Blog

Happy International Translation Day (for yesterday). I know I’m probably biased, but language is our crowning achievement as a species. Language is the basis of understanding, we use it for cooperation, artistic expression and taking the piss out of our friends. So,...

Monster Books is getting its Spring 2018 catalogue ready, so I’ve been grappling with front covers over the last few days. Like ice skating, eating porridge and shopping for new trousers, it’s an activity I think I should enjoy but, actually, I don’t. I love going to...

We (family, dog, ancient Landrover, me) drove up to Edinburgh from Norfolk yesterday evening and have 24 hours at the Festival. It’s a stunning morning, the air feels scoured. From our apartment on the top floor of a Georgian block I can see right down to the...

I went to see Dunkirk at the weekend, which got me thinking about Brexit (obviously). A combination of bucket cola and spitfires meant I left the cinema feeling ready to fight the federalists on the beaches, the landing grounds etc. … plus I needed a pee quite...

You’ve had translations done before, you know how the system works – more or less – so you are aware translation is charged by volume (number of words, most commonly) and prices vary according to complexity, lead times and choice of language (very broadly). This all...

Send us your undiscovered classics ... Walking around the spring book fairs, it struck me (and not for the first time) just how many books that aren’t in English are published every year. Piles of titles with engaging covers fill shelves and tables in the...

So, Nordic IPR 2017 … PTI (Patent Translations International) has been translating patents for over 18 years; prior to that we were translating patents (and all manner of patent-related material) as Aktuel Translations since, well … since I was a nipper. In fact, the...

There are a lot of double standards being run up political flagpoles these days and I think it is high time the perpetrators were called out. The most current are those relating to the future of the UK: May seems to be relaxed about a hard Brexit but admonishes the...

Shortly after I started school, the head teacher called in my mother to inform her I was hyperactive and therefore required special measures to stop me bouncing off the ceiling if I was asked to sit still and shut up for more than three and a half minutes. Drugs were...

The Quarto Diversity Awards for Children’s Writers got into second gear last week with a first press release and now we’ve got a logo by the talented Toma Checov (see above). This year’s sponsorship is a bit special (see below): not only are we supporting something I...

I love making decisions: they are PROGRESS + HOPE = EXPECTATION and I’ve always suspected they come with their own safety net: make enough and they tend to cancel each other out eventually – just like placing hundreds of each-way bets. I’ve taken pride, throughout my...

So, The Bennett Group turned 25 on Sunday and I find myself at the helm of an operation that has members of staff younger than the company itself. I think this fact, more than turning 50 in 18 months, is guaranteed to make me feel old. I was going to list ten things I...

I went to this 2-day event in Olympia, partly because I had been asked to give a talk about ways to maximise your investment in translation (namely, turn it into a profit-making exercise, not a cost to be borne between gritted teeth) and partly because I wanted to get...

I hate starting anything with a caveat, but here I am doing just that: this article is really just for people who do not buy a lot of translation and would like an overview of the process. As a consequence, it might seem a bit simplistic to some but will...

We arrived back from our travels to find our perfectly flat wooden flooring in France had gone rogue: it now undulated like waves in a small harbour. After previous incidents that I would call ‘learning experiences’ but H talks about as national catastrophes on a par...

We (meaning the children and I) like to listen to SkyRock on French radio in the morning - it’s the audio equivalent of eating Frazzles: the latter for not being real bacon, the former not ‘proper’ radio, but both very enjoyable nonetheless. In the space of 20 minutes...

Have you ever wondered about the spread of languages amongst internet users? No, me neither. Well, not really, that is, until I came across some statistics from internetworldstats.com. At first glance, I was not in the least surprised by the data and I very...

There is probably not a translator on the planet who did not feel dismayed at the Brexit decision. We are programmed for cultural inclusiveness and this felt like a decision to turn our backs on all this in Britain. At 5.45 that morning I stared at the same spot...

Thinking about it, translation now seems to be a cycle, rather than just a linear process of going from Language A to Language B. This is a good thing, as it shows the market is becoming more sophisticated and discerning. Here's my take on it (feel free to add,...