The acquisition is the company's latest move in providing customers with comprehensive and distinctive offerings in the education and corporate learning sector
Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 11:30 AM EDT|Updated: 6 hours ago
OAKLAND CITY, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language educational resource, today announced the acquisition of top-rated learning management system Skillo, an online platform that provides modern and intuitive training and coaching tools to clients.
With more than 70 million monthly users and 5.5 billion word searches annually, Dictionary.com is the premier online dictionary, thesaurus, and education technology platform. The company's suite of educational products promotes learning for English language students, educators, and word lovers worldwide, providing access to millions of definitions, spellings, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word origins as well as grammar coaching, virtual tutoring, writing activities, quizzes, and learning games.
Recently ranked among the top learning management systems by SoftwareWorld, Skillo builds dynamic online training courses and provides insight with in-depth reporting tools, enabling clients to train their audiences seamlessly and effectively. By integrating Skillo with Dictionary.com, educators will be able to use, create, and share such educational materials as interactive lesson plans, activities, templates, and more for both remote and in-person learning.
"I'm excited to see what Skillo can do with Dictionary.com behind us," said Andrew Colchagoff, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Skillo. "Dictionary.com's vision for superior learning experiences is perfectly aligned with Skillo's mission to provide the most intuitive platform to facilitate that learning. We look forward to building on our core capabilities as we enter this new phase."
The acquisition marks the nextchapter for Dictionary.com as the company broadens its offerings for current users and expands its suite of tools for education and corporate learning. Recent additions to Dictionary.com's services include its Dictionary Academy and Grammar Coach™ in addition to its wealth of educational content across the site.
Jennifer Stevees-Kiss, CEO of Dictionary.com, stated, "Language and education are constantly evolving, and Dictionary.com is proud to lead the charge in creating the ultimate online learning experience. By leveraging the breadth of Dictionary.com's resources with the modern capabilities provided by platforms like Skillo, we will continue to create fun and engaging educational resources that grow with our customers."
For media inquiries regarding Dictionary.com, please contact Jacquelyn Grant at The TASC Group at jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com.
About Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. With virtual tutoring, educational word lists and flashcards, and engaging word games driven by the Dictionary Academy™, Dictionary.com opens the door to learning for millions of people.
Thesaurus.com powers millions of writers every day with the world's largest and most trusted lists of synonyms and antonyms, plus expert grammar advice. Whether they're looking for the perfect word or utilizing Grammar Coach™ for help writing that essay, email, or school paper, writers trust Thesaurus.com to help them communicate.
Contact: Jacquelyn Grant
The TASC Group Email: jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com
View original content:
SOURCE Dictionary.com
The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.
Fans await the K-pop boy band BTS visit to the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City last year. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
If you're looking for a way to describe your newfound love for K-dramas after watching Squid Game, you might say you're riding the Korean wave.
The South Korean survival drama has exposed millions to Korean culture and is considered Netflix's biggest-ever original series launched. It's #1 in over 90 countries and for many people is their first experience with hallyu, or South Korean pop culture and entertainment.
South Korean culture has made its mark in the U.S. recently through a boom in Korean skincare products as well as McDonald's BTS meal. Now it has inspired an update in the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED recently added 26 South Korean words and revised 11.
Jieun Kiaer, associate professor in Korean language and linguistics at the University of Oxford, said the words were included because they are so widely used. "But what is so significant about this," she said, "is that there's been no precedent before that 26 words from one language, one year entered into OED."
Hallyu is more than just dramas and music. It also includes food. Newly added food entries include banchan, kimbap and japchae.
Terms such oppa and unni have been revised to reflect the changes in their meanings as South Korean culture has spread beyond its borders.
Oppa, which was generally used by a female speaker to address an older brother, friend or boyfriend, has been revised to also refer to an attractive South Korean man. And unni is used by a female speaker to refer to an older sister or female friend; it has been revised to also refer to anyone of any gender addressing their favorite Korean actress or singer.
He’s the type of guy who loves skinship huh?😏😏#CHANSUNG #찬성 #2PM
pic.twitter.com/4qUcI4Gp13
— Rae 래 🧛🏻♀️🎃👻 (@chansunghearteu) October 14, 2021
Not every new entry in the OED update is a Korean word. Fighting, a phrase often heard in K-dramas and variety shows, was added as an interjection to express encouragement and support.
Skinship is a combination of the English words skin and kinship and is used to express affectionate physical touching between parents and children, friends or lovers. K-drama fans might use the term to describe scenes between romantic leads and K-pop fans use it to describe how their favorite group's members are interacting with each other.
