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Golden Rules for Truly Terrible Translations

GoLanguages — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:39:45 +0000

Sadly, even blue-chip multinationals are capable of producing Truly Terrible Translations. A few recent examples:

The oil company producing a safety manual in “Polish” without any diacritic characters, rendering the manual largely meaningless. Well, it is only safety! The IT company that printed its warranty with every single word of “Arabic” printed back-to-front. The machine [...]

GoLanguages – March 2011 Newsletter

GoLanguages — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 11:20:09 +0000

SUMMER TIME

The clocks go forward 1 hour in the UK on Sunday 27 March

PUBLIC HOLIDAYS Good Friday – Friday 22 April Easter Monday – Monday 25 April Royal Wedding – Friday 29 April May Bank Holiday – Monday 02 May Spring Bank Holiday – Monday 30 May PROJECT SCHEDULING

The 3 weeks at [...]

UK census to cost £500m with translation fees

GoLanguages — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:27:25 +0000

The UK census is expected to cost nearly £500m, in part due to translation fees.

30,000 officials have been hired by the government to help non-English speaking migrants to complete the compulsory census forms.

The 32-page guidance document that accompanies the census forms has already been translated into 56 languages, and advertisements are being used [...]

Should Scots language be taught in schools

GoLanguages — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:11:01 +0000

The Herald Scotland reports on an open letter demanding greater promotion of Scots language and literature in schools.

“The academics and writers behind the letter believe it is no longer good enough to rely on the enthusiasm of individual class teachers to promote Scots writers.

Instead, they believe an element of compulsory study of Scottish [...]

Reset the language and dictionary settings in a Word file

GoLanguages — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 16:15:27 +0000

How to reset the language and dictionary settings in a Microsoft Word file

If you receive a Word file from another person, it will have that person’s language settings embedded in the file: including any words that they have marked as being correct when they are in fact spelling mistakes, or words that the [...]

Learning in two languages

GoLanguages — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:08:35 +0000

The Sun reports “On a typical weekday morning at Hillside Elementary School, teacher Iris Russo uses Spanish to teach her second-grade students important lessons in science.Later in the day, Nancy Arroyo teaches those same students math in English.

That’s how the dual immersion program for Spanish and English speakers works in the San Bernardino City [...]

Call for more Scots language in schools

GoLanguages — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:04:59 +0000

The Herald reports “A Group of influential academics and writers will today attack the failure of successive governments to end “generations of neglect” of Scottish literature and the Scots language in schools.

In an open letter to Michael Russell, the Scottish Education Secretary, more than 80 signatories are demanding urgent action [...]

Email Etiquette

GoLanguages — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:37:57 +0000

A recent item on the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘Today’ discussed the rights and wrongs of email etiquette, focussing primarily on opening and closing salutations.

Is an email a digital letter? How formal or informal should it be? Just what is the right tone to use in an email?

In truth, there are [...]

Evolving English refuses to be standardised

GoLanguages — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 09:59:44 +0000

The Independent reports that “While the BBC and the King James Bible Trust are busily proclaiming the virtues of the 400-year old King James Bible as the greatest influence on the English language, the British Library is arguing just the opposite case in an extensive exhibition displaying the sheer variety and mobility of the language.”

[...]

English is the glue that binds community

GoLanguages — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:20:00 +0000

The Salt Lake Tribune has an article looking at a high school in which 35 languages are spoken, but in which English is regarded as the glue that binds the school and the wider community together:

“West Valley City is the second-largest city in Utah and its most diverse, with [...]