Mar 18, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Photo by Robert Demeter, taken from http://www.robertdemeterphotography.com/ Positive Message Translation into Italian, French, Russian, Japanese, Czech, Slovak, and Ukrainian The easiest thing to do is to say that you cannot do anything. ‘I just can’t…’ How many times have you heard or said it? Have you ever tried to prove you wrong and actually DO it! LingoStar team believes that there are no impossible things to do. All that you are required to do is to start working! Certainly, great success doesn’t come to people who say they can’t; it comes to those who work hard to say ‘I could, and I did it!’. Don’t be afraid of anything because fear doesn’t help us become better and stronger. Don’t focus on problems and remember: every problem can be solved. Have hopes, have dreams, have plans, and they will motivate you! We hope you will enjoy this week’s positive message and help LingoStar translate it into more languages. We are very happy to receive your translations and add them to the list. Don’t hesitate to contact us. Let’s have fun together! The Positive Message in English: When you focus on problems, you’ll have more problems. When you focus on possibilities, you’ll have more opportunities. The Positive Message Translation into French: Si te concentres sur les problèmes, tu n’auras que plus de problèmes. Si, au contraire, tu te concentres sur le possibilités, tu auras plus de opportunités. The Positive Message Translation into Italian: Se ti concentri sui problemi, avrai solo più problemi. Se, invece, ti concentri sulle possibilità, avrai più opportunità. The Positive Message Translation into Russian: Как только вы сосредоточитесь...
Mar 13, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Successful Translations of Sitcoms Successful translations are extremely important when it comes to written text of scientific genre. This is true: all kinds of written material are problematic. It is important to find the right equivalents for the unique terminology and to make the translation clear and adequate. However, what usually makes even very good translators struggle is humor. If you are a native English speaker, you are lucky enough to watch the world’s most popular sitcoms such as Seinfeld, Friends, or The Big bang Theory in the original language and to be able to enjoy all the creative jokes. But, some people don’t speak English at all, and nevertheless they somehow manage to fall in love with these shows. This is a sign of successful translation and localization. Certainly, it is not a big problem to translate universal jokes that are clear out of the context and will sound almost the same in every language. But, what about linguistic and cultural jokes? For instance, when one of the main characters of Friends, Phoebe, gets married (season 10, episode 12), she doesn’t want to put anything on top of her light wedding dress, although they have an outside wedding, and it is freezing cold. So her friend, Chandler, asks her if she won’t get cold, and Phoebe replies: ‘I don’t care. I’ll be something blue’. There is no need to explain the meaning of this joke for people of the culture where it is a tradition for a woman to have something new, something blue, and something borrowed on when they get married. However, some cultures just do not have this...
Mar 9, 2015 | Blog, Translation
The Positive Message Translation into Italian, French, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, and Slovak What does it really mean to be the best? Does it mean to be the strongest or the smartest or the most good-looking person in the world? The problem is that every day the smartest and the strongest man gets a chance to meet somebody who is smarter or stronger. We shouldn’t focus on being better than someone else. Every day we should have a goal: to become better people than we already are. As long as you move towards this goal this life will make sense and will get even more and more interesting. Enjoy being yourselves! Check out LingoStar’s translations of today’s positive message. Don’t hesitate to send us your translations. Let’s share this message with everyone! The Positive Message in English: It’s not about being the best. It’s about being better than you were yesterday. The Positive Message Translation into Italian: L’importante non è essere i migliori, ma essere migliori di quanto si era ieri. The Positive Message Translation into French: L’important ce n’est pas d’être le meilleur, mais d’être meilleur de ce qu’on était hier. The Positive Message Translation into Russian: Дело не в том, чтобы быть лучшим. Дело в том, чтобы стать лучше, чем вы были вчера. The Positive Message Translation into Japanese: 一番でいることではなく、昨日の自分より成長していることが大事なのだ。 The Positive Message Translation into Slovak: Nie je dôležité byť najlepším, ale lepším ako včera. The Positive Message Translation into Ukrainian: Річ ну в тім, щоб бути найкращим. Річ у тім, щоб стати краще, ніж ви були вчора. The Positive Message Translation into Czech: Nejde o to být nejlepší....
