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There was a time when looking for information involved a lot of work and could be quite painstaking depending upon the subject of enquiry. The development of the Internet changed all that, and now a whole world of information can be accessed by anyone, anywhere in the world, with a personal computer and internet connection.
Initially information available on the Internet was largely in English. This created challenges for people who did not know the language. Fortunately, the rapid spread of the World Wide Web has been able to fill this gap and now we have a growing number of websites in other major and minor languages.
Though it’s a positive development, it has come with a cost. Earlier, people across the world accessing the Internet were united by a common language, English. This created opportunities for people coming from different languages and cultures to interact with each other. This will be diminished now as more sites come up in various other languages. Think about it, you are in a forum which supports multiple languages; you will most probably gravitate towards members who speak your own language. Say you are an American and the site also has Russian members. Most likely, the Russian and American groups would keep to their own groups thus losing out on a wealth of information they could gain from each other.
I do not in any way support the omnipotence of any single language. What I am saying is what if all the hundreds and thousands of languages used to communicate in the Internet could be translated into other languages. Say if you understand only English and you are in a virtual space where there are people speaking other languages as well, you could have the option of communicating with them in their language and vice versa, through instant translation.
We already have thousands of talented software professionals creating amazing open source software for use by everyone around the world. Why not have something on the same lines for language translation as well. There are probably millions of people, many more than software professionals, who are fluent in more than one language. Can a system be developed where people can produce translations for languages they know, and over the years we could develop a self-sustaining system which would unite people coming from different languages and cultures in the Internet. I am not taking machine translation into account because although it has come a long way, it still has to go far. Machine translation cannot match the accuracy and authenticity of human translation especially in the context of colloquial and informal language, and it just doesn’t work for certain language pairs like English-Hindi.
So let’s keep dreaming, and working, and praying for a World Wide Web united through translation.
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Professional language translation providers frequently land up with inferior quality source document, most translators I know have had such experiences. By inferior quality source document I refer to original documents that are filled with typos, factual errors, ambiguities and poor writing among others.
This is a Catch-22 situation, what does a translator do? Should he or she correct the errors and improve upon the existing quality, keeping in mind that some errors and ambiguities might be on purpose. There is no sure shot solution to this problem. What I personally do is follow some strategies which might work for some and might not for others.
The first thing to do is to get in touch with the author of the source document. You can then discuss the questionable areas of the text. However this might not be always possible, for example in cases where you got the source document from someone other than the original author whose whereabouts are not known. You can try discussing it with the client but then he/she might be equally clueless about the matter if not more.
In my case I get in touch with my client and try to follow his/her instructions. In situations, where I am left entirely to myself, I try to take the safest path. Firstly I try to avoid going ahead with such translations. If that can’t be done, I generally leave the ambiguities as they are, and only change the most obvious or glaring factual errors, otherwise more or less I stay true to the text. However the solutions to this problem can vary according to varying language translation requirements and situation, do care to chip in with you thoughts.
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Language translation has bought about immeasurable benefits to the world, it continues to play a vital role in the progress of mankind from the ancient times to the present. Think about it, language translation has served as the bridge every time two languages and cultures have interacted with each other. People coming from different cultures have been able to share their knowledge and experience with the help of translation and interpretation.
Though at present a major portion of the translation work being done can be classified under technical and commercial translation, historically we are indebted to literary translation which has brought great works of literature, philosophy, science and others to people who might not have been able to derive benefits from these works had they not been translated in their native language.
The Bible is one book which is famous as one of the most translated books all over the world. But then there have been so many landmark books which have served as eye openers for several generations and whose influence would have been diminished had it not been for the efforts of those unsung heroes who translated them, gave them an enduring life and made them available for many generations to come.
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Today both translation buyers and providers have a much easier time. For the former, it is significantly easier to get high quality translations and for the latter worrying about where the next project will come from is less of an issue. I believe that most of the advantages that the language translation industry has now is due to the Internet.
Firstly, it is due to the fact that the Internet has made communication so much easier than ever before that people from vastly different parts of the world can get in touch with each other in an instant. The Internet has also boosted growth of multinational businesses. Now we have so many big and small companies doing business in foreign countries which do not speak their native language.
Moreover people are increasingly migrating to foreign countries in search of a better future. So we have a significant Chinese and Spanish population in cities like New York. All this has led to considerable and increasing requirement for language translation.
The Internet has also made getting language translation very easy, with translation companies as well as freelance translators offering their services online. Work gets done faster and rates are lower online. Furthermore, online a translation buyer can easily get professional translation providers suiting their specific requirement (for example native, in-country translators) easily.
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I don’t know how common this is but I personally love doing literary translations. A delightful translation project for me is one that involves translating a book which is by one of my favorite authors or an area which am interested in. Then translation is not work but play for me. This inclination of mine probably arises from the fact that I just love reading and just about every nook and cranny of my house is stuffed with books. Moreover even though my work involves sitting alone and tapping away at my keyboard for several hours every day, I prefer to relax by curling down with a book.