So the next time you watch a K-drama like Squid Game, you might spread the word by telling everybody how daebak it is.
You can find the words in the new OED update here.
We transmit our knowledge — the scientific and the subjective, the ordinary and the sublime — through a medium of verbs and nouns, adjectives and participles. Through language, we share artistic creations, observations and emotions, crossing the divide that separates one human mind from another.
Translation is a skill as complex as it is necessary: Languages, after all, don’t express the same ideas in the same ways. But it’s more than a tool; it’s also a subject worthy of study in its own right.
Since its founding in 1971 by the late Distinguished Service Professor Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Binghamton University’s Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) has built a truly global reputation. Graduates around the world recommend the program to their own students, passing on TRIP’s legacy to a new generation of scholars.
One of its hallmarks is the PhD program in translation studies, the first of its kind in the United States. It also offers a graduate certificate and an undergraduate minor, and a master’s degree is under development.
Translation skills are increasingly in demand from a wide range of employers, ranging from nongovernmental organizations to immigrant services and international trade, says Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies Chenqing Song, the program’s director since 2017.
TRIP has a proud history at Binghamton, and its doctoral program was developed even before there was an appreciation for the critical importance of translation studies, says Harpur College Dean Celia Klin. In addition to Gaddis Rose’s legacy and the continued development of TRIP’s degree programs, she pointed to exciting interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Ladino Lab.
“In our increasingly global world, translation studies are a critical part of a liberal arts college and Harpur College is proud to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of TRIP,” Klin says.
TRIP began as a program within the Department of Comparative Literature, where it is still housed today. Its focus is two-fold: helping translators hone their skills and emphasizing translation theory, says Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy Anthony Preus, who was recruited by Gaddis Rose.
Translation theory
“Marilyn Gaddis Rose wanted to give an opportunity to develop trained translators for actual careers,” Preus says. “She also established a service to link people who needed translation done with people who could do it.”
That was the Translation Referral Service (TRS), where graduate students tackled a wide range of projects in the days before widespread internet use reduced the need for localized translation services. The service, which ended in 2009, helped open doors for many translators to connect with organizations and publishers and begin working in the field, says Kim Allen Gleed, MA ’97, PhD ’05, now an English and French professor at Harrisburg Area Community College in Pennsylvania.
In addition to the TRS, Gaddis Rose also spearheaded the grant-funded Center for Research in Translation (CRIT) and coordinated translation workshops in which professors worked with students specializing in particular languages, says Ithaca College Associate Professor of Italian Marella Feltrin-Morris, who earned doctorates in both comparative literature (’05) and translation studies (’08) at Binghamton.
What truly set TRIP apart was its doctoral program in translation studies, unique among American universities when it began in 2004; Feltrin-Morris was the first to receive a doctorate through the program. Translators don’t need a doctorate to work in the field, but the advanced degree opens up additional career possibilities in research and teaching, notes Marko Miletich, an assistant professor of Spanish and translation at Buffalo State College who earned his PhD at Binghamton in 2012.
Gleed, who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature, considers the program the perfect blend of translation theory and practice.
“We studied the roots of translation, going all the way back to Saint Jerome, and moved through to modern and contemporary theorists, many of whom Professor Gaddis Rose knew and invited to campus as guest speakers and lecturers,” she says. “The study of the discipline informed our practice, and as translators, we worked with a multitude of texts, from literary to technical and everything in between as we developed and honed our skills.”
A pioneer in the field of translation, Gaddis Rose shaped the program in myriad ways. She recruited people into TRIP; among them was Preus, who has published translations from both French and classical Greek. She also advocated for her students and sought to broaden their horizons in multiple ways.
A pioneering founder
“I remember Marilyn Gaddis Rose’s calm, steady, yet unwavering, energy. She was an incredibly intelligent and strong woman, so devoted to our field and to the success of her students,” says José Dávila-Montes, one of the visiting scholars who came to TRIP while conducting research.
He had only intended to stay in Binghamton for nine months while he worked on doctoral research for his alma mater: Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. Nine months became 18 as Dávila-Montes stayed on to complete a master’s degree in Spanish literature at Binghamton and see his second son born. Today, he is a professor of translation and interpreting at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he founded one of the first bachelor’s programs in translation and interpreting in the country.
He has many cherished memories of Gaddis Rose, such as the time in 2004 when she took a half dozen graduate students in a van to the second American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association conference in Amherst, Mass. Today, ATISA is a national reference for the discipline, Dávila-Montes says.
When he held a party at his home, Gaddis Rose came, along with TRIP graduate students from around the world.
