List of Nuremberg interpreters? October 1, 2014
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Uncategorized.140 comments
I had an interesting comment today on a post from 2009 entitled Wishing translators and interpreters a Happy International Translation Day. The gentleman heard a BBC Radio 4 broadcast about International Translation Day, googled it, and must have stumbled on my blog. He states that his former father-in-law served as a translator/interpreter at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, but since he refused to talk about his experiences the family is not sure. He asked if a list existed of the Nuremberg interpreters and translators. A bit of googling led me to discover there were six interpreters, twelve translators, nine stenographers for each of the four languages, totaling 108 people. However, I wonder if a list exists. It is definitely an interesting question. If anyone knows of a resource please let me know. Thanks. And I hope you all had a good International Translation Day. I enjoyed a 90-minute massage this afternoon and processed a bushel of Roma tomatoes. I had the day off since the job I am working on this month needs to be re-DTPed. I just love it when umlauts aren’t recognized and “l”s are output as “i”s, don’t you?
Even Microsoft gets it wrong (“Skype Translator”) September 29, 2014
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Uncategorized.5 comments
From the latest ATA News Briefs:
New Translation Technology No Threat to Professional Translators
After 15 years of research, Microsoft has unveiled Skype Translator, a voice translator that will convert speech from one language to another in almost real time. The service—dubbed by the media as the “Star Trek Translator”—will be available for Windows 8 by the end of this year. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella describes the system as a neural network that “learns” from data, much like the human brain. “It’s not,” Nadella says, “just about daisy-chaining speech recognition, machine translation, and speech synthesis.” But according to Andy Way, associate professor of computing at Dublin City University, the hype promises more than can be delivered. Way says, “You’re more likely to have everything else in Star Trek before you ever get a universal translator.” Philipp Koehn, chair of the Machine Translation School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, agrees with Way. “Automatic spoken translation is a particular problem because you’re working with two imperfect technologies tied together—speech recognition and translation,” he says. Despite their imperfections, industry analysts say Skype Translator and other automated translation programs are here to stay. They believe globalization has driven the demand for translation beyond the availability of translators. European Commission Language Officer Angelique Petrits says that her organization translates two-million pages into 24 different languages every year. “The organization wouldn’t be able to fulfill its mission without up-to-date translation technology.” Petrits does not view machine translation as a replacement for human translators. “Technology is a tool that helps dealing with the scarce resources of translators by speeding up their work and allowing them to concentrate on the essentials. It also contributes to the consistency of terminology, crucial in EU texts,” Petrits says. Way, Koehn, and Petrits all insist that technology is not about to replace translators. As Way observes, “There is just so much translation to be done—people have estimated that only around five percent of what needs to be translated actually is—that good translators will never be out of a job.”
From “Tech Is Removing Language Barriers—but Will Jobs Be Lost in Translation?”
Guardian (United Kingdom) (09/19/14) Williams, Martin
Well, considering they keep talking about “spoken translation” I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Come on, engineers, if you are programming it you should AT LEAST know the difference between interpreting and translation. Wow.
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday November 20, 2013
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Happy National Punctuation Day! September 24, 2012
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According to Chase’s Calendar of Events, the faux holiday celebrates “the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis.”
Tell the U.S. government to keep their hands off the Internet January 18, 2012
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Sign the petition here
I don’t have a plan – and that’s okay too December 20, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Uncategorized.10 comments
A lot of my colleagues are posting about end-of-the-year reviews and marketing and business plans. I don’t have a plan, and I’m okay with that. Everyone always talks about having goals and working toward those goals. My only goal is to consistently deliver quality translations to my clients and keep them happy. If you are like me and don’t have a plan and don’t have any desire to draw up a plan, that’s okay. I look at my bottom line at the end of the year compared to the year before and if it is about the same or a little more it’s been a good year. This year my income is about the same as it was the year before, so I’m completely content.
Tonight begins Chanukah, and the Christmas season is also upon us. I have a fun day lined up with my nieces tomorrow and am spending as much time with family and friends as I can. I hope you all are blessed enough to do the same. I wish you all a happy holiday season.
