Practical 8: Translating a Restaurant Menu (Tasks 3&4)

21 Abril 2026, 15:30 • Rui Vitorino Azevedo

We reviewed students’ translations and focused on tasks 3 and 4 of the practical where they had to analyze at least three specific decisions using translation theory where relevant.  Good examples include the treatment of dish names (borrowing vs. adaptation), the reformulation of descriptive copy to suit the more restrained register typical of Portuguese menus, and lexical choices around ingredients or preparation methods with no direct Portuguese equivalent. We then looked at a brief reflective step, asking students to explain how their choices, taken together, make the menu usable, appealing, and culturally appropriate for a Portuguese-speaking audience, effectively connecting micro-level decisions back to the overarching communicative goal of the text.

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Practical 8: Translating a Restaurant Menu (Tasks 3&4)

21 Abril 2026, 14:00 • Rui Vitorino Azevedo

We reviewed students’ translations and focused on tasks 3 and 4 of the practical where they had to analyze at least three specific decisions using translation theory where relevant.  Good examples include the treatment of dish names (borrowing vs. adaptation), the reformulation of descriptive copy to suit the more restrained register typical of Portuguese menus, and lexical choices around ingredients or preparation methods with no direct Portuguese equivalent. We then looked at a brief reflective step, asking students to explain how their choices, taken together, make the menu usable, appealing, and culturally appropriate for a Portuguese-speaking audience, effectively connecting micro-level decisions back to the overarching communicative goal of the text.

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Practical 8: Translating a Restaurant Menu (Tasks 1&2)

17 Abril 2026, 15:30 • Rui Vitorino Azevedo

Students were asked to look at Practical 8 which involves translating a section of the Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen menu from the Boston location into Portuguese, in preparation for a new Lisbon branch. Students had to define their translation strategy, weighing domestication against foreignization in the specific context of a high-profile restaurant menu: the target audience ranges from food enthusiasts to casual diners, so the language must be both appealing and accessible, without losing the upscale, international register associated with the Ramsay brand. They then had to translate in class one full section of the menu, making decisions about culinary terminology, dish descriptions, and formatting, for instance, whether to retain French or English terms that carry prestige (brûlée, tartare, burger) or replace them with Portuguese equivalents, and how to handle ingredient lists that reference items unfamiliar to Portuguese diners.

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Practical 8: Translating a Restaurant Menu (Tasks 1&2)

17 Abril 2026, 14:00 • Rui Vitorino Azevedo

Students were asked to look at Practical 8 which involves translating a section of the Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen menu from the Boston location into Portuguese, in preparation for a new Lisbon branch. Students had to define their translation strategy, weighing domestication against foreignization in the specific context of a high-profile restaurant menu: the target audience ranges from food enthusiasts to casual diners, so the language must be both appealing and accessible, without losing the upscale, international register associated with the Ramsay brand. They then had to translate in class one full section of the menu, making decisions about culinary terminology, dish descriptions, and formatting, for instance, whether to retain French or English terms that carry prestige (brûlée, tartare, burger) or replace them with Portuguese equivalents, and how to handle ingredient lists that reference items unfamiliar to Portuguese diners.

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Practical 7 | Consumer-Oriented Text: Recipes

14 Abril 2026, 15:30 • Rui Vitorino Azevedo

Practical 7 focuses on translating two recipes from Mary Berry’s cookbook (Lemon Sole Florentine and Best-Ever Brownies) into European Portuguese for a cookbook aimed at Portuguese home cooks. The exercise is divided into three tasks.

In Task 1, students define their overall translation strategy, justifying choices around domestication versus foreignization (Venuti) and explaining how the target audience (non-professional home cooks) shapes those decisions. Since recipes are operative texts (Reiss), the translation must function as a usable instruction, which generally favors a domesticating approach: metric measurements, idiomatic Portuguese, and adherence to local recipe conventions (infinitive or imperative mood; headers like Ingredientes and Modo de preparação).

In Task 2, students produce full translations of both recipes, converting all imperial and cup measurements to metric, adapting oven temperatures to Celsius, and finding natural Portuguese equivalents for culturally specific ingredients such as double cream or lemon sole.

In Task 3, students select at least three translation decisions and analyse them using Vinay and Darbelnet's procedures (borrowing, transposition, equivalence, adaptation, and so on) explaining how each choice supports the overall strategy and serves the target reader. Good commentary decisions might include measurement conversion (adaptation), the handling of the term Florentine (borrowing or equivalence), the restructuring of complex English participial constructions into clean Portuguese imperatives (transposition), or the treatment of untranslatable texture descriptors like “fudgy.”

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