Google Translate, Friend or Foe? Ask Vimeo
A recent TechCrunch article penned by Leena Rao posed the common question: How does one say Vimeo in French? The translation left Rao’s readers grinning, but it was unfortunately much to Vimeo’s chagrin: Google Translate thinks ‘Vimeo’ is pronounced ‘youtube’. When prompted to translate the English sentence ‘videos on Vimeo’ into French, Google produced: ‘des […]
Beyond Txt | Crowdsourcing With txteagle
txteagle is an ambitious initiative that aims to empower and employ the people of least developed nations via their cell phones. By leveraging a vastly underused work force in some of the poorest parts of the world, its founder, Nathan Eagle, hopes to change the world for the better. Despite the great innovations that computers […]
Obrigado Mr. Cruise
While promoting his latest film, Valkyrie, Tom Cruise recently startled both reporters and fans in Rio de Janeiro with his disoriented comprehension of Brazil’s language and culture. According to Brazilian gossip website Glamurama, Mr. Cruise reportedly addressed the press conference with the Spanish words “hola” and “gracias”. the correct words in Portuguese would have been […]
Rampant Acronyms A National Travesty (RANT) : A BIT BASIC Approach
In her 1996 book, Lexical Changes in Present-day English, Roswitha Fischer details how Bell Laboratories first coined the term acronym in 1943, defining them as, “words made up of initial letters or syllables of other words.” The creation of acronyms by the U.S. government began during WWI, and increased during the second World War to […]
China Daily Censors Obama’s Speech
Chinese websites removed references to communism and dissent from translations of U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration address, as state media urged him not to ignore progress made by the former administration in forging ties between the two countries. The official Chinese translation of the speech, credited to the website of the state-run China Daily newspaper, […]
California Passes Medical Interpreter Law
California has set a precedent yet again in the world of interpreting by becoming the first state in the U.S. to pass a law requiring that health insurance organizations provide interpreting and translating services to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP). The law “requires health, dental and specialty insurers to provide subscribers with translators (sic), […]
Top 10 Translation Fails of 2008
How will 2008 be remembered? What enduring memories will be etched in the annals of history? Between the failing economy, the Beijing Olympics, and the rise of President-elect Obama during the longest political campaign in recent memory, translators had many opportunities to apply their skills of cross-cultural communication around the world. Most of the time, […]
Endangered Languages List: 10 Languages Facing Extinction
A living language becomes extinct every two weeks. The problem is often overlooked by speakers of the world’s major languages. When language extinction is considered, many otherwise thoughtful people shrug it off as a minor issue. This might be explained by the recent development of a misguided notion (some kind of socio-Darwinian view of linguistics) […]
The Value of Independent Language Testing
As a language testing provider, clients ask us to describe the added value of using an independent language testing organization such as ALTA. By having language tests administered independently, businesses, government agencies and healthcare organizations gain certain advantages: Independent language testing is unbiased The testing organization has no vested interest in the outcome of the […]
Palates in Translation
As we in the U.S. prepare our turkeys and stuffings for Thanksgiving, it seems like an appropriate time to consider popular dishes from around the world. The names of certain traditional dishes can sizzle on one’s tongue, often making them difficult to capture with translation. Even if the name of the dish is easy to […]