marina: Here (we) fix angels' broken wings - in Hebrew (hebrew - broken wings)
[personal profile] marina
Hi!

This is kind of an odd question, but I figure this might be a good place to ask? I didn't see anything against this kind of post in the rules but if it's inappropriate I apologize and I'll remove it.

Does anyone know about rates for simultaneous translation? It's the sort of thing that depends on a lot of variables, I know, so it's difficult to find rates online.

I got a call today from a friend of the family asking me to escort her niece (from the UK) tomorrow to see a graphologist (who speaks only Hebrew) and act as her translator, here in Israel. The appointment will last an hour and I'd be getting there by car (about 40 minutes drive) and have to pay for parking (5-10$). The graphologist is charging about 200-250$ an hour, if that influences anything, and the nature of the meeting will be him analyzing her handwriting and then having a kind of therapy session with her.

I was basically told to say how much she owed me once it was done and the niece (20 years old) would pay me. The friend-of-the-family was very insistent and clear that this wasn't a favor but a job, so I should treat it as such.

So, any suggestions for how much one should charge for an hour of that kind of translation? Obviously prices would vary depending on country and such, but even a rough estimate would sure help since I've never heard of pricing for this sort of thing.

Thank you!
3cb: (Default)
[personal profile] 3cb
Right, I shall finally kick this off with a scene from the Simpsons episode "Trilogy of Error", which actually inspired me to create this very community. Of course, the Simpsons are a treasure trove of sheer infinite idioms and plays on words that would deprive any translator of their sleep for months, but this has got to be one of my all-time favourites:


A spinning wheel of fireworks flies into Dr. Nick's surgery through an open window and lands on a gas cylinder. Nick dismisses his patient's fears as the cylinder is marked "inflammable", followed by his astonished remark "'Inflammable' means 'flammable'? What a country!"

Now I suppose it does work in quite a few languages (I'm thinking French, Spanish, and presumably Italian, although I cannot be sure about any one of them. Can anyone confirm this assumption?), but there is no German translation of the word "inflammable" with a negative prefix. The German dubbing literally translates as "'not flammable' means 'flammable'". Just one of many jokes lost on large parts of the German audience.

Any other languages that are not equipped to get this punch line across? Or, more interestingly, is there a dubbed or subtitled version in such a language which features a complete revision of the original text to achieve an equally funny punch line?

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Lost In Translation

July 2010

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