World Translation Center is a leading provider of language translation and voice recording services using professionals located around the world.
Recent Blog Posts
NBA Playoffs
The 2019 NBA playoffs will start on April 13. What does basketball and translation have in common, you ask? Nothing much, but…
Imagine for a moment that your company works in the international market and requires marketing, newsletter and product translations on a regular basis into several languages and is working directly with the individual translators. People from other countries come to visit the U.S. office and since your department received tickets to an NBA playoff game, you are inviting the visitors to attend. Imagine further that this turns out to be such a special event, that your next newsletter contains pictures and an article about the game.
English to Hindi
After Mandarin, Spanish and English, Hindi is the fourth most-spoken language on the globe. It is the official language of the Republic of India along with the English language. But Hindi and English are not the only two official languages, there are 22 languages altogether. The Indian constitution has not recognized Hindi as the national language of India; no language in India has been given such a status yet.
If India is divided into two halves with a line horizontally through the middle, the top half is where Hindi is almost exclusively spoken. However, India is not the only country where Hindi is spoken. Several other countries recognize Hindi as an official language, like Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname and a few more, but in those countries, the Hindi is different from the Standard Hindi language spoken in India. Instead these Hindi languages descend from other dialects of Hindustani. Hindustani, also known as Hindavi, Dehlavi and Kekhta refers to a mixture of Hindi and Urdu which is also recognized as lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan. There are a few words used differently between Urdu and Hindi, but the spoken Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu.
Phubbing – Our Language is Always Evolving
By now, the word ‘phubbing’ is most likely a familiar word to everybody but just in case, it is defined in the dictionary as: the practice of ignoring one’s companion or companions in order to pay attention to one’s phone or another mobile device. The word is derived from the two words ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing’.
In January 2019, the city of Wenzhou in China’s Zhejiang province fined a Phubber 10 Yuan, an
equivalent of approximately USD1.50 for crossing the street with her head down, eyes glued to a smart phone. The Wenzhou regulations on the promotion of civilized behavior state: “Anyone who looks at their mobile phone while crossing the road shall be fined 10 yuan.” Is fining phubbers the answer to phubbing? Seat belts were the answer to saving lives of drivers and passengers; phubbing has caused accidents and fining phubbers might save lives as well.
International Mother Language Day
International Mother Language Day has been celebrated every February 21st, since the year 2000. Originating out of Bangladesh, this date was selected, as it was the day that natives to the country fought for recognition of their language, Bengali. International Mother Language Day promotes linguistic diversity and multilingual education.
The 2019 theme for the International Mother Language Day event held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France is “Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building, and reconciliation”. This initiative is so important, as nearly 42 percent of the world’s 6000 languages are endangered. “Every two weeks a language disappears taking with it an entire cultural and intellectual heritage” -UN
St. Valentine and Epilepsy
Just after the new year, stores are full of red hearts, candy and stuffed animals in red and pink colors. Greetings cards are displayed in such a way so that you cannot miss them.
“Valentine’s Day” is approaching along with thoughts of romance, flowers and chocolates. St. Valentine’s is known as the saint of romance.
Chinese New Year
The Chinese Year of the Pig starts February 5, 2019
Happy New Year to everybody!
This picture was drawn by the daughter of our main translator.
Winter Newsletter
World Translation Center’s winter newsletter is now available. Highlights include noteworthy projects completed in 2018, additions to our website, as well as some interesting translation facts and news.
https://www.worldtranslationcenter.com/WTCNewsletterWinter2018.pdf
Summer Newsletter Is Here
Our summer newsletter has arrived. Inside this issue: ‘The Big Book’ in Navajo, E-Learning/Paulson, The Cultural Mastery, Projects Worth Mentioning, English as spoken in Canada. To check out the exciting things World Translation Center has been up to please click here.
As always, we remain at your service for all your translation, subtitling, and recording needs throughout the summer.
Machine Translation
Machine Translation is the process of changing text from one language into another language using an auto translator on a computer.
Websites advertise a lower cost for machine translation in a shorter period of time; therefore, more content can be translated in less time, adding that a human translator will edit the machine generated translation. A win-win situation, or is it?
Professional translators are not enthusiastic about editing a machine-produced translation. Often it takes more time to edit a machine translation than to translate from scratch. To produce a professional translation from a machine translation takes extra time, going back and forth to the original text in order to understand the output of the machine.
Dubbing or Subtitling for Children?
According to YouTube, almost 5 billion videos are watched every day on YouTube alone. Many videos are viewed in an abundance of languages. If you post a video on YouTube or any other site, you might want to consider creating that video into another language to broaden your audience. You are then confronted with the question: should I record a voice over in that language or add subtitles? What if children are the target audience of your video?
