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As the world economy becomes more globalized and interconnected, the amount of content for which translation services are necessary is growing exponentially along with the entire language services industry. Whether you are looking to expand your business overseas, file patent applications to protect your intellectual property overseas, or handling high-profile international litigation, you undoubtedly will be dealing with huge amounts of content.
Spanish is the most requested language for translation by volume in the United States and is also the most popular foreign language for Americans to learn. In fact, more than half of all university students enrolled in a language course are studying Spanish. Part of what makes Spanish so attractive as a foreign language is its widespread use in many parts of the United States increased job opportunities, as well as its relative ease of learning for English speakers versus languages such as Arabic, Japanese, or Chinese.
Numerous federal and state laws and executive orders have been implemented over the years to ensure that Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals receive equal access to information and services. These include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Title VI regulations, prohibiting discrimination based on national origin, and Executive Order 13166 issued in 2000. Many individual federal programs, states, and local governments have implemented their own provisions requiring language services for LEP individuals.
In today’s ever-changing and fast-paced digital landscape, technology plays an ever-increasing role in our daily lives. From how we listen to music, search for information, and even market and sell products and services, technology has revolutionized the way we live, interact, shop, and so much more. Following the global technological trend, the procurement and production of translation services are no different. While one may assume that translation is simply a matter of typing words on a screen, one may then wonder, why do you need technology in translation?
One of the more difficult pills for customers and prospective customers to swallow when it comes to procuring translation services is the cost. While translation costs have come down in recent years due in part to an increase in competition in the industry as well as the implementation of new technology solutions such as computer-assisted translation (CAT) and machine translation (MT), many clients still experience “sticker shock” when they start receiving quotes for their translation or localization project.
While Cincinnati may not be one of the first places to come to mind when thinking of popular cities for new immigrants, recent studies conducted by the New American Economy (NAE) and the Seattle-based organization, Boundless, rated Cincinnati as one of the most immigrant-friendly cities in the country. The studies ranked several factors, including job availability, legal support, and livability. In the NAE study, Cincinnati received a perfect score for civic participation.
When it comes to procuring language services, whether it’s converting a brochure into multiple languages for a marketing campaign rollout or translating a patent application into 24 languages in order to file with the European Patent Office (EPO), many clients find themselves rushing to meet deadlines at the last minute, for any number of reasons.
If your business or organization works with non-English speaking or Limited English Proficient (LEP) customers or employees, you likely have a need for an interpreter. Interpretation involves the “rendering of spoken or signed information from a source language to a target language in oral or signed form, conveying both the register and meaning of the source language content,” according to the International Standards Organization (ISO). It is also important to note that interpretation is different from “translation,” which involves the conversion of written text from one language to another.
Since the initial release of Trados MultiTerm and Translator’s Workbench in the early 1990s, Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) and Translation Memory (TM) tools have taken the language services industry by storm. Once a novelty relegated mostly to high-end website and software localization projects, CAT tools have now been widely adopted by language service providers (LSP) large and small, on and virtually any type of content.
Free online translation tools, like Google Translate, have become ubiquitous over the last several years. The history of automated translation goes back to the first years following World War II when it was investigated as a possible option for translating copious amounts of Russian language content during the Cold War. Now, in the 21st century, the idea of completely automated translation has captured people’s imaginations and given a glimpse of a future where people can communicate seamlessly without having to spend years learning a foreign language.