Making Use of Food to Learn German Translation

Since every human being needs food to exist, it is natural students in translation studies programs to be interested in the subject.The reason is that people from all nationalities and cultures have an opinion on it. Regardless of the language that a person speaks, everyone involved in translation, from beginning students to highly skilled professionals, have a set of beliefs that pertain to it. The reason is that food involves people emotionally. An indispensable part of our lives, good food also is a material component of various events such as national holidays, religious celebrations, birthday parties, wedding receptions, and gatherings with friends and neighbors.

All translation students and professionals have opinions about food and just about everything related to it. While Russian Translation Professionals enjoy talking about their blini, German Translation workers boast about their sausage, while Medical Translation workers just tell us to consume healthy food. In addition, all translation workers prefer one particular style of food or other such as fast food, junk food, cafeteria food, ethnic food, restaurant food, and the snacks and popcorn you munch at a movie theater. In addition, we all have different thoughts about what we like to put on our food like salt, ketchup, red pepper, barbeque sauce, steak sauce, sauerkraut and so on.

Our series of articles titled, Hungry For Russian Translation, focuses on food. The topic of the series is food, however, we offer a wide variety of language-related instructional activities. In one article we might be providing a quick lesson on verbs, the next for something on vocabulary, and the next for a writing topic. Some days, we will add only a word game or some task that will focus students’ attention on the languages they study.

A large part of the activities in our series of writings include games and encourage creativity. The reason is that in my opinion language games have a crucial role in building language skills. Students need to get interested in words and their quirkiness, changeability and power. English teachers have to do their best to turn kids on to language. Play is a powerful tool to do so.

Althought the idea to write this series of articles was mine, I was not the only one to contribute to it. What I did was only a small part of the effort that went into making it possible. Sarah Von Seggern, a German Translation worker and Michael Antipov, a Russian Translation professional, contributed to it and assisted me in various ways – writing, proofreading, checking facts and other.   I also have to thank to Sandra Hernandez, a Spanish Translation professional, who also cooperated with me in the development of this series. I hope you enjoy The Translation Is Ready and find it useful in your translation teachings.

What do you and your students share when talking about food in class? Do you discuss a time when you were unsuccessful in preparing a special meal? Do you enjoy thinking about the memories of your great-grandmother making homemade ravioli? Did a humorous event take place to a family member in a restaurant? Do you have your little jokes about how you all hated to eat the food, prepared by a relative because it tasted terrible?

In the first task, we encourage you to write a story about food. If you need some help thinking of one you may ask your classmates, friends and instructors to make suggestions. If you still find it difficult, share any kind of memory you have relating to food – maybe a special meal, or a special occasion.

The History of Translation Services in Boston, Baltimore & Chicago

The cities of Baltimore, Boston and Chicago have rich histories involving immigrant populations that go back through the centuries.  Of course, the immigrants imported their native languages, which helped shape the identity of these cities.

By the end of the 1800s, many people believed Baltimore was by far the most important American city for immigration.  Much like other east coast cities, Baltimore was a very international city at the time. English barely edged out German as the native language spoken the most in the city of Baltimore.  The Chinese language became more important as Chinese immigrant populations swelled to new heights during the American Civil War.   Recruited to build the railroads, by the 1870s nearly every city of significant size – including Baltimore – had a “Chinatown” made up of restaurants, laundries, and a number of Chinese schools, temples, and homes.  It became increasingly clear that there was now a need for Baltimore Translation Services.  Baltimore was a unique city in that it did not experience an anti-immigrant movement like most other American cities. Therefore, Baltimore translators flocked to the area and enjoyed full employment for many years. Boston, much like Baltimore, is also a port of entry for immigrants to the United States.  In addition, Boston is similar to Baltimore in that it has openly welcomed immigrants throughout history.

Because of Boston’s convenient location and European look, it has attracted many settlers from all of Europe and Russia.  The 2000 census revealed that Russians and Eastern Europeans make up some of the largest ethnic groups in the city.  This has brought about the need for professional Boston Translation Services that cater to Russian language translation, among others.  Areas like Chelsea in Boston have a high concentration of translation services, but Brookline seems to specialize in the Russian language.

