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25.8.08

Top-secret professional translating trick of the trade:

if you're translating something, and you come upon a technical word or a noun which you don't understand, or can't remember what is in the language you're translating into, go to the Wikipedia page for that word (if it's English, such a page almost invariably exists) and check the list of available languages for that article. It's in the bottom left corner. If the language you're translating into is there, you will most likely either have your word, or the article will contain the word you're looking for.

4 Comments:

Blogger Mikkel said...

But then you'd have to put your "I was smart before Wikipedia" t-shirt back in the closet.

August 26, 2008 8:35 am  
Blogger mrtn said...

Wow, they have a t-shirt? No wait - are you kidding? I'll have to check Wikipedia.

August 26, 2008 9:23 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And I thought I was the only one to use this trick on a daily basis. This, and Google's 'define' function. How do people get on without them?

August 28, 2008 8:20 pm  
Blogger mrtn said...

I'm pretty sure that fewer and fewer people do. It's only a matter of time before everyone knows, and us translators will be out of a job.

August 29, 2008 12:41 pm  

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