Recently I was reading about Agatha Christie (an old favorite :-)) when I was reminded that she was among the most translated authors ever. I did know that earlier but coming to the piece of information again led me to Google around a bit and I found some interesting information.
According to the Guinness World Records, the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard is the most translated author with his works of fiction and non-fiction being translated into as many as 65 languages. Earlier it was Sidney Sheldon whose books had been translated to over 50 languages. Furthermore, the mind-bogglingly bestselling Harry Potter series is supposed to have been translated in over 60 languages. This also makes J.K. Rowling a strong contender for the title of world’s most translated sometime in future. How I wish I could be one of those lucky translation providers working for one of these best seller producing factories.
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Did you know about Chinglish? I guess even if you did not know about it you would have got a fair idea from the term itself. It is made up from the words Chinese and English and is used for written or spoken English under the influence of Chinese. There are about 300 to 500 million users of English language in China which gives substantial credibility to Chinglish.
In popular context the term Chinglish has generally been used in a derogatory sense, mostly because of various unintentionally funny translations of the Chinese into English commonly found in various signboards across China and quite popular in the Internet.
Though I am far from an expert on Chinese, I feel that one should not see such developments negatively. Languages are quite like living beings; they have their own evolutionary process which should not be stopped. Both English and Chinese languages are developing through Chinglish. Being professional translation services providers we should encourage such development and also learn from them.
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Professional language translators need inspirational boosts just like any other human being from time to time. These are times when there seems to be no translation job in sight, or so much to do at once that you don’t know where to hide. Then events like the current recession happen and you wait for your turn to get sacrificed at its altar.
Closer home you might just get tired of tapping away at your machine day in and day out. If you work on your own, then the loneliness will start driving you mad, if you are employed with a language translation company then you will come to hate the long commutes and/or the fixed office hours.
Life’s never perfect.
And that’s why we need inspiration.
Read this interview of a beautiful lady, Paula Shannon whose love for languages has helped her achieve great heights – http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124086244466060525.html
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
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Languages are dynamic entities, they keep evolving, branching out and mutating. This keeps professional translation services providers on their toes. We are specially challenged in projects where the target language is a specific dialect of the language of our expertise. Now it is not necessary that a translator would be aware of every dialect of the language he/she specializes in. That may not be possible in languages whose dialects bear significant differences from each other.
I have frequently faced the above situation in my working life which is why I was delighted to find out about the Plain English Campaign. It is based in UK and was founded in 1979. However, it is only in the recent years that it has started attracting popularity.
The mission of the Plain English Campaign has been to popularize the use of simple English language in simple form devoid of jargons and any other form of complication so that its understood by all English speakers in the world. Though the Plain English Campaign has focused on official organizations like those of the government, its message should also be applied by commercial organizations that have a presence in multiple countries. And we should not stop at that; every person writing a document that is utilized in common day to day work should try to utilize Plain English as much as possible. This would surely everyone’s lives easier.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
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Being a professional language translation expert I have frequently wondered how we understand each other? Please don’t think that I have lost it :-) I was referring to how our brain understands or deciphers a word or a series of words, and makes sense. Fortunately I was idling around so I thought why not try to solve this mystery with the help of Google. As it turned out I came to know some pretty interesting facts.
Firstly, I realized that my thoughts weren’t as stupid as I felt before, since there are many learned people around the world, scientists to be precise, who had the same questions. And thankfully unlike me they had taken the trouble of scientifically investigating the phenomenon of how our brain deciphers words and sentences.
According to the latest findings the brain is constantly relating words and sentences, even voice and tone to the context of a given topic. It takes just about a fraction of a second to catch if anything is out of place. When we are reading or having a conversation, our brain is continuously trying to predict the information that is going to come.
To sum it up, while you are enjoying that interesting novel or I am reading a source document for language translation, our brains are rapidly and constantly predicting, analyzing and classifying information which results in understanding. Whew! Heady stuff! I still can’t believe that any part of me works so hard!
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
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I have never believed in the equality of men and women. Don’t take me otherwise, I always believed (and that was before the Venus-Mars series came out) that there are significant differences between men and women and comparing them on the same plane is a futile exercise.
I was reminded of the above thought after coming across this very interesting piece of information. It was about a group of scientists who are working on how languages affect the brain of men and women. They discovered that there were considerable differences in the way the brains of men and women reacted to various language related tasks.
The experiments and studies involved a number of language exercises which were undertaken by men and women with low and high verbal fluency. The scientists found that there was greater activation of language regions in men’s brains than in women’s.
Of course more tests are required to get accurate and conclusive results, but for the time being the above stands. As for me, I am waiting for tests which determine which sex is wired for better language translation capabilities. 
