translation_tips

As we continue to gain more clients from the medical community, a few style notes on how to translate medical files has become necessary. A full style guide has not yet been written. One option is to subscribe to the online style guide of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In the interim, please follow these rules of style: Use the Dragoman Style Guide for Figures. This style guide applies to ALL copy. Use the Dragoman Style Guide […]

General Style for Content Language and Syntax Contractions Quotation Marks Capitalization and Style for Headlines, Headings, and Subheadings Awards, Prizes, and Categories of Awards Titles of Books, Short Stories, Newspapers, Magazines and Journals Titles of Films and so on Academic Writing Sources: AP Stylebook and Dragoman Style General Style for Content The clients determine the final layout and preferences for magazines or journals. If the client does not have an in-house style guide or preferences, follow these rules of style. In all cases, be […]

General Rules An annual report contains a company’s achievements and financial figures and is provided to shareholders, stakeholders and potential investors. The report uses several styles of writing: descriptive, corporate, advertising, financial, and legal. Previous reports are good benchmarks. Research is key to successfully translate an annual report. Search not only on client’s website but also on other related websites for benchmarking purposes. Try to find sources in written in the target language, not translations of local corporations. Internet is […]

Expressing your feelings requires a little more then just using an adjective. Try the following common words, check out their synonyms and improve your word usage in English. Happy Content Every old person, no matter how content they seem, feels that sense of regret. Earl Woods Satisfied Are you satisfied with your working conditions? Delighted Kate Winslet was delighted with Oscar nominations. Pleased We are pleased to extend the term of our agreement. Ecstatic I feel ecstatic every time she […]

Following are some of the most commonly mispronounced words in English. Listen to each word while you are reading on our blog. This exercise will improve your spoken English. For each example try to guess which option is correct: A or B? Share your comments and thoughts with us so that we can provide better recordings for you. If you need personal coaching for your English, we recommend AFFINA, a business language school.  Their website is www.affina.com.tr        dessert A. […]

Simultaneous interpreters need a monitor in the booth to see the presentations better. Some conference rooms are large and typically the interpreting booth is installed in the very end of the seating rows. To make the matter worse, attendants may occasionaly walk pass in front of the booth which disturbs the concentration of interpreters. Please note that simultaneous interpreting requires very sharp reflexes and a congnitive capacity to translate sentences in a matter of seconds. Interpreters need clear and uniterrupted […]

This article was originally produced by V. Lynn Baucom for Dragoman’s in-house training curriculum. Use of indefinite articles A and an are used if the noun can be counted A shareholder identified an embarrassing error in the company’s investor presentation. A or an is used to introduce a noun when it is mentioned for the first time in a piece of writing The is used afterward each time you mention that same noun A member of the Board of Directors […]

Few tastes compare to a wild mushroom soup served at the Lufthansa Senator Lounge, Heathrow Terminal 2. And this time it felt like heaven after an amazing XTM Live London event, cheerful networking, uber intelligent discussions, all celebrating XTM International’s grand achievements. (More below) Terminal 2 is compact yet does not miss a single luxury, such as nimbling caviar & champagne, single malt whisky tasting, or shopping at Harrods. From check-in to your flight it is only a few minutes’ […]

One-third is 1/3 or one out of three. It is singular (one). Two-thirds is 2/3 or two out of three. It is plural (two). Some style guides do not use hypen, Dragoman does.

