Common Sense Advisory posted an interesting story about a gas company that translated a message to their customers in nine languages.  So far, so good.  Customers were instructed to read "important safety information", and that's where the company dropped the ball.  The important information itself was only in English.

Imagine how you would feel if you received the mailing and the information was in a language you couldn't understand.  Would you panic and worry about your family's safety?  Would you be concerned that your home was going to explode?  Probably.

The gas company was irresponsible.  What if there had been a tragedy because customers were uninformed? They need to re-think their communications strategy and decide whether the cost of translating information for their customers outweighs the potentially horrific costs of not doing so.

By the way, Common Sense Advisory calculated that it would have cost the utility less than $500 to have the information translated.  They offered some good suggestions on other ways the gas company could have shared the information with their multilingual customer base.  Can you think of any others? 

Photo by ShimGray under Creative Commons license.

Why do people decide to become a translator or interpreter?  What's a typical day like?  What is the best part of working with languages? Hint: if your idea of being a translator or interpreter is based on the performances of Gwyneth Paltrow ("A Perfect Murder") or Nicole Kidman ("The Interpreter"), you may be in for a surprise.

"Translator Tales", an oral history project co-sponsored by the American Translators Association and McElroy Translations, lets translators and interpreters tell their own stories.

The project wants to bring "translation and interpreting careers to life through personal stories". The first interviews were recorded at the ATA's 2008 Annual Conference and more are being taped this week at this year's meeting in New York.  There are some great stories here.  What's yours?

Photo by Bangemsmurf

The bab.la language portal is offering survival guides for travelers in 14 languages.  There are three versions of the Survival Guides:

The Conversation Survival Guide will help you ask for directions, order food, and have a simple conversation. 

The Complaints Survival Guide provides you with basic vocabulary to complain and solve problems in hotels, restaurants and when renting a car.

The Computer Survival Guide guides you through the challenges of using computers with interfaces in a foreign language.

The guides are available in English, Chinese, Spanish, French, and Hindi.  To learn what other languages are available and to download your Survival Guide, visit their website

Photo by Carlos Adampol. Creative Commons license.

http://www.pandltranslations.com

"If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion.  Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said.  This matters above everything."

Confucius

Photo by etee.  Licensed by Creative Commons.

The number of internet users in Mexico grew 14% between August 2008 and August 2009 and now totals 13 million. Microsoft has more unique users every month than Google, and Mexico isn't the only country where Google doesn't dominate.  The two leading sites in Brazil, with an online population of 31 million, are locally-owned.

The popularity of social networks also varies by country.  Facebook is the 3rd most popular site in Argentina but doesn't make the top 20 in Brazil.  Did Facebook's delay in translating its content to Portuguese make it irrelevant in a large, fast growing market like Brazil?

Source: Portada

Photo by Rodrigo Galindo.