“I am so grateful that I could witness those moments. Many of my current colleagues and friends in the field, I met them there first,” he says. “Long-lasting friendships and academic collaboration were built around Marilyn’s amazing personality.”
Gleed’s favorite memory of Gaddis Rose also involved a road trip; when she presented at a James Joyce conference at Cornell University, her mentor accompanied her each day to cheer her on as a new academic. Conferences also spark Feltrin-Morris’ memories of Gaddis Rose, in particular in those moments when ideas seem to emerge spontaneously.
“Among the many lessons that I learned from her is this: ‘The best ideas come when you’re doing something else. And it’s true!” she says.
Feltrin-Morris and TRIP alumnae María Constanza Guzmán and Deborah Folaron published Translation and Literary Studies: Homage to Marilyn Gaddis Rose three years before their mentor’s death in 2015. Feltrin-Morris interviewed the professor for the volume, and the co-editors solicited articles from her former students.
Gaddis Rose not only gave her blessing but also actively participated, contributing a new essay on the stereoscopic reading of Jane Austen through translations of her work.
“We wanted to do a Festschrift to honor Marilyn Gaddis Rose because she created something quite amazing and quite unique at the time,” Feltrin-Morris says. “She was a force of nature; she had her hands in so many fields. She had to because of the nature of translation studies.”
Translators can be found throughout University departments, working within their own disciplines. Because of this, TRIP has deep connections to many other departments in Harpur College.
An interdisciplinary field
“We have students coming from around the world. All share one passion, which is translation, but they approach translation very differently,” Song says. “Some want to do it under, say, sociology. For some, it’s more linguistic than literary. We also have students who are interested in political science, or gender studies or theater, music, you name it!”
Today, TRIP has 38 doctoral candidates, the majority of them international students; only a handful are domestic students. Many graduates return to their home countries to teach. The most common languages for translation include Arabic, Chinese, Korean, the Romance languages and occasionally German, but students also translate other languages, Song says.
The program has changed through the years to accommodate students’ interests and needs. Doctoral dissertations, for example, are no longer limited to theory-based analysis and can now include translation.
“This really addressed what many of our students wanted to do and what they felt was important to secure good positions in the future,” says Professor of Korean Studies Michael Pettid, who headed TRIP from 2011 to 2016.
The regions from which its students come also have shifted. More than a decade ago, TRIP began drawing more students from the Middle East, thanks to generous government programs and grants from the region such as the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission. These students are typically teachers in their home countries, where a PhD in the field is unavailable, Song says.
Under Pettid’s leadership, TRIP began a dual degree PhD program with Beijing International Studies University; Chinese students from BISU, funded by a government grant, finish their doctoral degrees in Binghamton.
TRIP graduate students are a significant force in campus life, running an academic conference every three years, holding multiple events and supporting multiculturalism and gender and racial equity initiatives, Song says. Irem Ayan, who earned her PhD through TRIP in 2019, compares the program to a mini United Nations. She should know; she has worked at the U.N. as a freelance interpreter.
Tarek Shamma earned a certificate in Arabic/ English translation through TRIP while finishing his master’s in comparative literature. After earning his PhD in 2006, his career took him to universities throughout the Middle East; he returned to Binghamton in 2018 as an associate professor in both TRIP and comparative literature.
“Translation is one of the most enriching fields to study on the academic and personal levels. It is highly interdisciplinary in nature, so you can pursue practically any interest that you have,” he says, noting options in the hard sciences, social sciences and the humanities. “The experience of learning other languages and cultures is one of the most rewarding I know, and one of the most useful in today’s world in practically any professional field.”
(JTA) — When Lazarus Goldschmidt completed his translation of the Talmud into German, the world he had hoped to serve when he started 40 years earlier was in the process of being destroyed.
It was 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, and Goldschmidt himself had already fled to London. Over the next decade, virtually every Jew in Germany either escaped or was murdered. Goldschmidt’s feat — he was the first to complete a full translation of the Talmud into any European language — was recognized, but his work had little practical impact.
Now, nearly 90 years later, German-speaking Jews are getting another chance to engage with Goldschmidt’s work. Sefaria, the website that makes Jewish texts available and interactive online, has added Goldschmidt’s translation to its library.
“The original publication of this document was a milestone event in German Jewish life,” said Igor Itkin, a German rabbinical student who led the team that adapted Goldschmidt’s translation for online use, in a statement released by Sefaria. “Making it available online not only preserves that legacy, but also introduces it to future generations.”
Itkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he has already heard from Germans who have begun using the translation in their study of Daf Yomi, the daily page of Talmud that Jews around the world learn in unison. “The response has been very positive,” he said.
Scholars of Judaism in Germany have sought to make Jewish texts available in German for decades, but the Talmud translation project gained steam after Itkin and his colleagues, German and Austrian scholars, took on the project after he realized that Goldschmidt’s work would enter the public domain at the beginning of this year.
It took them five months for the team to make its way through the 9,434 pages of Goldschmidt’s translation, reviewing and correcting errors in the scanned version and formatting it so users can navigate among the German, English and Hebrew/Aramaic translations that Sefaria makes available. (Sefaria’s CEO, Daniel Septimus, is a board member of 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company.)
The translation will be the subject of an online event Oct. 24 featuring scholars who will speak to its significance. But it already took center stage once, premiering earlier this month in Berlin as part of this year’s “Festival of Resilience,” a series of events celebrating how German Jewish communities have persisted in the face of hate.
“It was very important to us to do an event in German, because this is a tool for a German-speaking audience,” said Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz, director of Jewish learning for Hillel Deutschland, who helped coordinate between Itkin’s team and Sefaria. “There’s a lot of excitement from German rabbis because finally, it’s opened up a way that they can really bring Talmud learning to their audiences.”
The translation’s accessibility comes amid surging interest in Jewish studies at German universities as well as in less formal settings. Sefaria’s tools allow users to draw from its library to create source sheets, or Jewish study texts, meaning that individual classes and communities will be able to tailor the new materials for their needs.
The digital German Talmud represents “a way of making important Jewish texts available and accessible for a new generation of German-speaking Jews who are eager to learn and explore what it means to be Jewish today,” Katharina Hadassah Wendl, an Austrian student at the London School of Jewish Studies who assisted with the project, told JTA.
She added, “For me personally, this project has opened my eyes anew to the depths of Torah and the vast sea of Talmudic discussions and wisdom.”
Joshua Foer, an author and cofounder of Sefaria, said in a statement that the translation’s online release represents the triumph of Jewish tradition over the forces of hate that lapped against Goldschmidt as he worked.
“Goldschmidt released the translation at a time of rising antisemitism to dispel dangerous myths and make the text accessible to all German speakers around the world,” Foer said. He added, “That this translation is being made more accessible today with the help of German and Austrian rabbinic students and scholars representing the future of German Judaism is a fitting celebration of Goldschmidt’s legacy.”
Goldschmidt died in 1950, shortly after the Royal Library in Copenhagen acquired his collected works and papers. His other contributions included the first German translation of the Quran and a parody commentary on creation that he published under the moniker Arzelai bar Bargelai.
Sefaria is in the process of adding French and English translations of the Jerusalem Talmud, an alternate form of the foundational Jewish text, that also recently entered the public domain. And with their work on Goldschmidt’s Talmud complete, Itkin and his team will get to work on translating other texts, such as the Mishnah, with commentary from prewar German rabbis including David Zvi Hoffmann and Eduard Baneth.
One day, they hope that text and others will appear on Sefaria in German as well, ready to engage German students and synagogue-goers in their native language.
“There’s a source of pride that the first language other than English on Sefaria is German,” said Borovitz. “It speaks to some of the resilience of this text and also this community and that it’s growing, and that people are optimistic about the future.”
The acquisition is the company's latest move in providing customers with comprehensive and distinctive offerings in the education and corporate learning sector
Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 9:30 AM MDT|Updated: 12 minutes ago
OAKLAND CITY, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language educational resource, today announced the acquisition of top-rated learning management system Skillo, an online platform that provides modern and intuitive training and coaching tools to clients.
With more than 70 million monthly users and 5.5 billion word searches annually, Dictionary.com is the premier online dictionary, thesaurus, and education technology platform. The company's suite of educational products promotes learning for English language students, educators, and word lovers worldwide, providing access to millions of definitions, spellings, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word origins as well as grammar coaching, virtual tutoring, writing activities, quizzes, and learning games.
Recently ranked among the top learning management systems by SoftwareWorld, Skillo builds dynamic online training courses and provides insight with in-depth reporting tools, enabling clients to train their audiences seamlessly and effectively. By integrating Skillo with Dictionary.com, educators will be able to use, create, and share such educational materials as interactive lesson plans, activities, templates, and more for both remote and in-person learning.
"I'm excited to see what Skillo can do with Dictionary.com behind us," said Andrew Colchagoff, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Skillo. "Dictionary.com's vision for superior learning experiences is perfectly aligned with Skillo's mission to provide the most intuitive platform to facilitate that learning. We look forward to building on our core capabilities as we enter this new phase."
