All news
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
An Interview with Sarah Thomason.
The linguist discusses how technology shapes culture and culture shapes words.
Thomason, a linguist, is fascinated by what happens when one language meets another, and how those languages change, or don’t. I had contacted her because I was interested in how certain words—say, e-mail, or google, or tweet—had been exported worldwide by American-born technology. I’d already called several linguists, and they all said I had to speak to Sally. No one, they said, had more insight into how linguistic traits travel, how pidgins and creoles are born, and how languages interact and change over time. More.
See: The Paris Review
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
Google Translate slowly but steadily is increasing its services across the world. It was launched in April 2006 using rule-based machine translations between English and Arabic, followed by translations between English and Russian in December 2006. The increase of new languages was hiked in 2007, and thus, in just a decade, the service passed the 100 languages mark.
Google Translate continues to improve translations by enhancing algorithms and systems and by learning from user translations. The search giant has updated its Breakdown Page, which displays the features supported by each language. The 13 new languages are only available for typing. More.
See: Albany Daily Star
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Yolanda Broad
[…] And he touched on a key subject. How often do people really need an interpreter?
Often times, law enforcement officers, attorneys, and even judges try to make a quick and unfounded determination of someone’s need for a language interpreter. They don’t ponder on what factors might be involved in determining that need. Not Sgt. Newman, he actually thought to ask a language access professional!
Language acquisition is not a matter to be seen in black and white. It’s a process unique to each person. Even if you exposed people to the same type of language learning environment, the results would be different.
Time spent in a country is not necessarily a determining factor for language learning. More.
See: CYInterview
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
A new policy paper by the United Nations has recommended the use of the mother tongue during teaching for at least six years of early learning.
The report says that teaching a language “other than one’s own language,” negatively impacts a child’s learning ability. It stresses that mother tongue instruction is needed so that gains from teaching in mother tongue are sustained.
The policy paper issued ‘If you don’t understand, how you can learn?,’ was released recently by UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring agency.
It reveals that about 40% of children are being taught in a language they do not understand, according to UNESCO.
The UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova underscores the basic principle of children learning in a language they understand.
“It is essential to encourage full respect for the use of mother language in teaching and learning, and to promote linguistic diversity.
Inclusive language education policies will not only lead to higher learning achievement, but contribute to tolerance, social cohesion, and, ultimately, peace,” says Bokova.
The report states that learning improves in countries that have invested in bilingual programmes. It found that children in countries such as Ethiopia, which participated in bilingual programmes, improved their learning in subjects across the curriculum. “They also have higher scores in all subject areas,” the report says.
Aaron Benavot, Director of UNESCO’s GEM Report says one language can serve as a double-edged sword and hence advocates for bilingual classes. More.
See: New Vision
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
Website localization is the process of adapting an existing website to the local language and culture in the target market. This means that localization involves much more than the simple translation of text. It has to reflect specific language and cultural preferences in the content, images, overall design and requirements of the site, all while maintaining the integrity of the website. A culturally adapted website will make navigation easier for the users, thus their attitude towards the site will be much more positive. The main purpose of localization is to customize a website in a way that it seems natural to its viewers, despite certain cultural differences between the creator and the audience. People all over the world see the Internet as their main provider of information and even services. These people do not speak the same language. As a result, website localization has become one of the primary tools for business global expansion. It is clear that linguistic and cultural knowledge are essential for this purpose, but programming expertise is also necessary. More.
See: Translator Thoughts
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
[…] In a recent Wall Street Journal article, technology policy expert Alec Rossargued that, within a decade or so, we’ll be able to communicate with one another via small earpieces with built-in microphones.
No more trying to remember your high school French when checking into a hotel in Paris. Your earpiece will automatically translate “Good evening, I have a reservation” to Bon soir, j’ai une réservation – while immediately translating the receptionist’s unintelligible babble to “I am sorry, Sir, but your credit card has been declined.”
Ross argues that because technological progress is exponential, it’s only a matter of time.
Indeed, some parents are so convinced that this technology is imminent that they’re wondering if their kids should even learn a second language. More.
