WORDtrans moves into China
London, 2nd August 2010 – WORDtrans has opened an operation in Beijing to service its clients in mainland China and the Asia area in general. The venture will provide into/from Traditional and Simplified Chinese translations as well as working closely with the UK office to effectively continue management of on-going projects in the Chinese time-zone. Contact: china@wordtrans.com
We would like to welcome two new members of staff in the project management department; Kata Keresztes and Katrin Heide. This is what they wrote about themselves:
Kata: "I originate from historic Hungary. My love of languages began at a very young age and has been a major part of my life ever since. I attended a Dual Language High School, becoming fluent in English and upon entering university life I grew in confidence and studied Italian alongside my degree curriculum. This provided me with the opportunity to extend my studies by completing a scholarship, for one semester, with a recognised university in Milano.”
Katrin (Kati): "In 2007, I received my degree from the Humboldt-University in Berlin, Germany, as a translator and interpreter for English and Spanish. Previously, I had been working as a foreign-language legal secretary for many years in Berlin. I enjoy challenges and am always eager to familiarise myself with new working fields. I am personally interested in the field of human rights and/or work of legal organisations as political, social and cultural commitment is important to me."
In MK, language count goes from 12 to 84
If Milton Keynes (MK) is typical of Councils in the UK, the burgeoning cost of providing interpreters to immigrants who do not speak English continues apace. In 2000 the Council employed just 20 interpreters and in 2010 the number stands at 300. The Community Language Service plan to recruit a further 20 interpreters and add Pashto to the list. Interestingly and unusually, the service is apparently self-funded. Daily Telegraph, 14-05-10.
The Computer says “no”
Little Britain fans will be familiar with this sketch. Well, pretty soon it could be saying a lot more! Voice recognition, which uses natural language processing, is still far from perfect but it has developed sufficiently to become integrated into mobile operating systems such as Android. There are the challenges of background noise, the 'ums' ‘ahs’ and 'erms' unrestricted topics, enormous vocabulary and unpredictable queries all of which have to be handled. Danny Bobrow, a research fellow at the American Palo Alto Research Centre (Parc) said teaching life-long lessons to machines is a never-ending job. "People take 15 or 20 years to really get to the place where we think we know everything, which is not true, as we find out as we go further on," he said. 27-04-10
Beyond Words
It was bound to be among the most popular items in the sale of space memorabilia at the Bonham's auction house in New York.
And, in the end, the document bearing Neil Armstrong's signature didn't disappoint. It was sold for $152,000.
Not a bad price for what some might describe as a simple piece of paper - except that besides the famous astronaut's signature, the document also has, in Mr Armstrong's handwriting, that famous phrase he coined:
"One small step for a man - one giant leap for mankind." BBC News
There’s one every 3 minutes!
Every three minutes a foreigner is given a British passport. In 2009, 203,865 people were granted UK citizenship, up 58% from the previous year. There were also 200,000 migrants who were told they can stay indefinitely in the UK but are not citizens. Daily Telegraph 28-02-10
Why we insist on positive identification for our interpreters
A Bengali court interpreter persuaded others to impersonate him in courts around the UK on 40 occasions when he was double-booked, Chelmsford Crown court heard. Akhtar Zaman, 25, of Woodford Green, Essex, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to defraud. The trial continues. The Times, 10-09-09
Why translate?
because....
94% of the world population do not speak English as their first language and 74% do not speak English at all.
.... isn't that a good enough reason to use WORDtrans' services?
ISO 9000. For the third year running WORDtrans had zero failures in an annual review made by an external ISO9000 assessor. This clean bill of health demonstrates WORDtrans’ commitment to meeting quality standards for the benefit of our clients.
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