Chicago is a major midwestern city, but it shares characteristics with east coast cities like Boston and Baltimore.  French explorers were among the first settlers in the area known as Chicago.  Immigrants to the Chicago area came mainly during the 1840s and 1850s.  As Europeans were fleeing famine in Europe, Chicago was accepting them as new inhabitants of their city.  Chicago translators came into high demand due to the fact that over half of Chicago’s residents were foreigners.  By the end of the 19th century, most of the residents of Chicago had come over from Europe. German translators, Polish translators and Italian translators were most in demand, but Korean language translations and Japanese language translation agencies were also sprouting up all over the city.  During the period from 1924 to 1965, when U.S. immigration was stopped with the exception of refugees, Chicago’s ethnic groups consolidated their neighborhoods and increased in number.  At the close of the Second World War, thousands of Japanese who had been interred in California moved to Chicago to start a new life.  Along with the growth in the Japanese population in the city of Chicago came an increasing demand for Chicago Translation Services.

We have reached the end of another article about U.S. immigration trends and the rise of translation service companies in the United States.  Our next article in this series will focus on the growth of translation companies in Atlanta, Dallas, and Las Vegas.

Useful Information About U.S. Immigration

Like anything else in life, admittance into the U.S.A. requires that you pass a screening process that can often prohibit you from entering the country and end your homes for a green card or visa. Just like other countries, the United States does not approve all visa applications. To avoid mishaps and save time, some common reasons for visa rejections include having a disease, not having any money and having a criminal background. The US government will request a number of documents that have been issued to you in your native country and you must be able to provide copies. Before getting to this stage of the process, you will need to have any non-English certificates, licenses and documents translated by an approved translation agency that offers certifications and notarizations. What this means is that anyone from Brazil will be required to hire a Portuguese translation services that is capable of providing certified and notarized translations of translation of birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees and other forms of identification that are requested.

You can count on being rejected if your past is marked with criminal behavior or a criminal record. You can take this to mean that nobody will be issued a green card or US visa unless in extremely rare instances or with a certain type of waiver. This gate gets closed on a lot of people who lived in the U.S. illegally for more than six months, which creates either a three year or ten-year bar to immigrating. Even if you think you haven’t done anything wrong.

Your eligibility will be reviewed next if it is determined that you have a clean record, carry no infectious diseases and are financially secure. In this step, you must identify the right type of green card or visa to apply for. Don’t just guess blindly here. You will need to take time to evaluate the various choices. In some cases, you might actually know the answer and that will certainly save you time and frustration. To illustrate this, if you are Russian and you just married an American then you will need to apply for an appropriate green card. But if you are still unsure and need more information, you might be able to locate a Russian translator company that help lead you in the right direct or even provide you with some helpful literature. High school students who want to attend college in the United States also know that in order to do so, they must first apply and receive a student visa from the U.S. government. Most people do have some questions and consequently, there are many resources available in almost every spoken language. If you do have questions and you speak Arabic, you might consider making a phone call to a local Arabic translator company. You will be amazed at how much information that they can provide.

If you are unclear about your eligibility for a United States visa or United States green card then we suggest that you do some research by calling around and trying to determine that form most appropriate for you. Another possibility that you should consider is a temporary green card. On a side note, not everyone will receive good news and the right to stay in the United States for the remainder of their life. When the chance of a permanent visa seems to pass you by, don’t ignore more temporary options. Some short terms options include student and employment based visa. In addition to these common types of temporary options, there are some specialty types that include emergency visas that might apply to your needs.

Globalization and its Effects on Language Translation

The idea of globalization has different meanings to different people.  However, many people believe the idea rests on the integration of economic, political, and cultural systems across the globe. The process that drives globalization is based on a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.  This purpose of this article is to discuss the impact of globalization on language translation services and how it has gained increasing important and has created several critically important focuses that include medical translation, legal translation and standard professional translation.

By definition, globalization concerns the development of a single society but that is probably a huge exaggeration.  Further, the pace at which internationalization takes place today is still limited by the same things that created limited when the term was first introduced.  This includes it the trade sanctions, unfair trade deals, quotas, and wars.  Similarly to good and services, people are also prevented from traveling past borders with approval and specific documentation that often includes notarized divorce decree translation, marriage certificate translation and birth certificate translation documentation.

