Opinion & features

For many in line English isn’t their first language, making it harder for them to understand the process.

The multiple translators which specialize in Vietnamese and Spanish, can help people step by step, so that their needs can be met.

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Moments after coming into this world, a string of words in Arabic was sung in my ear. A string of words that would, in retrospect, go on to define my identity as a Muslim for the years to come. Nearly three decades later, I can still not translate the words of the azaan despite having heard them more days than not ever since.

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An unfortunate reality is that every language has great writers who have faded from the collective memory; either they fell out of favour, or their writing spoke only to their time, or perhaps they practiced on the margins, and their work never made it beyond a small readership. Difficulties in categorising a writer’s work is especially likely to put them in peril—writing that doesn’t fit neatly into one particular genre or tradition is easier to overlook than to perpetually seek its niche. And when these writings are forgotten, a small miracle needs to occur for them to be rediscovered again.

For the first time, English language readers will have the opportunity to read forgotten Hindi writers thanks to a new and, arguably, miraculous series from Seagull Books, based in Kolkata. First to be published are short story collections by Bhuvaneshwar and Rajkamal Chaudhary, names which may be unfamiliar to readers in their native India, let alone to readers beyond. Wolves and Other Short Stories by Bhuwaneshwar will be released in Fall 2020, and Traces of Boots on Tongue and Other Stories by Rajkamal Chaudhary is due for release in early 2021.

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The media team of Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding (SHATIU) organised a webinar on “The Reality and Prospects of Translation in Bangladesh from and to Arabic” on Thursday in which several Bengali academics and translators participated.

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One of the most frequently-used phrases at (virtual) business conferences these days is “the future of work.” It’s increasingly clear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will bring substantial changes in work tasks and business processes. But while these changes are predicted for the future, they’re already present in many organizations for many different jobs. As William Gibson once noted, “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” The job and incumbent described below is an example of this phenomenon. It’s a clear example of an existing job that’s been transformed by AI and related tools. Steve Miller, a Singapore-based professor, and I are exploring a series of case descriptions of “the future of work now.”

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As professional translators and interpreters, we are always striving to provide high-quality services to our clients, be that translation, interpretation, revision work, etc. Yet what does high-quality work look like as a language professional? How can it be measured and how do we know if we are providing quality work? Drs. Geoffrey Koby and Isabel Lacruz tackled this massive subject in their academic introduction to a volume of Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies that focuses on the issue of translation quality.

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I recently participated in the TAUS event Reinventing the Translation Industry.

The focus of the event was on imagining the translation industry a year from now, in light of our global economic and pandemic woes. But also with an eye on how machine translation (MT) and AI are transforming the industry to support more content, more languages and more intelligent (and efficient) workflows.

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Going through a financial crisis while your country is on lockdown is an experience we will most likely never forget. But even in this time of uncertainty, it could be an experience that will make your team stronger — perhaps by stimulating your business to embrace the available technology and practice crisis consciousness. Our company survived the COVID-19 crisis in China, and we took steps to ensure the business has not suffered any financial losses.

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Every time I open a social media platform or check my email I find a message from a distance interpreting platform inviting potential clients and interpreters to a free demo session, an advertisement from an interpreting agency announcing they offer the most affordable remote interpreting services, or they have opened an interpreting hub; and I see dozens of posts from interpreters (known and unknown) showing pictures of their laptops, headsets, and microphones while they smile and stare at the wall in front of their desks.

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Genevieve  Kimble already had nine languages under her belt, but discovered she still had plenty to learn.

So, when Cal State Long Beach launched its translation studies program in Fall 2019, she was eager to become one of the first students to receive a minor in what is a growing field that plays a major role in today’s global economy.

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In Turning Darkness into Light, Marie Brennan’s latest novel set in the Lady Trent universe, Audrey Camherst, Lady Trent’s granddaughter, is tasked with translating a newly found cache of ancient Draconean tablets with the utmost secrecy. She travels to Lord Gleinleigh’s estate, where she meets his niece Cora, who is assigned to be her assistant—and spy on Audrey for her uncle. Gleinleigh wants the tablets to be translated before the Falchester Congress, a summit between humans and Draconeans scheduled to happen in ten months. Audrey requests that her Draconean friend Kudshayn be allowed to travel to Gleinleigh’s estate to help her, and, to her surprise, Gleinleigh says yes. So Audrey, Kudshayn, and Cora work to copy and translate the tablets that seem to tell the story of the creation of Draconeans and their early history.

Read the full piece on Tor.com

In this two-part series, we examine how the pandemic has exacerbated problems facing Oregon’s interpreters. Long-standing deficiencies in state oversight of their industry, which thrives on third-party contracting and low wages, has left interpreters working in health care settings struggling to make ends meet while they serve on the front lines of the pandemic. At the same time, the vulnerability of already marginalized non-English speakers is increased in hospitals and clinics, where they are often paired with translators who don’t speak their language, if provided with any translator at all.

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Litigation is a hostage to exact language. A poorly worded contract or a testimony that’s unclear can be enough to swing the outcome of an entire case. And that’s when only a single language is involved. When disputes include multiple languages, then expert legal translation is essential. Without it, cases can crumble, frustrating all those involved and preventing justice from being done.

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In the last decade, women have proved to be the most passionate translators of Joyce. Among these are Dai Congrong, Marianna Gula, Akram Pedramnia, Iglika Vassileva, Tamar Gelashvili, Dirce Waltrick do Amarante and Jolanta Wawrzycka who translated some of Joyce’s works into Chinese, Hungarian, Persian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Brazilian-Portuguese and Polish respectively. Why have more and more women engaged in the translating of the works of one of the most puzzling and controversial authors of Ireland in the last few years?

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Learning a foreign language has led to a Manawatū man interpreting for Japanese rugby clubs and the All Blacks. Rush, 37, has been a Japanese translator for 15 years, but has been at home since Covid-19 interrupted the Japanese rugby season. Rush works as a translator for the Kobelco Steelers in Kobe, near Osaka. Continue reading.

In Gnaomi Siemens’s queer translations of Old English poetry, gender becomes fluid and the female voice proliferates. Today on WWB Daily, Siemens discusses how queer translation can amplify silenced voices and subvert the gender binary.

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