Calpundit, on June 4, had an entry on the Paul Wolfowitz quote the Guardian got wrong. The entry is headed Translation Woes. I know that Wolfowitz was saying ‘we had to fight Saddam because there is so much oil in Iraq that he can keep his régime going for ever, whereas in North Korea we expect the economy to break down sooner or later’.

But what is new to me is this story that the German paper Die Welt had a translation of Wolfowitz which misled The Guardian. The entry – and above all the comments – discuss whether there was a translation mistake by Die Welt or by The Guardian. The original, German and Guardian quotes are given. Continue reading →

Calpundit, on June 4, had an entry on the Paul Wolfowitz quote the Guardian got wrong. The entry is headed Translation Woes. I know that Wolfowitz was saying ‘we had to fight Saddam because there is so much oil in Iraq that he can keep his régime going for ever, whereas in North Korea we expect the economy to break down sooner or later’.

But what is new to me is this story that the German paper Die Welt had a translation of Wolfowitz which misled The Guardian. The entry – and above all the comments – discuss whether there was a translation mistake by Die Welt or by The Guardian. The original, German and Guardian quotes are given. Continue reading →

The Enigmatic Mermaid gives a detailed summary of a talk by Anthony Pym (online publications on his website) on Risk Analysis in the Translation Process.

Pym says you always need more information than what is in the translation. He likes parallel texts. Enig gives a link to a Swiss site that is set up to search for parallel texts in Google. It turns out to be the site of Tanya Harvey Ciampi, who has a Yahoo group called wwwsift, all about finding materials for translators on the Web. I found her original ideas and files more helpful than the list, which is more or less silent except when she occasionally posts a URL. She has some links that look good too.

The Enigmatic Mermaid gives a detailed summary of a talk by Anthony Pym (online publications on his website) on Risk Analysis in the Translation Process.

Pym says you always need more information than what is in the translation. He likes parallel texts. Enig gives a link to a Swiss site that is set up to search for parallel texts in Google. It turns out to be the site of Tanya Harvey Ciampi, who has a Yahoo group called wwwsift, all about finding materials for translators on the Web. I found her original ideas and files more helpful than the list, which is more or less silent except when she occasionally posts a URL. She has some links that look good too.

The Lord Chancellor has not quite gone. Lord Falconer has become Lord chancellor but will be the last to hold the post, which is to disappear shortly. Reading various British papers online, it appears that the Cabinet reshuffle was hasty because Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, suddenly resigned. Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, was intending to resign anyway. So plans in the pipeline were brought forward. According to the Telegraph Online (registration required, costs nothing),

bq. Tory peers accused the Government of announcing a constitutional upheaval “worked out on the back of an envelope”. The Earl of Onslow condemned it as “playing Pooh sticks with 800 years of British history”. Continue reading →

The Lord Chancellor has not quite gone. Lord Falconer has become Lord chancellor but will be the last to hold the post, which is to disappear shortly. Reading various British papers online, it appears that the Cabinet reshuffle was hasty because Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, suddenly resigned. Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, was intending to resign anyway. So plans in the pipeline were brought forward. According to the Telegraph Online (registration required, costs nothing),

bq. Tory peers accused the Government of announcing a constitutional upheaval “worked out on the back of an envelope”. The Earl of Onslow condemned it as “playing Pooh sticks with 800 years of British history”. Continue reading →