Questions tagged [translation]
Questions about changing work from one language to another.
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Is it standard practice to use a computerised "find and replace" when localising a book for another market?
I was recently reading my UK edition of the book Spells by Aprilynne Pike, and was most amused to come across the word "occutrousers":
But I am safe there, as are its other occutrousers.
I ...
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How to format translated dialogue
I'm currently working on a novel. One of the characters speaks Italian mainly, but because the rest of the novel is in English, I would like to have the translation in there as well. Would it be ...
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Translating analogies in a 100 year old fairy tale
I am having a hard time translating analogies and descriptions in a fairy tale written a century ago. My fear is today's children will not understand the analogy at all or misunderstand it, and as ...
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I need help translating military terms from a foreign language [closed]
I am translating a World War II memoir from Hungarian to English. I keep running into certain words which I understand perfectly, but have a hard time finding a proper translation. Can you guys help ...
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Alternative words for genitalia
I am editing a piece of writing for my English-speaking friends from a rough translation. I need softer words to replace "vagina", "penis", "breasts" etc. I have used ...
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How should I include foreign language into my story if the main character/s is/are multilingual
I am writing a story in English and my main character is bilingual and of a different culture. The characters and narrator uses common words in the familiar language (e.g. Spanish).
Do I need to ...
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To what extent do territorial print rights preclude online-publication rights?
A US literary journal would like to publish online my new English translation of dead author É's poem, written originally in French.
The poem has been translated before, and is in fact in print in a ...
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How should an anonymous translator be credited?
Alice and Bob join my translating project as volunteers (no money). However, Alice wants to stay anonymous.
My questions:
Is it necessary to indicate that there is an anonymous translator? I think it ...
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When writing for narration should I use a phrase in its native language, or translate it?
I'm writing a script in which I need to use a Spanish phrase historically used by a group of people to refer to themselves. The phrase is "Los Americanos Olvidados" or "The Forgotten ...
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How to correctly show a translation of a foreign word?
My current project requires a lot of translation work, where the main character is slowly piecing together a language. I'm assuming that the best way to show the foreign language is with italics. What ...
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What do you call a person with a master's degree?
I'm from Sri Lanka. and I'm trying to translate a Leaving Certificate. The Principal of this specific school has a master's degree, and in Sri Lanka we give the degree holder the honor of addressing ...
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Translate or keep terms with diverse meanings?
I struggle with a passage in a text that I gave in three translations. In one, the original word is kept, but as it's ancient Greek and I don't speak Greek I had to look it up. In the other two ...
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Korean sensitivity reading for a modern fantasy world
I've been working on a YA/adult contemporary fantasy novel for a while and I had some questions about sensitivity reading.
The world featured in the novel is entirely new but it's inspired by ours. ...
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When writing a piece that will be published in multiple languages, are there any concessions a writer should make in tone, word choice, or style?
The piece in question aims to be accessible, informal, and conversational. A bit of slang strikes the right tone to my American ear. Will it come off alright to other English speakers? Will ...
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Can I query a book in two countries simultaneously?
Can I send a query to agents in non-English speaking country and translated version to agents in English country at the same time? I assume I have to inform them about this upfront. How it will affect ...
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How do you translate intentional language errors?
I am watching and translating TV shows to practice certain languages.
I was watching a tv show where the main character speaks English but occassionally make mistakes. For example, "That person ...
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APA - Citing foreign language texts
I have a written response that involves several sources from foreign languages (namely Latin and Italian, with the paper being written in English). How would I quote and reference these sources? For ...
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How to use foreign words and provide translations in a novel?
I am writing novel where the main character has small conversations in a non-English language. This would really pull the reader into the environment.
When and how often should I provide translations?
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How does authorship and copyright work in translation?
I am a freelance translator, and once received a request from a client saying that they were supposed to translate a chapter of a book, but had to outsource this task as it was difficult.
I declined ...
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George Orwell died over 70 years ago: how does this affect the copyright of translations of his works?
From what I understand, since George Orwell died (21 Jan. 1950) slightly over 70 years ago now, his books are now in the public domain under UK copyright law:
Type of work
Written, dramatic, ...
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Translation as a Master’s lthesis
Hi I am on final semester of my Master’s programme in Islamic Finance and my supervisor suggested me to translate one of his book from Arabic to English as my thesis. I wonder does translation counts ...
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Foreign names with complex pronunciations in an English translation
I couldn't find an answer from the SE archives, so here goes. I'm doing a rough translation of a published novel of mine into English (from a Nordic language), and I'm left scratching my head about ...
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How much should I pay the copyright holder for the right to translate a book and sell copies?
Suppose I'm a local publisher. If I want to translate a book, print it and sell translated copies, how much should I propose to pay to the copyright holder? Is there some acceptable percentage of book ...
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Translating a song from other non-alphabet languages and counting syllables?
You know when writing translations of other songs, you need to know the number of syllables on each line, but the question is how do I do that? Are there good tools on the Internet that does this? I ...
