Naked Translations, I am sorry to say, is a bleak and boring page visually. I mean even an interesting font in a larger size and a more colorful header bar would cheer the place up.
There is an “about me” link at the top of the page which I checked out immediately and found out that this blog is written by a woman who does English/French translation work. Celine is doing what a lot of us SAY we want to do, which is work from home. And it sounds like she enjoys it pretty well. She is highly trained and sounds like she has more than enough work to keep her busy.
The entries have to do with all aspects of her translation work, with a liberal smattering of discussions about all things “wordy”.
In the archives are several entries dealing with idioms such as:
“Spin Doctor”, “Scraping the bottom of the barrel”, and Pinning jelly to the wall”, and how difficult they are to translate into another language, that are quite amusing.
She attracts fellow word lovers from all over, and everyone seems to be having a great old time making puns and yucking it up in the rarefied world of translators and idiomiesters.
Since her blog began in November 2003, this author has given out some very succinct and useful information about her job, and how she has worked out difficult translation problems with a liberal dose of humor. This lighthearted tone keeps the blog from being pedantic, considering the subject matter.
The site is fairly well organized. Although for my taste, there are a few TOO many ways to get to things. There are archives and then several topical indexes too. Recent entries, recent comments…it all gets a little confusing. But on the plus side, there is a search function which might be helpful, and a notification option, a service that I think ALL blogs should have.
I prefer to get notified rather than having to check someone’s blog over and over to see if they have written anything lately.
If you love words, and know both French and English, and are involved in any kind of translation or interpretation work, this site would be interesting to you. Admittedly, this sounds like a select group to me, but I enjoyed my stay and the only French I know is Croissant, because I know how to make them from scratch!
I give this site a 4 for very nicely fulfilling it’s purpose. I would consider a higher rating though if the design was spiced up a bit.