Bonus 103: ¡Pos ya está! Translating Because Internet into Spanish with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez

Because Internet, our cohost’s book about internet language, now exists in four additional languages: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Spanish. But these translations are also very much acts of creation, of figuring out which things to translate literally, which to leave in English as it’s used globally, and which to translate figuratively so that the spirit of the original comes across more clearly – all questions that are especially acute when it comes to translating a book that is itself about language.

In this bonus episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about the joys and challenges of translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of Because Internet into Spanish. We talk about why Because Internet was the toughest and also most entertaining book he’s ever translated (for some of the same reasons), from coming up with localized Spanish versions of vintage internet memes to making the silly names of pretend people in the example sentences just as silly in Spanish. We also talk about leaving breadcrumbs for future translators in the original text and the special challenge of translocalizing the title: Arroba Lengua isn’t a literal translation of Because Internet, but it fits similarly into Spanish internet slang.

Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez
Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez on Bluesky
Miguel’s own pop linguistics book in Spanish, ’La (neo)lógica de las lenguas’
You can get Arroba Lengua, the Spanish translation of Because Internet at Piodepagina, Casadellibro, and other places Spanish-language books are sold (note that the ebook edition may be more readily available if you’re outside Europe)
You can also get English, simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean copies of Because Internet here
Lingthusiasm episode ‘How translators approach a text’

Listen to this episode about translating internet slang with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez, linguist and translator of Because Internet into Spanish, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm Episode 65: Knowledge is power, copulas are fun

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The pen is mightier than the sword. Knowledge is power, France is bacon. These, ahem, classic quotes all have something linguistically interesting in common: they’re all formed around a particular use of the verb “be” known as a copula.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about copulas! This is a special name for a way of grammatically linking two concepts together that’s linguistically special in a lot of different languages: sometimes it’s a verb that’s super irregular (like be/is/was in English, Latin, and many other languages), sometimes it’s several verbs (like ser and estar in Iberian and Celtic languages), sometimes it’s a form of marking other words (like in Nahuatl, Auslan, and ASL), and sometimes it’s not even visible or audible at all (like zero copula in Arabic, African American English, and Russian). We also talk about some of the fun things you can do with copulas in English, such as the lexical gap that’s filled by “ain’t”, the news headline null copula, and the oddball philosophical experiment known as E-Prime.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:
We’re doing another online Lingthusiasm liveshow on April 9th (Canada) slash 10th (Australia)! (What time is that for me?) It will be a live Q&A for patrons about a fan fave topic: swearing! We’ll be hosting this session on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server. Become a patron before the event, and it will also be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: tell us about your favourite examples of swearing in various languages and we might include them in the show!

LingComm Grants are back in 2022! These are small grants to help kickstart new projects to communicate linguistics to broader audiences. There will be a $500 Project Grant, and ten Startup Grants of $100 each. Apply here by March 31, 2022 or forward this page to anyone you think might be interested, and if you’d like to help us offer more grants, you can support Lingthusiasm on Patreon or contribute directly. We started these grants because a small amount of seed money would have made a huge difference to us when we were starting out, and we want to help there be more interesting linguistics communication in the world.

If you want to help keep our ongoing lingthusiastic activities going, from the LingComm Grants to regular episodes to fun things like liveshows and Q&As, join us on Patreon! As a reward, you will get over 50 bonus episodes to listen to and access to our Discord server to chat with other language nerds. In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about character encoding! We talk about the massive list of symbols that your phone carries around, how that list (aka Unicode) came into existence, and why it’s still growing a bit every year. Listen here!

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening. To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm advertising-free by supporting our Patreon. Being a patron gives you access to bonus content, our Discord server, and other perks.

Lingthusiasm is on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

Lingthusiasm Episode 60: That’s the kind of episode it’s – clitics

Here’s a completely normal and unremarkable sentence. Let’s imagine we have two different coloured pens, and we’re going to circle the words in red and the affixes, that’s prefixes and suffixes, in blue.

