Lingua Translations

Archive for September, 2009

A couple of years ago, my wife and I were shopping for a new car. I remember clearly my response to the salesman who showed us the model we were interested in. It wasn’t, “Gee, that is a fine car!”(for I already knew that before I visited the lot). What I said was, “He’s a really nice guy”… just before I asked my wife, “Did you bring the checkbook?”

And Mrs. Merchant, the 4th grade teacher that I remember so fondly? I can say with certainty that I’ve never mused to myself: “Gosh, I loved the way she folded culture into that unit on South American geography. And her grasp of pre-algebra? Outstanding!”

No, my memories prompt me to think: “That woman changed my life – because she believed in me and showed me what I was capable of.”

In both these situations, my emotional response was what mattered.

It’s the same with the audiences for your speeches and presentations.

Let’s say that you happen to be one of those people that has a very limited vocabulary, understanding how to combine the same words into different sequences to impart different meanings can be very affective, here is a great example: “Sheila heard him screaming at her” or “Sheila heard her screaming at him” both of these sentences employ the exact same words, but by rearranging the order of the words “her” and “him” we were able to give the words different meanings. Grammar is the only thing that makes this possible. Grammar by definition is a languages set of rules that dictate the ordering and combining of words to make them into understandable sentences.

When children first begin to speak it is usually in short 2 or 3 word sentences, this is would be described as telegraphic, or short, simple sequences of words without tenses, plurals, or function. In order to develop the capability of making whole sentences children must first acquire the knowledge to to utilize other forms of speech. In the English language this means understanding how to use the correct subject verb order, as in ” Corey chased the dog.”

The Down-and-Dirty on Publishing’s Over-Promoted Technology

(Adapted from The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living, by Peter Bowerman. Fanove, 2007. www.wellfedsp.com).

In a recent year, Xlibris, one of the big names in POD (Print-on-Demand), celebrated paying out their one-millionth dollar in royalties. The prior year, they helped authors publish more than 7,000 titles and sell over 300,000 books. Impressive, huh? Well, let’s do the math. $1 million for 7000 titles comes out to an average royalty of $149 each. Not exactly worth bragging about…

How POD Works

In the past few years, POD has generated a huge buzz in the industry, promising to “provide the keys to the serious publishing kingdom for all those authors heretofore locked out of the game” and other lofty claims. Not really. Remember, POD isn’t some “miracle” or a “publishing revolution”; it’s just a printing technology, nothing more. Let’s try to separate the reality from the hype…

Because of the potential for increasing business in the global market, many businesses are of necessity exploring foreign markets. This involves the tasks of signing documents in a language with which they may not be familiar and developing marketing procedures in this language also. The decision now is how to do the translating. There are three options for getting this service done.

You can take charge and do it yourself, hire an individual translator or hire a translation services Agency. Making your choice will be based on factors, which include your capabilities and resources, your needs and your budget.

You might be able to do it yourself. If you speak the targeted language fluently, you could develop the materials necessary for the task. If you do not speak the language, another choice for the do-it-yourselfers would be to have an employee who speaks the language do the job. There are problems with doing the projects yourself. A translation requires the translator to be extremely fluent in two languages. The translation requires more than the ability to speak two languages. The translator must be familiar with the topic being translated and be able to write and edit in the targeted language. It is best if the translator lives in the country for which the translation is intended. If they do not live there, at least the targeted language should be their native language.