But while the growth of internationalization may have encountered some obstacles, it has still made a tremendous impact in our lives over the past 20 years.  For instance, in the field of law, the globalization refers to Legal Translation Services workers and attorneys begin their day early by translating and securing international patents, trademarks, copyrights, and contracts into dozens of different languages ranging from Chinese and Korean to Russian.   The legal profession is not alone in the change that it has experienced from globalization.  For instance, securities and exchange traders now follow global trends in trading throughout the day and invest in international markets.  Even outside of our professional lives, we see the effects of globalization in multilingual broadcasts of sporting events like soccer championships.  Each of these situations illustrate the dependence that the world has for accurate language translation services in globalization.

It’s important to point out too that while multinational-ism as a subject has only been discussed or the past twenty years in the United States, the concept has been a subject of discussion in Asia for more than 50-years. Just to prove how young the concept is, it is interesting to note that Word Perfect still believes that I must have made a mistake in my spelling.  However, I have ignored their suggestion for correction and have instead written an article about how globalization is changing the world of translation workers. In America, the origins of the term can be traced back social scientists, economists and historians. Despite how old the definition of globalization turns out to be, its effects have created ripples in every segment of our lives, including medical care, where Medical Translation Services workers are common in hospitals and work to translate all sorts of medical reports.

Although concerns are still high about the impact that multinationalism will have on the economy, the vast majority of professional translation workers believe that they have benefited.  Thomas Friedman, for example, an articulate popularized of the globalization idea, came up with the dramatic statement that no two countries that have McDonald’s restaurants have ever gone to war with each other –meaning that societies that successfully participate in global consumerism will become much more cautious about belligerence, because they will have other pleasures they seek to protect and a lot to lose.

Keep and Eye Out For German Medical Translation and Legal Translation Errors

Nearly all professional translators, whether they live in Europe or America, understand that the English and German languages are close relatives and share many terms. German Language students usually find this to be a blessing and a curse.   English-speakers who are learning to become German Translation Services workers need to be aware of this. However, unfortunately, many early learners of German or English don’t understand that things are not always what they may seem. What experts call “false friends,” or “false cognates” are words that sound like a similar word in one language but mean something completely different.  In the translation profession translators should be just as wary of false language friends as they would be of false human friends.

As stated before, these words look like a familiar word but actually have nothing in common with it.  Incorrectly using false cognates can cause embarrassment at best and lawsuits in the worst case scenario.

When comparing German and English, you will find countless numbers of false cognates because the two languages have the same origins.  German and English linguists will tell you that the two languages share many words that sound and appear alike.  Brother / Bruder, auto / Auto, house / Haus, glass / Glas, etc. are just a few examples of the numerous true cognates that exist between the two languages.  There are literally hundreds of words like these that are truly similar in meaning and appearance in the English and German languages, but be careful.

Whether you are an English-native speaker translating from German or a German language native translating from English, the use of true cognates makes texts more readable and makes the translation process go much faster.  But false cognates are just a fact of life for a translator, whether you are providing German to English or English to German Translation.  Regardless of what you call them:  “falsche Freunde,” “false friends,” or false cognatesby any name can present problems if translation service providers are not careful.

The objective (Objektiv) act (Akt) of translation should be done after (After) review of the document.  This sentence shows how the German words in parentheses can be misinterpreted because of their nature as false cognates.  The German words, “After,” “Akt” and “Objectiv” actually mean “rectum,” “nude,” and “lens” respectively in English.  Many such false cognates also exist in medical translations.  These include words like “Weh” which really means pain.  True professional medical translators are wary of false cognates like “kosten”, which means to taste.

Similar difficulties are found in legal translation, which false cognates popping up frequently.  These often include words like “Rathaus,” which means “City Hall,” and not a home for a rodent.  Poor German Medical Translation usually includes many words that are  full of words like “Akt” (see above for meaning) and “absolvieren,” which means to successfully finish a course.  But these are only a few of the numerous false cognates between the German and English languages.  A “Drogerei” is like a drugstore, but lacks the drugs.  It is actually a shop that sells personal items like deodorant, shampoo and candy.  You need to go to the “Apotheke” if you need medications.    In addition, you will need a “Rezept” (prescription) if you go to the pharmacy, but don’t ask the cashier for a “Rezept”, because she will think you are asking for a prescription or a recipe.In summary, this all just underlines the importance of remaining attentive to the complexities involved in professional translation, with particular attention to ensuring you understand that false cognates can ruin a translation.  Mistakenly using false cognates always results in gross errors that reflect poorly on the German translator, the German translation and on the organization or person who uses the translation for official purposes.