“Later today, I’ll know if I hafta get some prizes for Helen of Troy’s competition, or if it isn’t necessary.”

Some of these are pretty straightforward. “Some”? Word. The -s on “prizes”? Affix. But some of them, “I’ll”, “hafta”, “Helen of Troy’s”, “isn’t”….hmmm.

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about a small bit of language that’s sort of a halfway point between a standalone word and a fully glommed-on affix: the clitic! We talk about why sentences like “That’s the kind of linguist I’m” feel so strange and how on the one hand clitics are a sign of increased efficiency in terms of saying more common words more quickly, but on the other hand they kind of add complication because there are some contexts where the full forms of the words would be fine and yet the clitic doesn’t work, giving you one more thing to keep track of. We also talk about clitics and reduced forms of words in Yolmo, Old English, and Dutch, and how clitic pronouns might be evolving into affixes in French and Spanish.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here.

Announcements:
We’re excited to announce a special offer that we’re running on Patreon that brings you fun things in the mail! Join the Ling-phabet tier or higher by November 3, 2021 (anywhere on earth) and get a sticker pack of FOUR stickers:

Two round “Schwa never stressed” stickers (one floral, one geometric)
One classic square Lingthusiasm logo sticker
One BECAUSE INTERNET bookplate sticker signed by Gretchen, for you to stick inside your copy or anywhere else you like

Plus, if we reach a total of 1400 patrons at any level before November 3, then the sticker pack will also include:

Two mini Lingthusiasm green cutout stickers, one of which is called “bouba” and the other “kiki” — which is which? That’s an experiment you get to run on your friends when you stick them on your phone case, water bottle, laptop, etc.

This special offer is part of the Ling-phabet tier, which also has the ordinary perk of letting patrons sponsor an IPA symbol or other special character and be recognized on the Lingthusiasm website on our “Supporter Wall of Fame” page. You can get your symbol through our ~*~super scientific~*~ Which IPA Character Are You Quiz, or just tell us what your favourite character or other Unicode symbol is. Then you get an image with your name and favourite symbol on it (see samples here!) recognizing you as a supporter, which you can share on social media/print off and use as a bookmark/gaze at in warm satisfaction/etc. Plus, after 3 months at this tier, you get its regular “Lingthusiast” sticker in the mail, so that could be a total of 5 (or 7) stickers and 2 joyous mail occasions for you!

(Patrons at the Phil-ling-thropist tier will get two sticker packs — an extra one to share with a friend or to make sure your next laptop is still sufficiently lingthusiastic — plus the IPA Wall of Fame tile. Patrons at this level also receive a “Lingthusiast” mug after three months at this tier instead of the three month sticker.)

We’re still incredibly appreciative of all levels of support for our completely independent linguistics podcast! Regardless of what tier you’re at, you’ll help contribute to the 1400 patron stretch goal (and any new Phi-ling-thropists will let us reduce this goal by 10 patrons each!). Existing patrons at any of the relevant tiers will still receive sticker packs, and we’ll be in touch to confirm addresses closer to the shipping date.

The bonus episodes will continue to be available at the Ling-thusist tier and above the way they always have, so definitely don’t feel like you have to go for this special offer if you can’t spare the cash, but if you can and you’d like to help cross-subsidize Lingthusiasm for the many people learning about linguistics for free from our main episodes, then we’ve got these new special perks to make it even sweeter!

In this month’s bonus episode, we talk with Emily Gref, a linguist who’s been working at a new language museum called Planet Word since 2018, first on creating content for the museum and, now that it’s open, on analyzing how visitors interact with the exhibits. We talk about what’s in Planet Word (including a library room with secret passage!), Emily’s career journey from academia to publishing to the museum world, and Emily’s passionate defence of pigeons.

Join us on Patreon to listen to this and 53 other bonus episodes. You’ll also get access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can discuss your favourite linguistically interesting fiction with other language nerds!

Here are links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our production manager is Liz McCullough, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

Transcript Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 33 shownotes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics. I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: And I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about why spelling is so hard and also hard to change. But first, Gretchen, it’s almost time for your book to be out in the world, and I am very excited.

