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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’.
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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 92 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 ten 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?
2010 has
been our busiest year ever, and the predominant academic themes have been several
long medieval grimoires, and a mass of seventeenth and eighteenth century
theology and early science, including works on medical topics, optics and
animal and plant taxonomy. Previous notable long works have included 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.
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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