Jost Oliver Zetzsche

I heard an interview with authors Kelly and Zetzsche on NPR. They were smart and engaging, so I read their book. Unfortunately, I found it thin: it's primarily a collection of anecdotes and case studies illustrating the importance of translation in the modern world. While many of the stories are mildly interesting—who knew that many think IKEA's practice of naming high-end items after Swedish places and lowly items (doormats, toilet seats) after Danish places is viewed by many as an obvious way of tweaking the Danes?—if you come to the book already understanding that translation is important and makes an impact, the repeated attempts to persuade you of that will quickly become wearying. I'd recommend this book to people who do not work with words for a living and who have not traveled much in non-English-speaking countries: the issues the book discusses may be new to you.… (más)

An interesting book about translating and translators. Translating is vital to our world culture and economy. Some compnies spend a fair amount of money making sure that their marketing words are correctly interpreted in the another language, so that their products sell, and no disasters in misinterpretation come about along the way. Both authors have a lot of stories to tell, and many are either fun to read or they illuminate things we don't often think about (idioms can't always be translated well). The last chapter spends time on where the world is vis-a-vis computer translations, and how big websites like Twitter and Wikipedia deal with translation.… (más)