A discussion about translation services, translators, and translation software

Hello Matt! I am a translator who just recently started her own blog, and I stumbled upon your site while searching for other translators' blogs. After reading your site and your credentials I can't help but to feel a little intimidated. Goodness, as a freelance translator, I am supposed to compete against *this*?! On the other hand, it does give me hope that yes, it IS possible to be a successful translator.

Hi Matt,

As a new translation company, I am always keen to hear the insights of the translator community and your blog certainly strikes a chord in our particular niche.

Live Translation is aiming to 'fight back' against the Machine Translation services of Babel Fish et al by providing PROFESSIONAL translation in MINUTES. These sites (inaccurately) translate over 300 million words per day. Mainly short paragraphs and sentences. Most of this is SMS type stuff but a good amount is text which should be translated professionally. Obviously some people haven't got the time or the budget to go the traditional translation route (freelancer or agency) so they opt for Babel!

If you think that Live Translation is worthy of a mention or even a link from your blog this would be really appreciated. If you would allow us to reference your blog on our site and perhaps use some of the content (credited of course) this would also be appreciated.

Very Best Regards

Phillip Perks
Commercial Director
www.LiveTranslation.com

Maven Note: You are hereby mentioned. Yours is a worthy effort. Certainly you may quote me and point others this way, to enliven the discussion.

Matt How do I contact you directly for a translation?
Please. I have a very simple request. My family used 2 family names in ancient Spain, one in Spanish & one in Hebrew. I am interested in knowing what the Spanish name means. It was ca Porta, with a little curl under the c. I recall that porta means to carry, don't recall what the ca does to that. Our most illustrious family "grandfather" was called "Bonastruc" in Spanish & I have no idea what that means & don't find any clue to it in any dictionary.
thanks
Yaakov B

Hello Matt, I came across this site (or blog, whatever) quite accidentally. Read some of the topics that personally found interesting, and I must say you have quite a background. Unfortunately, the translators nowadays are becoming less and less important to the communities, mostly because of all the machine translation or CAT that has developed in the recent years. People rarely have the time to stop and think about quality. Most of them are only considered about the budget and the saving of time. I am a Certified translator my self. Got, I suppose, a Master’s Degree in Translation from English and German to my native language – Macedonian, but I must apologetically say that German isn’t my strongest side. I just wanted to say, that I really appreciate your work and hope to benefit and contribute to this site and your splendid work :) Best regards Zoki