Merlin: Translation News, Services & Directory

Telephone interpreting is often used in medical and business settings. But it can also be used in law enforcement.

In response to the needs of a multicultural and multilingual population, New Zealand is turning to telephonic interpreting to strengthen law enforcement services:

“The [New Zealand] Ethnic Affairs Office hosts a language line which offers a free telephone interpreting service in 40 languages to clients and officials of 60 Government agencies.

Until a New Zealand call centre can be set up, calls to the Crimestoppers phone number and online crime reports will be handled by the British Crimestoppers call centre, which will send the anonymous information to New Zealand Police for action.

’I think Crimestoppers is a fantastic initiative,’ Mrs Wong [Minister of Ethnic Affairs] says…’It’s about making sure people of all backgrounds can help in this important area of law and order,’ she says. ‘When I was door-knocking before and since the election, it was amazing how much the residents had in common. Safety was a huge issue, one that all people share.’”

(Extract from “Breaking barriers to beat crime,” New Zealand Times Online, Nov. 2009)

In the business world, telephonic interpreting can allow your company to increase customer loyalty and reduce customer service interaction time. It also makes your products or services more accessible to non-English speakers – an important selling point even within the USA.

For more information about all types of language interpreting, contact Language Translation, Inc. Located in San Diego, California, we have been providing language services domestically and internationally for over 20 years.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Sign up here to receive our free monthly newsletter, Language Lines.

Invented in 2002, the canine translation device has yet to meet with great success.

Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, “invented” a dog-to-human language translation tool in 2002. And yes, you may have noticed that pet shop shelves are not overflowing with the machine.

Called the “Bow-Lingual” — and I do give them credit for a very clever name — the two-piece set consists of a remote microphone for the dog’s collar, and a handset complete with an LCD screen for the proud master.

How does this (supposedly) work? Doggy’s utterances are transmitted to a handset, then “interpreted” depending on the pooch’s emotional state: “happy, sad, on guard, frustrated, needy, or assertive.” Once the emotion is identified, the Bow-Lingual suggests a short phrase to “translate” the bark or growl into human language — for example, if the dog sounds “aggressive,” the screen might display the sentence “I’m dominant.”

The invention caused a lot of buzz at the time, even in the legitimate press, as can be witnessed by the one-page site dogtranslator.com. As we can see in 2010, though, the machine was mainly a gimmick and has not been developed further. So “English to Canine” is not a language pair that Language Translation, Inc. will offer soon as it is doubtful that there is really a niche (French for “doghouse”) for this service!

But don’t hesitate to contact us for all of your human language translation and interpreting needs…

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Subscribe to Language Lines, our monthly newsletter, for current information on trends in translation and language interpretation.

More information technology and oral activities have made their way into language classrooms over the last decades.

In our third and final post about the results of a major research study by The Center for Applied Linguistics, we will take a look at changes in how foreign languages are taught in the USA.

First, the use of Internet has increased access to foreign language materials. Teachers and students can now easily use authentic documents such as news articles, podcasts, and videos.

Another positive development is more frequent use of the target language. The number of teachers using the target language at least 75% of the time has doubled over the last two decades. In 1987, only 18% of language teaching was carried out in the foreign language; in 2008 the figure was 36%. There is clearly progress to be made, though, as many experts recommend speaking the target language in class all or the majority of the time.

Despite this progress, the study summary concludes on a critical note: “There continues to be reason for serious concern about the limited number of long‐sequence K–12 language programs designed to provide students with the linguistic and cultural skills needed to communicate effectively in the United States and abroad,” explain the authors.  “In addition, the gap has widened between the haves and the have‐nots.”

In today’s business world, foreign languages are necessary to open up to new markets, which is why many companies work with qualified language service providers such as Language Translation, Inc.. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your language translation or interpreting needs.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Sign up for Language Lines, our monthly newsletter, for more news about languages and their importance in the US today.

A plethora of sites exist to help professional translators do their job accurately and efficiently.

I did some translation work in the pre-Internet days, and I honestly wonder how certain technical translations ever got done correctly. I remember translating, in the early nineties, a huge document about radio emissions and military uses for them. Fortunately it was a team translation, and one of the translators had some technical knowledge in the area.

But still…we were limited to our dictionaries and the few supporting documents the company had given us. I guess we did all right, because there was no ensuing military disaster involving radio signals!

It’s a different world now. I don’t do much translation anymore, but as a language teacher and a specialized writer, I do refer to many language-related websites. My personal favorite for translation is Le grand dictionnaire terminologique, by the Office québécois de la langue française. It provides a lot of technical vocabulary and always shows words in their specific context.

However, the “GDT,” as some call it, provides translations between English and French only. Many language pairs do not benefit from such a powerful online dictionary. I’m pleased to see, though, that the “GDT” is branching out to other languages in their creation of online glossaries, such as a quadrilingual guide to e-commerce terminology.

Today, all top translators master their languages, but also the use of Internet and translation software, which makes their work more accurate and efficient. At Language Translation, Inc., all of our translators use the latest methods to provide quick, accurate, and cost-efficient language translations.   

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Download our free language translation guides to learn more about how to choose a qualified language service provider.

Telephone interpreting is often used in medical and business settings. But it can also be used in law enforcement.

In response to the needs of a multicultural and multilingual population, New Zealand is turning to telephonic interpreting to strengthen law enforcement services:

“The [New Zealand] Ethnic Affairs Office hosts a language line which offers a free telephone interpreting service in 40 languages to clients and officials of 60 Government agencies.

