Blog Posts

Category: Language and Culture

Paths to Professional Translation: Interview with Amanda Williams

Our translation department and our language blog, Beyond Words, often receive questions from students and individuals interested in becoming professional translators. In the past, we’ve written articles and gathered resources about existing translation programs, scholarships, and general advice for prospective...

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Professional Translation Services Protect the Safety and Confidentiality of Your Information

With the recent Sony hack making the news, it’s hard not to wonder about the safety and confidentiality of information we move across the web. As the manager of ALTA Language Services’ translation department, I interact with clients ranging from...

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How to Translate Company Slogans without Landing on a “Top 10 Worst” List

We’ve all had a good laugh reading translations gone disastrously wrong. Warning signs, disclaimers, and company slogans seem to be particularly susceptible to hilarious results. Because they often involve a play on words or a reference to culture-specific concepts, corporate...

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Etymology of Clothing (From Shoes to Coats)

Not only does every September bring with it New York Fashion Week, but the month often marks a transition in the way we dress. As the season changes and we tuck away our summer clothes in favor of fall wear,...

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That’s When the Dame Walked In: The Language of Film Noir

Shadowy figures dart around corners and disappear into the fog. Hard-boiled detectives, commissioned by untrustworthy dames in expensive furs, toss cigarettes on the rain-slicked street and skulk into the night. Film noir is a genre of bad guys and worse...

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Don’t Go Trusting Me Too Much, Kid: The Language of Westerns

Every year brings with it an eagerly anticipated summer movie season. Whether or not you personally enjoy 2014’s crop of action, superhero, comedy, and horror films, some may one day form part of their particular genre’s canon. Caught in the...

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Low-Hanging Buzzwords: The Etymology of 3 Corporate Favorites

Is your company pushing the envelope to create disruptive innovations outside the box? Have you considered how scalable your department’s synergy really is? Can your sales reps proactively leverage their resources to snatch up the lowest-hanging fruit? And is that...

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What Can Artificial Languages Tell Us About the Way Our Brains Learn and Process Language?

As intriguingly varied as world languages are, linguists agree that they share certain structural factors that broach continents and cultures. For decades, the roots of this phenomenon have been debated and explored; a study out of the University of Rochester...

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The Origins of 10 Interjections

Many of us remember the delightful Schoolhouse Rock video in which a sick little boy, a coy lady, and a jeering crowd yell out a plethora of interjections set to a catchy tune. Interjections are some of the most fun...

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40 Business Acronyms and Business Abbreviations You Should Know

These days, we don’t always have the time to use full words or speak in complete sentences. The advent of text-speak and internet lingo has conditioned many of us to seek out the most efficient routes of communication. While far...

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Useful Words We’ve Forgotten from Math Class

Mathematics has a language all its own – a rich tapestry of systems interconnected with ironclad logic. Linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics have shared insights for centuries – Sir Isaac Newton, for example, composed a hefty treatise in 1687 entitled Mathematical...

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Haute Culture Books: Bringing Untranslated Classics to English Readers

For as many texts that have been translated into English, scores more have not enjoyed the wider readership that the English language provides. Haute Culture aims to change that with a line of international books that have never before been...

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