Category Archives: Translation industry

With the epic backdrop of geopolitical turmoil and environmental urgency, it may seem awkward to dwell on our minute successes. What with the barbaric invasion of Ukraine? What with the courageous revolt of the Iranian people in general and of Iranian women in particular? What about the denial of the right to education for Afghan …

“Walking at a Brisk Pace, by cApStAn’s co-founder Steve Dept  “

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager “CODA”, the winner of the 2022 Oscar for “Best picture”, is one of a number of recent films about the Deaf community (1) (2). It tells the story of a hearing daughter in a Deaf family (“CODA” stands for “ Child Of Deaf Adults”), who helps …

“The surge of sign languages on screen is a sign of better representation for the Deaf community. Or is it?”

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager Foreign-born workers may face language barriers that compromise their ability to understand training materials, signage, safety and hazard alerts as well as verbal instructions, and can potentially increase their risk of on-the-job injury. Languages also have different dialects, and workforces can include people with different literacy …

“Adequate communication is essential to guarantee health and safety at work: this poses an additional challenge when you have a multilingual workforce”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Never before has translation been as important as during the coronavirus pandemic. Understanding relevant medical terms is vital at all times but all the more so during a global health crisis, where compliance to containment measures is critical in order to protect individuals and the …

“COVIDLatino, a project to disseminate critical, timely, culturally sensitive, entertaining and relatable COVID-19 information for minority communities”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The story The protagonist, Kristin, is a 24-year old Swedish immigrant in Scotland. She lives with her Brazilian-born Scottish boyfriend Ciaran, whose first language is Portuguese, as he was adopted when he was three years old. They speak English during the first years of their …

““How we are translated”, a novel which explores the “in-between-ness” of living in several languages at the same time”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The work of a translator often involves much more than rendering a text from one language to another. Translators can find themselves acting as literary scouts, agents and publicists. Many spend time looking out for new authors and books and suggesting them to publishers. They …

“The release of the English edition of “The Books of Jacob” revives the debate around the recognition of translators’ work”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The book “Dancing on ropes. Translators at the balance of history”, written by Anna Aslanyan, is based on the author’s experience as a Russian-English translator and service interpreter. Aslanyan grew up in Moscow and lives in London. She writes for a number of publications, including …

““Dancing on Ropes. Translators at the balance of history” by Anna Aslanyan: a review”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Michał Rusinek is a Polish lecturer in literary theory, rhetoric, and creative writing at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków as well as the translator of many books for children and adults. He writes essays, limericks, short stories, radio plays, television scripts, and song lyrics. He …

“An interesting reflection on the untranslatability of what makes us unique as a nation, a society and a culture, by acclaimed Polish author and translator Michał Rusinek”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Language really matters when it comes to scientific communication and education. How can you have conversations about science when the scientific terms you wish to talk about do not exist in your own language? Sibusiso Biyela is a science communicator and journalist from South Africa, …

“In South Africa a new AI-based project offers the opportunity for a large corpus of scientific terms to be translated into six indigenous languages”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Google Cloud has recently announced the general availability of Document Translation, a new feature of Translation API Advanced, that lets you translate documents in formats such as Docx, PPTx, XLSx, and PDF while preserving document formatting. This includes right-to-left language support for PDFs, preservation of …

“New Google Cloud service allows you to translate documents while preserving the formatting”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The collateral damage of letting English become the exclusive lingua franca is that papers published in languages other than English often go unread. On the flip side, scientific knowledge in English may not be able to contribute to local decisions in places where the language …

“Letting English become the lingua franca in science means that studies in other languages often go unread”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The last time film subtitles made quite a buzz was in 2020, when South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s film “Parasite” won the Oscar for Best Picture. Parasite’s win in this category came as a surprise and sparked lively discussions as the film was in its …

“Subtitles rarely make headlines but those of the South Korean series “Squid Game” are breaking the internet”