Inadequate Medical Translation Services Translate to Medical Malpractice

Medical Translation Negligence

With the amount of publicity that medical error has received in the news, it is easy to see why the public now views it as something very serious in terms of avoidable patient injury, achieving effective treatment, and controlling health care costs. The prevention of medical errors may seem to be a relatively simple task, and with heightened awareness, some improvements have been reported. While some of these methods are already in place, healthcare administrators are continuously working on new practical, reasonable, and effective approaches.  Unfortunately, most new cases of medical negligence could have easily been avoided.  For instance, research shows that the majority of healthcare slip-ups are due to subpar communiqué often from inexperienced medical translation workers.  Through this editorial, we will shine light on an important oversight so that safer, better and less expensive medical treatment can be offered.

Problems in medical translation and interpretation occur throughout the world.   No country is safe. There are still treatment centers throughout the world that are unqualified to accommodate people needing Japanese, Portuguese or even Korean Translation services.  To help explain the scale of this predicament, our medical translation team has documented a case that will give you a general idea of the issues we face today.

Textbooks on workplace communication detail the encoding, transmission and decoding that takes place in all forms of workplace.  Each message is designed to produce some sort of stimuli when interpreted by the intended party. There are a wide range of methods that allow messages to transmitted and received in an organization that consist of vocal, printed and other non-verbal processes.  For illustration, communication can be facilitated frankly or through an intermediary by means of a vocal message, cell phone, text message, letter, etc.. In addition, the message can take on a wide range of tones that may seem offensive, peaceful, hurried, panicked, advisory, vendictive.  It might also be in a foreign language, special code or another means of expression. Communication might have a hidden agenda too.  In other words, it can full of ambiguity, shun responsibility, and be misleading.

With the previous background information, we now feel comfortable sharing the findings from a medical care study that examined the results of inadequate medical translation..  A worldwide report written by a major medical association found large instances of medical translation error in the medical systems of the U.S., Canada and several European Union nations.  In nearly one in five cases that required the involvement of a medical translator, a serious error was reported. The primary cause was contributed to insufficient experience of the medical translator that contributed to a breakdown in overall communication. The problem implicated the German Translation workers who were shown to lack the medical and interpretation skills needed to adequately communicate the doctor’s orders.    This resulted in patients who were too confused about the instructions provided by the interpreter or patients who didn’t agree with something that the interpreter said. According to available intelligence sources, the health of patients was often in jeopardy because the translator was unqualified to accurately communicate knowledge, beliefs, concerns, questions and answers to the medical staff. Often, doctors were unable not make clear the specific goals for treatment. Translators also overlooked other information that pertained to side-effects of medication and emotional burdons. As a result, many patients grew tired of the side effects and completely stopped taking their prescriptions.  The researchers also found countless examples of poor translations that led to duplicate appointments, incorrect appointment times and large errors in the translation of patient medical records.

Russian, Japanese and Arabic Subtitling, Dubbing and Voiceovers

Audiovisual Translations for Russian, Arabic, and Japanese

Despite being a professional practice that can be traced back to the very origins of cinema, audiovisual language translation (AVT) has been a relatively unknown field of translation studies until very recently In fact, during the 1950’s to 1970’s the subject area of translating audio video content didn’t go through any evolutionary changes.  Instead, the field hibernated until the mid 1990’s and early 21st century. Primarily, the lack of progress in the field was due to the lack of major technological developments that could generate new efficiencies and produce higher quality. By reviewing this article, people interested in AVT will have a greater understanding for what it is and how it has improved.

For those in the translation service, entering the AVT arena will demand even greater technical skills and linguistic competencies because there are many more obstacles that must be faced. Indeed, while attempting to recreate a real live situation on screen, they may hamper comprehension of a given scene due to fast paced dialogue exchanges among characters, the use of unknown dialectal and sociolectal variations, instances of overlapping speech and interfering diegetic noises and music, to name but a few. The skilled Audio Video Technicians must be able to internalize the entire scene and know the best way to present it to the greatest number of foreign speaking viewers.