The acquisition marks the nextchapter for Dictionary.com as the company broadens its offerings for current users and expands its suite of tools for education and corporate learning. Recent additions to Dictionary.com's services include its Dictionary Academy and Grammar Coach™ in addition to its wealth of educational content across the site.
Jennifer Stevees-Kiss, CEO of Dictionary.com, stated, "Language and education are constantly evolving, and Dictionary.com is proud to lead the charge in creating the ultimate online learning experience. By leveraging the breadth of Dictionary.com's resources with the modern capabilities provided by platforms like Skillo, we will continue to create fun and engaging educational resources that grow with our customers."
For media inquiries regarding Dictionary.com, please contact Jacquelyn Grant at The TASC Group at jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com.
About Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. With virtual tutoring, educational word lists and flashcards, and engaging word games driven by the Dictionary Academy™, Dictionary.com opens the door to learning for millions of people.
Thesaurus.com powers millions of writers every day with the world's largest and most trusted lists of synonyms and antonyms, plus expert grammar advice. Whether they're looking for the perfect word or utilizing Grammar Coach™ for help writing that essay, email, or school paper, writers trust Thesaurus.com to help them communicate.
Contact: Jacquelyn Grant
The TASC Group Email: jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com
View original content:
SOURCE Dictionary.com
The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.
There is no question that Squid Game has become a global sensation. Since its release, the nine-episode survival drama has topped Netflix’s charts in 90 countries and is poised to become the most-watched show in Netflix history.
As the global popularity of the Korean thriller continues to grow, there have been debates over the quality of the English subtitle translation, particularly on social media. Many people who claim to be English-Korean bilinguals argue the translation does not do justice to the brilliantly written stories, clever dialogue and script. Some even argue that if you have watched the show in English, you haven’t really watched it at all.
Spoilers for Squid Game season 1 follow.
Read more: Social inequality and hyper violence: why the bleak world of Netflix's Squid Game is a streaming phenomenon
Subtitling is not easy
As someone who specialises in English-Korean translation and interpreting, I believe the ongoing debates on the English subtitles of Squid Game are missing some important elements.
Not many people know the difference between translation and interpreting. To put it simply, translation refers to rendering of written texts from one language into another, whereas interpreting refers to spoken language.
Subtitling falls between translation and interpreting, because a subtitler listens to spoken language just as an interpreter does, and translates the oral language into written form for viewers.
Subtitling requires not only bilingual competence but specific skills essential to deliver messages within a limited space on screens. Think about the famous quote by the Oscar-winning director of Parasite, Bong Joon-Ho:
Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.
It is a subtitler’s job to find ways to condense messages into the one-inch-tall slots, no matter how long or complicated the original dialogues are. As you can imagine, subtitling is not easy.
Subtitling becomes even more complicated when cultural factors come into play, because many culture-specific words and concepts are difficult to translate.
“The untranslatable” exists in all cultures, and in the case of the Korean language, words such as aegyo sometimes described as “performed extreme femininity”, han likened by some to “a mix of sorrow and sadness accumulated from a series of life experiences” and jeong described sometimes as “deep connection and emotional bond that builds over time”, are some of the most well-known concepts that have no direct equivalent in another language. In literature translation, there are ways to deal with the untranslatable through footnotes or annotations, for example.
These strategies, however, do not work for subtitling due to the space constraints, so managing culture-specific elements is perhaps the most challenging aspect of subtitling.
The Untranslatable in Squid Game
Comparing the Korean language with the English subtitle translation of Squid Game, occasional minor omissions and distortions are apparent — but the overall quality of the translation is, in my opinion, fine.
Most of the controversies seem to centre around the English closed captions, which are very different from the English subtitles on Netflix. The English captions which appear as “English [CC]” are for people who cannot hear audio, so they include non-verbal descriptions such as the background music and sound effects. Translations in closed captions are, therefore, more concise than subtitles and are limited in terms of meaning delivery.
Despite the good quality of the English translation, a meaning gap inevitably exists between the original Korean and the English subtitles due to the untranslatable.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the untranslatable in Squid Game relates to “호칭” or “honorifics” which Korean people use to refer to each other in conversation.
An age-based hierarchy is a key characteristic of Korean society, and people do not call each other by name unless they are friends of the same age. One of the most common honorifics is “형 (hyung)” or “older brother”, a title a younger brother uses to talk or refer to his older brother. This expression is often also used by non-family members who are close to each other to indicate the degree of mutual friendship.
