Wolfestone Translation Blog

Accepting immigration and cultural diversity in our communities hasn’t always come easily for us Brits.  The subject has made for controversy, debates and arguments across the political and social spectrum and many laws have come and gone with regards to immigrants and their place in British communities.  What is often forgotten is that cultural diversity in Britain enriches society across areas including our social, cultural, and professional lives.

For example, the influx of Polish workers to the UK has caused small businesses to set up and flourish, there’s a bigger demand now for, say, Polish food than there was in the 90s.

Khalid’s a Kurdish refugee. But he’s named his supermarket after Poland’s capital city. And he’s selling Polish food. He simply spotted a gap in the market. And he’s very happy here.

Khalid’s one of several Kurdish businessmen targeting Polish migrant workers. At Mohammed Ibrahim’s barbers the signs are Polish. But the shop’s called Halabja, the city in which Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds and where Mohammed used to live. Mohammed’s married to a Pole.

Many businesses and large corporations now have to translate many of their official documents, such as manuals and health and safety documents, into Polish due to the increasing number of Polish workers here in the UK.

The food that we eat, the music that we listen to, and the clothes that we wear have all been influenced by different cultures coming into Britain. Foreign foods, for example, are part of an average British diet. One of Britain’s favourite dishes is Indian, that being all the varieties of curry. Britons have enjoyed curry for a surprisingly long time – the first curry on a menu was in 1773!

Even English is based on the languages spoken by Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavian Vikings and Norman French invaders, with words added from the languages of other immigrants over the years!

In Britain today there is an estimated ‘ethnic minority’ population of just over 4 million. We live in a country rich in cultural heritage; but the value in this diversity is sometimes not fully seen or understood.

Immigration used to be a product of Britain’s colonial links. First, migrant workers came from all parts of the Empire, from Pakistan to the Caribbean. Then asylum seekers came from countries like Zimbabwe and Iraq.

Valuing our diverse culture in Britain today is all about understanding and respecting other people’s beliefs and ways of life (as we would expect others to respect ours). It is about supporting individuals in keeping their cultural traditions alive and appreciating the fact that all these different cultural traditions will enrich British life both today and in the future.

http://www.mylearning.org/jpage.asp?jpageid=2022&journeyid=441

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2008/10/13/radford_road_hyson_green_feature.shtml

Some mistranslations are fatal, some are just funny translations. Translations, both oral and written, are not always as accurate and faithful as they should be. But let’s look on the bright side of things now.

They say that Cinderella from a well-known fairy tale received her glass slippers as a result of a translation error. It is claimed that in the original French story Cinderella’s slippers were made of vair (the fur of the grey squirrel). A translator supposedly confused this word with verre (glass) thus endowing Cinderella with beautiful glass slippers (by the way, they are crystal in the Russian version of the fairy tale).

Well, forget the fairy-tale slippers. Inaccurate translations sometimes result in much more tangible gifts. So partly thanks to an interpreter’s error, the Russian Federation agreed to donate three Siberian tigers (the endangered species) to South Korea. During a visit of an official Russian delegation to South Korea, Koreans told Russian officials about their great interest in Siberian tigers. However, the interpreter mistranslated those words and asked if Russia was willing to donate the tigers. As a result, Russia agreed to make that valuable gift.

***

Please “Slip and Fall Down Carefully” and “Show Mercy to the Slender Grass.” The unique mix of Chinese and English known as “Chinglish” produces many funny translations. Here is a handful of funny translations picked up form The China Daily:

Subway signs:
“Fleeing for your life” (the sign tells how to escape in the event of an emergency)
“Your mobile phone on your waist seems like the gifts for thieves”
“Be careful with the bags you take, with more safety in chest”
“If you are stolen, call the police at once”

A restaurant menu:
“The ovary and digestive gland of a crab digs up the cabbage”
“Royal Worshipped Beef”
“Ideas’ powder” (that is “Italian spaghetti”)
“Choke of cucumber”

One can find funny translations not only in a Chinese menu (or Ukrainian, or Spanish, or Finnish, etc), but on pages of a reliable news agency as well. Thus, Reuters’ translators bravely mistranslated the German word schwanz as penis (however, the correct translation in that case was tail). As a result, Reuters published a remarkable article about an unlucky Lego giraffe model that stood at the entrance to the Lego Discovery Center with its manhood being regularly stolen. Readers were informed that it was a popular souvenir and that the Lego Discovery Center was erecting a “metal construction to protect the giraffe’s genitalia.” In that way, the tail turned into penis and the whole story was good for a laugh.

