European Commission recruits Spanish and Greek linguists for English translation

Brussels puts out English mayday
The British are so bad at foreign languages that the European commission has had to recruit linguists from Spain and Greece to translate documents into English.
Internal commission memos show the standard of Britons who apply to be European Union translators is so dismal that Brussels is taking emergency steps to fill [...]

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Microsoft puts focus on Arabic translation

Microsoft has launched a new portal to involve Arabic speakers in the process of developing new technology terms for its products.
The Localization Portal has been developed to encourage users of Microsoft’s Arabic language products to comment on the translation of technology terms and to provide input into translation for future products.
Assem Hijazi, localization manager [...]

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Colorado: Interpreters keep legal system from getting lost in translation

The court system can be difficult enough to understand for people with no legal experience.
Imagine how fast and far that confusion would grow if you didn’t speak English.
A team of interpreters fans out across the Terry R. Harris Judicial Complex almost every weekday, bringing help to people with “limited English proficiency” and keeping about 40 [...]

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Indian-Arabic translations to improve cultural ties

Indian-Arab cultural ties are set to blossom when the Arabic translations of some select titles by eminent Indian authors are published here next year.
According to Zikrur Rahman, director of the India Arab Cultural Centre (IACC), a total of 10 titles have been selected till now and approved by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Cultural Heritage [...]

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Minnesota: Court interpreter services to get axe

Here’s the thing about budget shortfalls and the budget cuts that result from them: Eventually, they become more than numbers.
Often, they turn into lost jobs. And sometimes, permanently closed courthouses, as well as delayed court calendars, no more marriage ceremonies during business hours and fewer funds for drug courts.
“Here’s what happens when we have [...]

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ICANN approves the introduction of internationalized domain names

On Thursday 25 June the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit corporation that coordinates the global Internet system of unique identifiers, at the closing of its 32 International public meeting in Paris, unanimously approved the introduction of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) in the top level of [...]

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Ireland: Garda Siochána spent almost €3 million on interpreters last year

Garda spent €3 million on interpreters last year
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The Garda Siochána spent almost €3 million on interpreters last year, as the number of immigrants requiring translators continued to grow. The Garda deals with over 200 languages and dialects on a regular basis. Between 30 and 40 companies provided interpretation services to the [...]

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Translating Vietnamese literature into German

Frank Gerke of Germany has spent years translating Vietnamese literary works into his native language.
“I’ve read many Vietnamese novels and I like works by the late writer Vu Trong Phung most,” Gerke said.
Most of Phung’s novels have poked fun at the lifestyle of Viet Nam’s upper classes in the late 1930s.
Gerke is now translating Dat [...]

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First Luganda search engine

You know how to read and write in your local language, but you have been unable to use or search for information on the web because all search engine tools are in English? Not anymore.  A team of scientists and linguists from Makerere University and Rhodes University have developed the first ever Luganda search [...]

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Literature lost (and found) in translation

A statistic to consider: About 50 percent of world literature derives from English, but less than 3 percent of English-language publications are translations into English from the rest of the world. And that figure is closer to 0.3 percent if you consider only adult literature and poetry.

It wasn’t always thus. Esther Allen, executive director [...]

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