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Translation into Portuguese can raise many difficulties for any translator who is a non native speaker of Portuguese or even for native speakers who have been away from Portugal for a long time. Let’s look at some subtleties that could easily go unnoticed. The Portuguese word «embalagem», which means «packaging» in English, could easily be […]
Hello World! Have you heard the song with which Portugal is going to win the next Eurovision Song Contest? It was written by Luísa Sobral and sung by her brother, Salvador Sobral. Everyone is affected by its extraordinary melody, whether they understand the lyrics or not. But we want the whole world to be happy […]
Apart from being the author of the famous A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess was a linguist and a translator. He even invented a prehistoric language for the characters of a film. We found this video where he explains, with great sense of humour, the evolution of the English word “mouse” – admitting to the mystery that […]
Proofreading in English – Letrário’s team advice for writing compass points Lower case for “east”, “west”, “north”, “south”, except when part of a name: “North Korea”, “South Africa”, “West End”. Lower case for vaguer areas such as the American “north-east”, “north-west”, “south-east”, “south-west”. Also lower-case for the adjectives: “midwestern”, “western”, “southern”. The regions of Africa […]
Yes, it’s all true! But… it’s «bridges», not «brigdes». If a good translation is crucial, good proofreading is not less crucial… Especially when you are going to print it on an outdoor.
We found this astonishing Spanish verb («ningunear») in a newspaper recently when we were collecting linguistic data relevant to translation works. Generated from the «ninguno» pronoun, the «ninguenear» verb denotes the linguistic creativity of the Spaniards. It means that someone treats a person as though they were no one, belittling them, not taking them into […]
This expression, well visible on a wall, makes me feel uncomfortable, as I go by, because I sense that it may be warning me that I am the one who is «under fire», reason why I should be careful. Or, it may be that the author of that writing is the one who is in […]
Awarding translations by simply comparing numbers is like buying a pair a trousers and looking only at the price tag. We might end up going to work in some… inconvenient trousers. Naturally, if the translation is meant for internal use only and you have the possibility of committing your own time to proofreading, correcting and […]
