Matthias Ragaz in der Schweiz listet auf seiner Site gefundene Sache, z.B.

merkwürdige Trennungen:
werden von sechs Pro-fischauspielern unterstützt.
Vergleiche:
die Polen sind die Angelsachsen Osteuropas
Klingsors Speerwurf ist der Apfelschuss der Opernbühnen
Parmesan ist der Kontrabass in der Käsefamilie

Matthias Ragaz’ site in Switzerland gives lists, inter alia, of strange word divisions and similes found, usually in the press. All relates to the German language.

BerlinOnline reports on the difficulties of finding court reporters in Italy. They are said to be paid only 4 euros an hour (via Handakte WebLAWg). American interpreters, it says, earn ten times as much, and in other countries in Europe they attend expensive courses (!)

Bericht in BerlinOnline über die Schwierigkeiten der italienischen Gerichte mit (schlechtbezahlten) Dolmetschern. Der Autor ist Oliver Meiler, die Quelle weiß ich nicht.

bq. Ein weiteres erbauliches Kapitel fügte kürzlich die römische Tageszeitung La Repubblica an. Das Blatt hat sich mit der Standesvertretung der Gerichtsübersetzer unterhalten und dort erfahren, dass Justitias Dolmetscher in Italien weniger verdienen als Haushaltshilfen: Vier Euro die Stunde. Zum Vergleich: Ihre amerikanischen Kollegen kriegen zehn Mal mehr; in anderen europäischen Ländern werden sie in teuren Kursen ausgebildet.

A Chinese interpreter was found in a Chinese restaurant (I get the impression the author doesn’t think this happens in Germany). A Philippine cleaning lady and even the defendant in criminal proceedings have been used.
The Polish embassy once rejected the transcript of proceedings in Polish because it was incomprehensible, and once a judge in Rome called out , ‘Can anyone here translate the translator?’

bq. Am liebsten erzählt man sich unter Italiens Gerichtsübersetzern aber die Geschichte des römischen Richters, der beim Anhören eines nicht eben sprachgewandten Dolmetschers im Nebenamt entnervt in die Aula fragte: “Kann hier einer den Übersetzer übersetzen?”

The truth is that in Germany there are many sworn interpreters on the court list who moved or stopped interpreting years ago, and for the less-taught languages there are not many, if any, interpreters on the court list. The judge is supposed to choose the interpreter from a list of qualified persons, but this is often left to the secretarial staff. Although they’re not supposed to call unqualified people, they probably sometimes do this to save themselves effort. As for interpreters’ fees, this is another bone of contention. It may be more than 4 euros an hour, but interpreters have the problem that to survive as freelancers they need to be paid travelling time and to be compensated for loss of work when a hearing is cancelled at short notice and they had given up other work to make themselves available.

Am 23. März eröffnet IKEA in Fürth, zweimal so groß wie bisher. Hier ein Plakat (es gibt andere).

On March 23, a new IKEA twice the size of the old one is opening in Fürth. This is one of a series of posters.

For some reason a travelling fish market sometimes stops here for a few days. It’s not all fish, though.

Smoked fish:

Bratwurst:

Kitchenware:

Heise Online berichtet von zwei “Volltextübersetzern”.
Danke an Rainer Langenhan von Handakte WebLAWg für den Tipp.

Machine translation systems are being presented at the CeBIT trade fair.

bq. Der St. Petersburger Übersetzungsspezialist Promt (Halle 6, Stand G39) und die Münchner Firma Linguatec (Halle 3, Stand E55) stellen auf der CeBIT neue Versionen ihrer jeweiligen Übersetzungssoftware vor.

bq. The St. Petersburg translation specialist Promt and the Munich firm Linguatec are presenting new versions of their translation software at CeBIT.

Promt’s onsite English is hard to understand:

bq. We offer to visit PROMT Download Center to try and buy @promt translation software

On the pt mailing list at Yahoo Groups, Victor Dewsbery used Promt to translate Promt’s own sentence:

bq. Original: Ab der Office-Version aufwärts enthalten die Übersetzer Spezialwörterbücher zu den Bereichen Wirtschaft, Recht und Computer.
Translation: From the office version upward the translators Spezialwörterbücher contain economy, right and computer to the areas.

Victor also linked to an English-language publication on machine translation (supplement to: MultiLingual Computing & Technology)

Victor Dewsbury (pt Mailingliste, Yahoo Groups) zitiert einen englischen Artikel zu MT. Unter anderem wird dort das Problem erwähnt: wer MÜ benutzt, um einen oberflächlichen Eindruck vom Inhalt eines Textes zu bekommen, muss eigentlich wissen, mit welcher Sprache er es zu tun hat.

An article by Reinhard Schäler in Ireland (Localisation Research Centre, University of Limerick) states:

bq. We are told that MT is most successfully being used not by language professionals, but by uninitiated office workers who just want to get the gist of a document that has been sent to them in a language they do not understand.
When it transpires that they are not even able to determine the language that the original document was written in and therefore they pick the wrong MT engine, it does not raise a red flag in our mind but, rather surprisingly,
just causes the expert and his audience to pity the poor simple-minded user.

The article is titled ‘A New Dawn for Machine Translation?’ but concludes with a query as to whether the red light we see is not the sunset.

Victor Dewsbery’s website (see above for link) has numerous resources for translators.

Victor Dewsbery is ein britischer Übersetzer in Berlin. Seine Website (Link siehe oben) enthält mehrere nützliche Dateien für Übersetzer.

Following some mutterings in the past days, the House of Lords has now voted against the bill to abolish the Lord Chancellor and create a new supreme court. The House of Lords can’t kill bills, but they can delay them, and when is there going to be time to reintroduce the bill? Not in this session (before summer). It is also very rare for the House of Lords to disagree to this extent with the Commons, and for the Commons to overrule the Lords. The Independent reports:

bq. In dramatic Parliamentary scenes, peers overruled the will of ministers and voted to delay a crucial part of the Government’s programme.

bq. The vote, being seen as an attempt to wreck the entire Bill, is a major setback for Tony Blair and may lead to a brutal showdown with the House of Lords.

bq. Baroness Amos, the leader of the House of Lords, told peers: “This House has taken a very serious step. By this vote, this House ­ the unelected House ­ has made it impossible for the democratically elected House of Commons to receive this Bill, promised in the Queen’s Speech in November, in time to consider it this session. That is very serious indeed, and the Government will consider what the consequences may be.”