It turned out that there is an institution named

Piece of advice on studying of productive forces of Ministry of Economics of Russian Federation and RAN

in the organizational structure of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Employees with mysterious prefixes des and ces work on the staff of this institution. By the way, an unintelligible abbreviation RAN also intrigues.

Original Russian pages lift a cloud of mystery from this translation: Piece of advice proves to be Council, des – Doctor of Economics, ces – Candidate of Economics, and RAN – Russian Academy of Sciences

Funny translations have found their way to many facets of life, including business and politics. Thus, the slogan “Come Alive with Pepsi!” failed in Germany because of its unhappy translation: “Come Alive out of the Grave with Pepsi.” And the Taiwanese translation gave even more details: “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave.”

Time Magazine relates:

In 1965, prior to a reception for Queen Elizabeth II outside Bonn, Heinrich Lübke, then the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, attempting an English translation of “Gleich geht es los” (It will soon begin), told the Queen: “Equal goes it loose.” The Queen took the news well, but no better than the President of India, who was greeted at an airport in 1962 by Lübke, who, intending to ask, “How are you?” instead said: “Who are you?” To which his guest answered responsibly: “I am the President of India.”

To avoid these kind of mistakes and to help communication flow across languages use Wolfestone for all of your translation needs!

http://www.language-translation-help.com/funny-translations.html

Jean Baptiste came to join us for a few weeks from France and would like to share his internship experience. Even though he hasn’t been here for very long he has found it extremely worthwhile.

“After finishing my Erasmus year at Swansea University, I thought about doing an internship here in Swansea. I wanted to gain experience and be confronted to the work in a company. This internship in Wolfestone completes the work I have been doing at the university, it has been the opportunity to apply my knowledge in a professional environment and to meet new people, which is enriching humanly, as well as for the studies. Moreover I’m planning to enter a translation school in Paris next year. I would like to thank all the Wolfestone team for having me.”
Our interns get a real insight into the world of translation. Students are given responsibilities including; translating and proofreading documents in their native languages, assisting project managers in the preparation of documents for translation, assisting in recruiting linguists and video editing. Students are able to work along side experts in the translation industry who can guide and advise them along the way, aiming to give the student as much experience and knowledge as possible in the given time.

“I recommend such an internship to all those who are willing to extend their knowledge of languages and office related skills as well as having an insight into the real world of work”

Do you want to do an internship at Wolfestone? Visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!

My three-month internship as a translator is unfortunately coming to an end. First of all, I would like to thank all of the Wolfestone team for giving me the opportunity of doing an internship here and for all their help and advice. It was a very good and rewarding experience. I enjoyed working in a multicultural office with young colleagues and in a relaxed atmosphere.

At the beginning of my work placement, I was given some documents to practice, which were documents which had already been translated such as Birth Certificates. It was interesting to discover new kinds of translations, different to the ones we do at university. I feel that my translation skills improved a lot during my time here.

The translations or proofreading I carried out were varied, so I could learn and discover a broad range of new terms. When I had any questions, I could ask my colleagues or the other interns who were always happy to help me. I also had to deal with some projects in a team with another intern, which was good to share our opinions and justify our translation choices etc.

I took part in several projects, including a voice-over one. I liked being given the opportunity of discovering something else other than translation and participating in the voice-over, from proofreading the target text and recording it, to editing the video.

Marion

What are the world’s most widely spoken languages?

This question is a very interesting one that has a rather complicated answer.  Estimates of how many people speak a language are quite general and can vary considerably.  For example, estimates for English vary from 275 to 450 million, Spanish from 150 to over 300 million, Hindi from 150 to 350 million, and Russian from 150 to 180 million.

To further complicate matters, the definition of “speaker” can be vague.  Some surveys of languages give information on native speakers only.  Others count both native speakers and secondary speakers (those who use the language regularly or primarily even though it is not their native language).

Lastly, it is important to consider not only the population (number) of language speakers, but also the geographic distribution of these languages.  Some languages have relatively large populations of native speakers but are used almost exclusively in a few countries.  On the other hand, other languages have relatively small populations of native speakers but are used in many different countries as an official or national language.

The Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) Ethnologue Survey lists the following as the top languages by population:

1. Chinese
2. Spanish
3. English
4. Hindi/Urdu
5. Arabic
6. Bengali
7. Portuguese
8. Russian
9. Japanese
10. German

World languages and the World Cup

Unless you’ve been in hiding for the past few weeks you will be well aware that the World Cup is currently taking place. The World Cup is a global event. Every nation on earth watches it and talks about it. Even if your nation isn’t one of the lucky 32 that gets to compete, you’re still oddly involved Non-football fans watch as well, which is curious when you think about it.

But not everyone speaks English, so not everyone calls this tournament the World Cup. In French it’s the “Coupe du Monde”, in German the “Weltmeisterschaft”, in Spanish the “Copa Mundial” and in Italian Il Mondiale.

Below is a list of translations, from Afrikaans to Hebrew to Welsh…

Afrikaans: Wêreldbeker
Arabic: كأس العالم
Belarusian: Кубак свету
Bulgarian: Световно първенство
Catalan: Copa del Món
Chinese: 世界杯
Czech: Světový pohár
Danish: Verdenmesterskab (or VM for short)
Dutch: Wereldkampioenschap voetbal
Finnish: Maailmancup
Flemish: Weireldkampioenschap sjotten
French: Coupe du Monde
Galician: Campionato do Mundo
German: Weltmeisterschaft (or WM for short)
Greek: Παγκόσμιο Κύπελλο
Hebrew: גביע העולם
Hungarian: Világ Kupa
Icelandic: Heimsmeistarakeppnin
Indonesian: Piala Dunia
Irish: Corn an Domhain
Italian: Il Mondiale
Japanese: W杯
Korean: 세계 축구
Lithuanian: Pasaulio čempionatas
Macedonian: Светско првенство
Malay: Piala Dunia
Maltese: Tazza tad-Dinja
Persian: جام جهانی
Portuguese: Copa do Mundo
Romanian: Cupa Mondială
Russian: Кубок мира
Serbian: Светско првенство
Slovakian: Svetový pohár
Slovenian: Svetovni pokal
Spanish: La Copa Mundial
Swedish: Världscupen (aka VM)
Thai: ฟุตบอลโลก
Turkish: Dünya Kupası
Ukrainian: Кубок світу
Vietnamese: Cúp bóng đá thế giới
Welsh: Cwpan y Byd

Information sources:

http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

http://www.worldcupblog.org/world-football/how-to-say-world-cup-in-36-languages.html

Here are some amusing examples of when language barriers cause problems!
“A friend of mine went to France armed with a basic grasp of the French language. He needed some household goods but was stumped as to the correct word for pillows. Trying (as we Brits do) to cross the language barrier by speaking slowly in English with an attempt at a French accent he proceeded to repeatedly ask a store assistant “je voudrais un ‘cushion’ pour mon lit”. The store assistant was not at all impressed, and it was only upon consulting his dictionary at home did he realise that the English word ‘cushion’ sounds awfully like the French word for ‘pig’, cochon. Needless to say, we soon understood the store assistants’ disgruntlement at his repeated requests for a pig for his bed!”
“I spent a few weeks on work experience in France, and at the end I was expected to type up the inevitable report. I knew that French for to type was ‘taper’, so I couldn’t understand the red faces when I announced I was going to spend the weekend doing ‘tapinage’. It took a very embarassed colleague to explain afterwards that this was in fact prostitution!”
“When I was trying to explain to a rather grim Cuban customs official why I was setting off the airport metal detector, I didn’t do myself any favours by telling him it was the metal on my Mexican revolutionaries (zapatistas) rather than on my shoes (zapatos). Another time I was slightly confused why my hosts were not more impressed by my rapturous tales of my lovely afternoon horse-riding. Perhaps it would have helped if I had told them we were riding horses (caballos) rather than gentlemen (caballeros).”
“I was working in Spain for a while and after about a year, I developed a very painful sty in my eye. I looked up the word for ’sty’, and went off down to the pharmacy. I walked up to the counter and said the phrase I had pulled from the dictionary. The staff in the Spanish pharmacy were almost clutching their sides with laughter. It was only until I had just walked out and met up with a work friend when I realised I had told the pharmacy nurses that I had una pocilga, a pig sty, in my eye. Oh the shame…”
“I was purchasing a schnapps flask, and told the salesman it was a gift for my son. The man looked horrified; I didn’t know Gift in German meant poison”.
“I emailed my German penpal telling her in German what my dream job would be. I told her I wanted to join the RAF, thinking she knew it was the Royal Air Force, but in Germany RAF stands for Rote Armee Fraktion, the Red Army Faction, which was a German left-wing terrorist group in the 70s, 80s and 90s”.
“Staying in Rimini for the first time I asked to use the shower at a relative’s home. I was shown the way to the flat where we were to stay, next to the main house. Here I commenced to prepare for my shower and started to run the hot tap. After a few minutes no hot water appeared so I returned to the main house and inform them there was no hot water. One of the boys went to check and returned with a smile on his face announcing there was plenty of hot water. Sono inglese, sono stupido, I had mistaken caldo for cold and freddo for hot. Never again”.
“Five years ago, I was staying with my stepmum’s friend in Italy. The friend is English but she has lived there over half her life. Me and her older Italian husband got on okay so one night when we were all having tea I decided to tease him a bit by telling him he was ‘old’. I didn’t know how to say it in Italian so I looked in my dictionary which gave me about 20 different words for ‘old’. Most of them were unpronounceable (to me), so I decided to go for the easiest one to pronounce. I chose “antico”. I wondered why everyone around the table burst into laughter. Later I found out I called him an ‘antique’!”
“I was visiting a Polish friend who had offered to cook me lunch. As I was still learning Polish and she English our conversations used to be ‘duo-lingual’. When she told me she was cooking one of my favourite dishes, I said “Wow! Super dooper” – and got a slap! ‘Super’ in Polish is the same as in English but dupa, which sounds similar to ‘dooper’ means ‘bottom’!”
Unfortunately these situations are often unavoidable, but for those that want to be saved from embarrassment be sure to give Wolfestone a call to help break down language barriers!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/false_friends.shtml