See: The Conversation
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
[…] Translated novels by female writers are the palomino unicorns of the publishing world – not just unusual, but a small subset within a subset. Not only do translations make up a tiny fraction of the books brought out in the UK and US, but only about a quarter of them are by women.
Various recent counts have found that about 26 % of English translations are female-authored books (although the gender balance among their translators is roughly equal). With such a small pool to choose from in any one year, it may not be surprising that women have rarely won prizes for translated titles in the past. The Man Booker International’s forerunner, the Independent foreign fiction prize, went to two women and 19 men over its lifetime, only shortlisting six women in its last five years. On the other hand, America’s younger equivalent, the Best Translated Book awards, have managed to honour Dorothea Dieckmann, Gail Hareven, Tove Jansson and Can Xue in eight years. More.
See: The Guardian
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
The languages of the world are a beautiful thing. Although most objects have direct translations into all different languages, many ideas and concepts are unique to the culture in which the language exists. Because of this, a word used frequently in one language might be completely alien to another, and require a sentence-long explanation. Thankfully, artist Marija Tiurina has created these illustrations to explain some of the strangest culture-specific words in the world. More.
See: Lifehack
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Health literacy is #1. People with low health literacy have a higher risk of death, more emergency room visits, more hospitalizations, more diabetes-related problems, a higher incidence of cancer and are more likely to take medicines incorrectly. According to the American Medical Association, “poor health literacy is a stronger predictor of a person’s health than age, income, employment status, education level and race.”
Low health literacy not only adversely affects an individual’s health and quality of life, but it is expensive. Low health literacy in the United States is estimated to cost the economy between $106 billion and $238 billion each year. These expenses are borne by hospitals, clinics, individuals, government and others. More.
See: Responsive Translation
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
The United Nations Department for General Assembly and Conference Management (DGACM) in New York, USA is offering 13 internships: translation into Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, German and Arabic; as well as verbatim reporting, editing, and knowledge management. More.
See: From Words to Deeds: translation & the law
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
Being bilingual has some obvious advantages. Learning more than one language enables new conversations and new experiences. But in recent years,psychology researchers have demonstrated some less obvious advantages of bilingualism, too. For instance, bilingual children may enjoy certain cognitive benefits, such as improved executive function — which is critical for problem solving and other mentally demanding activities.
Now, two new studies demonstrate that multilingual exposure improves not only children’s cognitive skills but also their social abilities. More.
See: The New York Times
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
Having worked as a project manager in the language services industry for over five years, I have encountered many recurring issues when collaborating with freelancers that are not related to the linguistic aspect of the translation process. I share here what I see every day along with my recommendations for a more productive working relationship. I am sure that my fellow project managers have experienced similar issues. Some of the points, if not all, may seem like common sense, but I still see at least two to three of them every day. More.
See: The Savvy Newcomer
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Jared Tabor
Pieter Beens is a freelance translator and copywriter working in English to Dutch, and a frequent guest contributor to the Translator T.O. In this post, Pieter shares his experience as a volunteer translator for Translators Without Borders.
“I just completed a translation for Translators Without Borders, my fourth this year. And I must admit I was touched. This time I translated for a charity that helped orphaned children get back to school after the Ebola outbreak last year. Such a beautiful initiative needs our support. I did my small part by translating their sponsoring letter into Dutch, and hope that the letter will help raise the funds necessary to bring these children back to education. That is why I chose to register as a volunteer for Translators Without Borders a couple of years ago, and why I have already translated more than ten thousand words through this organization for several different charities. More.
See: Translator T.O.
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
Another of our regular updates has just gone live, and it’s our biggest yet. As always, there have been additions and improvements right across the dictionary, with well over 600 changes this time. These include almost 400 completely new words and meanings, so let’s start by looking at those.
Among the several hundred neologisms which have just entered the dictionary, many are random coinages, but a good number come from those areas of our social and economic lives which have produced so many new words and meanings in recent years. More.
See: Macmillan Dictionary
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
A new version of the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) has just been released.
What is MedDRA?
MedDRA is the acronym for Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities. It’s an international medical terminology used by the pharmaceutical industry, medical device industry and regulatory agencies throughout the drug development process, in clinical trials and for postmarketing activities such as pharmacovigilance (periodic safety update reports and adverse drug reactions), clinical reports, data presentation and coding.