Gretchen: I am also very excited for people to finally get to read it. But you have already read my book about internet linguistics.

Lauren: I have. This is why I get to be excited, because I know people are in for a treat.

Gretchen: In fact, you are featured a little bit in my book about internet linguistics, which was very funny because as I was talking about everybody else in the book, I was referring to everybody by their last names, and when I got to you, I was like, “I’m guess I’m calling her ‘Gawne’ for this book.”

Lauren: Oh, my gosh. Really?

Gretchen: Despite the fact that, of course, I normally call you “Lauren.”

Lauren: That is gonna be so amazing. I may have to listen to the audiobook just to laugh at that.

Gretchen: Just so you can laugh at how I don’t have a cot/caught distinction and so I can’t actually do the vowel that you do in your name.

Lauren: That’s okay. I’m just really excited. The book is great. People can pre-order it now. And its out on the 23rd of July?

Gretchen: That’s correct.

Lauren: You were explaining to me why pre-orders were so important. I’m learning a lot about books from you. It’s an interesting world.

Gretchen: Pre-orders are really important because, first of all, they help the publisher decide literally how many copies to print because they have a sense of how much people are interested in the book. Also, because when they’re trying to count book sales for whether something ends up as a bestseller or is on some sort of list, all of the pre-order sales count towards that first week of sales. So, if you’re likely to end up on a bestseller list, it’s gonna be the first week, and the pre-orders all count towards that. It’s huge. If you’re excited for any book, really, you should pre-order it. And you should definitely pre-order mine!

Lauren: Excellent. There’ll be a link to that in the show notes.

Gretchen: It is called “Because Internet” and is available where good books are sold. But there’ll be a link to that.

Lauren: This month’s Patreon bonus episode is an interview with Alice Gaby, which is all about how we use directions in language and her work with an Australian language, Kuuk Thaayorre. It was from our November liveshow in Melbourne.

Gretchen: Alice’s research is so interesting. It was really fun to do in the liveshow because we got to have a whole room of people in an auditorium point where they thought north was and see how good people are at telling different directions, and whether linguistic or cultural factors affect how good you are at directions or what types of directions you pay attention to or you notice. I also got to quiz her on some Canadianisms.

Lauren: That was pretty great. We returned the favour by quizzing you on some Australianisms that Alice chose.

Gretchen: Yes. That was very fun. You can listen to that and many other bonus episodes by going to patreon.com/lingthusiasm, which we’ll also link to in the show notes.

[Music]

Gretchen: Why is spelling so hard, Lauren? Why do we spend years and years learning how to spell and then we still mess it up?

Lauren: When you say “we,” I think you mean me. I am definitely the more prone to misspelling out of the two of us. Let’s just get that out of the way.

Gretchen: I misspell things, but then I also notice them before the post goes up. Whereas, you put a post up and then I message you being like, “Hey. I wanna reblog your post. Can you just fix this typo?”

Lauren: I would like to just say that I have a medieval manuscript approach to spelling, which is gonna be really important, and we’ll explain why in this episode. But part of the reason that English spelling is hard is that it is a long and storied history. Every word is like this great little time-capsule nugget of linguistic information.

Gretchen: I like to think of English spelling not so much as a phonetic approach to spelling – we don’t spell based on how something sounds – we spell based on where a word comes from. So, if a word comes from Old English versus if a word comes from French, or from Latin, or from Greek, or from one of the many other languages that English has borrowed words from, English tends to keep each word’s original spelling conventions or older spelling conventions, and then those come into conflict with each other. That’s what makes it really difficult.

Lauren: But it makes it so great as well.

Keep reading

Lingthusiasm Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change

Why does “gh” make different sounds in “though” “through” “laugh” “light” and “ghost”? Why is there a silent “k” at the beginning of words like “know” and “knight”? And which other languages also have interesting historical artefacts in their spelling systems? Spelling systems are kind of like homes – the longer you’ve lived in them, the more random boxes with leftover stuff you start accumulating.

