Banana Peels to Trip up the Translator
Translated by Tom Moore 1 © Paulo Rónai’s text by Cora Tausz Rónai and Laura Tausz Rónai – Rights granted by Solombra Books. Paulo Rónai (1907-1992) was an eminent Brazilian translator, professor, and writer. He was the author of several books, including ‘Como Aprendi o Português e Outras Aventuras‘ and ‘A Tradução Vivida‘. Adapted from […]
The Multitudinous Peeves of a Professional Translator – Part 1:
Languages are like big gelatinous monsters that grow, absorb and morph into weird shapes, and it’s the translator’s job to make sense of wobbly language matter and try to reconcile it with the wobbly language matter of another species, a fun activity, for the most part: it’s still rife with stuff that consistently makes the […]
Language party
The way I see it, French is a bit like the person who organises really sophisticated parties. ‘We put the passé subjonctif là, et the passé simple là…then there’s room for the wine in the middle.’ It’s not an interesting party. Swiss French is in the corner, trying to explain that he isn’t actually French, […]
Could A Language Change Families?
If any language in the world could have become something different, it would have been English, the language that seems to beat up others in an alley.
