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Showing posts from January, 2023

Lost in an Almost Translation

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  My translation service friends have been in my mind lately. Not sure why, maybe because a recent case required both an Arabic and French document translation.  From time to time I enjoy a chuckle from a funny interpreting experience some years ago. The matter involved an urgent need for spoken Gujarati, and no professional service was immediately available. I asked a local aide society if they could find someone who spoke Gujarati, and they heartily agreed.  When the interpreter arrived he spoke beautiful Gujarati with my client. Small problem: he couldn’t speak a word of English back to me!  Basic lesson: make sure your interpreter is fluent in BOTH languages! Lol!