Marcello Napolitano

Site of the Week - July 12, 2004

multilingual.ch

The web site of Tanya Harvey Ciampi is a very good source of information on techniques that translators can use on the Internet to do terminology searches. On the site you will find a page that lets you search directly both the Google engine and the Altavista engine for glossaries, parallel text and abbreviations. There is also a good summary of the "best practices" techniques you can use to search effectively in those search engines.

On the site you can also find information on the wwwsift mailing list, a list for translators dedicated to sites that have parallel text in multiple languages. This is similar to the Glosspost mailing list but it more focused, and has a much smaller volume of messages and a lot fewer members.

One thing I like about this site is that it is a great example of an effective web site for a freelance translator. It has all the information you need about her in multiple languages, including a resume and contact information. But it also has resources that are valuable to other translators. This makes people return to the site and builds name recognition for the translator. And sharing your knowledge is a great way to give something back to the translator community.

Site of the Week - July 5, 2004

The Resource page on the web site of this translation agency has a wealth of information and links on translation and localization. Among other papers, you will find an introduction to Trados for beginner users, tips for localization of Macromedia Flash files, and an article on localization into double byte asian languages. Well worth a visit.

Site of the Week - June 28, 2004

One of the best sites for terminology searches for European languages. Eurodicautom is the multilingual term bank for the European Commission. It covers a broad spectrum of human knowledge, but is particularly rich in technical and specialised terminology (agriculture, telecommunications, transport, legislation, finance) related to EU policy.

Because EU policy and legislation cover such a wide spectrum of activities, this site can be useful for any technical translation. It is fast and reasonably accurate. It is important to verify that the translations suggested areused in the real world checking against the Internet using Google or other search engines. And when the site is down, this can cause withdrawal symptoms in translators all over the world who have come to rely on Eurodicautom for terminology searches.

Site of the Week - June 21, 2004

multilingual.ch

The web site of Tanya Harvey Ciampi is a very good source of information on techniques that translators can use on the Internet to do terminology searches. On the site you will find a page that lets you search directly both the Google engine and the Altavista engine for glossaries, parallel text and abbreviations. There is also a good summary of the "best practices" techniques you can use to search effectively in those search engines.

On the site you can also find information on the wwwsift mailing list, a list for translators dedicated to sites that have parallel text in multiple languages. This is similar to the Glosspost mailing list but it more focused, and has a much smaller volume of messages and a lot fewer members.

One thing I like about this site is that it is a great example of an effective web site for a freelance translator. It has all the information you need about her in multiple languages, including a resume and contact information. But it also has resources that are valuable to other translators. This makes people return to the site and builds name recognition for the translator. And sharing your knowledge is a great way to give something back to the translator community.

Site of the Week - June 14, 2004

Langit

I am sure you are an ATA member as well as member of the ILD. If not find our here how to become an ILD member. And after you do, make sure you sign up for the ILD mailing list.

Translator maling lists are great for those times when you are stuck because of a term in a translation, they let you tap the collective knowledge of hundreds of your colleagues. And they can provide some level of human interaction for someone like us who does most of the translation project alone in fromt of a keyboard.

Langit is THE mailing list for Italian translators. Most of its members are in Italy which means they normally have a great command of Italian terminology in all fields. And not just Italian. In my three years on the list I have seen messages on the correct spelling of the Mayan word Xocolatl (the root of the word chocolate) and a discussion of the Etruscan origin of the name of the Italian wine Chianti.

For a list that is not moderated, Langit is incredibly well organized. There are 60-80 messages a day, and hardly any that are not relevant to translation. There is some level of discussion of matters that are relevant only to translators living in Italy, but overall not too much.

if you can handle the volume of messages, I would highly recommend that you subscribe to the Langit mailing list.

Site of the Week - June 7, 2004

Free online general IT monolingual and IT-EN dictionaries

You will need to login to this site to get to the content, but the site is free and it has a lot of useful information.

For starters, a complete EN<>IT dictionary — probably the collegiate Hazon Garzanti, not the unabridged version— and a monolingual IT dictionary. But you can also find information on English and Italian regular and irregular verbs, a Thesaurus (IT only), false friends and pronunciation of some "tricky" words (both of these EN only).

An great site to have open if you are translating and you have an always-on Internet connection.

And more great sites>>