On this blistering Bloomsday, I thought I’d share the news that esteemed Peruvian scholar, Demetrio Tupac Yupanqui, has published the first Quechua translation of Cervante’s Don Quixote Here at ALTA, we don’t get very many inquiries for translation services or...
Back in the ’90s, the magazine Language Today published an article by George Weber that analyzed the world’s most influential languages. It was an interesting analysis because it accounted for the “influence” of a language in a number of ways....
You may have had an experience where you took a test for a class, and the instructor showed you the class’s results afterward. The results probably mapped out into the infamous “bell-shaped curve”, with a few people scoring on the...
Language testing has been all over the news lately, from new immigration policies requiring language testing for working immigrants to globalization studies on hiring multi-lingual employees to conduct business in emerging markets throughout the world. Some business and government agency...
Atlanta – Multilingual and Multiethnic consumers no longer represent niche markets. The emerging majority of U.S. consumers is linguistically and culturally diverse, and one of the great challenges to building strong business relationships is bridging these language and culture gaps....
A spokesman for the president of South Korea made a public apology Monday for a misltranslated document about the safety of American beef imports. After an unfounded mad cow disease scare in Korea, U.S. FDA cattle feed rules were translated...
Since I work for a language services company, I often get asked whether we are hiring translators. I don’t mind the question. We’ve all had to hunt for work, and these days far too many people are without it. However,...
Just days after we reported on Canada’s new immigration policy, English authorities have moved to implement mandatory language testing for immigrants. Interestingly, the move in England has caused a near panic amongst fans of English football, who fear that the...
In a controversial move, Ottowan officials have proposed mandatory language testing for immigrants who want to enter Canada as skilled workers. As reported in The Toronto Star, supporters of the mandatory English and French proficiency tests claim that, “the measures...
Spanish medical interpretation can mean the difference between good and bad patient care for millions of Americans. According to a 2005 study conducted by the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the number of elderly Latinos in the U.S. will climb...
Conga lines, beauty pageants, happy hands, and great snack machines may not be among the first things that come to your mind when you think of call centers, but they are for me. My work with ALTA Language Services has...
Mere days after my last post about human vs. machine translation, the blogosphere was abuzz with one of Google’s latest moves: AJAX Translation API. AJAX Translation API is a machine translation tool developed by Google to perform on-the-fly translations for...
To verify that an employee or potential employee can speak or write another language at the appropriate level, you should use valid language testing. In most professional circumstances, it takes more than a simple interview: you need to be confident...
ALTA Language Services (ALTA) has completed a comprehensive new study for the state of California. Following a nation-wide competitive bidding process, ALTA was selected to conduct a thorough review of California’s program for certifying and registering court interpreters. A national...
As a project manager at ALTA, I’ve seen my fair share of proofreading requests from clients. Sometimes the text has changed slightly; other times, clients just want to double-check on the quality of the translation. Frequently, though, a review of...
Presently there are over 6,000 known living languages in the world. Over the years, I have compiled a list of several great websites that I use as starting points for language research. Recently, as part of a language testing project,...
If you are shopping for translation service quotes, you know that there are many translation companies out there. How do you pick one? I realize this can be a daunting task, so I am going to kick off my sales...
Arabic has proven to be a difficult language to test. In Western countries, the intricacies of the Arabic language are not common knowledge. The idea of a diglossia, in particular, has little context in English and other Germanic languages and...
Atlanta, GA – The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) contracted ALTA Language Services, Inc. (ALTA) to develop reading and listening tests that would serve to assess proficiency on the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale, as well as to provide diagnostic feedback...
Do you know what goes on behind the walls of a translation agency? Before I started working at one, I did not have a clue how the industry worked. Several years ago as I was walking toward our building for...
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