DiCE: Diccionario de Colocaciones del Español

A useful online resource for translators and students of the Spanish language:


DiCE: Diccionario de Colocaciones del Español

Three technical manuals for translators

Three books I highly recommend to translators interested in improving their technical skills:

• Software for translators, in general
  The Translator's Tool Box: A Computer Primer for Translators, Version 12
  by Jost Zetsche.
  A wide ranging introduction to a number of different software programs used by translators, written by a veritable guru of translation tools.


• memoQ
  New beginnings with MemoQ
  by Kevin Lossner and Cátea Caleço Murta.
  A good and thorough tutorial on memoQ, written by a real expert on the program.


• SDL Trados Studio
  SDL Trados Studio 2015 - The Manual
  by Mats Linder.
  Mats has been writing an independent manual for Studio since version 2011 of the program. An absolute must for all users of the Studio.

Linguee now available for iPad and iPhone

The well-known online bilingual dictionary Linguee has launched a completely new free dictionary app for the iPhone and iPad. With this new app, there are more words and phrases available than ever before, also offline. A further highlight is the modern user interface, which sets Linguee apart from previous dictionary apps. Linguee is fully integrated with iOS 9: you can also look up translations in other apps. Further information about this new concept can be found in the attached press release. 

You can download and try out the new app here.

Translation 101: Starting Out As A Translator

The number of handbooks aimed at beginning or more seasoned translators is growing. A recent addition is Translation 101: Starting Out as a Translator, by Petro Dudi.

I haven't had the time to read the whole book yet, but it should prove useful, especially to beginning translators.

If you are interested in the eBook alone, probably the cheapest price is through Amazon (or another webstore, like Lulu) - but if you want an unlocked version of the book, in three different formats (pdf, eBook and Mobi), and three additional spreadsheet tools, then go through the author's own website.

Unhelpful help

I've often criticized SDL for writing very opaque documentation, and I have occasionally said Kilgray's help files are more useful.

That is not always true:

Either Kilgray is saying that to create your first memoQ project you have to enter some text in the help system, or they forgot to write that text themselves.

The most likely explanation is that this is an obsolete section title that should not have been included in the help system, of course - it does not appear in the online help. It does look funny, though, and could stump a beginning translator.

More about translation at the Hugo Awards

In addition to the Hugo for the best novel, a translated work also won the award for the best novelette: “The Day the World Turned Upside Down”, by Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translated by Lia Belt (Lightspeed, 04-2014).

And since neither of the other two fiction awards had a winner this year, that means translations won in all the fiction categories in which an award was given. Congratulations to the authors, and to their translators!

For the first time ever, a translated novel wins the Hugo Award

"The Three Body Problem" has won the 2015 Hugo Award for best novel.

This is the first time that the prize has been given to a translated work. Congratulations to Cixin Liu, the novel's author, and to Ken Liu, its translator. Congratulations also to the publisher, for doing the right thing and prominently displaying the translator's name alongside the author's, on the cover of the book:

Quick Tips - IFTTT

Quick tip: a simple way to simplify many repetitive tasks is to use IFTTT (if this then that)... e.g. to speed up creating quick blog posts.

Quick Tips - Personal translation manual

Use a program like Info Select, One Note, Cinta Notes, Evernote or similar to create your own personal translation manual: a document (or collection of documents) where you keep all permanent notes and instructions - such as instructions on how to invoice a certain customer, customer’s preferences as regards formatting, etc.

At least one translator in Italy is happy with her job

We translators are often a grumpy lot, ready to complain about many things.

It's refreshing to see someone who admits that "Working as a translator in Italy is the best job I’ve ever had"

(from the Irish times).