Living without technology February 17, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Tools, Uncategorized.8 comments
While sitting in the Relaxation Room at Massage Envy yesterday, I had time to relax and flip through a magazine. The January 2009 issue of Cleveland Magazine looked interesting, and an article called The Big Disconnect caught my eye. The author, Andy Netzel, explained how he decided to give up every piece of technology not in common use before his birthday in 1980 – that meant no “cell phone, cable television, mp3 player, satellite radio, computer, e-mail, Internet, call waiting, caller ID, ATM and debit card, air conditioning in my car, remote controls of any type — even Post-it notes.”
It was an interesting article, but I certainly don’t think I could do it. His description of writing a 5,500 word article on a typewriter made me shudder. I can’t even imagine having to retype the copy on a manual typewriter after proofreading and editing (three times!) – let alone his description of trying to track down a typewriter ribbon.
And don’t even get me started on how much I/we rely on the Internet, e-mail and cell phones for our clients to contact us. My clients know to call my cell if I don’t respond quickly to their e-mailed job inquiries.
The article really made me appreciate our technological advances and glad that I began my translation career just as Windows 3.11 and Windows 95 hit the scene. Those of you who were translators before then have my utmost respect!
Favorite tools: CompanionLink November 13, 2008
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I have been searching for a tool to sync my Google Calendar with my PalmPilot. I had been trying to get GooSync to work for several months, but eventually gave up. In my preparation for the ATA conference I did a Google search for a good tool and discovered CompanionLink. It couldn’t have been easier to use.
CompanionLink is a great software application that is painless to install and configure for syncing a Google Calendar with calendars from applications like Outlook, Blackberry, Groupwise, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, Treo 700 via Hotsync. In just a few minutes I had synced my Google Calendar with my PalmPilot Desktop and then synced my PalmPilot Desktop with my Palm. I had to tweak the settings to not sync my contacts since I don’t use that feature in Gmail, but that was easy enough to do and now everything is working absolutely perfectly.
If you are looking for an easy solution to sync your Google Calendar with your handheld device or with PIM or CRM software like Microsoft Outlook, you should check it out. I still have two days left on my evaluation and am intending on buying it then. It’s only $29.95, which I think will be money well-spent!
TGIF: No Twitter for Hitler October 9, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Uncategorized.3 comments
Whether some of you will find this funny may be debatable. I actually found this to be pretty funny myself. I suspect some of the more staid Germans and German speakers might not appreciate it as much. Do yourselves a favor and don’t listen to the German, just read the subtitles.
This clip is from a German movie about Hitler’s last days called “Der Untergang” (Downfall). In German, he is finding out that Berlin is surrounded, SS Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner (who was supposed to lead a counter attack against the northern pincer of the Soviet assault on Berlin) refused to launch the attack, and the war is basically over (“Der Krieg ist aus“). He then lays into his generals and becomes resigned to his fate.
Not the funniest topic, but on the Internet nothing is sacred. The whole point is that it’s funny because the subtitles match up so well. The fact that most of you won’t understand the actual dialogue makes the subtitles work that much better. I myself am still trying to figure out how Twitter works, so some of this goes over my head. But those of you who are experienced Twitterers (Amybeth) will love it.
Oktoberfest die Zweite (part 2) October 2, 2008
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I attended a German Oktoberfest cooking class last night at Viking Cooking School. It was a hands-on cooking class, and we made soft pretzels (enjoyed with a spicy Obatzda cheese spread) , wild mushroom and spinach strudel (which was AMAZING – phyllo dough isn’t as difficult to work with as I thought…), grilled bratwursts with caramelized onions, and Black Forest cupcakes. After we finished cooking we enjoyed the fruits of our labor with a nice glass of wine. I’m still full this morning!
It seems the Americans are embracing the Oktoberfest more and more every year. In addition to numerous local Oktoberfests, there are features in the cooking sections of magazines and newspapers and lots of other cultural references to the big beer fest. Here is Blondie’s contribution to the Oktoberfest:
Musings from an overworked translator 