Happy Thursday to all who are observing Thursday today. 🙃

Authors, remember that you CAN insist on human translation for your foreign-language editions and have it written into your contracts. You can no longer just assume you're going to get a human to work on the book whose every word you wrote with intent.

Honestly, folks... You don't need to platform every horrific, vicious, infantile thing the president of the United States says. Instead, boost the voices of the people he's saying them about. Ignore the angry-toddler tantrums unless they have policy implications.

Video: Using AI to Create Bilingual Glossaries from Reliable Bilingual Documents. I demonstrate this using official pharmaceutical documentation, but you can use this approach in other fields, too. #translation #translators #glossary

I had a wonderful time this past week at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, meeting with publishers and agents and attending great workshops run by the Institut Ramon Llull. As part of the fair, I also gave the closing keynote address at the Mexican Translators Organization (OMT) conference.

My new video: How to translate film scripts in a CAT tool. Is it possible to translate Final Draft® files in the CAT tools that professional translators use? Yes, but it’s complicated... #AVtranslation #translation #translators #CATtools

Hello from the American Literary Translators Association conference in Arizona! Tonight was the annual theater-translation event: "Cold Beers and Cold Readings," including part of my translation of "Women on Radio" by Cristina Clemente. Some people are so good at unrehearsed performances! #ALTA48

Today's grammar lesson...

What better place to work on translating a stage play into English than in the Drama Book Shop in New York? Soaking up the creative energy... #TranslatorsLife #translation #theater #theatre

My ego as a #translator is having an unusually good day. A publisher just referred to me as "the great Steven Capsuto" in a LinkedIn post, and I just read an interview with an author who thanked me for helping him make his book better. 😊 For a profession that usually gets ignored, that's all lovely.

In the past, when I gave lectures based on a book, it was always one I had written and I knew the content inside out. But now, in the US, I'm the public face of a 600-page book written by someone else, which I translated into English. #TranslatorsLife #translation #PublicSpeaking

In the days after Charlie Kirk's death, half the internet sounds like that awful guy at the office who keeps going up to women coworkers and saying, "What are you talking about? Bob's a great guy! *I've* never heard him harass anyone!" #CreepyAssholes

I'm now translating a wonderful new realist-drama play from Catalonia for a client: "Hands" by Llàtzer Garcia is a two-hander about a husband and wife, about recovery from mental illness, and about being caught between personal and professional needs. #theater #theatre #teatre #translation #català

Just got advance copies of a book I translated into English: "When Einstein Met Kafka: Jewish Contributions to the Modern World" by the Spanish cultural historian @diegomoldes.bsky.social. The English edition comes out next week from Mandel Vilar Press. 😀 #translation #JewishBooks #JewishHistory

Live your life such that everyone doesn’t spend ten solid years planning the rager they’re going to throw when you die.

I wake up troubled by deep political concerns, like... The week Margaret Thatcher died, the song "Ding, Dong! The Witch is Dead!" charted in the UK. What song will chart in the US if the rumors about Trump are true?

I'm excited about next week's Evolving Linguist Conference (Sept. 6, New Brunswick, NJ) organized by the Delaware Valley Translators Association and Rutgers (my alma mater), among others. I'll arrive on 9/5, probably humming On the Banks of the Old Raritan." 😃 #translation #translators #DVTA #NYCT

A lovely expression I wasn't previously familiar with: "Your booing means nothing to me, because I've seen what makes you cheer."

As Lily Tomlin said decades ago: "Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them."

This week's fun mix of translation-into-English projects: two TV scripts, a private client's academic record, and then back to the stage play I've been translating. 😎 #translation #TranslatorsLife

“I've done almost every other kind of translation possible, but literature was out for me because of how much I love books,” Tejima says. “It was an untouchable thing. I was too scared to do it.” ICYMI: At The Japan Times, don't miss this feature on past ALTA mentee Yuki Tejima!

Same here. In the language pairs I translate most often (Spanish-English and Catalan-English), I can work from scratch much faster than I can edit a machine translation. If I had a special " #MTPE rate," it would be higher than my base rate. But instead, I only take #translation gigs.

I really want us to sit and consider that the Department of Justice is using their time and resources to read faculty senate statements that support having a diverse faculty. www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

In 99 degree weather, I'm pretty sure ice cream counts as "health food."

