Ultralingua announced today the release of Ultralingua 5.0 for the Microsoft Windows operating system, a significant advancement for their line of powerful bilingual and monolingual dictionaries.

With the advent of version 5.0, Ultralingua Translation Dictionary software users will now have the benefit of vastly enhanced databases, stemming (recognition of conjugated and other inflected forms) for most languages, a special mini-mode (to take up less room on the desktop), seamless interaction with other applications, and much more.

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Just when I thought I’d heard it all:

Beatrix Potter’s classic book The Tale of Peter Rabbit has been translated into ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics by the British Museum.

The translation turns the story of a mischievous rabbit into symbols, shapes and squiggles.

Peter Rabbit becomes a square, a semi-circle, an ellipse and a rabbit image.

The book is due to be published in April.

The foreword explains: “Beatrix Potter’s words sometimes do not readily fall into ancient Egyptian.

Hmm. I wonder why that would be?

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Two Providence councilmen want to make it easier for renters and for residents who don’t speak English to be involved in government.

They would require city notices and postings to be multilingual and for [interpreters] to be available at meetings.

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The Casio English-Chinese Translation Competition announced prize winners in its contest late last month but, surprisingly, no first prize was awarded. The judging panel said that none of the entries submitted was worthy of the honor of winning the top prize… Possibly even more astonishing was that second prize went to a 39-year-old Singaporean translator, Shaun Yeo… Yeo’s win distressingly reflects that the supply of qualified young translators is dwindling in China even as the country’s demand for translators is on the rise. According to Shanghai Translation Publishing House, the translation industry has witnessed an upsurge in the number of companies, with more than 3,000 operating on the Chinese mainland. The number could be closer to 10,000, as many small companies registered as consultancies actually conduct translations. However, the translator’s craft has suffered from a lack of advanced translation professionals. Although there are 60,000 professional translators and interpreters throughout the country, and at least 500,000 people engaged in translation work, it still doesn’t meet demand. By 2005, there will be a 20 billion yuan (US$2.41 billion) translation market in China, experts say.

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Marketing Sherpa interviews John Yunker:

We asked Yunker for three basic steps you can take to begin globalizing your site this year.

-> Step #1. Start small

A. List your strategic markets for next five years

Once you have a basic list, register domain names in those countries so you don’t lose out on them, even if you don’t plan to use them immediately.

B. Pick a single country to begin

Get your feet wet by branching out into one additional market so you can fully understand the details of globalization before launching a full effort.

C. Be prepared to support your new local site

“The minute you do launch a local Web site, you will be expected to support it, so you’ll need some people who have language skills that can support questions that come in via email or by phone,” says Yunker.

Customers understand that you may not offer the same services that you offer in your local market, but you have to manage their expectations, he says. If you can’t offer phone support in the local language, make that clear, and offer alternatives.

D. Research the culture

Okay, this should be obvious, but don’t forget to be sensitive to local culture

E. English language or not?

Many companies make the mistake of thinking the whole world (or all business executives) speaks English, but in truth it depends on your market segment.

-> Step #2. Keep your site’s bandwidth low

Be aware of the bandwidth requirements of the countries to which you’re reaching out. Limit graphics and avoid animation. This means little or no Flash or rich media.

-> Step #3. Rethink your “global gateway” start page

Note: The sweet spot for your global gateway icon is in the upper right-hand corner of each page a new visitor might enter your site on.

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Hat tip: Going Global

You’ve no doubt heard the expression, “something was lost in the translation.” One local nonprofit tries to make sure that does not happen, especially during difficult situations.

News 8 Austin’s Paul Brown spoke with Esther Diaz, the president of the Austin Area Translators and Interpreters Association.

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Making sure delegations from European Union member states understand each other when they meet in Brussels is no easy feat.

It is up to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Interpretation to make sure communication at meetings and conferences is smooth.

That was particularly challenging after 10 new member countries joined the EU in May this year, adding nine new official languages to the EU’s existing 11.

For the Directorate-General of Interpretation that involved more than a decade of preparation.

The problem was that professionally-trained interpreters in many of the candidate countries were few and far between.

It was up to the directorate-general – which every day provides between 700 and 800 interpreters for 60 meetings – to develop a pool of skilled people from which to recruit.

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The [Korean] Supreme Court said yesterday that starting next year the Ministry of Court Administration will provide interpretation and translation services to foreigners accused in criminal cases.
The ministry will manage the pool of interpreters and translators for courts nationwide and arrange appropriate services for foreign defendants, the court said.
Courts will also tape-record all trials that require interpreters. A foreign defendant is also allowed to raise an objection over interpretation and to request another interpreter for clearer communication.

According to the Supreme Court, 1,291 foreigners were tried in lower courts around the country last year, up from 588 in 2002.

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Etisalat has announced that the recently-launched SMS-based translation service has received an enthusiastic response from mobile users in the UAE. Data shows that 2500 messages were translated by mobile phone users on the first day the service was in operation.

Mohammed Al Fahim, Executive Vice President- Marketing, Etisalat, said: “We are very pleased to see that the ‘Tarjim’ (translation) service has been received so well. Our market research told us that this service would be of immense benefit to students, the business community and visitors. It is encouraging to find it being utilized by so many people so quickly.”

The service allows prepaid or postpaid subscribers to send SMS text to the number 1001. The service can translate from English to Arabic and vice-versa. Each message in English of 160 characters is charged at 60 Fils, and each Arabic message of 70 characters is charged at 60 Fils.

A common list of abbreviations that the system recognizes is available on www.etisalat.ae. Full details are also available by calling 101.

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Within two days… the California governor’s very mild advice to the Republican Party to “cross over that center line a little bit” had snowballed into a full-blown advocacy of gay marriage and abortion rights, due to an English-German-English translation that lost a bit of accuracy, and the willingness of ideological warriors to advance their causes at any expense even, apparently, the truth.

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John Yunker, author of Beyond Borders: Web Globalization Strategies, makes a few predictions for the year ahead:

– Web Globalization Goes Mainstream
– Amazon.com Adds Spanish
– Apple Launches iTunes Korea
– The Global Gateway finds the “Sweet Spot”

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The last two days have seen the release of not just one but two online software translation portals. Yesterday Translate.org.za announced their system Pootle and on the same day Ubuntu Linux announced its Rosetta. Both allow registered users to translate PO files for a range of open source software.

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Emmy Award Winning TM Systems, developers of the industry’s only “end to end” language translation, dubbing and subtitling system, has added MTV Networks Latin America, headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida, to its growing list of international language localization users.

The TM Systems technology will offer MTV Networks Latin America the ability to subtitle all of its broadcast material, to and from any language, with the efficiency of a digital, fully integrated system that brings a greater flexibility, increased continuity, expedited completion time and greater overall accuracy.

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equinux has released iTranslate, a new translation tool for Mac OS X. The freeware application is a German-English and German-French translation tool.

iTranslate accesses information from the online dictionary LEO, provided by the Technical University of Munich. The program also allows you to look up words in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. The application is a small window that fits easily on the desktop, precluding any need to click back and forth.

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Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) today announced the launch of the new Tarjim service, which allows mobile users to receive translations between Arabic and English of words or phrases.

Users send a phrase or word to a number in one of the languages and receive the translations on their phone. This service is offered in partnership with Sakhr Software Co., operators of www.ajeeb.com, one of the most popular online translation resources in the region.

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