time. People speak a number of foreign languages fluently. Most of the multilingual information is available publicly. You can communicate in local languages but also very well in English. Food ordered at any place tastes like a meal in a top-notch restaurant. Customer service is second to none. The countryside is breathtaking and you enjoy every minute of it while gasping for air when hiking up yet another majestic mountain. Small picturesque towns are sparkling clean and mountain chalets so cute when covered with flowerbeds wherever you look. If you have visited this country, you already know which one I’m talking about! If you have not yet, go there soon! Make it before they close the borders – again! Switzerland is truly amazing. Travel Issues During the Coronavirus Crisis During my 2-week-long trip in the Swiss Alps, I was looking forward to finding out how this mountainous country functions in several official languages. It does so very well! Since I live in Canada, and Switzerland is not exactly around the corner, I had planned my trip for summer 2020 far ahead. However, when the coronavirus crisis came, it became very uncertain whether I could travel from Canada to Switzerland. So many things happened! Switzerland closed its borders. People were not allowed to travel, plus they were worried about travelling. Air travel between Canada and Europe was cancelled. There was a great deal of uncertainty in regards to border closures. When Switzerland opened up to EU countries, Canada...

English and Italian to French translation: Literature All Around the World

Apr 14, 2020 | Blog, Language Varieties, Translation

English and Italian to French translation Thousands of books are published every day globally. English and Italian to French translation allows for the sharing of literature all around the world. We may not all speak the same language but we may have read the same books. Thanks to literary translators, books can be shared to all corners of the globe. Cyril Laumonier has been doing this job for ten years. He completed a European master’s degree in specialized translation at ISIT in Paris. ISIT is a French intercultural school that offers various pathways of study including literary translation. During the last year of his master’s degree, he accepted to translate two children’s books from English and Italian to French. This is his daily experience as a literary translator from English and Italian to French. English and Italian to French translation on a daily basis According to Laumonier, you cannot learn this job simply through university studies. You have to train your entire life. You need to read and to be curious, and to always want to learn more. Push the limits of your knowledge and your universe. So, a typical day for him starts at home since he works from home. It allows him to manage his own work day. Depending on the deadlines, he tries to work between 6 and 8 hours a day. Always with dictionaries next to him. However, the high level of attention the job requires to perform well can be tiring. Indeed, compared to audiovisual translators, he does not use new technologies like automatic translation. Nearly everything occurs between him, the text, and his...