Mar 6, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Spanish Translation The increase of the Spanish speaking population in North America has resulted in an increased demand for professional Spanish translation and interpretation, especially in the legal and medical fields. Certainly, a translator has to have native or near-native fluency in one of the two languages if he or she wants to work with English – Spanish language pair. Excellent grammar and wide vocabulary are a couple traits that will make someone a good professional translator. However, these skills are just not enough to provide high-quality translation, especially in such important fields as medicine and law. To provide successful legal translation from Spanish to English, it is necessary to be familiar with nuances of all the legal procedures, otherwise you risk getting confused while translating. These include for instance, Spanish and English cognates. Read the following example: Las partes han acordado celebrar el presente contrato con el fin de construir un puente. The parties have agreed to celebrate this contract for the purpose of building a bridge. Do you think this is an incorrect translation? It looks quite adequate. However, in the case of contracts translation, such a translation is unacceptable. As this sentence refers to the formation of the contract, the word ‘celebrate’ is not appropriate, and a translator should use the word ‘enter into’ instead. This verb will denote the actual meaning of the sentence, and the result we will get will be more professional: The parties have agreed to enter into this contract for the purpose of building a bridge. It is also very important to know how to localize the text into English from...
Mar 2, 2015 | Blog, Translation
Translation of Proper Names There is a common misconception that proper names are never translated. However, if you ever paid attention to various newspaper articles in foreign language or to some magazines, you may have noticed that, for instance, Queen Elizabeth II is translated as Reina Isabel II and Alliance Française is translated as Instituto Británico in Spanish. Translators actually do a lot of things with proper names. Sometimes they keep proper names non-translated, which leads to different pronunciation in a target language; sometimes they use transcription and transliteration, cultural adaptation, substitution, and so on. As you can see, there are a lot of ways to translate a proper name, and it requires very sensitive decision-making on the part of a translator. Besides, it depends on the type of translation. If one is specializing in the certified translation of official documents, one is unlikely to look for the meaning of the client’s name and just use transliteration to make it sound the same in the target language as it does in the source language. However, in literature we can often find examples of successfully (and unsuccessfully) translated proper names that have the same effect on the target audience as the original name does. For example, the most controversial and one of the most interesting characters of the Harry Potter book series – Severus Snape – doesn’t have the same name in other languages. In Romanian he is Severus Plesneală, in Hungarian – Perselus Piton, in Italian – Severus Piton, in French – Severus Rogue, and in Russian – Северус Снегг (Severus Snegg). For many translators it was more important...
Feb 27, 2015 | Blog, Promotions, Translation
Positive Message Translation Into French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, And Slovak Today, with this positive message translation, we want to remind you one more time that this life is beautiful. Just look around! Wherever you are, you can see life around you. And if for some reason you do not like this reality, do not start hating it. Try to think about what you can do to make it a little bit better. As soon as you make someone happier, you become happier too. Sometimes we get confused and believe that to be happy we need material things. These include huge houses, fancy cars, private jets. Moreover, we believe that we need to be successful, get a well-paid job, and have perfect bodies. All these things are just great! However, don’t forget that happiness is unsteady. In other words, one moment it is there and then you are so busy with all your routine problems that you just forget to live. Keep going, keep dreaming, keep achieving your goals! Above all, remember those simple moments that make you happy and smile. For instance, remember those mornings when you wake up and feel that everything will be just fine. That is to say when you are full of energy and ready to conquer this world. Therefore, no matter how hard it is, remember those moments and be sure: if you felt it before, you will feel it again. In short: smile, work, be active, laugh, love, and be HAPPY! Today LingoStar has prepared this amazing positive message for you and translated it into seven languages. Make your contribution, don’t...
