(Via Blogalization): The Times of Malta reports that things have gone wrong in the translation into Maltese of the draft EU constitution.

Mysteriously, they write:

bq. Readers of The Times yesterday had a field day passing on via e-mail and telephone to friends and acquaintances the howlers in the Maltese translation of the EU draft constitution.
Probably the biggest was the literal translation of ‘advisory bodies’ as igsma tal-pariri.

I love the last sentence.

The article goes into some detail about the number and recruitment of translators, workload and payment problems.

While looking for information on Google, I saw KerLeone’s video ‘short story’ called Korianderbrot. At www.mosaikum.org there’s a picture at the top right representing the link. I defy anyone who sees this short film and likes German bread not to want a slice afterwards. Fortunately there is a branch of the Hofpfisterei just 2 minutes away from me so I was able to rush out and get a quarter of a coriander loaf.

You can order bread from them in Germany by post (Brot per Mausklick), and even outside Germany, but you have to email them for that. Continue reading →

While looking for information on Google, I saw KerLeone’s video ‘short story’ called Korianderbrot. At www.mosaikum.org there’s a picture at the top right representing the link. I defy anyone who sees this short film and likes German bread not to want a slice afterwards. Fortunately there is a branch of the Hofpfisterei just 2 minutes away from me so I was able to rush out and get a quarter of a coriander loaf.

You can order bread from them in Germany by post (Brot per Mausklick), and even outside Germany, but you have to email them for that. Continue reading →

A few more notes.

Today, there was another German summary of the situation by KerLeone in Mosaikum.

There was also something related in Microdoc News, about the 74 Google country interfaces (click on the title Chunking Google Results to see the rest of the text).

It seems that Google never actually gives you more than 998 results, even if it announces more.

It’s possible, according to Derek Thornton, a technical translator who lives in Germany, on FLEFO, that each of the country interfaces simply presents results based on the past behaviour of its users. This is probably something I ought to know already – I am not an expert on Google. It would mean that if I look up an English phrase in Google, the results will be affected by past searches of English in Google in Germany. Continue reading →

A few more notes.

Today, there was another German summary of the situation by KerLeone in Mosaikum.

There was also something related in Microdoc News, about the 74 Google country interfaces (click on the title Chunking Google Results to see the rest of the text).

It seems that Google never actually gives you more than 998 results, even if it announces more.

It’s possible, according to Derek Thornton, a technical translator who lives in Germany, on FLEFO, that each of the country interfaces simply presents results based on the past behaviour of its users. This is probably something I ought to know already – I am not an expert on Google. It would mean that if I look up an English phrase in Google, the results will be affected by past searches of English in Google in Germany. Continue reading →

I was in Donzdorf near the Swabian Jura on Saturday and Sunday and saw this insect I have never seen before. It looks like a humming bird, hovering in front of this catmint plant. The orange blur is the wings.

It is called a humming-bird hawk moth in English and Taubenschwänzchen in German. It comes from the south every year – Donzdorf is further south than here and it has been really hot in Germany for weeks now – it overwinters as an adult but few survive north of the Alps. It’s a moth, but diurnal. There are better pictures amd more information in English on this site. And here are pictures and text on a German site.
A Finnish site shows a distribution map.