by Iolante | 10 Jun, 2016 | Translators' column
The last weekend edition of the Guardian (4 June 2016) “The knives are out” featured an article about artificial intelligence. Leo Benedictus discusses how artificial intelligence has improved in recent years. It looks into four areas where artificial... Read More by Iolante | 2 Jun, 2016 | Translators' column
Dear… I often translate marketing texts. Sometimes clients send me documents with nothing but “Dear…” in the address line at the beginning of a letter or email. Leaving the name blank for later insertion. In theory this should be easy to translate, in reality, it’s... Read More by Iolante | 28 Apr, 2016 | Translators' column
Why low prices to “break into the market” are not a good idea Are you in the process of starting up as a freelance translator? Are you under pressure to pay the bills? Then for you there is a big temptation underprice your services and sell yourself well... Read More by Iolante | 14 Mar, 2016 | Translators' column
Talk to any translator and they are likely to agree wholeheartedly that translation prices are often too low to be sustainable for someone based in the UK. But why? There are hundreds of reasons for the low value that is put on translation jobs. Let’s just have... Read More by Iolante | 4 Feb, 2016 | Translators' column
Recently a client asked me to edit a previously supplied translation. After a short email exchange, it became clear that Google Translate had produced the translation submitted for proofreading. No human translator had been engaged. I am a professional translator who... Read More by Iolante | 27 Jan, 2016 | Translators' column
I know you spammers have to make a living somehow, but does that have to involve me? We have a contact form on our website. The form tries to keep spammers out as much as possible. Yet still they come. No matter what trick we use to keep you lot out, you keep finding... Read More by Iolante | 26 Jan, 2016 | Translators' column
We all think we know what proofreading is For first-class quality control, when someone writes an article, a proofreader goes through the document. Proofreaders make sure the text is free from typing errors and grammatical mistakes. They should also check that there... Read More by Iolante | 19 Dec, 2015 | Translators' column
It’s a numbers game with Google.mum I have ranted before about Google not being willing to spit out search results for terms like “Iolante”, on the basis that it considers the spelling incorrect. (See my earlier blog post on... Read More by Iolante | 17 Nov, 2015 | Translators' column
Struggling to get apostrophes right. An epidemic? I am one of those annoying people who likes a language to be spoken ‘just so’. As an ‘alien’ in this green and pleasant land I have strived hard for the past 28 years to perfect my English.... Read More by Iolante | 3 Nov, 2015 | Translators' column
Receiving spam is one of the most annoying side effects of having an email address The best way to deal with spam is to avoid getting spam in the first place. That is not always an easy or obvious task. However, if you receive spam, the first question you need to ask... Read More