By Beth Smith
When I learned that Corinne McKay was going to set up a translation skills class rather than a business-oriented class, I was intrigued. How would it be set up? Who would the instructors be? Then when I saw the details, I knew immediately that I had to try it, even though the first time around with a new course risks some bumps in the road and hiccups. I don’t know about how it looked from the instructor side, but from my point of view, it was hiccup-free.
Review of Trilingual Swiss Law Dictionary
French-German-English
German-French-English
Thomas L. West III, JD
Review by Anne Goff
Mr. West’s new dictionary is the first trilingual dictionary focused solely on Swiss legal terms. This dictionary includes Swiss civil law, criminal law, constitutional law, debt collection, bankruptcy, and corporate law. It is divided into two parts:
The translation world has been abuzz about the film Arrival since it was released on November 11, 2016. Translators have been intrigued, and some would go so far as to say flattered, by the elevated position a language expert is given in a Hollywood blockbuster. On top of that, the starring translator is tasked with saving the planet!
Delphine de Vigan’s Rien ne s’oppose à la nuit (Nothing Holds Back The Night) begins with its heartbreaking end: the suicide of her mother, Lucile. With suspense set aside, de Vigan instead sets to the task of “writing her mother” by uncovering and unraveling her life in a story that is part memoir and part novel.
La Nuit Sacrée, by Tahar Ben Jelloun, is not for the faint of heart. The story begins, “Ce qui importe c’est la vérité,” and the author maintains this principle from beginning to end. Drawing from his experience as a professor of philosophy, the Moroccan writer takes a direct look at the issue of gender inequality from all directions. Naturally, themes of violence, jealousy, love, and hate surface quickly.
Have you ever had a lover? Have you ever been a lover? Or, perhaps a better question, is there someone who is the love(r) of your life? Have you ever lived or dreamed a love so beautiful, so real, that it could not have possibly existed? Are you haunted by memories of what was or what could have been? Some nights, maybe only in your dreams, does that become your reality? Do you wonder what love really is? What it looks like? How it smells? How it feels? Reading L’Amant (The Lover) by Marguerite Duras brings up these questions and more. Written in 1984 and winner of the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize, The Lover skyrocketed the already well-known Duras to international acclaim. Its theme of forbidden but powerful love continues to resonate with readers today.
The week before we left Paris, my husband and I went to Boulinier on boulevard Saint-Michel and bought several boxes’ worth of two-euro paperbacks from the sale bins. We knew that finding books in French wasn’t going to be easy in the US, and as voracious readers, we stocked up like soldiers preparing for a siege and shipped them all tarif livres to my parents’ house in Oregon. We chose books at random: some classics, some we thought we’d heard of, maybe, and others that just had good titles or intriguing cover art. Now, nine years later, we’re still working our way through that literary plunder. One of my favorite recent discoveries from the pile is a best-selling 1978 memoir by Henri Vincenot called La billebaude.
Je regarde regulièrement « La grande librairie », l’émission de François Busnel sur TV5 Monde. Ce journaliste invite des écrivains qui viennent de sortir un livre, de gagner le Prix Goncourt, etc. J’avais donc déjà vu Joël Dicker parler de son dernier roman, qui m’avait semblé intéressant.
SOAP Notes: Getting Down and Dirty with Medical Translation. A Review of Erin M. Lyons’ presentation given at the 56th American Translators Association conference on November 5, 2015, in Miami, FL.
At the 56th American Translators Association conference held in November 2015, in Miami, FL, Jennifer Bader of CLASS Translations, a securities attorney admitted to the bar in Paris (inactive), New York, and Maryland who now works as a freelance translator, presented a session entitled “Translating French Initial Public Offerings and Other Securities Offerings.” Who could have asked for a more appropriate speaker to clarify the ins and outs of the financial markets?!