Swansea translation company Wolfestone Translation secures Investors in People accreditation.

After a yearlong process, Wolfestone Translations one of the UK’s leading translation companies has gained the prestigious Investors in People accreditation. Wolfestone Translation provides translation, interpretating and other language services to business throughout the UK and internationally.

In order to gain accreditation Wolfestone has had to undergo a process of implementing change within the business. This has included new procedures, extensive training and personal development planned for staff and so on.

Director of Wolfestone Anna Bastek says “We’re extremely proud to have achieved this accreditation. In the last two years our business has grown dramatically and this has been in no small part to our staff.” “At Wolfestone, we know that the most effective way to continue this progress is to help our staff achieve their full potential.”

This accreditation highlights why Wolfestone has been one of the Welsh business success stories during our darkest of economic times. Wolfestone puts trust in its people to develop, enabling the business to drive forward.

“Wolfestone doesn’t see this as a finishing point for our development. It is very much the beginning of us moving the business forward, both nationally and internationally. In fact we now have offices and teams based in Houston and Germany” says Anna.

It’s clear to see that Wolfestone is fast becoming one of the businesses to watch during 2010!

In yet another chapter of their success story, leading Swansea entrepreneurs Anna Bastek and Roy Allkin of Wolfestone Translation have been chosen to take part in the LEAD Wales project. This is an event limited to 25 of the most successful owner-managers of small or medium sized businesses, initially in the Swansea area, but eventually to cover all of Wales. It has received recognition and £8m of funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and the European Social Fund. The co-founders of Wolfestone were chosen as a result of the great potential of Wolfestone Translation and for creating employment in Wales.

It is hoped that the scheme, which is being run through Swansea University School of Business and Economics, will help some 700 businesses over the next 7 years, with the first cohort completing the scheme within 10 months. It is intended that the scheme, which provides each participant with £10,000 worth of training, will enable these businesses to “increase profitability, enable diversification and encourage business growth.” Pilot schemes trialled in the North West led to increased turnover, employment, productivity and profits.

The scheme itself involves two days study per month, which started in February with an overnight weekend experiential team-building event. Mr Allkin said about the first session “The weekend was about ice breaking and leadership training and I think the event was a great success. It really brought to light the diversity of businesses in Swansea and the real entrepreneurial talent that exists here”. Following on from this each participant is supported by the expertise of academics, mentors, coaching professionals and, of course, each other. LEAD Wales is unique in that it is a programme which attempts to meet the needs of growing companies as opposed to traditional business management courses which are aimed at start-ups or public sector managers seeking to enhance their career prospects.