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Publishing in multiple languages
I wrote a book in Spanish. I translated the book to English, French, Arabic and Italian. I want to publish the book in these five languages simultaneously but there are some problems.
I live in Spain;...
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How to write Arabic in dialogue for an English piece?
I have a character who is a Syrian refugee to Canada. His first language is Arabic, but he's lived in Canada long enough that he's learned English and uses this as his primary spoken language. On ...
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How should we plan for translations' space needs when designing diagrams that require text?
Our documentation set includes some diagrams where text is integral and can't be handled in callouts, like flowcharts and entity relationship diagrams. Our documentation is translated, so these ...
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How can we make images with (necessary) text more translatable mechanically?
Our documentation set includes some diagrams, such as entity relationship diagrams and flowcharts, where text is integral and cannot reasonably be handled in callouts. Our documentation is translated ...
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English words in a non-english sci-fi novel
In the modern world, english is a well-estabilished technical and scientific language. Some terms have become so commonly used that they are accepted in my native tongue (words like "computer", "PC", "...
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Translation of a Translation
I'm working on my undergraduate thesis in German Studies (I'm in the US), and the paper is written in German using MLA. There's a quote that I would like to use that was originally in German, but I am ...
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When translating slang heavy text is my slang translator a co-translator?
Can one be a co-translator of a book, if he does not know the language that the book is translated into? made me realize I have a very similar question.
I was translating an extremely slang heavy ...
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Can one be a co-translator of a book, if he does not know the language that the book is translated into?
I am translating a religious book from language A to language B and have hired a student worker to help me. He is a native speaker of language A but does not speak language B at all. What I ask him to ...
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Famous mistranslations - correct them?
Often enough works of literature, particularly old classics, receive renewed translations. Sometimes, the older translation might contain mistakes. And sometimes, the work being an old classic, the ...
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Translating a rendering in Greek of a word/term/name in a different language into English
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
So I was reading this article on Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias, wondering how the author came up with the name.
It basically says that "Ozymandias" is a ...
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How much does translating a novel cost?
I've read that writers and editors are often paid on a per-word basis. Then I did a search about the cost of translating a literary work into a different language and I've found varying information. ...
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Showing the transition of language comprehension change
This is a followup question to What language shall they sing in?
I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English with time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. My ...
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Do British publishers change US English spelling to British English spelling?
I have read the Red Rising trilogy as paperbacks published by Del Rey, a US publisher. (I bought these books while in the US.)
Now being based in Europe, I want to starting buying the follow-up ...
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Translating non-English lyrics to English
I am wondering what are some guidelines when translating the lyrics of a song to another language, because lyrics depend a lot on musicality (rhymes, syllables), it's very hard to maintain the same ...
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Can you get a work translated into simple modern English published?
I am wondering if you could translate a book from Shakespeare to simple modern English and have it published somehow. As far as I know, you can translate non-English books and have them published, but ...
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What language shall they sing in?
I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English. I have time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. None of the kids speak anything but English (aside from a few ...
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Reversing title and subtitle in foreign edition
I am publishing a book with an American publisher. My contract allows me to make a separate contract with one particular foreign publisher for a translation in his language. That foreign publisher ...
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Is it plagiarism to use Google Translate?
This may be a very very stupid question but I need to ask it. I have written my dissertation in my mother tongue first, then began to translate it as I will submit it in English. While doing so I used ...
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Does the 'writing-style' change when book gets translated into another language?
I am studying the writing style of Leo Tolstoy by reading an English translation of Anna Karenina.
As a general rule, do translations affect the original style? In what ways?
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Describing the face and physiological responses in different languages and peoples
The English language evolves from the English people, and the English people live way up there, away from the equator. So, it is no wonder that the English language will reflect this.
He was a tall, ...
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Is it confusing for English speakers to see mixed tenses in narration?
I translate fanfiction stories from Russian into English as a hobby and I'm a bit confused about tenses. In Russian, it's normal to mix past and present tenses in generally past narration, but I ...
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The use of footnotes to translate foreign words in a novel
I'm writing a fantasy novel and one of my characters speaks in English, but sometimes utters single words in an ancient dead language, and I don't want to abusively use that language.
For example:
...
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Footnotes for Translation purposes
I am writing a novel that includes occasional words or phrases in another language. If I use a footnote to provide a loose translation of the word and that same word appears once or twice more on the ...
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Using the grammatically correct way or the casual way to express the same idea in another language?
In casual conversation, it is perfectly fine to end a sentence with a preposition.
How many job applications did you apply to?
The grammatically correct way is supposed to be:
To how many job ...
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How to indicate that the source language is gender-neutral?
The source language in question is Standard Chinese. It is a gender-neutral language. One big thing that English speakers complain about English is the gendered pronoun, namely the third person ...
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How to describe a mythological creature that English has no vocabulary for?
The term is 妖精, which can be translated into English as "fairy", "elf", "goblin". As noted, the Japanese literature uses 妖精 to describe the European fairy. The English translation of 白骨精 in 西游记 (...
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