An age-based hierarchy is a key characteristic of Korean society, and people do not call each other by name unless they are friends of the same age.Netflix
If you have watched the drama, you might recall Ali, the Pakistani labourer, who came to South Korea to earn money. Ali got to know another participant, Sang Woo, a graduate of Korea’s top university, who embezzled a huge amount of money at work and was determined to win the game to get rid of the debt.
As they became close to each other, Sang Woo suggested that Ali call him hyung, instead of “사장님 (sajang-nim)” or “Mr Company President”, one of the first terms that foreign labourers in South Korea pick as a result of spending most of their time at work under often exploitative bosses.
The moment that Sang Woo became Ali’s hyung is one of the most humanistic moments in the gory drama. The poignancy of the moment, however, could not be fully delivered due to the absence of an equivalent English form. In the English subtitle, the line “Call me hyung” was translated as “Call me Sang Woo”.
When Sang Woo later betrays Ali in the game of marbles, the kinds of emotions experienced by viewers who are able to understand the degree of intimacy attached to hyung compared with those unable to do so may, therefore, be very different.
Scenes like this show, in a powerfully raw form, the cruelty and selfishness of human beings in real life, albeit in a different kind of “game”.
There are other untranslatable honorifics, such as “오빠 (oppa)”, which was translated as “baby”, and “영감님 (yeonggam-nim)”, which was translated as “sir”. Close, but not quite the same.
The deeper context of Ali’s betrayal by Sang Woo is lost in translation.Netflix
Read more: An Oscar for Parasite? The global rise of South Korean film
Beyond language barriers
Understanding the honorifics in Squid Game is important to fully capture the bitter aspects of human relationships.
Considering the untranslatable, the recent addition of 26 Korean words to the Oxford English Dictionary is a welcome move. Interestingly, some of these newly added words include common honorifics such as noona, oppa and unni, and I hope that this paves way for the inclusion of more Korean words in the future.
While translation and interpreting serve as an important cultural and linguistic bridge, the gap left by the untranslatable can only be filled by genuine understanding of the other culture and language.
Building on Director Bong’s message, once you overcome the gap left by the untranslatable, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.
In January 2019, I took a solo trip to Mexico City. It was a dreamy trip. I climbed the Piramide del Sol, made friends over pulque, ate tamales in the park, and admired the dark blue of Frida Kahlo’s home. I visited as many bookish places as I could; I read at the dreamy Audiorama in Chapultepec Park and fell in love with the Bibloteca Vasconcelos.
I adventured through many a bookstore, but was frustrated. I hadn’t done as much research as I would have liked to do. I’d only brought one book with me, and I hadn’t thought through what to buy next. I’d read nonfiction before I left, but little fiction. I’d done all my research too late. I tried to find some fiction on the shelves last minute before I left, but couldn’t find the right titles.
So call this list a correction. It’s the list I would have made myself if I were to go to Mexico City today. (I’ve skipped, I admit, some mainstream classics, in preferences of lesser-known authors not as appreciated in the U.S. or in traditional canons, so apologies if you don’t see Juan Rulfo, Valeria Luiselli, Silvia Moreno-García, and Laura Esquivel on this list, but I do promise I know of them, and yes, you should go read their books.)
The books are translated works by Mexican authors. They’re rich narratives, dark tales, works translated from the Spanish and from Indigenous languages. They are queer gothic gay vampire stories, wild science fiction epics, and dark contemporary novels…Enjoy.
The Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen, Translated by Andrea Rosenberg
In this epic tragi-comedy of a novel, Liborio is working at a bookstore when, in a moment of misguided machismo, he punches a guy harassing the woman he’s (from afar) fallen in love with. This act unleashes a string of events he never could have anticipated — from a viral YouTube video to painful beatings to moments of triumphant and moments at rock-bottom. Liborio is a young man yearning for something, a man who crossed the Rio Bravo and who is now trying to find a place for himself and find someone who believes in him. It’s a fantastic, heartbreaking, funny novel that will keep you guessing through its final pages.
Content warnings for violence, sexism, f-slur, r-slur, racism, anti-Mexican and anti-undocumented sentiment, ableism.
The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate, Translated by David Bowles
Zárate tells the homoerotic tale of the ship that carried Dracula to England, all told from the point of view of the ship’s captain, who struggles with his homosexual urges as well as the gothic horrors rising up around him. The themes of repression, of labeling, and of persecuting monsters, all serve as an excellent foil for the real-world horrors and fears faced by gay men. Originally published in 1998, the novel became available for the first time in English translation thanks to the fundraising effort led by Innsmouth Free Press, a micro-press owned and operated by author Silvia Moreno-García.
