- One minute read - 23 words

I learned today that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is « La servante écarlate » in French, which provokes a lot of thoughts about translation.

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Sometimes I don’t realize how ridiculous a phrase in English is until I’ve heard its literal translation into French. The first time I heard Bugs Bunny’s catchphrase as « quoi de neuf, docteur ? », it felt like my world was being turned upside down.

TIL that Star Trek’s “warp speed” is translated as the vastly inferior “distortion” in French and that at least one French news outlet has therefore adopted the translation “Operation Lightning Speed” for the U.S. vaccine effort.

It’s amazing how much French I’m learning translating students’ tweets to English for a research project. Language is so rich, and limiting it to 280 characters arguably makes it more so.

I hear Italian PM Giuseppe Conte’s name fairly often on Francophone radio, but I nearly always hear it first as José Piquanté and then fix it in post.

Ça fait plusieurs mois que je fais (presque) tout sur mon smartphone en français, mais aujourd’hui, je me suis demandé pour la première fois si je préfère être tutoyé ou vouvoyé par une machine.

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