All You Need Is Liebe: The Beatles’ German Translator
The eccentric Berlin singer Klaus Beyer has made it his life’s work to re-record the collected works of the Beatles in German. Now, with the release of his version of “The White Album,” he’s finished. He plans to tackle John Lennon next. It took The Beatles a little more than seven years to record and release [...]
Click here to continue readingNorthants Police Spend £1.2m on Interpreters in Three Years
Police in Northamptonshire have spent £1.2 million on foreign interpreters in the past three years. Wootton Hall bosses have revealed the force is having to spend around £400,000 a year on employing a vast array of foreign language speakers to help officers interview increasing numbers of criminals, as well as witnesses, from countries across Europe, [...]
Click here to continue readingMan City’s Spanish and Italian Translators
Argentina are playing Nigeria in the final of the World Youth Championship and the score is 1-1, the Nigerians having equalised after Lionel Messi had opened the scoring with a penalty he had won himself. On 57 minutes a 17-year-old Sergio Agüero comes off the bench and, with 15 minutes left, he drops a shoulder [...]
Click here to continue readingTranslating Mandarin Chinese is Big Business
Jiri Stejskal cannot forget a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign that once hung at the door of the hotel room he stayed in Beijing seven years ago. The back side of the sign read: “Please Disturb”. The words are correct, but it is just not proper English, not in the English language culture, Stejskal, vice-president [...]
Click here to continue readingThe Holy Qu’ran’s French & German Translator
Muhammad Hamidullah, the world famed scholar who knew 24 languages and wrote 170 books in 22 languages, lived in France for about 50 years. His greatest contribution is the translation of the Holy Qur’an into three languages — English, French and German. He was an authority on Islamic and international law, which he taught at [...]
Click here to continue reading40 Exceptional Web Apps for Foreign Language Students
If studying to get a Bachelor of Arts or related degree, learning a second language can be anything from a requirement to a minor. However, learning a foreign language isn’t an easy task and requires lots of effort on a regular basis. But how can the average student squeeze in some extra learning during commutes, [...]
Click here to continue readingHarry Potter’s Next Trick: Speaking Arabic
When Khulud Abu-Homos, a television producer at OSN network in Dubai, decided to dub the Harry Potter movies into Arabic for distribution in the Middle East, she faced a quandary: which Arabic? The Arab world, it turns out, isn’t one world at all. It’s a collection of overlapping worlds that harbor a dizzying array of [...]
Click here to continue readingWhat’s a Redneck German Sound Like?
Translators walk fine line so movies work globally Pixar Animation’s “Cars 2″ went out this summer in 44 different languages. And every country faced the same problem when it came to dubbing the aw-shucks ramblings of one of the movie’s lead characters — the country bumpkin tow truck Mater, voiced in the movie by Larry [...]
Click here to continue readingHow a Ukrainian Refugee Became Germany’s Top Russian Translator
It is not by chance that Vadim Jendreyko’s documentary, “The Woman With the 5 Elephants,” about an 87-year-old Russian-to-German translator, opens with the image of a train crossing a bridge. As the lights from the windows of the moving train flicker through the night, Svetlana Geier’s voice recites: “Dear friend, do you not see that [...]
Click here to continue readingStalin’s Russian Translator and Interpreter Dead at 90
Vladimir Yerofeyev, the personal interpreter of Soviet leader Josef Stalin after World War II, died of a heart attack in Moscow on Monday. He was 90. He will be buried Thursday at Vagankovskoye Cemetery, Interfax said. Leningrad-born Yerofeyev served in the central office of the Soviet Foreign Ministry in the mid-1940s and was an aide to Stalin’s close associate Vyacheslav Molotov from 1949 to 1955. During that time, Yerofeyev [...]
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