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On July 21, 2022, UK Immigration Enforcement released new guidelines on communicating with detained individuals of limited English proficiency (LEP). Notably, in addition to outlining procedures for requesting interpreting services, the document also addresses the use of “electronic translation devices.”
Read on Slator
Beginning of July, Meta AI published an outstanding work: No Language Left Behind (NLLB). It presents a new translation model and datasets for 200 languages. This is a wonderful initiative that will definitely benefit many on the planet.
It is also a scientifically dubious work. In this article, I demonstrate that many of Meta AI claims made in NLLB are: unfounded, misleading, and the result of a deeply flawed evaluation. I will also show that, following Meta AI evaluation methodology, it is very easy to obtain even higher numbers than what they have reported.
Continue reading.
Canada’s Board of Internal Economy (BOIE), which manages finances for the House of Commons, has approved a six-month pilot project that allows the use of “external” and “remote” interpreters for parliamentary sessions. The pilot project enables the House of Commons to hire freelance interpreters directly, excluding the government’s own Translation Bureau.
Continue reading on Slator
“With these acquisitions, Enco seeks to gain greater reach in the growing multi-generational Hispanic television market within the US and abroad by offering broadcasters a non-local option for advanced live Spanish-language television closed captioning translation.”
https://www.panoramaaudiovisual.com/en/2022/07/07/enco-targets-spanish-speaking-market-acquisition-translatetv/
“Stranger Things evoked a lot of emotions this season — especially if you flipped on your subtitles setting. Those subtitles became a sensation among fans: [Tentacles undulating moistly], [wet footsteps squelch], [tense music intensifies] are as memorable as Vecna himself.
While Netflix’s recent efforts have enabled its creative writers to let as loose as they can on a 42-word-count line, all credit of the phonetic mastery of Stranger Things 4 goes to the show’s subtitle author Jeff T. (he preferred we not share his full last name) and his subtitle QA editor Karli Witkowska.”
https://www.vulture.com/2022/07/stranger-things-subtitles-captions-team-interview.html
In a July 6, 2022 Facebook post, Zuckerberg explained why Meta AI’s recent No Language Left Behind (NLLB) project merits attention. Specifically, Meta AI tweeted, the company built an AI model capable of translating between 200 languages — for a total of 40,000 different translation directions. The authors reported that their model achieved a 44% improvement in BLEU, thus “laying important groundwork towards realizing a universal translation system.” But, as to be expected, improvement was not uniform across language pairs, with little to no improvement for pairs such as Armenian into English or French into Wolof.
Read full piece on Slator
The past few months have been rather tough concerning remote interpreting in the EU.
Various sources have reportedly expressed their concern about the remote interpreting’s miserable sound-audio quality especially when speakers of/from the EU Parliament, EU Commission and/or other EU agencies are remotely connected and/or working from home as well.
Equipment standards are simply not met. The conditions under which interpreters are obliged to work have far exceeded the level of acceptability.
In addition, and sad to say, Juniors unfortunately contribute to worsening the situation, accepting unacceptable working conditions.
The time has come to point out these aspects both to customers, agencies as well as Interpreting Platforms to limit the sneaky unfair practices that are occurring everywhere thanks to technology misuse, namely recording without previous written consent on behalf of the Interpreters, who most of the time are unaware of such ILLEGAL practices.
Furthermore, nobody feels any longer responsible for forwarding in advance any useful documentation for interpreters preparation, going evidently against clients interests as well!
We fully support EU colleagues in their protest, and encourage to read the illuminating article attached.
Thank you.
EU Interpreters Suspend Remote Interpreting Services – Slator
Globallybiz LLC launches its website localization software which automatically translates websites into any language in just a few minutes and allow the user to review the contents on their website in real time with its live editor. The software offers best-in-class website translation and localization purposely designed to accelerate agile development, and is compatible with any technology, including WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Clickfunnels, React, etc.
Continue reading on Digital Journal:
https://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/industry-leader-globallybiz-llc-scales-up-software-localization-solutions-to-help-businesses-expand-their-global-footprint
“In May 2022, 226 faculty and other staff were told to choose between applying for voluntary redundancy or competing for remaining positions. The impending cuts directly affect the university’s 20-year-old Audiovisual Translation program — a move that caused the UK’s Subtitlers Association (SUBTLE) to protest on social media (#RoeStopTheCuts) and encourage supporters to join in the fight.”
https://slator.com/uk-subtitlers-association-condemns-roehampton-university-translation-cuts/
“Statistics and data are what nourishes Machine Translation. But how do you take care of a high-powered machine that, with incorrect information, could cause problems in translation?”
https://programminginsider.com/taking-care-of-the-thinking-machine-a-sneak-peek-to-nmt-and-ai-translation-maintenance-within-a-translation-agency/
Localization career development requires a strategic approach. The key to this approach for those who want to advance their careers, build teams, and work better cross-functionally is to be conscious and proactive in the way they demonstrate knowledge within their organizations.
