Funny glossary of translating

This thread is part of the Translator playground: a place for translators to have fun, to network, to learn, and to hone their translation or linguistic skills. See the announcement here.

Need a quick break from work? In this forum translators and language professionals can share quotes about translation, tongue twisters and word plays, translation challenges, etc.

All are welcome to participate and to add new items to this and the other areas of the Translator playground; have fun with it! If you need help or would like to propose an addition to the Translator playground, contact site staff through the online support system.

20,000 words: The amount of words (some) clients think can be translated overnight.

Capital letters: Something that clients love to put in and translators love to take out.

Client: “Please provide some alternative headlines” = “We have no idea what the message is”.

Customer feedback: A lengthy exchange of emails where the customer attempts to insert error in a translation, resulting in attempts to insert errors in a translation, resulting in a debate of life, the universe and everything.

Deadline: (1) The unreasonable delivery schedule that will almost kill the translator, but not quite. (2) Deadlines: Clients love to give them, but (some) hate to keep them when they’re on the bottom of an invoice.

Dictionary: Gives you every alternative except that elusive word you are searching for.

Excel Files: A file format used by clients who don’t know how to create tables in Word files.

Fee: The tiny figure on your bank account that keeps you from starving and that clients make such a fuss about.

Feedback: Something that is never forthcoming unless it’s negative. Not to be confused with complaint!

Holidays: non-existing term in translators’ community.

PDF: A file format used when the client has lost the original source text.

Proofreading by the client: The phase of implementing spelling and grammar errors.

Relevant background material: 20 GB of completely useless stuff.

Research: five hours spent on the internet looking for two words, only to be told it’s a typo and to leave them out.

Sample Translation: A long document a client has split between 20 agencies as a way of getting the work done for free.

Social media: now your whole extended family and friends of friends can ask for free translations.

Source copy in JPG file: the ultimate nightmare.

Translation theory: That thing they teach you in school that you never quite seem to use in the real world.

Translator: A person expected to do today what the client should have done yesterday.


Weekends: The 2 days between Friday and Monday when clients mini-break in Paris whilst translators are expected to work.

White Space: Something that clients never leave in PPT docs and are then surprised when their translated files looks blah.

Word File: a word-processing document that is guaranteed to crash when a deadline is looming.