For Beyond Words readers who know ALTA primarily as a translation company, it may come as a surprise to learn that we are national leaders in the Language Testing sector. Since ALTA does not develop academic language tests (like the TOEFL & SAT, which get so much attention) it’s not surprising that our services might fly under many people’s radar. Our leadership in medical, government, and corporate language testing, however, keeps us busy with interesting projects for clients and partners who you’ve definitely heard of: Kaiser Permanente, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the City of Los Angeles, major US airlines, financial institutions, and non-profit organizations throughout the world.
We test nearly 100 languages, but just as our top translation services provide an interesting glimpse at language trends for business and government, the top languages we test reflect much about current political and economic conditions, and the importance of valid and reliable language skill verification for business, health care, and national security. Here is the data on the top languages we tested in 2009:
Top 10 Languages Tested (2009)
Rounding off the list, the next 10 most-tested languages after Russian are: German, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Portuguese, Somali, Turkish, Cantonese, and Sorani.
Other Language Testing Articles
Language Testing and Health Care Reform:
ALTA and Kaiser Permanente Breaking Cultural Barriers
Psychometricians: What They Are, and What They Do
Norm Referenced vs Criterion Referenced Testing