At a recent workshop accompanying the launch of Smartling’s new e-book Pro Guide: How to Unleash Success in Your Localization Career, Localization Coach, Hristina Racheva outlined a career development strategy that all localization professionals will find useful.
Keep reading on Slator
I had wished to interview Robin Myers for a while now, particularly after reading her bilingual book Tener/Having and finding out that she had translated into English some of my favorite contemporary writers, including Isabel Zapata, Andrés Neuman, and Ave Barrera. My interest in meeting her only grew stronger when I discovered that she lived in Mexico City, where I grew up. Though we live in quite distant parts of the city, I feel like sharing the experience of living in this chaotic yet exceptionally effervescent place immediately made us neighbors, peers, and even accomplices.
Read the interview on Asymptote Journal
The enormous economic potential that emerging African markets represent for investors is often overlooked. The African economy in 2021 was around $2.7 trillion in nominal terms — $296 billion more than 2020 — calculated by taking figures from the IMF. This is $246b less than France’s GDP, the 7th largest economy in the world. Further, using Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a yardstick, a February article in Business Insider Africa listed the 10 largest African economies to invest in as of 2022. Those economies come with their own array of important African languages.
Continue reading on Multilingual
Researchers at Mass General Brigham, a hospital in Massachusetts, found that patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) admitted with Covid-19 had worse clinical outcomes during the first wave of the pandemic. However, outcomes improved during the second wave, demonstrating that efforts to minimize language-based healthcare disparities may have been effective.
Keep reading on Slator
Valencia, April 26, 2022. Pangeanic is a company that uses Artificial Intelligence to provide language processing services. Amid the chaos of the war in Ukraine, Pangeanic is showing its support to those who are being forced to flee their country. The company has released several of its machine translation engines so that people, businesses or organizations can translate for free using its Ukrainian translation panel. NGO’s and Public Administrations can request free-of-charge access to Pangeanic’s API for full document translation or API connection. So far, the available language pairs include various relevant European languages (such as English, Polish, German, etc.) into Ukrainian or Russian, and vice versa.
See the full release on Slator
SAN DIEGO, May 9, 2022 —In an age when there is an app for everything, Interpreters Unlimited (IU) has just launched a brand-new smart phone app for booking language services. No stranger to technology, IU has always stayed on the cutting edge of tech from creating their own proprietary client web portal software to creating the industry’s first auto scheduling system. Now, in 2022, it only makes sense to provide services through a smart phone app.
Read the full press release on Slator
Toppan Digital Language is among the most recent companies to expand with the acquisition of TranslateMedia, announced this Tuesday. For Christophe Djaouani, Toppan president, the company was an early standout as a great complement to their existing business. But no matter how good a fit, it’s no easy task to bring an acquisition to the finish line. Djaouani took some time this week to reflect on the journey with MultiLingual.
Keep reading on Multilingual
Training manuals and tutorials for the weapons heading from the US to Ukraine are piling up, with few Americans able to translate them into either Ukrainian or Russian.
There is a limited pool of American citizens who speak Ukrainian and who can get a top-secret clearance to process national security-related documents. US trainers have acknowledged some of the challenges in teaching Ukrainian troops to use the millions of dollars of equipment provided by the US and other allies.
https://about.bgov.com/news/lack-of-russian-ukrainian-translators-in-us-opens-door-for-ai/
Upcoming free online events:
May 12, 2022 WLIE: International Marketing – localisation meets native content creation, by Women In Localization Ireland
May 12, 2022 Conversational AI: Current Applications & Future Predictions, by Tech in Motion
May 12, 2022 WLUK Event – MT Busters, by Women in Localization United Kingdom
May 12, 2022 WLGC: Unconscious Bias and its Effect on Women in the Workplace, by Women in Localization Global Community
May 13, 2022 Too close for comfort – the legal terminology relating to stalking, via CIOL
May 13, 2022 LocLunch DALLAS – Customer Success, by Stefan Huyghe
See the full list up to September 2022 on Lingua Greca’s website
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