April 2017 | Glossa Language Consulting & Translation, Inc.

April 2017

April 20 2017

Non-infectious Models

Daniela GuanipaEnglish, life sciences, Linguote, mistranslation, Spanish biomedicina, errores, infection models, life sciences, medical translation, mistakes, modelo de infección, traducción, traducción médica 0

This drawing was inspired by the mistranslation of the following source text: “No infection models demonstrated increased mortality risk by interleukin-specific antagonism (…)”

Original translation: Modelos no infecciosos mostraron un aumento del riesgo de mortalidad por antagonista específico de la interleucina (…)

While it is true that the English is also at fault here (it should read “No infection model demonstrated…), this is a clear example of a translator in auto-pilot. Thus, the incorrect interpretation of the source text leaves us with a case of modelos no infecciosos (non-infectious models), and a completely erroneous translation.

How it should read in Spanish: Ningún modelo de infección demostró un aumento del riesgo…

Quite different!

April 20 2017

Mouse Transplant

Daniela Guanipalife sciences medical translation, skin grafts 0

“Immunosuppressed mice were transplanted with clinically symptomless skin grafts from patients.”

In this case, the verb “to transplant” in English is being used as an intransitive, thus requiring the preposition “with.” However, because trasplantar is always transitive in Spanish, we must reorganize this sentence to render a coherent translation. Otherwise, we end up with the translation that inspired this post:

Se trasplantaron ratones inmunosuprimidos con injertos de piel asintomática de pacientes.

Whereby the mice with skin grafts were being transplanted.

Not a good experiment.