Friday, July 31, 2009

Bilingual babies and beyond

[http://goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com/]

This morning, I tweeted on twitter and updated on facebook about an interesting article on examiner.com with the title "Reasons why you should raise a bilingual child" (http://www.examiner.com/x-17553-Denver-Bilingual-Families-Examiner~y2009m7d29-It-cant-hurt). I want to follow up on one statement the author of the article made. In speaking about her desire for her child to be multilingual, she said, "It can't hurt [emphasis in original]." She went on to say, "It hasn't hurt me. On the contrary, being a bilingual journalist has opened twice as many doors as being a monolingual one would ever have!"

This simple statement about doors being opened to a bilingual journalist reinforces one of the points I have been making to students interested in Southern Nazarene University's Spanish-English Translation major. SNU's translation major prepares students for a variety of careers in addition to translation and interpreting. I think the translation major would make an excellent course of study for anyone interested in journalism. What is often not appreciated about translators is that above all else, good translators are good writers. One of our major emphases in the translation major is to make sure our students write well in English and in Spanish. It is not enough to write well in one of the languages. We expect our students to write well in both languages. Also, we do not just want our translation majors to be able to churn out good term papers in Spanish and English and nothing else. They have to be able to write in a variety of styles for many different contexts.

I am convinced that being able to write well in both languages and being able to understand fully and speak competently in both languages will open doors for students in all sorts of fields where highly skilled written and oral communication is an essential element of the job, such as journalism, editing, public relations, international business, international project management, translation (of course) and other fields.

If you're interested in learning more, check out the details of SNU's translation major at http://goglobalatsnu.net/translation.htm.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Another reason to hate spammers

[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]

This morning I posted on Twitter and Facebook a link to a ZDNet article (“Spammers go multilingual, use automatic translation services,” http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3813) about how spammers are using automatic translation services to go multilingual. Globally, about 95% of spam is in English. Now, with automatic translation services, spammers can produce their spam in English and then translate it into German (46.5% of spam in Germany is in German) or French (53% of spam in France is in French). The ZDNet article shows how spammers are aware that non-English speakers are more likely to respond if the pitch is in their first language rather than in English. Give them credit for a global awareness that is only recently being shown by a lot of others who want to play on the global stage.

The writer of the article made an interesting observation. He said, “Despite the easy [sic] of use and free nature of automatic translation services, their use is prone to decline due to the questionable quality of the translated messages, which could potentially undermine the efforts the spammers are putting in the first place. Cultural diversity cannot be achieved automatically….” I am not too sure about the probability of decline due to concerns about quality. “Phishers” seem more attuned to quality issues. After all, their game depends on the quality being good enough to snare unwary victims. Spammers, on the other hand, seem more focused on quantity. If you can pump out enough of the stuff, someone is bound to click on a link.

I particularly appreciate the last comment of the writer: “Cultural diversity cannot be achieved automatically.” I’ll add, neither can it be achieved easily. It requires hard work and a commitment to keep working at it. It can also be exciting, a little scary at times, and lots and lots of fun. In the end, however, it is all worthwhile.

Monday, July 27, 2009

From QERC to Viva Oklahoma: It's been a good summer.

It’s been over three months since I’ve done anything with my blog. (By the way, this blog posts to FB as a note. If you read it on FB and want to check out the blog, go to http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com.) By mid-April, I was so overwhelmed with all that was going on that I decided something had to give or I would go bonkers, and the blog was one of those “somethings” that had to give. Now that the end of summer and the start of the new school year are in sight, I think it’s time I get back to blogging about SNU’s great opportunities for going global.

In April, I went to Costa Rica to spend several days working with SNU students studying at QERC. It was my second visit to QERC. What a great place to spend a semester and what a great opportunity for SNU student! Want to know more about QERC? Check out http://www.snu.edu/qerc.

As soon as the semester was done, I went to Austin for the annual meeting of the Association of Language Companies (http://www.alcus.org), which is a trade association for language service providers. Of all that I learned at the meeting, the one item that will have the most impact on my teaching at SNU is the awareness of the growing impact of technology on the translation and interpreting industry. That means that more of that element must be integrated into SNU’s Spanish-English Translation major. (Dicho sea de paso, which is Spanish for “by the way,” I’m writing this blog post on a MacBook Pro, a first for me. Part of integrating more technology into our translation major means accepting that not every translator prefers a PC. Life would be some much simpler if that were so!) I’ve also subscribed to the trade magazine Multilingual Computing and will have copies of that magazine available for SNU students.

Soon after my Austin trip, I went to Boston to attend the annual meeting of the New England Translator’s Association (http://netaweb.org/cms). Why go all the way to Boston to attend a translator’s meeting? #1, it had some great speakers scheduled. #2, my two daughters live in Boston. (Which reason do you think was the most important?) One of the downsides of being located in Oklahoma is the lack of local professional development opportunities for translators and interpreters. There are enough translators and interpreters in Oklahoma that we should be able to get together and start doing some local continuing education. This is a project I hope to work on during the year. If we get something going, it will provide support for aspiring translators and interpreters as well as for those who are already working in language services.

This past weekend (07/25), the company in which I am a partner (http://www.multilingualservice.com) had a booth at the Viva Oklahoma Hispanic Exposition in Oklahoma City. I have some photos of our booth on my FB wall if you’re interested. I think it was a successful effort for us. We even got to pitch our services to Drew Edmondson, Oklahoma’s Attorney General and aspirant to the governor’s office. Perhaps we’ll get to translate some material for his campaign.

Speaking of translating for prominent events, our company will do some translation for the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum’s “Arte en la Charerria: The Artisanship of Mexican Equestrian Culture” exhibit, October 10, 2009-January 3, 2010 (http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/events/event.aspx?ID=127). The museum description says, “Arte en la CharrerĂ­a contains more than 120 examples of the excellent craftsmanship and design distinctive to the Mexican cowboy. The exhibition introduces audiences to the work of talented Mexican artisans who manufacture the articles and costumes that embellish and distinguish the charro tradition.” A great opportunity to see a little of Mexico’s influence on the U.S. cowboy culture.