Content warnings for homophobia, violence, body horror, self-harm, suicide, internalized homophobia, sexual assault.
Heavens on Earth by Carmen Boullosa, Translated by Shelby Vincent
Lear lives in L’Atántide, a utopian society made of air, years after the Earth was destroyed by climate change. She is working to translate the writings of Don Hernando, a 1500s Indigenous scholar living in New Spain; writings which were first translated by 20th century Mexico City anthropologist Estela. All three tell their stories in their own ways, in this meta, twisting story about language and its role in humanity’s survival. In this absolute masterwork of a twisting, meta novel, Boullosa explores the way we interact with, reproduce, rewrite, and erase the past, and how it will impact our future as a society.
Content warnings for colorism, domestic abuse, racism, anti-Indigenous prejudiceand reeducation, torture, violence, infant death, homophobia, fatphobia, cannibalism, and mentions of sexual assault.
Red Ants by José Pergentino, Translated by Thomas Bunstead
Red Ants is the first book translated into English from Sierra Zapotec, an Indigenous Mexican language. In this short fiction collection, Pergentino crafts eerie stories, in the form of visions, in mazes of bamboo, in people trapped or lost, in spirits unsure where to go next. People misplace those they care about — a daughter tries to inherit her mother’s gift of seeing the future. Pergentino’s vivid, lyrical language will take your breath away, and his strange tales will leave you in an eerie in-between.
Content warnings for animal death and cruelty, suicide, shooting, death, violence.
On Lighthouses by Jazmina Barrera, Translated by Christina MacSweeney
In this memoir-of-sorts, Barrera describes her “collection” of lighthouses: the buildings she’s visited, researched, read about, and considered. She visits the Montauk Lighthouse after a day stuck in traffic; she talks to the children of lighthouse keepers; she analyzes literary work by Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe. What do lighthouses stand for, both in history and in our collective consciousness? Barrera digs in, linking her reflections to her fears and loneliness, her experience living in a city, and the way she looks for a guide in the form of a vacillating light across the waves.
Content warnings for mentions of murder, violence, rape, suicide, animal death.
Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino by Julián Herbert, Translated by Cristina MacSweeney
Herbert has written this bizarre, often disturbing collection of short stories about violence, the narco trade, and the ethics of creation, from stolen art to art that exploits or damages other people. By far, the star of the show is the title story, in which a crime-lord named Montaña who looks like Tarantino demands that his henchman go to Los Angeles and bring them back his head. A film critic kidnapped by Montaña reflects on Tarantino’s films and muses on literary and film criticism in a way that’s fascinating, interspersed with action sequences and Montaña’s own stories. Another great story is “Z”, in which a cannibalistic zombie apocalypse is slowly working its way through Mexico City — almost so slow as to be boring.
Content warningsfor fatphobia, exploitation, rape, drug use and addiction, murder, necrophilia, cannibalism, racism, anti-Indigenous sentiment, homophobia.
The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza, Translated by Sarah Booker
This is a poetic short novel about disappearance, the disappearance of women over the years — the anger paired with avoidance, the fear of looking straight at it, the feeling that it’s contagious, the annoyance at feeling like you’re unable to access something innate about womanhood and female communities, the fear that your masculinity is somehow inherently at risk if you do not defend it. A narrator is visited by the Betrayed — a woman he’s hurt again and again — and by a lost woman who claims to be a famous writer — and both of them grow close, refusing to leave his house. Garza purposefully messes with gender fluidity and identification, and it’s vividly absurd and will spark a lot of thought.
Content warnings for ableism, drugging, suicide, sexism and misogyny, medical mistreatment.
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, Translated by Lisa Dillman
Makina crosses the river from Mexico into the United States in order to find her brother. She grew up in a macho world of masculine power structures and a criminal underworld, which she navigates to get to her sibling, carrying secret messages with her. A surrealist, strange tale, Herrera’s book uses all this liminal space to interrogate issues of immigration, language, translation, all with a heavy dose of otherworldliness that leaves the reader on edge. The book, which won the 2016 BTBA Best Translated Book Award for Fiction, is a fast read, and will leave you feeling thoughtful and slightly disconcerted.
Mrs. Murakami’s Garden by Mario Bellatin, Translated by Heather Cleary
This short novel features Izu, a young woman working to succeed academically and professionally in a male-dominated field of art criticism. She makes waves when she writes a cutting critique of the private collection of a rich older man, who then begins to pursue her hand in marriage. It’s a book about the determined actions and limitations of the patriarchy and those determined to keep it in place. And then you add on Bellatin and Cleary’s Borgesian, meta-textual questions for the reader: Who do we believe? Where does the novel end, and who do we trust to tell us what actually happened?
