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BBC News – Controversy rages over translators in Spanish Senate

22/01/2011 | Author: kpedroche
Congress of Deputies (Spain)
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Source: http://to.ly/9pR3

There is controversy in Spain over the use of a new translation service in the country’s upper chamber of parliament.

Interpreters are now employed to translate into Castilian Spanish the words of senators who prefer to speak Catalan, Galician, Valencian or the Basque language of Euskara.

Spanish newspapers put the cost at 12,000 euros (£10,000) a day.

Critics say at a time of economic crisis, this is a waste of money when everyone speaks Spanish already.

Socialists say it reflects the country’s regional diversity and is an appropriate service in the Senate because the constitution established it as representing the territories.

But conservative Senators are less enthusiastic.

“Something like this would not happen in any normal country,” People’s Party leader Mariano Rajoy was quoted as saying in The Guardian.

An editorial in El Mundo was scathing in its criticism: “The same parliamentarians who talk to each other in the corridors in a language that they all share need interpreters to understand one another in the chamber.”

Spain’s regional languages have long been a point of conflict.

As well as Catalan, Valencian, Galician and Euskara, a number of other languages and dialects are spoken across the country, including Aragonese, Asturian and Leonese.

But virtually everyone speaks Spanish as their first or second language.

There are not thought to be any plans to introduce a translation service in the lower house, the Congress of Deputies.

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How to make an efficient database of translators

05/01/2011 | Author: kpedroche
Students working on class assignment in comput...
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To run a translation agency, the human resource factor is pivotal to achieve success in your business. Translations are done by translators. Thus, a database not only has to cover the needs of current customers, but it should also be able to meet any potential requirement.

It is easy to find a single suitable translator available for a short project. But to be able to tackle a big volume work, our database should be extensive enough to grab any business opportunity.  It’s important to set our goals in relation to two things: first, what language pairs will be offered; second, the daily output for each language pair. Then, the extension of our database will be based on these two points.

Apart from volume, quality is also fundamental. In this regards, the goal to be set is what areas of expertise our agency will offer. Before including a candidate, his background should be analyzed to make sure that it includes the fields of specialization relevant to our business. There are also other parameters to consider in the selection process, such as experience, rates, availability and CAT tools used by the translators.

Another significant issue is where to create the database. It should be a user-friendly application, at hand to elaborate our quotes quickly, without any unnecessary delay. This means that such application should allow us to have instant access to any specific data we require from a translator: CV, specialization, rate, etc. We should be able to filter per language pair, location, or any qualification pertinent to a given project. This may be an online application, such as a SAAS system (Software as a Service) , Batchbook or Google Docs, which is very useful if we need to answer a quote being away from our office. We may also use software installed in our PC such as the office applicatio Access.

A properly created and organized database is one of the key factors that will determine the success of our translation business. So, we should be ready to cover any unexpected requirement at the earliest possible time and with the adequate human resources. This is achieved through an efficiently created database of translators.

Licencia de Creative Commons
How to make an efficient database of translators by Karina Garcia Pedroche is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 3.0 Unported License.

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Gerunds, oh how we love them…

24/12/2010 | Author: kpedroche
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…Well, actually we do. They are an important part of the English language. But more often than not do they get used incorrectly in writing and, what’s worse, documented incorrectly in terminology entries. I have been asked at least a few times by content publishers whether they can use gerunds or whether a gerund would present a problem for translators. It doesn’t present a problem for translators, since translators do not work word for word or term for term (see this earlier posting). They must understand the meaning of the semantic unit in the source text and then render the same meaning in the target language, no matter the part of speech they choose. It is a different issue with machine translation. There is quite a bit of research in this area of natural language processing.

Gerunds, for example, don’t exist in the German language (see Interaction between syntax and semantics: The case of gerund translation ). But more importantly, gerunds can express multiple meanings and function as verbs or nouns (see the article by Rafael Guzmán*). Therefore, human translators have to make choices. They are capable of that. Machines are not. If you are writing for machine translation and your style guide tells you to avoid gerunds, you should comply. Because gerunds express multiple meanings, they are also interesting for those of us with a terminologist function. I believe they are the single biggest source of mistakes I have seen in my 14 years as corporate terminologist. An example of an -ing form that has caused confusion in the past is the term backflushing.

A colleague insisted that it be documented as a verb. To backflush, the backflushing method or a backflush are curious terms, no doubt (for an explanation see Inventoryos.com). But we still must list them in canonical form and with the appropriate definition. Why? Well, for one thing, anything less than precise causes more harm than good even in a monolingual environment. But what is a translator or target terminologist to do with an entry where the term indicates that it is an adjective, the definition, starts with “A method that.”, and the Part of Speech says Verb? Hopefully, they complain, but if they don’t and simply make a decision, it’ll lead to errors. Human translators might just be confused, but the MT engine won’t recognize the mistake. So, the answer to the question: “Can I use gerunds?” is, yes, you can. But be sure you know exactly what the gerund stands for. The process or the result? If it is used as a verb, document it in its canonical form. Otherwise, there is trouble.

Posted by Barbara Inge Karsch on December 9, 2010

http://bikterminology.com/2010/12/09/gerunds-oh-how-we-love-them

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