“It is considered that (…),” “it is probable that (…),” or even worse “it is of utmost importance that (…)” Do we really need these clunky phrases? Dragoman encourages translators to avoid one of the weakest sentence openers: “it is (…) that/to.” By doing so, you will not only eliminate redundancy but also have smooth and creative sentences. Let’s accept, it is a bit lazy to overuse “it is.”   Wordy: It is critical not to enter into arguments with […]

“in light of the fact that,” “with regard to,” “under the provisions of…” These trite phrases often prevent your text to be clear and smooth. Translators are under the impression that legal texts require word-for-word translations. However, Dragoman prefers being loyal to the meaning, not to the cumbersome structure of source sentences. Here are five phrases that you can eliminate to improve your legal language skills: 1. “hereinafter referred to as” Just put the described phrase into parentheses and quotation […]

Copy-editing on Nubuto demands basic knowledge on CAT tools. One of them is the meaning of letters and colors next to each segment. Letters show the status of segments, i.e. untranslated, matched, ICE or N. And colors refer to approved, non-approved and approved via repetitions. How to effectively use Nubuto for copy-editing purposes? Use segment filters to display a groups of segments, i.e.non-translatables   2. Be very careful when selecting & using fuzzy matches from translation memory or within the […]

This long post is a good opportunity for our new colleagues to understand what type of changes are needed for Turkish to English translations. Below example is a good translation. I’ve seen worse ones. Yet still, there is a room for improvement.  Important changes are highlighted in red color.    ID Source Target 2 WORLD’ÜN TARİHÇESİ : after translation:   HISTORY OF WORLD CARD: after correction:   HISTORY OF THE WORLD CARD:   3 Yapı Kredi’nin Türkiye’de “ilk kredili kredi […]

Turkish subtitling community was caught off-guard when Netflix launched its video-on-demand services.  Local video market was already vibrant and soaring, yet Netflix and to a certain extent HBO were the last two bags of straw on the camel’s back. Now, Turkish is spoken by 100 million people. 80 million people live in Turkey and broadband internet penetration rate is close to 95%. Turkish TV shows are crazy popular all the way from Serbia and Greece to Qatar and the Emirates. […]

If you are building a bullet list in English, you also need to build a parallel construction in your bullet list. Now the source text may not always have it. This means you are expect to be a little creative to change the sentence structure. You do not have to delete or omit any part of the message. Check out this example: Incorrect: Our state-of-the-art hotel offers: Unparalleled location Matchless views of the Pacific You can check in anytime Correct: Our […]

American English and British English may have quite odd differences. Learning diferences is spelling and punctuation is hard work and requires a lof of reading and practise. One of these differences is about using punctuation with quotation marks. Here is a comparison. Dragoman translators know that in American English, punctuation goes inside the quotation marks, regardless of whether it is part of the quoted sentence or not, and in British English, punctuation that is not part of the quoted sentence […]

Turkish source texts often end with “vardır, sahiptir, olmaktadır, bulunmaktadır, bulunur” etc. Some translators tend to start their translations with “There is…” which is usually unnecessary. We expect Dragoman translators to not to use “there” as a subject in order to avoid verbosity. The word “there” in the beginning of a sentence, almost always makes our sentences sloppy and wordy. Wordy:     There is a 45 percent likelihood your store will be broken into. Better:      Your store is 45-percent likely to be […]

Auditors are tasked to identify non-conformances and share their findings and observations in a clear and understandble report. Writing an impactful report is a challenge. Translating a poorly written report into English is sometimes a bigger challenge. Converting passive sentence forms to active sentences is an important skill for Turkish to English translators. This skill plays a critical role when translating audit reports. Despite my best efforts to train as many auditors and bankers as possible in the past decade, […]

Turkish lira is losing value agaist major currencies including US dollar and Euro. Which is the correct verb to use when translating into English: Devaluation (because the currency is losing value) or Depreciation? The correct answer is ‘depreciation’. Devaluation happens in fixed currency regimes when a government voluntarily reduces the value of its currency. It is their decision. Depreciation happens in floating currency regimes and Turkey has a floating currency regime. Turkish government does not and cannot declare the value […]

Transcreation is a hot topic and there are different translations of it. Some assume it is only for creative content, while some use this term as a synonym to localization. Others claim that translation is more verbatim, literal and closer to the source text as oppose to transcreation focuses more on the message, meaning and the audience. Old schools argue that all of the above are 50 shades of translation and by definition a good translator is expected to manage […]