Content warnings for suicide, terminal illness, mention of pedophilia, blackmail and extortion.
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, Translated by Sophia Hughes
The Witch is a strange figure, a woman who hosts parties at her isolated home, who helps the women of the town when they need abortions, who is enigmatic and refuses their money. When she dies, the town is thrown into a storm of its own darkness. Melchor’s novel is not for the faint of heart. This sharp-edged, jagged story is told in long, running chapters, each one long monologue of sorts, as the characters recount their stories of rage, violence, madness, death, and suffering. No one who participates in this torrent survives unscathed: children are unable to grow up with their innocence, and abuse and fear are rampant. This village has been cursed, in its way, and the Witch’s death jars its stories open for the reader to see.
Content warnings for death, ableism, rape, child neglect and abuse, murder, violence, pedophilia and grooming, homophobia.
Like a New Sun: New Indigenous Poetry, Edited by Víctor Terán and David Shook, Translated by Adam Coon, Jonathan Harrington, Jerome Rothenberg, David Shook, Clare Sullivan, and Eliot Weinberger
A long list of Indigenous languages in Mexico are endangered due to a history of colonialism and a continuing homogeneity of language education. Luckily, language activists are working to change that, and poets writing in these languages are a huge part of the equation. In this collection, poets write in Easten Huasteca Nahuatl, Mazatec, Isthmus Zapotec, Tsotsil, Zoque, and Yucatec Maya. It’s fantastic to bring lesser-known, unique poetic traditions into the spotlight. The book publishes the original on the left and the translated on the right, further supporting the reader’s exposure to languages they may not have even heard of, and provides introductions to each poet that includes information about the featured languages as well.
A Zero-Sum Game by Eduardo Rabasa, Translated by Christina MacSweeney
In this strange satire, Rabasa depicts Villa Miserias, a strange town ruled by the residents’ association in theory, but truly by the sinister and manipulative Selon Perdumes, the founder of Quietism in Motion. It’s a vivid, toxic theory that is essentially individualism and capitalism run rampant — never-ending expansion, false transparency, false stories of equality as the gaps widen. In this paralyzing, surreal, often funny world, where laws border on the absurd and everything is rigged, where law and order are enforced and rebellion harshly (and quietly) punished, a man named Max Michels decides that he’s going to run for president. But he’s going to be the one to finally change the game.
Content warnings for emotional abuse, false accusations, sexual coercion and abuse, rape, animal death, racism, and mentions of eating disorder, overdose, drug addiction.
The Hole by José Revueltas, Translated by Amanda Hopkinson and Sophie Hughes
In this novella, just 70 pages and a single, rushing paragraph, Revueltas provides a scathing critique of the incarceration system. Three men have their loved ones try to smuggle heroin into the prison for them. But they are trapped in a cycle of violence and degradation — both guards and prisoners are stuck, getting worse by the day. The book absolutely barrels to the end, culminating in a electrifying betrayal. Revueltas, who was himself imprisoned in one of Mexico’s most infamous prisons for opposing the government in the 1960s, shows how the dark and dehumanizing environment of prison, isolation, and torture, just leads to people growing more violent, more desperate.
Content warnings for ableism, self-harm, drugs, sexism, sexual assault, violence.
Bezoar and Other Unsettling Stories by Guadalupe Nettel, Translated by Suzanne Jill Levine
It was difficult to choose which Nettel book to even recognize here — to not feature her first book published in English, Natural Histories: Stories, or her autobiographical novel The Body Where I Was Born, both translated by J.T. Lichtenstein. But I had to pick her most recent book, this strange collection of eerie short tales. A man connects his identity a little too closely to a cactus at a local garden; a woman who can’t stop pulling out her hair meets a man who can’t stop cracking his knuckles; a young girl seeks “total solitude” on a remote beach. The stories are absurd and full of loneliness, of people struggling to connect with others. Nettel’s writing is strange but beautiful.
Content warnings for compulsive behavior, self-policing, mental hospital and confinement, suicide, stalking.
Want to read more of my lists of books in translation? I’ve previously written lists of Catalan books in translation, Argentinian books in translation, French books in translation, and even a list of 20 must-read queer books in translation from all around the world. Have recommendations for more Mexican literature in translation that I should check out, or requests for future lists? Let me know on Twitter.
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