In a bid to increase access to languages in the run up to the Olympic Games, London taxi drivers and tourists alike will benefit from a new initiative announced this week in which some 3,000 London taxi drivers are to take part in language learning courses in Chinese, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

In a move that has received the backing of Transport for London, the courses come in CD audio format or plug-in, and participating taxi drivers will receive window ‘flag’ stickers displaying the languages that they have studied.

The courses will include everything a taxi driver needs to get by in the aforementioned languages and The Australian states that along with these basic sentences, a typical sentence on the Spanish language course would be ‘La semana pasada, el actor Michael Caine estaba en el taxi conmigo. (I had that Michael Caine in the back of my cab last week)’. But joking aside, the course is evidence that public authorities are recognizing the importance that foreign languages play in everyday life – both in practical matters, social mobility and increased business revenue. These aspects did not go amiss for the South African government in its organization of the FIFA 2010 Football World Cup when all 18,000 volunteers from 170 different countries were required to be multilingual (see our ‘World Cup Team Talk’ blog for more details).

London taxi drivers have fully embraced this linguistic initiative – and it is a move that will be most definitely welcomed by the many foreign tourists visiting the capital for the Games. Come 2012, taxi drivers will most certainly be talkin’ to you, in French, Spanish, Chinese . . .

Sources: www.theaustralian.au; www.taxi-driver.co.uk: London cabbies go multilingual. Picture jalopnik.com

The research has been carried out, the tattoo design, colour and subject matter chosen. Next step: check with linguist or native speaker that the text is correct. Wrong! According to an article on CNNGo.com about the Hanzi Smatter blog (a website ‘dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters in western culture’) often this step is only taken after the visit to the tattoo parlour, at which time proofreading is no longer an option!

This is how translating and tattooing jointly came under the media spotlight in August 2010. Tian is the creator the aforementioned blog and he offers proper translations of tattoos that use Chinese characters. Readers send in their photos of any such tattoos and Tian provides an honest translation – often one which is far from the intended meaning. In an interview with CNNGo, Tian stated that 90 percent of enquiries originate from people when it’s too late, in other words, after the tattoo has already been carried out. There are currently around 400 entries displayed on his blog. For example, a tattoo thought to mean ‘beautiful’ turned out to mean ‘calamity, disaster, catastrophe’. There are also many instances where people have unwittingly used Japanese characters instead of Chinese.

Nobody is immune from the collision of a mistranslation and a tattoo. It is a bad combination resulting in what can only be described as an avoidable linguistic faux pas. Singer Rihanna is the latest celebrity to have fallen into this trap and when photos emerged of her new French language tattoo ‘rebelle fleur’, French speakers and linguists alike commented on the fact that it did not make sense as a phrase. Similarly, back in 2000, the BBC reported that David Beckham’s tattoo of his wife’s name (Victoria) written in Hindi script was misspelt and read ‘Vihctoria’ instead.

Although these articles are treated with an element of light-heartedness, it is in no way a slight on tattoo artists who are certainly masters of their trade. However, not all tattooists are linguists (and vice versa!) and nor should they expected to perform as such. But when a client fails to consult a language professional in the selection and design of a new tattoo, this is one decision that could leave its mark in more ways than one!

Sources: http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/; www.hollywoodlife.com; BBC; www.cnngo.com

The increasing number of pupils entering the UK education system whose first language is not English can translate into a language barrier in the classroom that is extremely difficult to overcome, both for teachers and children alike. That is why a Birmingham school (whose student population speaks over 30 languages) has employed the services of Talking Tutor – an automatic translation tool that improves teacher-pupil communication and enables children and parents with English as a second language to enjoy better inclusion into school life.

Talking Tutor is just one of the numerous bilingual pedagogical resources that the organization EMAS UK has to offer. According to their website, the device currently supports over 10,000 teachers and 100,000 children in UK schools. Described as a ‘translating, speaking IWB (Interactive White Board) Avatar’, it covers 24 languages*, but openly welcomes requests for the provision of additional languages. The company name itself is linguistically rich: a combination of the Malay words ‘Emas’ and ‘Masuk’ that mean ‘Golden’ and ‘Welcome’ respectively.

Talking Tutor works whereby text typed into a computer is run through an automatic translator and text-to-speech software generates audio output in the form of an on-screen virtual tutor that speaks in the target language. A teacher, for example, would type a message in English, and the pupil would receive this message in their native language (and vice versa). It boasts a 95% accuracy rate and provides contextual rather than literal translations. It can also be used at parents’ evenings, in reception areas, and as a teaching aid in Modern Foreign Languages classes.

EMAS UK provides a host of multilingual teaching aids. There is the Resource Library that covers over 200 languages and which is updated both for content and additional languages on a monthly basis; the award-winning Two-Can-Talk communicator that comprises a bilingual keyboard and real-time multilingual audio output; Text Tutor, that deals with the written word and translates documents such as worksheets and parent letters; and in October 2010, a range of bilingual and multilingual school books is to be launched.

Manor Park Primary School is one of the first schools in Birmingham to use the Talking Tutor technology and the software has already been hailed as ‘invaluable’. The improvements in the quality of life for children who do not speak English as a first language (The Telegraph reports that this figure currently stands at close to one million) cannot be denied. But there are also other long-term advantages: children’s increased knowledge of and interest in other languages and cultures; the positive knock-on effects that this will have for school children throughout the UK in relation to their linguistic ability; and the early exposure to foreign languages in an educational context.

Talking Tutor has certainly gone to the top of the class in Manor Park Primary school and it is a powerful tool that looks set to combat social exclusion through access to language services in schools nationwide. Ten out of ten!

* English, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hindi, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish

Sources: The Birmingham Mail; The Telegraph; www.emasuk.com