Category Archives: weblogs

LexMonitor

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LexMonitor is a sort of US blawg portal, like JuraBlogs on steroids. As reported by Kevin O’Keefe in Real Lawyers Have Blogs, it has just ‘soft launched’ (seems to mean launched in a beta version).

LexMonitor is a free daily review of law blogs and journals highlighting prominent legal discussion as well as the lawyers and other professionals participating in this conversation.

Pulling from nearly 2,000 sources and 5,000 authors, LexMonitor will hopefully shine a light on the ongoing conversation among thought leaders in the law for the benefit of the legal profession and the public at large.

Like putting in the sidewalks on a college campus after watching where the students leave paths, we’ll refine the site and add features based on how it’s used and the feedback we receive from you.

Clicking around, I found a translation company blog on Translation for Lawyers – here.

Language blogs/Sprachblogs

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eduFire has an entry on The Top 21 Language Bloggers on the Web (via languagehat).

This is about learning languages and presenting a multitude of languages, rather than about linguistics, so Language Log isn’t there, for example.

It’s also a bit of a mystery that Tim Ferriss’s blog made the list on account of one sole post: How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour (Plus: A Favor).

My favourite tip on language learning from that post is that you get translations in a given language of sentences like ‘The apple is red’ and ‘It is John’s apple’, work out how many obstacles the language presents in comparison with your own (including pronunciation), and then if there are too many obstacles, you just don’t learn the language. This would have saved me a long time with Turkish. But on the other hand, it presupposes elements like subject, object, verb and noun cases (why Ferriss puts off learning Russian!).

People love discussing how to learn languages. Probably the root of machine translation is here.

BILD on law/BILD-BGB

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BILDblog corrects some legal advice given in BILD Zeitung, quoted as follows:

Laut Artikel 195 des Bundesgesetzbuches (BGB) können Sie Fehler von Handwerkern bis zu drei Jahre nach der Dienstleistung geltend machen.

Apart from the fact that the usual period for a Werkvertrag (loosely translated as contract for work and services) is two years, the misquotation of a Paragraf (section) of the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch reminds me of a howler contained in a book of standard English translations of German legal texts that is sold by a translator in Germany, where at least at one time EGBGB (Einführungsgesetz zum BGB – Introductory Act to the Civil Code) was rendered as European Civil Code (we’re still waiting for that).

(Via der winkelschreiber)

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog

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Under the heading Somer is y-going out, some wise advice for all of us:

STOP YOUR SCLAUNDRES OF BRITNEY!

By the blood and nayles and bones of Our Lord, how swyving dare any man to make japeryes of Britney de Speres? Considereth, ye churles, how many sorwes hath y-flocked Britney-ward. Her aunt hath perisshed, and eek she hath tasted the wo that is in mariage, and she hath two swyving enfauntes for the which she must care. Ywis, her hosbond she founde to be nat but an dronklewe man, and a foule adulterer, and nowe the custodie of the children is in the proces of the courtes of the realme.

Machine translation for weblogs / Maschinelle Übersetzung für Weblogs

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At Real Lawyers Have Blogs, Kevin O’Keefe asks ‘Is automatic translation for law blogs useful?‘ and comes up with the answer ‘No’.

He refers to Des Walsh’s entry ‘Is Automatic Translation for Business Blogs Useful?‘.

I would just let people use their own automatic translation system, on Google for example, to get the gist. I think using the little flags on your site invites trouble. I remember jurabilis had this once and it translated Alexander Hartmann as Alexander hard man. Well, I suppose it could have been worse.

Thanks to Ed. at Blawg Review.