Tag: quality

Smart quote-marks for smart translating

I wrote on 21 July about quote-marks — how to decide whether you should be using curly (smart) or straight quotes and, once you’ve decided,

The language, or the message… Why not both?

I’ve just read an opinion piece on transcreation by Steve Puttock of Schawk, Inc. in the PopSop brand magazine. The article begins: The global marketplace is providing businesses

The king’s speech — and how to translate it

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve had a speech-flavoured working week. Translating a speech is a good opportunity for translators to provide added

The king’s speech (not to mention the queen and the presidents’)

It’s been quite a month for historic speeches in the UK and Ireland, with the speeches by Queen Elizabeth, President McAleese and President Obama during

Take our poll: should new clients test your skills or hire you on trust?

The Institute of Translation and Interpreting’s 25th Anniversary Conference took place in Birmingham on 7-8 May. It was a fantastic event that gave us all

Resolutions for clients

Do our clients make New Year Resolutions? Or, given that as business owners we too are clients (to our accountants, designers, marketing advisers, lawyers, printers…),

Resolutions for small-business owners

If you haven’t got round to making any business resolutions yet for 2011, or are stuck or ideas, here are some belated suggestions. Resolution 1

A translation sin of omission

I wrote a couple of posts, back in August, about the Oxford comma (Oxford commas (1), The Oxford Comma dilemma: a solution? and Oxford commas

Oxford commas (1)

I was puzzled last week to see references on Twitter to the exotic-sounding “Oxford comma”, a new term to me. It turns out (thank you,

Planning a new website? Communicate! (with your translator too)

One of my clients told me recently that their company is re-doing its website. They’re working with web-designers and -developers, copy-writers, graphic designers and search-engine