Dictionaries can be easily counted among the most important tools that a translator uses. We use them almost every day. You might be ready to buy the best dictionary available, but what type of dictionary would that be? I am talking in terms of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries.
I prefer using monolingual dictionaries. The reason… while using a dictionary for any translation project, I don’t look for the word in the target language which is equivalent or nearly equivalent to a word in the source language. I am looking for the right words to convey the information contained in the source document as authentically as possible in the target language. This means understanding the context in which specific words are used, and what they mean.
Monolingual dictionaries are the best tool to develop that understanding. When you use a monolingual dictionary, you understand the meaning of various words in their original language. In other words, you are understanding the language from the perspective of a native speaker. This enables you to understand how native speakers use those words across different contexts. All this leads you to select the words which convey the meaning of the original text as authentically as possible, and of course improve your working knowledge of the target language.
The courts and medical care facilities at New Mexico will be having more and better interpreters in the near future as it has been announced that as fresh interpreters will be trained in a number of languages to provide services in courts and medical care facilities.
Language translation training will start this fall and would be provided with the help of online language programs. It will be conducted by the New Mexico Center for Language Access which was created through collaboration between the state judiciary, and the Los Alamos branch of the University of New Mexico.
The New Mexico Center for Language Access will be providing training in American Sign Language, Navajo, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic. It is not mandatory for prospective students to possess college or high school degree in order to enroll, but they do need to be bilingually proficient.
Games are growing bigger with each passing day. Just like movies they are now released to the masses with much fanfare, accompanied by trailers, launch parties, game expos and then you have the various awards given to notable games every year.
The popularity of various video games is not restricted by the borders of any country or language. They are marketed across all such differences. So finding American video games in Japan and vice versa is more of a rule than an exception.
What follows naturally is the requirement for video game translation. In fact the requirements go beyond plain translation. Video games need to be localized according to the preferences of the market they are intended to be sold in.
One aspect of localization includes changing the packaging of video games to reflect the visual preferences of the local market. So if you check out the packaging of a particular video game sold in America, and the same as it is sold in Japan, you will find them noticeably different. Where Americans prefer packaging which is to the point, the Japanese like it to be artistic and moody.
And as I mentioned above, packaging is just one aspect of video game translation. There are many other requirements, hence it’s very important to get video games translated from professional translation providers.
We are living in a fortunate time when we have access to professional translation services wherever we are and whenever we want, from almost any language to any language. But that’s not the end, many free but quality automatic translation services also exist. Though they may not be as good as human translation, if your translation requirement is not of a critical nature (you might just need to know the gist of given content say an email, learn a few standard phrases in a foreign language to impress your neighbor, or send tweets to foreign speakers) you can readily use any of the effective translation tools mentioned below–
Babel Fish – Babel Fish is of course very well known and rightfully so, because it lets users translate large chunks of text and even websites between many language pairs through a user-friendly interface.
Google Translate & Bing Translator – Both Google Translate & Bing Translator offer services which are similar to Babel Fish. Bing Translator offers a very useful additional feature which is the ability to detect the language of given content. Google Translate on the other hand has been integrated with Gmail and enables users to translate emails as well.
BabelWith.Me: Yet another highly innovative tool which helps users chat in languages they don’t know! It does this by translating chats in real time and supports 45 languages at present.
TweetTranslate: TweetTranslate moves to the area of micro-blogging or Tweets. It can work seamlessly with Twitter accounts enabling users to translate tweets into over 40 languages.
Forvo – This is an excellent language site that relies on crowdsourcing. Forvo allows users to share audio clips which help them practice correct pronunciation in different languages. The site is quite user friendly with the various audio clips being mapped by the speaker’s region.
LexioPhiles which put together a very helpful list of Top 100 language blogs last year is getting ready for its 2nd Top 100 Language Blogs List. They have nominated Tomedes under the “language professionals” category. It would be very nice if you voted for Tomedes Blog. It will take less than a minute.
