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 […]
Jarring German: How “Badisch” Defies the National Stereotype
The German language has long-suffered a reputation for its harsh-sounding gutturals and short vowel sounds — an extension of the curt and efficient national stereotype. However, on a recent trip to Constance, South West Germany, I was pleased to discover a pocket of Baden-Württemberg where this preconception could not be further from the truth. I […]
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.