It classifies diseases, diagnoses, signs, symptoms, therapeutic indications, investigations and procedures, and medical/social/family history. It doesn’t cover drugs (except as an associated adverse event), equipment or device terminology (except as a device failure), numerical values, study designs or demographics.
Why do we need it?
MedDRA ensures global standardisation of terminology by regulatory agencies – the FDA, EMA and PMDA (Japan) –, pharmaceutical companies and clinicians. And translators. More.
See: Signs & Symptoms of Translation
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
The Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament (TERMCOORD) and the Catalan Center for Terminology (TERMCAT), have initiated a collaboration to enrich the contents of IATE, the European Union multilingual terminological database. To be precise, TERMCAT will provide the internal IATE version with new terminology in Catalan, in a joint effort to improve and extend it.
TERMCOORD and TERMCAT have reached an agreement with the aim to enrich and update the contents of IATE with relevant terminological data from TERMCAT. As a first step to materialize this agreement, TERMCAT will provide TERMCOORD with Catalan designations for concepts already included in IATE. Existing terminological entries, thus, will be completed with Catalan terms. More.
See: Terminology Coordination Unit of the European Parliament
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
texjax DDS PhD
The benefits of learning another language aren’t limited to just getting by in another tongue. They may also extend to a host of hidden cognitive benefits that could protect your brain in the case of a serious health episode such as a stroke or dementia, according to a new study.
Researchers from the UK and India gathered data from 608 stroke patients in Hyderabad, India, and found that people who speak more than one language have a greater chance to recover from a stroke than monolingual people. More.
See: ScienceAlert
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
International researchers are rushing to document a German colonial-era language from Papua New Guinea before it becomes extinct.
One of the world’s rarest languages is being kept alive in Australia, spoken by just a handful of families.
The rare language is known as Unserdeutsch, or ‘Our German’. The linguists’ work has reunited the scattered speakers, some for the first time in decades.
“Unserdeutsch is a contact language, like all creoles are contact languages, and shares features with PNG pidgin, German and English but it has its own characteristics as well,” said Professor Peter Maitz from the University of Augsburg. More.
See: SBS News
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
TRANSLATOR
(from ATA’s website)
“Translators work with the written word, converting text from a source language into a target language. This is far more than replacing one word with another. The translator must also convey the style, tone, and intent of the text, while taking into account differences of culture and dialect.
Often, the finished document should read as if it had originally been written in the target language for the target audience. But this is not always the case. Highly specialized content may require the translator to retain elements of the source language culture in the target language translation. A professional translator will have the expertise to know the best approach for the translation.”
Translators must be familiar with the dialects, registers, and terminology needed for the type of translation project they are responsible for. When working in teams, translators may be responsible for editing, proofreading, summarizing, localizing, and transcreating. More.
See: Lingua Greca Translations
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
Story flagged by:
Paula Durrosier
[…] There is a tradition of writers trying to escape their language and render their art in a foreign tongue. Some do it because they are intoxicated by the possibilities offered in a new language—the words and turns of phrase for which their own language doesn’t have any equivalents, the strange new rhythms and patterns of sound. Joseph Conrad, for whom English was a third language after Polish and French, explained that he was “adopted by the genius of the language”. Vladimir Nabokov had political and commercial reasons for writing in English rather than Russian, but his real compulsion had to do with the pleasures of the language itself: “The excitement of verbal adventure in the Russian medium had faded away gradually after I turned to English,” he told the Paris Review.
Benjamin Lee Whorf, a 20th-century linguist, argued that speakers of different languages perceive and understand the world differently—that language determines thought. If this is the case then writing in a foreign language offers writers not just new words but new ideas, a different way of interpreting experience altogether. More.
See: The Economist
Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | | Translation news Stay informed on what is happening in the industry, by sharing and discussing translation industry news stories.
The translation news daily digest is my daily 'signal' to stop work and find out what's going on in the world of translation before heading back into the world at large! It provides a great overview that I could never get on my own. susan rose (X)United States I receive the daily digest, some interesting and many times useful articles! I read the daily digest of ProZ.com translation news to get the essential part of what happens out there! |