Apr 13, 2015 | Blog, Translation, Translation News
Embarrassing Welsh Mistranslation The supermarket owned by the company Tesco in the UK seems to have bitten off more than they can chew with their attempt to branch out to the Welsh speaking local customers with their embarrassing translation of the text on their cash point machine in Aberystwyth into Welsh. Obviously unaware, the company had actually translated their text saying “free cash withdrawals” to “free erections”. This was embarrassing for the company and caught the attention of many Welsh speakers in the area. The Welsh translation reads “codiad am ddim” which translates to “free erection”. Some locals found the mistake amusing, while others were astonished at how poor of a quality translation the company used. A young man Garin Fitter, 18, elaborated on this after seeing the translation in person. “I am not sure how they came up with it because anyone with a basic understanding of Welsh would know it is the wrong word. “They must have used Google translate. I think it’s quite funny but I know some people might be offended they didn’t bother to check they had got it right.” Evidently, Tesco failed to take into account the ramifications that a poor-quality translation truly could have on their brand image. Although free translation services may be enticing for such a small piece of text, you can see just how detrimental even the mistranslation of a few words can truly be to a company’s reputation. This is why you need to take all of your translations to a reputable professional translation agency, no matter how big or small the translation is. Got Any Stories as Embarrassing?...
Apr 10, 2015 | Blog, Promotions, Translation
Inspirational Quote Translation into Italian, French, Japanese, Russian, Slovak, Czech, and Ukrainian Dear friends, Even in fairy tales happiness, fame, and success did not come to those who were sitting and doing nothing and hoping that the best is yet to come. We do not mean that real life cannot be as happy as lives of fairy tale characters. It can be and will be, but we shouldn’t wait for that very perfect moment which will make all our dreams come true. This rule has never worked. We are the ones who are responsible for our happiness, we are the ones who can make our dreams come true. What we should do is to stop waiting and start moving towards our goals and dreams. Everything is possible if you work hard, never give up and always find strength and inspiration to see the best in this world and in people around you. Let’s inspire and support each other. Let’s share this beautiful idea with everybody. We are always happy to send your translations of the positive messages we prepare for you. Don’t hesitate to contact us and send us more translations. You are awesome! Inspirational Quote in English: Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect. -Zoey Sayward Inspirational Quote Translation into Italian: Non aspettare il momento perfetto. Prendi il momento e rendilo perfetto. -Zoey Sayward Inspirational Quote Translation into French: N’attend pas le moment parfait. Prend le moment et rend le parfait. -Zoey Sayward Inspirational Quote Translation into Japanese: 完璧な時期を待ってはいけない。自分で完璧な時期にするのだ。-ゾーイ・セイワード -Zoey Sayward Inspirational Quote Translation into Russian: Не ждите идеального момента. Просто...
Apr 10, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Being a Good Translator Requires Working Hard. Here Are Some Tips that Will Make Your Work Easier While being a translator seems easy, it is actually not as easy as it seems. You want to know why? Let’s forget for a second that translators have to deal with tons of projects. Let’s forget about the piles of documents written in a foreign language and the pressure to meet a strict deadline. This sounds quite stressful, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, let’s forget about it and talk about the translation process itself. When working, translators spend hours and hours in front of a computer using various translation tools, dictionaries, and other programs. Working on the computer may sound like the most relaxed job in the world, but it is quite the opposite. According to Dr.David Agus, five of more hours of sedentary sitting is the health equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes… Constant sitting has long been known as a reason of back pain and blood-circulation issues, which can cause cardiovascular disease. Moreover, staring at a bright screen for hours can lead to headaches, blurred vision, and other vision disorders. Some advices Being a good translator is hard, mostly because of how long you sit in front of the screen of your computer. What can translators (and not only translators) do in order to reduce negative effects of working on the computer for so long? The first really good piece of advice is to adjust the colours of the monitor so that the background is a dark olive green and the text is a light yellow. This will help your eyes...
