Interesting Links
Here you’ll find several links, interesting for the translator —dictionaries and reference websites often used by a professional linguistic— and for you, in case you’d like to check a small terminology question. Plus we have included websites with myths and jokes about our profession, to relax a little bit. Enjoy them!
- Real Academia Española
The Spanish dictionary per excellence.
- Wikipedia
The free encyclopaedia. Great reference material for the translator. (In 10 languages).
- Translation Journal
Journal for translators, by translators, about translators and translation.
- Acronym Finder
The web's largest searchable dictionary of abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms.
- Cambridge Dictionary
Free online dictionaries from Cambridge University Press.
- World Wide Words
More than 1600 pages on the origins, history, evolution and idiosyncrasies of the English language worldwide
- Why are translators so necessary?
Several funny (yet real) reasons to answer this question. Also in Portuguese.
Last but not least…
Top Ten Misconceptions about Translation and Translators:
by Caitilin Walsh. Reprinted from the August 1994 ATA Chronicle.
10. Anybody with two years of high school language (or a foreign-tongued grandmother) can translate.
9. A good translator doesn't need a dictionary.
8. There's no difference between translation and interpretation.
7. Translators don't mind working nights and weekends at no extra charge.
6. Translators don't need to understand what they're translating.
5. A good translator doesn't need proofing or editing.
4. Becoming a translator is an easy way to get rich quick.
3. Translation is just typing in a foreign language.
2. A translator costs $49.95 at Radio Shack and runs on two 'C' batteries.
And the #1 misconception about translation and translators:
1. That marketing copy that took a team of 20 people two months to put together can be translated overnight by one person and still retain the same impact as the original.