drug-related terminology for pain relief

It's been a real... pain in the neck, today. Anyway, finally I can see some light.

Tolerance --> assuefazione
Physical dependence --> dipendenza fisica
Addiction --> tossicomania

From what I could see, various meanings may be attached to these terms. The above mentioned solutions are theferore based on the definitions given in the project I'm currently translating.

memo: marketing tip from Twin Translations

Judy and Dagmar at Translation Times have come up with a simple yet really smart and affordable marketing idea: a tailor-made laptop sticker skin with their company logo. Check it out here!
(I'll definitely have to consider buying a new laptop. Not only is my current one getting old and slow, its shell looks worn out, too. And it's cracked. Don't ask me why. It wasn't my fault. ;-D)

Brochures R precious!

A multilingual tourist brochure is certainly very useful, provided all information is clear and understandable from the point of view of language. Sure enough, if clarity goes hand in hand with accuracy, well, so much the better. Especially if one can avoid mistakes like this:

Or calques like this:

Nitpicking? Maybe. Or maybe not.

Typos, language pitfalls and cats on mats

Proofreading is no easy task, as suggested by the fact that typos appear even in carefully edited texts. One would think that the longer the text, the more likely you are to find typos. However, shorter texts can fall into this trap, too.

Sometimes, however, incorrect use of language is to blame.

In this case, the message conveyed is rather puzzling. Of course I like new towels, we all do. Perhaps less obvious is the fact that I can assert my right to help preserve the environment by not asking for new towels every day. The exclamation mark at the end of the sentence seems to be equally puzzling. Should I interpret it as an order or as an enthusiastic offer?

Exclamation marks may indeed raise some doubts. Doesn't the following sound a bit too authoritarian?

There are then cases in which spelling mistakes may look hilarious to some readers.

Though to be fair and considering that the little circle over the A turns it into some sort of O, it makes sense. Somehow.

And finally, a sign that has nothing to do with the above, but I found it so cute I couldn't help taking a photo.

It's actually part of an Oriental grocer's sign and no, it's not selling cat food (mat = food). No idea what "cat" means in this case.

Memo: article on language and translation

Entertaining article on the joys and sorrows of communication across the Channel.

Memo: new link

I'm happily discovering Wordnik (thanks to Isabella), which I've listed under my right-column links.

How do you deal with boring texts?

... per me ha tanto di barba
questo mestiere vile
ma solo traduzioni
mi chiedono i coglioni!
(E. Montale 1943, in G. Marcenaro, Eugenio Montale, B. Mondadori, 1999; see also here).

What do you do when the pages you are translating are simply, utterly, inexorably boring? When you hope that the long, verbose preamble you are translating will soon turn into a more useful, to-the-point or at least interesting stream of information, before realising you were done with any preamble several pages ago and the monotonous babble you are actually translating is the core of the book? In a previous post I mentioned how frustrated I get when I realise the book I’m working at is going to be equally tedious all its 200 pages long. Generally speaking, I am able to keep up with my daily goal (X number of pages translated/X hours) pretty well, which allows me not to work at night/weekends and to enjoy a decent amount of spare time. I do so not out of talent (I don’t believe translating requires talent, I’m more inclined to see it as the result of commitment and experience), but out of fair knowledge of my field. I must admit, however, boring books often have me engage a desperate fight with myself in order to reach that daily goal, a fight that costs me a lot. This is no good. There must be a more effective way to deal with this kind of material. What’s yours?

Translation(s): Think-Aloud Protocols

For most outsiders, translating is a rather basic operation: a text in language A is converted into a text in language B - characterised by a degree of equivalence - with the help of a number of tools (the first and often only tool that comes to mind being a bilingual dictionary, generally speaking). However, for translators things are not so straightforward. Let me explain. When you want to go from A to B, you need to consider a series of actions, before and during the journey, that will effectively take you from A to B. You'll need for instance to plan your journey in such a way that mishaps are ruled out or at least significantly reduced (e.g. buying tickets in advance or making sure you are wearing sensible shoes if walking is planned). Furthermore, during the journey you normally perform actions that are meant to ensure you reach B in the safest, most pleasant and sometimes shortest way. How do you do all this? By focusing on your journey and thinking. Clearly, a hypothetical observer is not aware of what goes on in your mind and only sees that you are moving or have moved from A to B.
Something similar takes place during any translation process, too. Decision-making processes (what is the most convenient strategy in a given context, what are the problems translators encounter and how they solve them, how do they deal with time constraints, etc.) are not directly observable; it is however possible to register them for data collection. This is one of the objectives of think-aloud protocols (TAPs) applied to translation.* Think-aloud protocol analysis is a way of providing information on cognitive processes, and has been applied to a variety of fields, from cognitive psychology to applied linguistics, language learning and, as I mentioned, translation studies. The idea behind it is that thought processes can be to some extent inferred by studying their verbalisation. In other words, one tries to have a rough picture of the translating process going on in the translator’s mind by looking at the way they talk about it while actually translating. It is certainly a very interesting approach that should perhaps get more attention not only as an academic tool of research, but also as a way to educate outsiders about the complexities of translation.

If you want to know more about TAPs in translation, I suggest these two articles:
- "Think-Aloud Protocol Analysis in Translation Studies", by Paul Kussmaul and Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit;

- "Using Think-Aloud Protocols to investigate the translation process: methodological aspects", by Silvia Bernardini.

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* “At the most general level, the purpose of TAP studies is to gain a better understanding of the psychological and linguistic mechanisms involved in the activity of translating (Jääskeläinen 2001, p. 266).

Jääskeläinen, Riitta. “Think-Aloud Protocols”. Mona Baker (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London: Routledge 2001, pp. 265-269.