Apr 1, 2015 | Blog, Promotions, Translation
Photography by Robert Demeter Our New Positive Message Translation into French, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Czech, Slovak, and Ukrainian Have you ever thought about sense of living? Why do we live our lives on this huge, lonely planet in the middle of nowhere? Maybe, there is no sense in this at all? Maybe, we just need to help each other feel loved and important in this life? Maybe, we just need to be happy and make everything we can to have no regrets when we are old and grey. As long as people on this planet share love, become friends, and inspire each other we can be absolutely sure that we are doing everything right. Be an example for the people around you, motivate them, help them improve and become better, make sure your life is inspiring! Help LingoStar translate this amazing message into different languages and share it with everybody! This life is so beautiful. Sometimes all we need is somebody to help us see this and not forget. Don’t hesitate to contact us and send your translations! We are looking forward to hearing from you! Positive Message in English: Your life is your message to the world. Make sure it is inspiring. Positive Message Translation into French: Ta vie est ton message au monde. Assures-toi que ce soit inspirant. Positive Message Translation into Italian: La tua vita è il tuo messaggio al mondo. Assicurati che sia d’ispirazione agli altri. Positive Message Translation into Russian: Ваша жизнь – это Ваше послание миру. Убедитесь в том, что оно вдохновляет. Positive Message Translation into Japanese: あなたの人生そのものが世界へのメッセージとなる。感動的なものにしよう。 Positive Message Translation into Slovak: Svojím...
Mar 23, 2015 | Blog, Translation
The Most Mysterious Manuscript in the World The world is full of secrets and mysterious things people cannot find adequate explanations for. Languages are not an exception. Today, there exist several manuscripts that linguists simply cannot translate! One of such texts is the Voynich manuscript which has become one of the most mysterious objects in history and can be found today in one of the libraries at Yale University. So what exactly is the Voynich manuscript? It is an illustrated codex handwritten in an unknown writing system which was discovered by a book dealer Wilfred M. Voynich outside of Rome in 1912. This unique book that the world’s best cryptographers and linguists have been trying to decipher for decades dates back to 15th century (or even 13th, as many scientists believe). This book is 235 pages long, full of coloured images of astrological charts, different plants, and living cells that look as if they were observed with the help of a microscope. Who wrote it? Some lost civilization? Was it human beings that created the book? Therefore is there any message that we cannot understand? What Became The Most Mysterious Manuscript Today many scholars are working on this book, and they argue about its possible origins. For instance, Stephen Bax, professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bedfordshire, claims that he managed to decipher some words. His main goal was to focus on the proper names in the text – the method used for successful deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs. So, he has deciphered such proper names as Taurus, Coriander, Cotton, Juniper, Centaurea, Chiron, Hellebore Nigella Sativa, and Kesar....
Mar 20, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Hamlet Translation for West African Tribal Elders One of the questions which many scholars have been trying to answer is whether people from different corners of the world share the same ideas and have the same values despite their cultures and languages. This subject was raised by anthropologists, philosophers, linguists and translators. One of these translators is Laura Bohannan, who translated Shakespearean Hamlet for a group of West African tribal elders. According to Bohannan just before she left Oxford, she protested that human nature is the same over the world and that the general plot and motivation of great tragedies will be clear everywhere. To translate the tragedy for the elders she had to take into account many cultural nuances; for example, the notion of ghosts does not exist in the culture of those tribes as they do not believe in the post-death survival of people. That is why the concept of ghosts became an omen sent by a witch to their culture. After the play was performed, the chiefs discussed it and disagreed on several moments. For instance, they thought that Hamlet had no right to investigate the reasons of his father’s death as it was his uncle’s business. One more thing that they noticed was that Claudius had to marry Gertrude in order to protect his family patrimony, etc. These examples demonstrate that not all cultures share the same assumptions. Hamlet turned out to be very exotic for West African tribes, and only certain moments were clear to them. If you are looking for a reliable translation agency to have your document translated into a language that...
