Musings from an overworked translator

TGIF: The font conference May 2, 2014

TGIF: What Language Sounds Like to Foreigners March 14, 2014

Aka “Girl Speaks Gibberish With Perfect Accents To Show What Languages Sound Like To Foreigners.” I don’t know if I’m more impressed with her grasp of languages and accents or with the gibberish she managed to come up with.

Why spell check sometimes isn’t enough January 3, 2014

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

Eye halve a spelling checker.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker’s Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.

TGIF: Cat helps baby with English-Spanish lesson December 14, 2012

This is actually pretty cute.

TGIF: Speech 101 prank December 7, 2012

Jose Barrientos has posted a series of prank speeches from his Speech 101 class. He was bored and decided to do his first speech with an accent. He spent the entire semester talking in a Mexican accent and revealed during the final that his accent was fake. He fooled just about everyone in the class. It’s pretty funny. Enjoy!

Speech 1 – he brings in a pinata:

Speech 2 – he talks about his admiration of David Hasselhoff:

Speech 3 was about Cinco de Mayo, but he doesn’t appear to have posted that one on Youtube.

It’s a trap! November 2, 2012

If you receive an e-mail called “LinkedIn new messages” do not click on the link(s). It’s linked to a malicious website. This applies to any e-mail from an unknown source. I must have not drank enough coffee yet today, because I absentmindedly clicked on one of its links (not even realizing that it wasn’t sent to the e-mail I use for LinkedIn!). Luckily my anti-virus protection stopped it in its tracks. I just knew I had a couple pending messages in LinkedIn, because I had just accepted a colleague’s LinkedIn request (hi, Tom!) about 15 minutes before. So think before you click!

LinkedIn
REMINDERS
Invitation reminders:

From Concepcion Bonds (systems analyst at TCU)

PENDING MESSAGES
There are a total of 4 messages awaiting your response. Go to InBox now.

This message was sent to . Don’t want to receive email notifications? Login to your LinkedIn account to Unsubscribe.
LinkedIn values your privacy. At no time has LinkedIn made your email address available to any other LinkedIn user without your permission. © 2012, LinkedIn Corporation.

This video should explain the blog post title. It’s from my favorite TV show, The Big Bang Theory.

And here’s the original (I like Sheldon’s better):

TGIF: Found in Translation October 12, 2012

If you have not had a chance to look at the video that Jost Zetzsche and Nataly Kelly produced to promote their book, Found in Translation, and celebrate translators and interpreters around the world, take a quick break and watch it. It’ll be 90 seconds that will make you smile.

TGIF: Amusing Volkswagen ad August 24, 2012

This ad for Volkswagen is currently running on television, and it made me chuckle. Oh, if only it were that easy to learn a language fluently…

Sorry for the lack of blog posts. I’ve been overworked and also haven’t felt inspired to blog about anything recently.

Something lighter to start the weekend off right… July 20, 2012

And now for something completely different than the upsetting news article… I hope you enjoy reading 25 handy words that simply don’t exist in English from the blog So Good, So Good. My favorite was Backpfeifengesicht – A face badly in need of a fist. I can honestly say I hadn’t ever heard this one in the 27 years I’ve been learning and speaking German. And for what it’s worth, we do have a word for Bakku-shan in English. It’s ‘butterface’. And thus ends today’s English lesson… LOL!

Is there a word in your language you feel that should be included on the list? Please share it with us in the comments!

TGIF: A Wicked Deception June 22, 2012

I posted this video back in July 22, 2008, but it deserves some fresh attention. It’s just too funny to languish in the archives.

This film by Matt Sloan capitalizes on Babelfish for its dialog. It translates from English into French and German, then back into English. It was filmed on location in Trouville, France. Enjoy!

“I want to neglect the remainder of my life with you!”