Categories: translation
Date: 28 May 2010 17:07:57
Recently, I have been involved with two translations that could be said to be rather colourful.
The first required an actual colour scheme. (Mine is not to ask why... I just followed the instructions...I am a translating machine....)
All foreign words and names had to be red (lots) , all abbreviations and acronyms yellow, (and there were lots and lots!), all my queries for discussion with the proofreader turquoise, and mistakes in the original text pink. It looked more like a rainbow than a translation.
The second was dealing with a subject area that could be termed "sensitive". I was very careful and politically correct in my choice of words to avoid any offence. I wasn't sure, however, whether to laugh or cry when I found that an acronym used for an organisation had a rather unfortunate meaning in English (I warned the client, but it was too late - this was the registered name) and a website had a URL which didn't quite spell an offensive English word - but certainly sounds like one if you were to say it out loud.
Oh whoops.