Following idea by Judy and Dagmar Jenner of Translation times to write post which will include links to language blogs I follow and encouraged by post from Lisa Carter of Intralingowho did the same thing, I’ve decided to join this (we may call it) action. So, in this post I will write about blogs I love and read regularly and shortly explain why that is the case. Of course, you can find links to all of these blogs, so you can visit them and see for yourself what I’m talking about. In the very beginning I would like to point out that although as sometimes I work as freelance translator, in my heart I’m linguist interested in field od applied linguistics, so I follow both linguistics and translation blogs. Because of that, I’ve decided to list 5 blogs for each category separately, so readers can easily find what they’re interested in. I hope you’ll find this post useful and discover some new great language sites.
TRANSLATION BLOGS
1. Doc Byrne’s Translation Miscellany This is blog by Dr Jody Byrne, Ireland translator mainly interested in technical and scientific translation. He doesn’t write on regular basis, but his posts are amusing and often concern language and translation in media. Also, there are some useful posts on interesting experiences with potential clients.
2. Blogging Translator Philippa Hammond translate from French, Spanish and Portuguese into English and she’s specialized in law, EU matters and communication. She often give advices on how to find new clients and all sort of marketing tips and tricks for translators. Readers can also find posts regarding CAT tools and hardware problems that I think can be very useful.
3. Naked Translations This is completely bilingual (in English and French) blog by Céline Graciet. She calls herself “word geek” and her posts are always interesting. On this blog you can find original solutions for translation of some potential “awkward ” French words.
4. Translation Guy This is my favorite translation blog. Ken Clark knows how to clearly say important things in short form. He posts regularly and his tweets usually contain links to other interesting sites. Be sure not to miss this one!
5. Language Mystery Victor Dewsbery is German-English translator exploring (as the name of his blog says) the mystery of language. He explains connections between culture and language in a very simple way. This blog can be especially useful for translator rookies because here they can find tips on how to specialize in some translation fields.
LINGUISTICS BLOGS
1. Linguistics Commentary Benjamin Bruening is linguist from Delaware who says that he observes the language from the view of syntactician. He also writes about linguistics publications, and there are some useful posts on morphology issues and transformation analysis. His post are always extensive and detailed.
2. Literal minded Neil Whitman is versatile linguist who writes about everyday language problems. It can be said that he comes from bloggers family, because his brother and father also have their own blogs. This is a place where you can find very amusing anecdotes on communication misunderstandings. Readers can also find list of linguist blogs Neil recommends divided by frequency of updating, which I think can be very useful if you’re looking for source of language information on the Internet.
3. Pain in the English This is not ordinary blog, it’s more like place for linguistics discussions. Here readers can post all type of language questions (from etymology and punctuation to language style). It’s good to know that authors are reviewing all answers in order to filter wrong and inadequate information. Also, authors sometimes play with their readers asking questions from gray areas of English for which you wouldn’t find answers in dictionaries and other reference books,
4. The Linguist on Language Steve Kaufman is charming gentleman (I don’t know him, it’s just my virtual impression based on his posts and podcasts) who has his own method of learning new languages. He often participate in language conferences so you can find a number of posts about connection between cultural heritage and language in various countries. Recently he published a book Linguist on Language which is basically collection of his best posts from the past few years. He also have podcasts on youtube as lingosteve that I visit regularly.
5. A Walk in the Words Laura Payne is writing posts for people who love having fun with words and language. This blog is a place to share interesting linguistics observations regarding sound, meaning and structure. Here you can find serious posts regarding syntax tree and funny commentaries on odd commercial’s language.
So here is my list of blogs I love and follow. I tried not to repeat blogs that Judy and Dagmar Jenner and Lisa Carter mentioned. If you’re aware of any other blog that we all didn’t mention in our posts, please let us know or even better, write a post about them and join our attempt to band together “language network”.
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