Until a New Zealand call centre can be set up, calls to the Crimestoppers phone number and online crime reports will be handled by the British Crimestoppers call centre, which will send the anonymous information to New Zealand Police for action.

’I think Crimestoppers is a fantastic initiative,’ Mrs Wong [Minister of Ethnic Affairs] says…’It’s about making sure people of all backgrounds can help in this important area of law and order,’ she says. ‘When I was door-knocking before and since the election, it was amazing how much the residents had in common. Safety was a huge issue, one that all people share.’”

(Extract from “Breaking barriers to beat crime,” New Zealand Times Online, Nov. 2009)

In the business world, telephonic interpreting can allow your company to increase customer loyalty and reduce customer service interaction time. It also makes your products or services more accessible to non-English speakers – an important selling point even within the USA.

For more information about all types of language interpreting, contact Language Translation, Inc. Located in San Diego, California, we have been providing language services domestically and internationally for over 20 years.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Sign up here to receive our free monthly newsletter, Language Lines.

Invented in 2002, the canine translation device has yet to meet with great success.

Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, “invented” a dog-to-human language translation tool in 2002. And yes, you may have noticed that pet shop shelves are not overflowing with the machine.

Called the “Bow-Lingual” — and I do give them credit for a very clever name — the two-piece set consists of a remote microphone for the dog’s collar, and a handset complete with an LCD screen for the proud master.

How does this (supposedly) work? Doggy’s utterances are transmitted to a handset, then “interpreted” depending on the pooch’s emotional state: “happy, sad, on guard, frustrated, needy, or assertive.” Once the emotion is identified, the Bow-Lingual suggests a short phrase to “translate” the bark or growl into human language — for example, if the dog sounds “aggressive,” the screen might display the sentence “I’m dominant.”

The invention caused a lot of buzz at the time, even in the legitimate press, as can be witnessed by the one-page site dogtranslator.com. As we can see in 2010, though, the machine was mainly a gimmick and has not been developed further. So “English to Canine” is not a language pair that Language Translation, Inc. will offer soon as it is doubtful that there is really a niche (French for “doghouse”) for this service!

But don’t hesitate to contact us for all of your human language translation and interpreting needs…

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Subscribe to Language Lines, our monthly newsletter, for current information on trends in translation and language interpretation.

More information technology and oral activities have made their way into language classrooms over the last decades.

In our third and final post about the results of a major research study by The Center for Applied Linguistics, we will take a look at changes in how foreign languages are taught in the USA.

First, the use of Internet has increased access to foreign language materials. Teachers and students can now easily use authentic documents such as news articles, podcasts, and videos.

Another positive development is more frequent use of the target language. The number of teachers using the target language at least 75% of the time has doubled over the last two decades. In 1987, only 18% of language teaching was carried out in the foreign language; in 2008 the figure was 36%. There is clearly progress to be made, though, as many experts recommend speaking the target language in class all or the majority of the time.

Despite this progress, the study summary concludes on a critical note: “There continues to be reason for serious concern about the limited number of long‐sequence K–12 language programs designed to provide students with the linguistic and cultural skills needed to communicate effectively in the United States and abroad,” explain the authors.  “In addition, the gap has widened between the haves and the have‐nots.”

In today’s business world, foreign languages are necessary to open up to new markets, which is why many companies work with qualified language service providers such as Language Translation, Inc.. Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your language translation or interpreting needs.

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Sign up for Language Lines, our monthly newsletter, for more news about languages and their importance in the US today.

A plethora of sites exist to help professional translators do their job accurately and efficiently.

I did some translation work in the pre-Internet days, and I honestly wonder how certain technical translations ever got done correctly. I remember translating, in the early nineties, a huge document about radio emissions and military uses for them. Fortunately it was a team translation, and one of the translators had some technical knowledge in the area.

But still…we were limited to our dictionaries and the few supporting documents the company had given us. I guess we did all right, because there was no ensuing military disaster involving radio signals!

It’s a different world now. I don’t do much translation anymore, but as a language teacher and a specialized writer, I do refer to many language-related websites. My personal favorite for translation is Le grand dictionnaire terminologique, by the Office québécois de la langue française. It provides a lot of technical vocabulary and always shows words in their specific context.

However, the “GDT,” as some call it, provides translations between English and French only. Many language pairs do not benefit from such a powerful online dictionary. I’m pleased to see, though, that the “GDT” is branching out to other languages in their creation of online glossaries, such as a quadrilingual guide to e-commerce terminology.

Today, all top translators master their languages, but also the use of Internet and translation software, which makes their work more accurate and efficient. At Language Translation, Inc., all of our translators use the latest methods to provide quick, accurate, and cost-efficient language translations.   

Betty Carlson

See Also

• Language Translation, Inc.
  Download our free language translation guides to learn more about how to choose a qualified language service provider.

Filed under: Downloads , Patches , RPG , Mass Effect Series This patch updates Mass Effect 2 to v1.01 and addresses a number for gameplay and performance issues. A full list of changes can be found after the jump. Download Mass Effect 2 v1.01 Patch (42 MB) Check out all Mass Effect 2 downloads Gallery: Mass Effect 2 Screenshots Continue reading Download: Mass Effect 2 v1.01 Patch Download: Mass …

Researchers applied nanoflow reverse-phase liquid chromatography to reduce the complexity of phosphopeptides. Two approaches were used to improve the coverage of phosphoproteome analysis of human liver tissue.