For the last post of the year, we decided to share with you some moments of our holidays celebration. Can you tell who is who in the pictures?
We will be back with a lot of exciting news in January. Until then, we would like to wish you all the peace, joy and success in the New Year. See you in 2008!
How many words can you put in a “lauda” (a Brazilian metric used in translation that more or less corresponds to a page)? To answer this question is as easy as answering what are the exact measures of a size 6, 8 or 10. That depends…
“Lauda” was a commonly used metric in a time when one used typewriters. It consisted of a paper form with an upper and bottom ruler to count each type (in general, 60 to 80 types) and a ruler on each side to mark the lines (20 to 30 or more lines). When typewriters became obsolete and computers started to rule, these metrics became even more flexible and were rapidly adapting to each person’s (or company’s) needs.
If you search the Internet, you will find references to “laudas” of every possible size – from 1,000 types (!) to 2,100 characters, as suggested by the Brazilian Translator’s Union. But let’s be fair here. There are several websites where translators and reviewers offer their services quoted with “laudas” with instructions on how to reach the number of characters using MS Word features.
Yet the client is on the other side of this chasm. I have seen all: “laudas” with 150 words or 300 words that surprisingly enough are supposed to have the same size. How come?
It will take some time before the day when we can count some good old words costing the same, regardless of the number of characters they have…
Has your client asked you to translate something in European Portuguese, or even to “review” a European Portuguese text into Brazilian Portuguese? He may have asked you whether it is the same thing to translate a text in one language or the other. Mine has done that as well. I’ll briefly point out here some of the reasons why it is virtually impossible for Brazilians to work with European Portuguese texts and vice-versa.
Phonetically speaking, here in Brazil, we pronounce all vowels to the fullest, whether they are stressed or not. In Portugal, there is a tendency to pronounce only the stressed vowels. But what is more important in our case are the differences in meaning and syntax.
In Brazil, we prefer to use the gerund (e.g. “Estamos trabalhando” when one wants to say, “We are working”). The Portuguese however prefer the infinitive form (“Estamos a trabalhar,” when they want to say the same thing). In Brazil, we use the pronoun “você” for the second person singular; in Portugal, the pronoun “vos” is generally more used. In a sentence like “If I read to you,” you would hear “Se eu lesse para você” in Brazil and “Se eu vos lesse” in Portugal.
Here, the expression “falar consigo” means speaking to oneself, while in Portugal it means speaking to you. It is quite common there to use the comparative form “mais pequeno” (smaller), while in Brazil the grammatically correct comparative form “menor.”
Mute consonants were mostly eliminated in Brazil yet are still widely used in Portugal. Words like “ação” (action) and “ótimo’ (great), for instance, are written as “acção” and “óptimo” in Portugal. The umlaut is still used in Brazil to mark the pronunciation of the “u” in diphthongs, examples of which are words like “lingüiça” (sausage) and “freqüência” (frequency). Only in Brazil.
Stressing is also different in both countries because of the pronunciation: while in Brazil, we write “tônico” (tonic) and “cômodo” (comfortable), in Portugal it is written as “tónico” and “cómodo” with an open “o.”
There are also many differences in meaning. The ocean between us has developed several semantic differences, making each language increasingly distinct. In Portugal, a “bicha enorme” is nothing more than a large queue. In Brazil, however, one would think that you are talking about a very tall gay man.
Do speakers in Brazil and Portugal understand each other? No doubt. Do they want to read in each other’s variant? I don’t think so!
For more information on this topic, I suggest reading Fabiano Cid’s article published in an early edition of the Ccaps Newsletter: Nice country; I’ll take it
Today we published the last edition of the Ccaps Newsletter in 2007. Have you checked it already?
Here is an extract from the Intro text:
“To close the year, we decided to focus on the country known as a “giant by its own nature.” This edition is quite special for us, since this is where we are based, where all of us here at Ccaps were born and where we have been doing business since our foundation in 1999. The promised land that shares with China, India and Russia a very special position in the world arena as part of the BRIC group. A country that,is brimming with natural beauty and a pulsing economy, but which still a lot of issues to resolve in almost every area, from education to politics, human rights and, of course, localization. A country full of hope living a promising moment in its history.”
Liked it? Then go read the three articles we prepared for you. They are available at
http://www.ccaps.net/newsletter/11-07/newsletteren.htm
There is even one written by me this time! 
Fabiano Cid
I remember one of our Management meetings when I worked at Ccaps. We discussed the theme “Always Keep Your Eyes Open” (loosely translated from the original Portuguese “Desconfiar Sempre”).
A week later, I received an e-mail from one of Ccaps major clients and had all but automatically pressed the “Reply All” button when I saw that the client had addressed the e-mail to “Prezados.” I stopped to think for a moment and realized that the e-mail had most likely been sent to Ccaps and four of its toughest competitors (my assumption was based on a prior conversation with the client, who had advised me that all new translation projects would be sent to five different translation agencies). Yikes!
Therefore, in this case it probably wouldn’t be wise to send a reply to everyone, as our competitors certainly would not need to know our prices. Much to the contrary. This experience made me realize that these lessons that we learn in the “classroom,” so to speak, are really quite useful to our daily professional lives. The importance of keeping our eyes open applies even when it comes to those exceptions to the rule lurking out there.
Of course, my experience was an isolated case and applied specifically to my work with the national clients. Nevertheless, the concept applies to other procedures: running a spell check, verifying the word count in a log, confirming the delivery date, etc.
Just to generate some discussion, have any of you had a similar experience?
Sarah Hyde
Sarah moved from Seattle to Rio in 2002 and one year later was working for Ccaps. As a Project Manager, she worked here until she got pregnant of her first son, Matheus, at the end of 2006. Today, she is a freelance translator highly required by her clients, son and hubby Pedro.