When asked how she felt about the honour of being chosen for such an elite scheme, Miss Bastek said ”I was delighted to be approached by LEAD Wales. It will be very beneficial to team up with so many successful businesses and share experiences and ideas. I’m sure it will also create new business opportunities. I also believe that encouraging collaboration between higher education and the private sector will help to drive forward the Welsh economy.”

Guest post by Christian Arno, Director of Lingo 24.

If you would like to write a guest article, contact us at sales@wolfestone.co.uk or visit our website: www.wolfestone.co.uk.

Congratulations – you’re multilingual and you’ve got your translation qualifications, accreditation and some contacts in the industry – but how do you now transform your talents into taxable income? With full-time positions increasingly hard to come by, it’s lucky for you that you’ve picked an industry where it pays to go freelance. Being your own business isn’t all working-from-bed and midday television, though – consider the below pros and cons of becoming a freelance translator.

The good

The upsides to going freelance are numerous: you get to control when and how often you work; you can pick and choose the projects, ensuring varied and interesting work; once established, you may be able to charge a higher rate as a freelancer than what you would earn as a full-time employee, especially if you’re qualified to specialise in a particular area, such as business or IT; you can choose to either join a translation agency, who will bring you work but may charge a fee or percentage of earnings, or to strike out on your own and reap the benefits of your hard work building contacts; and you’re free to move and travel as you please – as long as you have a computer and the internet you’re in business. Getting established is no easy task, but online translation communities like Proz.com can be invaluable for advice and contacts, and once you’re settled with a database of reliable clients you’ll never look back.

The bad

The major downside to going freelance is maintaining a regular stream of incoming work – one week you may be swamped with projects, while the next you may find yourself spending more time making tea than translating documents. Dedicating your downtime to fostering relationships with potential clients is the best way to ensure you don’t get caught short – keep a regular stream of communication open with existing and potential clients and you’ll find the extra hours spent on the phone and email pay off financially in the long run.

Being self-employed also means managing your own accounts, invoicing and tax records – setting aside a block of time each week to catch up on administrative duties is the only way to make sure you don’t end up buried under a mountain of paperwork at the end of each financial year. Of course, going freelance also means you’re not entitled to general company benefits like pension schemes, holiday pay, sick pay and health insurance – even though you can take a holiday whenever you feel like it, you’ll need a well-maintained budget to make sure you can always pay the next month’s rent!

The ugly

Sorry to break the bad news, but when you go freelance, the only person who’s going to make sure you get paid is you. Keeping on top of your invoices by ensuring they’re sent error-free and on time, then keeping a close eye on which get paid, and promptly but politely following up on those which don’t, will help to ensure your hard work doesn’t disappear into an administrative black hole. Also, unless you have a tech support team for your home office, it’s up to you to make sure you’re digitally connected all the time – no phone and no internet means no business. Now get out there and start hustling!

I am currently in a first year of Master in Foreign Languages applied to Business. However, I would like to do a Master in Translation next year, so I thought doing my internship in the translation area would be a perfect transition between both. Moreover, to work in an English-speaking firm would help me to have more professional experience, to meet different cultures and, of course, to improve my English language.

I applied for an internship as translator in this company in part because their website was really attractive and complete, and thanks to the positive testimonies of other interns. I made an unsolicited application and I received an answer very quickly; they gave me all the information I needed in a very short time. I didn’t have many translation classes during my studies but, during the 4 months of internship, I have hoped to learn a lot about translation techniques and, more simply, how things take place in such a company.

During my first week, I began with some documents such as certificates and technical documents to practice. It was really interesting to discover new fields of translation as I was used to translate extracts of novels, magazine’s and newspaper’s articles, etc. Then, I was giving more and more responsabilities with translations for clients, proofreadings and a few tasks in the marketing area. I have felt more involved in the company. The staff is very friendly and helpul in case of any problem or question and there is a really cultural diversity. The atmosphere is relaxed and nice which is a really important thing in a company. Maybe it can explain its dynamism and its success.

I think that it is an experience really rewarding on a personal and professional point of view. Being in contact with other cultures helps you to be more open-minded, even at work. What’s better than working in a firm in a foreign country to know what is working life? They are serious about their work and they pay attention to the client’s expectations. According to me, Wolfestone Translation plays his part very well as teaching us how to work.

Marion Laisné – France

Do you want to do an internship at Wolfestone? Visit our website www.wolfestone.co.uk!