I don't know of this is an aftereffect of lockdown or what, but it seems people are so used to watching entertainment at home that they think it's okay and normal to have extensive conversations with each other at live #theater performances and take out their phones and text their friends. Rude.

RIP Tom Lehrer, truly one of the greatest to ever do it, a satirist beyond compare, a brilliant wordsmith, a cheeky fellow, I loved him and his work beyond reason.

I'm currently reading Joachim Lépine's new book aimed at freelancers and especially at translators: "AI Resilient." I'm not far into it (and so can't say much about the book), but I'm struck by his take on the inadequacy of a lot of translation education...

I just booked my tickets for the American Literary Translators Association conference, which will take place this November in Tucson. I look forward to seeing and learning from the smart, interesting, creative people who attend ALTA! #ALTA48 #translation #LiteraryTranslation #WorldLiterature

Whoever invented televisions that you can't turn off and on without a working TV remote is very naughty and needs to be punished.

In the #translation of #theater scripts, the biggest change I've noticed over the last 15 years is that, unless there's something very culturally specific about a play, many contemporary playwrights now want their scripts adapted so they take place in the country where it's being performed.

An early hi-fi recording of Klezmer music from the 1950s... a heart-thumpingy good track if you hear it with earphones or a good sound system. The lead clarinetist was Sam Musiker, who also played with Gene Krupa's and Glenn Miller's big bands. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngwZ...

I hope Daniel Hahn is right about human literary translators having a future. Also, if you're interested in the process of literary translation (or at least his process, which I have to say is very different from mine), check out his lovely book "Catching Fire: A Translation Diary."

The fundamental problem with this argument is that #AI is being touted as a replacement for a #translator when the user doesn't read the language... even when they're professional genealogists. If you don't read the language, how can you tell if the #translation is wrong? #genealogy

OMG, no one told me that the iconic Ladino singer Sarah Aroeste posted a book-review video about one of my English translations: Ángel Pulido's "Sephardic Jews and the Spanish Language"! I just stumbled across this randomly and damn near swooned. #Sephardic #Ladino #JewishBooks #JewishHistory

Nuevo vídeo en mi canal en español: "Cómo mejorar tu inglés leyendo traducciones 'horrorosas' (y muy graciosas)." www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwJa... #Idiomas #traducción #inglés #FailsDeTraducción #MejorarInglés #AprenderInglés #HumorLingüístico

Immigration court felt like a murderous reality show today. The judge granted two gentlemen asylum hearings in 2029. But it was all a sham—They were abducted by ICE before they left the building. There is more the City & the State must do. We cannot allow the rule of law to be eroded case by case.

It's hard to get bored working as a translator, as long as the work keeps coming in (which it often doesn't). This week, I'm translating corporate registrations from English to Spanish, medical charts from Portuguese to English, and theater dialogue from Catalan to English. 😃

Woohoo! I was just hired to translate these wonderful new plays from Spain: Cristina Clemente's "Women on Radio" and Llàtzer Garcia's "Hands: An Imperfect Love Story." 😃 🎭 Both were written in Catalan and the translations are funded by the Institut Ramon Llull. #theater #WorldTheater #translation

#xl8 #poetrycommunity #poetry #callforsubmissions

Nuevo vídeo en español: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJjT... ¿El Quijote en yídish? Mi visita al Centro del Libro en Yídish (The Yiddish Book Center) #yídish #yidis #ídish #IdiomasAmenazados #CulturaJudía

I now have Spanish and English versions of my new YouTube channel devoted to language geekery and translation. The English version: www.youtube.com/@linguacap Ya lancé la versión en español de mi canal de YouTube dedicado a curiosidades lingüísticas y a la traducción: www.youtube.com/@linguacaps_es

If you love the English translations of authors working in other languages, I recommend you keep track of the translator. Chances are they work across several authors - and they are mostly always linguistic chameleons whose work you will always enjoy.

Hi! New account here! I work as a translator and will be posting about #language and the #translation industry. I've also just launched a YouTube channel on the same topics. Since I happen to be on vacation in Amherst, Mass., at the moment, my first video was shot at the #Yiddish Book Center.