Per Döhler and Thea Döhler have started a joint blog on translation and marketing called Triablog.

It has already built up quite a few articles in secret, but is only now officially launched.

Entries are in German, English or Swedish. There’s also an index, which is a very good idea, in addition to the categories. (I am unhappy with my own system of categories – some of the most useful older posts are unlikely to come to light again, and I have never got round to tagging all the entries imported from my original Movable Type blog). There are tags as well as categories, and there are categories and tags in the various languages, so I will stop thinking about how it all fits together – the main thing is that it’s easy to navigate.

Topics are translation, tax (Per is famous for his disquisition on German VAT), what’s going on in Barendorf and more. Here’s a recent post recommending we use the 24-hour clock in English, at least for European contexts:

In nearly all European countries, while the 12-hour clock may still be used in daily speech, you practically never see it in writing. Where there is an official standard, it calls for the 24-hour time format. But even in Britain (and in Ireland), you can see the 24-hour clock used in timetables, weather reports, in science, and in the military – and of course on the Internet. One may safely assume that there will no serious comprehension problems.

Conversely, changing English texts to reflect the 12-hour clock makes not only for untidy typography but also for potential confusion among all readers, not just those who are not used to seeing things like “12:00 pm” in print. (Incidentally, is that noon or midnight? Even educated native speakers of English are not sure on this issue.) If your schedule says 5:30 pm and the clock on the wall shows 17:20, can you still make it? That is easier to find out if you stay within one system – for the same reason, street names are usually left untranslated.*

The home page has the word Triablog superimposed on images of eight of their ‘summer offices’ abroad. In the ADÜ-Nord Infoblatt 5/2011 (under Publikationen at www.adue-nord.de) there is an article by Per and Thea describing how they combined work and holidays abroad in their summer office by moving everything abroad – to San Francisco, to Sydney, to Oxford, to Stockholm – every year since 1997, and they give suggestions on how to do this.

Happy reading!