LinkedIn has launched a Spanish version of their site.  The video announcement can be viewed at  blog.linkedin.com/blog/2008/07/linkedin-la-r-1.html.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has ordered city agencies to offer all services in the six most widely spoken languages in the city: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and French Creole.

“The fundamental basis of government is its interaction with its citizens,” the mayor said before signing the executive order at City Hall on Tuesday. “If people don’t know what we do, don’t know what they should do, what the law requires them to do, don’t know how to get services, all the money that we’re spending providing those services, providing those laws, is meaningless.”  www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/nyregion/23translate.html

According to the Mayor's Office, there are 1.8 million residents with limited proficiency in English.   

An article in the International Herald  Tribune  www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/23/america/NA-US-New-York-Languages.php noted that  "Never again will we have to ask our children and grandchildren to translate complicated government forms for us," said Yorelis Vidal, of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group.

Are your documents accessible to your employees and customers?  Or, are they being translated by nine year-olds?

http://www.pandltranslations.com

The New York Times recently printed an article on the Chinese government's suggested menu translations for Olympics visitors (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/dining).  Many poetic names have been re-christened with more prosaic monikers: "ants climbing up a tree" is now "sautéed vermicelli with spicy minced pork" and "happy family" is now "assorted stewed delicacies".

Translating menus can be a tricky task.  In honor of the Fourth of July, consider the following dishes that many Americans will be enjoying over the long holiday weekend. 

I started thinking about how I would translate these into Spanish and decided to run them through a free online translator for fun.  After the Spanish translations came up, I took them and had them translated back into English.  The results are not only bad, some of them are downright nonsensical.

So, take pity on the translator who has to make sense of menu items like these.  And, make sure you have plenty of warm canines on hand for your friends and family this weekend.

• "Eggs sunny side up" became "eggs the side sunned for above"
• "hot dogs" turned into "hot small dogs"
• "s'mores" are now "s'uses"
• "shoo fly pie" becamse "shoo the pasty of the fly"
• "ice cream with jimmies" is now "frozen with the small bars"

Happy Fourth!

http://www.pandltranslations.com