Legal mumbo jumbo is hard to grasp in any language. But when it’s in Japanese translated poorly into English, overseas business opportunities are lost, lawsuits are filed and justice is not served.

Read more

Contrary to conventional wisdom, globalization is not ‘Americanizing’ the world

Read more

Lookout

Our readers frequently ask why Adobe Reader 6 is so slow to load when they open a PFD file. The main reason is that the Reader doesn’t load alone – it comes with a crowd of plug-ins. If you watch the splash screen carefully you can see their names flip past. Most people need only a handful of these plug-ins. If you’d like to load PDF files faster, follow these simple instructions:

· Launch Windows Explorer

· Navigate to the Program Files folder, usually c:\Program Files

· Below this, navigate to Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader

· In the right-hand pane, find the folder named plug_ins

· Right-click it and choose Rename, changing it to plug_ins_NOT

· Create a new folder named plug_ins

· From the plug_ins_NOT folder, copy just three files to the new plug_ins folder: EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api

That’s all you need to do. The next time you load a PDF file, only those three plug_ins will come along, and you should notice a significant speed improvement. If you need to read encrypted PDFs or if for any other reason you want to undo this change, simply close Adobe Reader, delete the plug_ins folder and rename plug_ins_NOT back to plug_ins. – NJR

Neil J. Rubenking, “Solutions: User to User,” PC Magazine, 19 October, 2004, 86

Lost in Arabic translation

The federal government’s lack of Arabic translators and the insufficient understanding – and consequent poor translation – of the language by the translators it does have may mean more Arab-Americans, immigrants, and foreigners could find themselves caught up in the government’s dragnet.

Marketing en español dominates northeast according to HispanicBusiness.com.

Hispanic market lures equity firms according to HispanicBusiness.com.

Common Sense Advisory report reveals few web retailers target large Hispanic market. Hat tip: The Online Hispanic News.

A Curry County woman says misuse of Spanish grammar on the state absentee ballots’ inner envelope causes confusion as to whether the vote will be counted.

In English, directions printed on inner envelopes state, “This envelope shall remain sealed until counting of ballots begins.” Beneath the English version, the Spanish version states the envelope will stay closed until “El recuento de boletas de votacion” (The recount of the voting ballots).

Read more

When Bill Gates goes to China, students hang from the rafters and scalp tickets to hear him speak. In China, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears… Throw out your kid’s idiotic video game, shut off the television and get Johnny and Suzy to work, because a storm is coming their way.

Read more

The Localization Industry Standards Association Forum Europe will go beyond the usual discourse about multilingual content management challenges and solutions to address the practicality of international products delivery, applications, and costs as well as how a larger Europe and companies wanting access to its markets can best manage business practices like emerging collaborative systems, outsourcing management, and open standards deployment.

Read more

Translation companies are a hot commodity as businesses reach out to the Hispanic market according to HISPANICTrends.com. Hat tip: Common Sense Advisory.

The Hispanic market is hot and the heat is attracting big-money investors according to HispanicBusiness.com.

The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has announced its support for upcoming special events to focus attention on localization and globalization efforts in South America. “We see big opportunities for Latin American translation agencies to take on a bigger role in the worldwide language services business,” says Don DePalma, GALA board member and president of market analyst firm Common Sense Advisory. “An educated work force, European language expertise, and time-zone proximity should make many U.S. companies look southward for translation.”

Read more

Many people (both supporters and critics) say globalization will lead to a homogenization of culture — people around the world, enticed by McDonalds and Hollywood movies, will devalue their local culture and adopt American ways instead. I don’t know if that will happen or not, but some recent articles and studies got me thinking about one way to test this theory.

Read more