The Linguist

@Linguist_CIOL '¡Arriba, Arriba!: Why the most exciting shows on the small screen are Spanish', 4/11/20 Its comically butchered English title, Money Heist, seemed to confirm its status as a one- and-done viewing experience, as easily enjoyed as it would be forgotten. And did I mention it's not in English?… So it was against the odds that Money Heist became hugely successful – not successful for a foreign-language series but successful full stop. The crime drama became Netflix's most-watched series overall in countries including France and Italy. What the papers say… 'From Voicing Nazi Video Game Characters to Talking Cats, We Chat with Synthesis Localisation Studio', 25/9/20 In Dishonored II for the main character, Corvo, we used the German voice for Bruce Willis. He is probably one of the most prominent voices actors. We found out that his daughter is also a voice actor and she got the role of Emily, the in-game daughter of Corvo. This was really appreciated by the fans who loved to find out that they were really father and daughter and that that was unique to the German version. The latest from the languages world Vaccine labelling 'row' Consumer rights groups in the EU are insisting that health information for a future Covid-19 vaccine be printed in all 24 official European languages. The move comes as drug companies asked the EU to suspend the rules for packaging, labelling and instructions in order to speed up delivery of the vaccine. Vaccines Europe, which represents large pharmaceutical companies including Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, wants the EU to pick just one language to use on inoculation materials for all 27 member states. "We need an early agreement from EU authorities on the language to be used on the packs and labels for Covid-19 vaccines," said a spokesperson for the group. EU officials have suggested they may allow materials to be printed in a limited selection of languages, with other language versions available online. However, Monique Goyens, Director of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), argued: "Speed is important. But speed should not be at the expense of safety and certainly not be an excuse for cutting consumer protection measures." Suggesting that some users may not have access to the internet, she continued: "It is important that consumers have information available in their language and on paper about possible side effects of vaccines." NEWS & EDITORIAL Amazon has been criticised for using machine translation to list products in Swedish on its new Swedish website. Customers pointed to a series of embarrassing errors, with 'Nintendo Switch' appearing as 'Nintendo Circuit Breaker', a set of Russian military figurines labelled as 'Russian toddlers', and a cat T-shirt described using a rude word for 'vagina'. One user wrote: "Golf clapping for everyone at Amazon involved in the genius decision of doing garbage machine translation for 95+% of the site from a language that most people in Sweden can understand." In addition to translation issues, the site used the Argentinian flag as a country marker instead of the Swedish flag. A spokesperson for Amazon said: "We want to thank everyone for highlighting these issues and helping us make the changes and improve Amazon.se." While confirming their commitment to "constantly improving the customer experience", they asked consumers to report any issues, implying that they would rely on user feedback to make any necessary amendments. DECEMBER/JANUARY The Linguist 5 'Investigation into US Professor Sparks Debate Over Chinese Word', 10/9/20 Footage of his lecture, which has now gone viral, shows Prof Patton saying: "In China, the common pause word is 'that, that, that'. So in China, it might be na-ge, na-ge, na-ge." Enunciated, na-ge sounds like the N-word, which led several of the professor's students to complain to the university… What began as an accusation against the professor of using discriminatory language has morphed, in China, into accusations of discrimination against the Chinese language. Amazon's Swedish blunder © SHUTTERSTOCK

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