In nearly all cases, the Japanese Translation of audiovisual content is most easily provided to the client in one of two preferred methods. Either oral output remains oral output, as in the original production, or it is transformed into written output. If the first option is favored, the original soundtrack is replaced by a new one in the target language, a process which is generally known as ‘revoicing’. The replacement may be total, whereby the target viewer can no longer hear the original exchanges, as in dubbing (also known as lip sync), or partial, that is, when the original spoken dialogue is still (faintly) audible in the background, as in the case of voiceover.

Although it is true that habit, cultural disposition and financial considerations have made of dubbing, subtitling and voiceover the three most common translation modes of AVT, this does not mean that they are the only language transfer options available in the industry. Surprisingly, Russian Translation workers who are employed in Hollywood have counted up to 11 distinguishable forms of multilingual transfer alternatives for audiovisual communication. Instead of going into every type available, we will instead provide a brief description of the main methods that include voiceovers, dubbing and subtitling.

Dubbing involves replacing the original soundtrack containing the actors’ dialogue with a target language recording that reproduces the original message, ensuring that the target language sounds and the actors’ lip movements are synchronized, in such a way that target viewers are led to believe that the actors on screen are actually speaking their language.

Subtitling provides a textual representation of the spoken audio in a video program. Subtitles are often used with foreign languages and do not serve the same purpose as captions for the hearing impaired.

The term Voiceover refers to a production technique where a non-diegetic Arabic Translation voice is used in a radio, television, film, theatre, or other presentation.  The voice-over may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice actor.. It is common practice to allow viewers to hear a few seconds of the original foreign speech before reducing the volume and superimposing the translation.

University Programs Teach Students Proven Translation Skills

In order to give readers a clear understanding about the difficulties associated with language translation, we have prepared this article.  This article will also provide useful information to college students seeking careers in the translation field.  The art of translation and interpretation is subject to error at all stages of the process that includes the process of receiving and handling requests to doing specific translations, assigning the right translator to the job, conducting research, networking, translating words, phrases, and registers, editing the translation, delivering the finished text to the employer or client, billing the client for work completed, and getting paid.  Due to the large number of errors found in translations of literature works, leading universities began to develop translation programs of study.  Eventually, complete degrees began to be offered in universities that had the objective to teaching the skills necessary to deliver quality translations that are equivalent to source documents.

Over the past two decades, German Translation Programs have become an increasingly popular offering on the campuses of leading universities. Typically, these programs will include coursework in the history of translation theory and will then progress forward into modern times.  Eventually, students would move on to take courses that address common problems in literary translation, medical translation and other forms of legal and scientific translation.

Most programs are designed so that students start out with a brief introduction to the types of problems that they will face in the areas of Legal Translation, legal translation, certified translation or any of the other types of translation projects.   Students also learn the downfalls of word for word substitution. A common example of word for word translation is the methodology used by internet translation products.  However, there are times when translators sometimes must use this type of translation.  This is particularly true when the subject matter is highly technical like Medical Translation.  For your insight, the author of this article has written a real life story to help you better understand the challenges that the translation field is presented with.

Several months ago, a major healthcare provider sought the assistance of a German Translation worker in the United States.  Consequently, the project required some travel to Dresden, Germany.  The candidate was a fairly good choice because he had a medical background, native language proficiency in English and had spent over year in a German university.  As you might imagine, the person had excellent English language skills but his German skills were somewhat limited.   In one example, a company representative asked if he was comfortable.  He knew the answer to the question, how he might respond in English and the corresponding words in German.  Since he was nearly keeling over from heat exhaustion, a gasped and said he was very hot.  Like most people from the English-speaking world, he didn’t realize that in German he should have replied by saying “It seems very hot to me.” instead of “I am really warm.”  While they seem similar in English they are drastically different in German.  Unfortunately, the service worker looked befuddled and amused which suggested that the reply was incorrect for the occasion.  What the American had done was made a sexual remark instead of indicating something about the temperature of the air.   You can be assured that the American will think twice the next time he thinks about how he might respond in German.

