Source: NPR

Since its earliest days, the Internet filled us with the hope of uniting all of humanity. With information traveling at the speed of light, we thought, geographic location wouldn’t matter and anyone who shared our interests would be within reach.

But there’s an age-old problem working against our utopian dreams of the web uniting the world: the language barrier. After all, it doesn’t matter what you have access to if you can’t read it.

In the first couple decades of the Internet, we had a simple, if unsustainable, solution. Most people used English — even if it wasn’t their native language.

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In honor of Spain's win at the World Cup, we are offering a 10% discount on Spanish translations between July 15 and July 30. 

¡Viva España!

Source: Business Wire

California is considering provisions that would require pharmacies to provide meaningful assistance to consumers with limited-English proficiency. Healthcare providers nationwide will be paying attention, because often what starts as a California legislative requirement ends up as a federal mandate.

According to California Senate Bill 1390, approximately 46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription drugs. In June, the bill was amended in the Assembly to require that certain phrases on a prescription drug label be translated into non-English languages. The bill also would require a pharmacy to provide non-English patients with any other written information relevant to the prescription drug in the patient’s language.

Below some of the most common issues that make translations inaccurate, putting healthcare providers at risk of dangerous miscommunication are outlined:

• Representation of numbers and dates – commas and decimal points have different meanings for different language groups.

• A misleading use of color as shorthand – whereas red might immediately signify danger or caution to North American English speakers, for others it means celebration, good luck and happiness.
• Literary and education levels – often the source material being translated is written at a level that’s too high for the target audience.
• Cultural and religious sensitivities – using anatomical terms that are offensive to the target audience might diminish the ability of the consumer to understand the translated material.
• Poor source text – often, the source document contains typos or inaccurate punctuation that alter the meaning of a sentence.

The complete story is available at Business Wire

This is big news in the publishing world: Amazon has announced it is creating a new imprint, AmazonCrossing, to produce English translations of foreign language works.  This could be huge.

Only 3% of the books published in the US are translated into English from other languages.  Amazon's initiative opens the US market to authors whose works are rarely, if ever, available to readers who don't speak their language.  The books will be available on Amazon's site and on Kindle.  

What effect, if any, will the new imprint have? Will other publishers follow Amazon's lead? Will Americans finally embrace foreign literature? Will translators be fairly compensated for their work?

Today is the birthday of three Spanish intellectuals: Salvador Dalí, Camilo José Cela, and Francisco Umbral. While everyone is familiar with Dalí's work, Cela and Umbral are not as well known in English-speaking circles.

Cela won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989, and several of his books were made into films.  His novel, "The Family of Pascual Duarte" (La Familia de Pascual Duarte) is said to be the most widely read book in Spain after "Don Quixote".   The book was banned in Spain for several years, even though Cela had briefly worked for the government as a censor. His writings are widely available in English and other languages.

Umbral was one of the most prolific Spanish writers in the second part of the 20th century, writing 80 books along with a regular newspaper column. He was a critic of the left, an unpopular position to take in post-Franco intellectual circles.  Like Dalí, he enjoyed the high profile he achieved from his work and he was ubiquitous at social events in Madrid.  My guess is that he will remain unknown in the US; Amazon lists many of his works, but no English translations. For literature to persist in our memories, it has to be accessible first.

Image by frengo2 under Creative Commons license.