In this episode of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch get enthusiastic about spelling, and celebrate the reasons that it’s sometimes so tricky. We then dive into quirks from some of our favourite spelling systems, including English, French, Spanish, Tibetan, and Arabic.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Announcements:

This month’s bonus episode is about direction words! When you’re giving directions, do you tell someone to go north, left, or towards the sea? In this bonus episode, e talk with Alice Gaby about how different languages use different direction words. Support Lingthusiasm on Patreon to gain access to the directions episode and 27 previous bonus episodes.

Because Internet, Gretchen’s book about internet linguistics, is coming out next month, and if you like the fun linguistics we do for Lingthusiasm, you’ll definitely like this book! You can preorder it here in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook (read by Gretchen herself) – preorders are really important because they signal to the publisher that people are excited about linguistics, so they should print lots of copies! We really appreciate your preorders (and you can look forward to a special Q&A episode with behind the scenes info on Because Internet once it’s out!)

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

Dialect variation in Old English (Wikipedia)
The Great Vowel Shift (OED)
Vowel Gymnastics (Lingthusiasm Episode 17)
William Caxton (Wikipedia)
Baltimore/Voldemort (All Things Linguistic)
Arabic Alef (Wikipedia)
Tibetan Script (Wikipedia)
Ænglisc Ἐτυμολογικal Speling Réforme - Etymology based spelling proposal for English (All Things Linguistic)
Make English spelling less logical (BAHfest)

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, our editorial manager is Emily Gref, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

Lingthusiasm Episode 14: Getting into, up for, and down with prepositions

Are you up for some prepositions? You might think you’re over prepositions, but have you ever really looked into them, or have you just gone by them? Other parts of speech notwithstanding, prepositions are something we’re really down with.

In Episode 14 of Lingthusiasm, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne introduce you to our favourite English grammar book, the mammoth, 1800-page Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (affectionately known as CGEL), and take a deep dive into its 60+ pages all about prepositions. We also explore how it is that a grammar can even have sixty pages of things to say about prepositions in a single language and how the tricky edge cases are what makes grammar so interesting. Plus, we look at cousins of the preposition in other languages, like case markers, postpositions, and even circumpositions, why prepositions are complicated to translate, and pied-piping, the prepositional structure named after a fairy tale.

Click here for a link to this episode in your podcast player of choice or read the transcript here

Announcements:

This month’s bonus episode is about how linguists solve the divisive question of what makes a sandwich a sandwich. We introduce prototype theory to solve sandwiches, explain how bats and penguins relate to the idea of ‘birds’, and explore other meaning questions. You can get access to it and previous bonuses about discourse markers, language games, hypercorrection, teaching yourself linguistics, and more by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

We also now have Lingthusiasm merch! Check out our soft, patterned IPA scarves in red, olive, and navy; shiny Lingthusiasm logo stickers; and mugs, t-shirts, and tote bags that say NOT JUDGING YOUR GRAMMAR, JUST ANALYSING IT at lingthusiasm.com/merch.

Thanks so much to everyone who spent the month recommending and reviewing Lingthusiasm to celebrate our first anniversary this episode! We had the ambitious plan to get the show past 100,000 listens, but we knew we could only do it if you helped to introduce Lingthusiasm to new ears. You stepped up and helped us get there right on schedule! If you left a recommendation or review in public, we’ll thank you by name or pseudonym on our special anniversary post next week. If you recommended us in private, we obviously don’t know about it, but we hope you still feel a warm glow of satisfaction.

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening.

To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm ad-free, get access to bonus content, and more perks by supporting us on Patreon.

Lingthusiasm is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Emily Gref, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

Posts tagged "spanish"

Bonus 103: ¡Pos ya está! Translating Because Internet into Spanish with Miguel Sánchez Ibáñez

Lingthusiasm Episode 65: Knowledge is power, copulas are fun

Lingthusiasm Episode 60: That’s the kind of episode it’s – clitics

Transcript Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change

Lingthusiasm Episode 33: Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change

Lingthusiasm Episode 14: Getting into, up for, and down with prepositions

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