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Reposted by Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account)

Sammy/שמואל @sammyshear.com · 20/03/2026

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.

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Reposted by Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account)

Dr. Emily Friedman @ecfriedman.com · 20/03/2026

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.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Física médica... ¿a diferencia de las siglas médicas en general? Vaya... 😢

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

If these folks truly think that "ethnic and linguistic replacement" are dangerous trends that need to be undone, why don't they lead by example and go back to wherever the hell their ancestors came here from?

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

In many countries people don't know any Jews, or think they don't. All they know about us is news reports about "the Jewish State" killing civilians. Israeli policies certainly do contribute to creating new Jew-haters. And some folks in Israeli govt say that may be good since it encourages aliyah. 🙄

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

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

eventbrite.com

#Talk. When Einstein Met Kafka: Jewish Contributions to the Modern World

Explore how Jewish brilliance shaped the modern world in “When Einstein Met Kafka,” with Diego Moldes and Steven Capsuto.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Or, if we reach the point where no one's willing to pay a fair living wage for translation labor, change professions. Don't let agencies and other clients normalize exploitation.

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Reposted by Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account)

Lawrence Schimel @lawrenceschimel.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

#langsky

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Happy Thursday to all who are observing Thursday today. 🙃

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

And Christine Jorgensen was all over the news in the early 1950s, and Renée Richards was a super famous trans activist almost 50 years ago. But sure, whatever. 🙃

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

Right up there with "Pop Tarts are the official toaster pastry of the US Olympic Team."

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

In the US, predictably, we go for corporate fast-food branding: He's two fries short of a Happy Meal.

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Reposted by Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account)

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 18/12/2025

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.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

In English, when urging someone to eat, it does take considerable self-control not to add "tatele," "mamele" or "bobele" at the end of the sentence, even for someone who spent more time around my Sephardic relatives than my Ashkenazic ones. (For some reason, it's never "Eat, zeydele." I wonder why.)

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I haven't heard the Folksbiene cast album yet (though I saw their wonderful production two or three times), but I'm very fond of the 1960s Israeli Yiddish cast album.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I love that there's some color to this production design. It's a play that tends to be done with black, white, and earth tones, and this is a nice switch-up.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

The shingles vaccine made me feel a bit crappy for one day and I had a fever for six hours. It was worth it, compared to every hellish description of shingles I've ever heard from people who've had it.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

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

youtube.com

Using AI to create bilingual glossaries from reliable bilingual documents

YouTube video by Steven Capsuto - Translation & Language Services

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

True, but I also find that the moment I mention my rush fee, most "urgent" jobs suddenly become much less urgent.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

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.

Me standing next to a life-size statue of one of the characters from the Astérix comics: the alchemist Getafix.

Me at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, in the stand of a cookbook publisher.

The Spain stand at the Guadalajara International Book Fair.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

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

youtu.be

How to translate film scripts in a CAT tool

YouTube video by Steven Capsuto - Translation & Language Services

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

What a fantastic conference it was! It always is. 😀

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

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

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

100% of the members of Congress opposing funding and military aid to Israel are Democrats or (in Sanders's case) caucus with Democrats. Do you think the Republicans, whose current POTUS once promised to open a surveillance file on every Muslim in the US, will do anything but worsen the situation?

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Been meaning to delete that account for years anyway. Done!

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

It's more basic than that: If voters wanted the Democrats to do things, they should have voted for them. You can't give someone no power and then complain that they're not exercising power.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Yeah, it would make sense for EU English to be Irish English, for the same reasons that EU Spanish leans heavily towards the Spanish of Spain.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

They approached me about working for them a few times in the 2010s, and I'm pretty sure that's why I said no.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Didn't they also do a unilateral rate cut about 10 years ago?

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

In the US, about half of all university graduates end up working in a field other than the one they studied as an undergrad. (When I was a student, the figure was even higher: about 80%). But why let facts spoil a good story, right?

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

And were they even paying well to begin with? I seem to recall choosing not to work with them even a decade ago because of rates.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

At a certain point, if publishers in the future aren't going to do actual editing or promotion, you're better off self-publishing and keeping control of the product and more of the money.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

One major challenge is if your ancestors' records are in Ottoman Turkish: pre-1920s Turkish written in the Arabic alphabet. There are people who can read it, but not a whole lot of them.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Exactly. These are the use cases I'll be talking about in my presentations at the Mexican Translators Organization conference. MTPE speeds me up only if I'm translating from a language I don't work with very often, and even then I don't like it because it biases you towards the computer's solution.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

It's also helpful for requests like: List 15 humorous terms for "feces" in US English that are less "shocking" than "shit" and that a 37-year-old character might use in conversation while telling a funny, scatological anecdote. (I'd never heard the term "dookie" before but it was a great solution.)

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

It's useful in literary work if I'm translating dialogue for a character much younger than me and I know that what I put in the draft is not generation appropriate. If I ask AI tools to list options for how someone born in 1998 might say the same thing, I usually find a perfect solution.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

The problem with that theory is that if the original writer does creative, nonstandard things with the source language, then the translator has to do similarly creative nonstandard things with the target language. And then people who don't know any better claim that the translator is incompetent.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Editing a machine translation slows me down and is, frankly, miserable, soul-numbing work. It's like being an Olympic runner and being told you have to compete in weighted lead sneakers. I sometimes use AI as a fancy dictionary or for a 2nd opinion during the quality-control phase of a translation.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

And the irony is they want to deploy right-wing violence against liberals and leftists, to punish us for the existence of right-wing violence against right-wingers.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Too many corporations bowing before the dictator. Boycott, boycott, boycott.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Yup... It's classic shit that right-wing dictators do. When an angry right-wing white Christian man kills someone, the solution is to go after liberals, Jews, leftists, and progressives (and people of color, and trans people, and anyone who doesn't resemble the perp). "Round up the usual suspects!"

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

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

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

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.

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

As opposed to the Latin American films and series with a character from Spain who runs around calling everyone a "gilipollas" (that's how you know they're Spaniards).

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

(Photo: Book cover of "When Einstein Met Kafka: Jewish Contributions to the Modern World," me, and the author: cultural historian Diego Moldes. Madrid, 2022.)

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

And I'm finding it's harder to figure out how to shape an engaging, entertaining talk about someone else's material, even if you studied it up close for two years while translating it! I want to be sure to do justice to the author's work. It's getting there. The first talk is this coming Tuesday. 😁

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Steven Capsuto (translation and languages account) @linguacaps.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

In the past, when I gave lectures based on a book, it was always one I had written and I knew the content inside out. But now, in the US, I'm the public face of a 600-page book written by someone else, which I translated into English. #TranslatorsLife #translation #PublicSpeaking

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