Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account)

If there are any speakers of a tote-mome Yiddish (preferably with a dialect from near the historical podolian-bessarabian border, but any locale is ok) on here who see this post and would be okay answering linguistic questions about their Yiddish dialect for a project I am doing, please reach out.

To future-proof my book contract (better safe than sorry), I added an AI clause that says AI tools of any kind cannot be used in the review or preparation of my book (also no genAI art can be used for cover, etc) Very grateful to @slstalter.bsky.social for example from her most recent contract.

A Jewish book event in NYC this coming Tuesday, featuring the author (Diego Moldes) and the book's English translator (me)! The event will be partly in English and partly in Spanish. Tickets are free but limited: www.eventbrite.com/e/talk-when-... #Jewish #JewishBooks #JewishHistory

#langsky

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.

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 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

This is such a funny element to the Kirk eulogizing: they can’t describe him the way they’re describing him *and* show clips of anything he actually said or did

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

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.

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

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.

#booksky

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. 😃