All you have to do is go to www.lexiophiles.com/language-blog-toplist/top-100-language-blogs-2009-nominated-blogs-language-professionals. You will find a list of blogs arranged alphabetically. Scroll down to Tomedes. You will find a link – “Vote” beside our blog name and description. Click on it and you will be directed to another page, where you would have to check the box against Tomedes Blog, scroll down to the bottom and click “Vote”.
Thank You. We promise to keep bringing great stuff to you through Tomedes Blog.
Dear readers, Dr. Peter Krawutschke a professor of German with vast experience in language translation would be giving a free public lecture on 16th of July 2009, at 1003 Brown Hall located in the main campus of Western Michigan University.
Dr. Krawutschke is a former president of American Translators Association and in his lecture he would discuss the role played by a translator in the present age, he would also talk about various important resources and networks for translators. So those of you who are lucky enough to be nearby don’t miss this golden opportunity, for more details please visit - http://www.wmich.edu/wmu/news/2009/07/018.html
Product uptake is suffering in Africa because of extremely slow pace of translation. There are several African languages that have not been documented yet, moreover there are many modern terms, a lot of which are related with technology that do not have equivalent terms in African languages. Some of these terms are mouse, malware and phishing among others. This slow pace of translation has been further aggravated by lack of agreement on language terms, as well as the lack of technical expertise.
Due to all this, the development of software in African languages has been seriously hampered. An example is the fact that Microsoft has still not released the Swahili translation of Vista when it is already testing its upcoming operating system Windows 7.
Another problem comes from the fact that even languages are changing fast, so just like the Windows Vista would probably become obsolete when it is released in Swahili, so will many terms that were used in it and have been replaced by new and often better substitutes.
Big brands like Google, Microsoft and Facebook among others have been trying hard to get their products translated into as many languages as possible, but they require investing more to get results.
Microsoft whose products are available in eight African languages has to face hurdles because there is a serious lack of localization experience for these languages. Because of which the company has to train people for the required languages, localization methods and tools. All this takes time resulting in delays like the aforementioned Swahili translation of Vista.
The other problem that these companies face is in deciding the standard form of languages and from whom to get translation services. In the former case, companies face a dilemma about whether to get translation from commercial translation companies or from local universities/communities. Commercial providers are more efficient and on the other hand working with local communities strengthens relationships and ensures local relevance of the brand. In the latter case let’s say a product needs to be translated into Swahili. If the translation is done in Kenya it might not be accepted in Tanzania where people speak a purer form of the language and might find a difference in terminology.
Google has tried to get around the problem by relying on machine translation. It has served them, but then machine translation is seriously limited compared to human translation.
Microsoft is forging ahead energetically in language translation with Bing translator, with the latest addition among its supported languages being Hebrew. The company plans to expand the number of languages supported by Bing Translator which supports 15 languages at present.
Bing Translator can additionally be used with IE as a widget, inside MS-Office, and with messenger bot. Microsoft had introduced the Bing translator as Microsoft Translator in May along with some very useful features like auto-detection of languages, and translation between any combination of the supported languages.
According to sources from the Microsoft Translator Team, users can expect many more languages to be added in the coming months along with continuing improvement in quality. Microsoft also looks forward to user feedback and would take seriously users’ requests for addition of specific languages.
Hello dear readers, it gives me great pleasure to let you know that Tomedes Blog has been nominated in the category for Language Professionals for the Top 100 Language Blogs of 2009 conducted by Lexiophiles.com.
It would be great if we could get your precious vote!
You can visit the Lexiophiles.com voting page by clicking the button labeled “Top 100 Vote for this Blog” in the right panel of this page.
Alternatively, you can directly visit the voting page by clicking the following link –
Top 100 Language Blogs 2009 – Nominated Blogs: Language Professionals
The nominated blogs are arranged alphabetically, scroll down to ‘T’ and you will find the Tomedes Blog easily. All you have to do is click the link titled ‘vote’ - it comes after the short description of the blog and presto you’re done!
THANKS A TON!!! Do keep reading Tomedes Blog 
