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Some
questions for Quintilla
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Some questions for Quintus
1.
What’s your background?
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Quintus
was educated to doctorate level at the University of Cambridge and taught Latin
Prose and Verse Composition at the University before taking on the
leadership of the Classics department of one of England's most prestigious
independent boarding schools. His broadcasts include talks on ‘Virgil’ and
‘Caligula’. Quintus is now enjoying retirement, which he divides between
translating Latin, exploring the rural byways of England by bicycle and on
foot, railway journeys and out-door swimming. He is ascetic by nature, and
practises the now sadly neglected virtues of self-reliance and thrift.
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Quintus’
doughty consort Quintilla was educated at the University of Oxford
and has acted as the Latin language consultant for a number of television
documentaries.
2. Why not use free online
software and online dictionaries to translate Latin? Because they don’t
work!!! The real damage is done by sites which offer translations from
English into Latin, because if you don’t know Latin you have no way of
knowing whether these translations are correct or not, and Latin is so
different from English that it’s impossible to check them by simply looking
up the words in a Latin dictionary.
Not convinced? Here’s
an interesting test: feed any
English sentence of 10 or so words into an English-to-Latin translation
program; then take the resultant Latin and feed it into a different
Latin-to-English translation program. You will be surprised – or horrified
– by the results!
Unfortunately these
translation programs are useless – that’s why they’re free - and sadly
people who use them to translate phrases into Latin don’t realize this, and
end up with gibberish for their company motto, tattoo etc.
3. What about other Internet Latin translation
agencies?
Only a handful of other sites offer Latin
translations, and very few are dedicated Latin sites run by Latinists. Almost
all are run as multi-lingual sites with no special expertise in Latin,
which is farmed out to untested third parties. We know this because they frequently
email us to help out with difficult assignments. With us you are in direct
contact with a combined 94 years of experience in Latin (that’s more than
twice the average lifespan of a Roman!)
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4.
What positive reasons are there for choosing Quintus?
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Lifelong
academic experience of translating Latin.
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Unparalleled
experience in internet Latin translation work over more than thirteen
years.
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Inbuilt
quality assurance from a highly satisfied verifiable customer base (more
than 1000 verified Paypal customers in the last twelve months alone – see
our Paypal pages).
5. What sort of translations do you do?
Every
sort! Latin bons mots for an erudite Californian nursery, Ph.D. prefaces,
funerary inscriptions, huge amounts of academic research, mottos, tags for
wedding rings and tattoos, genealogy, alchemy, scientific writings
(including geology, biology, chemistry and mathematics), company logos,
love-letters, medieval Latin (for much of which no English translation
exists), diplomas, theology, weapons systems, etc., etc.
6. Examples?
2012 saw
demand for Latin translations increase yet again. Early scientific writings
from the Enlightenment and theology now form the staple of our work,
including works on medical topics, astronomy, optics and animal and plant
taxonomy, by authors such as Ray, Martin Lister, Gassendi, Huygens, Biancani,
Sartorius, May, Ulmus and many others. Previous notable long works have
included several medieval grimoires, the 1,600,000 word Historia Norvegica
(History of Norway) by
Torfaeus into English for a Norwegian academic foundation, the 35,000 word
Lun Yu of Confucius into Latin for the Confucius Publishing Company of Hong Kong, both for publication on the web, and the
Latin dialogue text and sound files for a History Channel documentary on
Boudicca. Shorter translations for tattoos, family mottos and ring
inscriptions remain very popular, and it is gratifying to see so many delighted
customers who have bought tattoo translations returning for further
translations.
7. Extras
We
can supply sound files in .mp3 format for a small extra charge, with
Quintus reading your translation in
an authentic Roman accent. The $20.00 budget service includes a free sound
file of your translation.
Quintus’
Latin Translation Service
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