The Association of Language Companies has posted an excellent brief containing some very fundamental reasons why you would want to use a language services vendor, rather than a translation freelancer. Although it is obviously quite clear to those of us at McElroy why this is a good idea, we sometimes forget that those who are new to the available service offerings in our industry might not be as familiar with concepts of terminology accuracy, quality assurance and dedicated project management.

The primary reason is to ensure accuracy, especially with industry-specific or technical information, or projects where multiple languages may be involved. Just as any organization creates a brochure, publishes a website or prepares an advertisement with the support of several editors and reviewers, translation projects also benefit from the skills and experience of multiple individuals. Accuracy in translation is the result of hiring the appropriate experts as well as providing the project management and quality assurance only a full service company can offer.

Tags: vendor | company | translation | project

This article from the Washington Post illustrates just a small part of the growing number of tourists from Asia and Europe headed to the U.S. The need for adequate communication with these guests will no doubt continue to skyrocket. "Each of the past three years, we've seen an increasing number of Japanese visitors come into the Cherry Blossom Festival Public Information Trailer who speak little to no English," Line said. "We'd like to be able to help them, to have them enjoy a better experience while here." The National Park Service has about 20 Japanese speakers signed up to help, but it needs dozens more.

Tags: Japanese | Translators | Interpreters | Tourists

This is a very brief article, but it clearly highlighted the importance of previous language learning to assist one with a new language and cultural task. In this case, it was a battalion of Iraqi soldiers learning Arabic, but it could just as well apply to someone learning a new language like Chinese to do business in that country.

Speaking Dutch has taught de Bruin that one language may lack an exact translation into English. The grammar between the two languages is not the same, either, he said. That has helped him get an educational leg up in Iraqi Arabic.

"In Arabic, there is no present tense," said de Bruin, 1st platoon squad leader. "That's hard for some who speak English to grasp in Arabic."

Google was recently given the highest rating in a government test (National Institute of Standards and Technology) of machine translation tools online.

Google describes its "automatic translation" as being "...produced automatically by state-of-the-art technology without the intervention of human translators." This seems like a strange word choice, almost as if 'intervention' is being used pejoratively.