Translation Workers Develop World’s First 5 Minute MBA

Japanese Translation, Portuguese Translation & Russian Translation Workers Develop 5 Minute MBA

It seems like every six months or so, I see a new book that promises to give readers the amount of knowledge that took an MBA student two years to learn. Certainly most people would rather have one fairly short book that provides all the content of an MBA degree.  So yesterday, while I was browsing the shelves at Barnes & Noble, I had a thought.  We should team up with our Portuguese translation service, Japanese translators and Russian translation specialists to come up with a 12-minute MBA course for our clients.  This would allow them to gain valuable knowledge, save money on a bunch of textbooks and improve their chances of landing a great job and the promise of big raises. But then I had another thought.  Why offer this when I could offer an even shorter course?

Granted, a five minute MBA program doesn’t -and can’t exist anywhere.  But just as a builder sets out the specifications of a building before beginning building and selling it, we can also map out the specifications of a graduate business program. In a summary, the objective of an MBA is to provide managers with the knowledge and skills they need to run successful companies, so with some help of a few translation professionals we began our outline with some common characteristics of successful companies. In particular, all successful companies are able to create demand and sell it profitably.

Creating Demand
Our Portuguese translation team immediately began summarizing how to create demand.  What they defined was that truly successful organizations are expert at identifying, creating and supplying products and services that bring new customers and keep old customers coming back. But this is only possible when a company is more efficient than the competition at providing lower prices and/or higher quality products.

How To Become Profitable
Whereas the Portuguese translation group worked on defining how to create demand, the Russian translation team researched creating profitability.  It was decided by the Russian translation group that a business organization must set its prices at a level that will adequately pay investors while covering costs. More often than not, it doesn’t suffice for a company to have the lead in market share and be only slightly profitable. As a result, it can be extremely difficult to satisfy investors and customers at the same time.  Many managers earn MBA degrees because of the difficulty in meeting these needs.

So far, I think we are still on track to providing the world’s first 5-minute MBA.  It was reassuring that the Russian and Portuguese translation experts showed a deep understanding of the competing demands of customers and investors.  But while the task is challenging, companies such as the ones on Fortune’s Most Admired list are able to keep their customers and investors happy.

As the Russian and Portuguese translation teams were at work, our Japanese translation group set out to define business attributes that make up a successful organization.  The Japanese translation team put forth the idea that successful businesses hire highly talented people at all levels.  They iterated that business leaders must be able to create strong business strategy; managers must be able to motivate others and make sound business decisions; and employees must have the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to carry out their jobs.  Japanese translators also stressed the importance of maintaining strong relationships with investors, customers and external suppliers.  Finally, the Japanese translators underscored the importance of having sufficient funds to conduct business and to carry out long term plans.

And here we are, coming full circle, having put together a 15-minute graduate business course that can easily be taken in five minutes.  And, the best part is that it is free.

Selecting A Russian Translation Service

Certified Russian Translation and Standard Russian Document Translation Services from THE MARKETING ANALYSTS

When traveling to the Russian nation, you may need translation for your different documents. All the papers required for the regularization of your stay in Russia can be well translated by professionals available in the market. Russian Translation workers can address such matters with special attention and have their services listed in the local directory. The customer can therefore find it easy to enlist the support of their preferred translator. For those papers that require notarization, the same are subjected to the correct processes by the professional translators.

A certain period of time is placed on the execution the translation exercise allowing you all the convenience for the use of your documents.   This is particularly true of Certified Russian Translation Service.  As with all translation work, the terms of each translation project can be negotiated for a better deal since the translators offer competitive rates.  The quotes are made available upon instant request.  However, you should expect to pay more for projects that take special expertise, require additional time and resources and for projects that must be completed quickly.

Commercial documentation can also be handled effectively as the translation agencies employ personnel who have experience in similar documents. The projects can be executed by large teams in case a lot of pages are submitted for translation. Such teams enlist the effort of native translators familiar with statutes from the two countries, Russia and your country of origin.

For those phrases that the customer is unfamiliar with, elaborate glossaries are constructed for efficient reference. With the different translation projects, the agencies ensure that the projects are addressed by the persons who can execute due propriety in the professional jargon used in the documents.

Orders for translation can be placed to the agencies on email or other form of communication. Contacts from the translators are made available on their websites.