Alexia Sloane, a gifted linguist, fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin was given an opportunity to work as an interpreter at the European Parliament in Brussels this month.

‘The other interpreters were amazed at how well she did as the debate was quite complicated and many of the words were rather technical.’

What makes Alexia unique amongst interpreters is that she is only 10 years old, and is blind.

‘She was given a dispensation to get into the building, where there is usually a minimum age requirement of 14, and sat in a booth listening and interpreting,’ said Alexia’s mother.

Having an English father, and a half Spanish, half French mother, Alexia was trilingual from birth. At the age of two she lost her eyesight as a result of a brain tumour.

However, Alexia adapted quickly and was able to read and write Braille by the age of four. At the age of six she added Mandarin to her repertoire and decided she wanted to be an interpreter. Last year Alexia took her French and Spanish GCSEs (6 years ahead of her school year) and received an A*in each.

After winning the young achiever of the year award she asked to shadow the European Parliament’s head interpreter as her prize.

‘It was fantastic and I’m absolutely determined now to become an interpreter,’ said Alexia.

Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/860967-blind-ten-year-old-becomes-european-parliaments-youngest-interpreter#ixzz1JsofJCK0

Our thoughts are with the Japanese people this week as the whole world comes to terms with images of one of the most horrific natural disasters ever. As an international business with translators spread across the globe, events such as the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan last week resonate deeply with us and whilst we hope all of our associates in Japan are safe, we can only imagine the sense of shock and despair they must feel.

Even the catalogue of events striking other nations such as Thailand’s tsunami, Haiti ‘s earthquake and most recently the earthquake in New Zealand, each of them awful, still do not prepare for the shock of yet another disaster of even greater severity.

A skilled British rescue team left Manchester this weekend bound for Japan and we hope that their involvement may yet save some lives. We wish them well and hope for their safe return. For the rest of us we can only watch events unfold and hope that this proud Japanese nation, whilst bowed, will remain unbroken and will recover from this truly awful event.

Martian Wheatley, who has held the post of Securities and Futures Commission’s chief executive in Hong Kong for six years, will step down in the coming months.

Despite having been the top securities regulator in the city for six years, Mr Wheatley does not speak any Cantonese; and claims this has been an advantage.

This being because he often did not know what was really being said about, or even to him. His interpreters frequently mistranslated messages so as to not offend Mr Wheatley:

Calls of “Resign!” by angry investors who blamed him for failing to protect their money, were interpreted as: “You might want to look for other positions…”

Similarly, “You’re incompetent!” was passed to Mr Wheatley through his earpiece as “Perhaps you could have done better…”

Only when a colleague asked Mr Wheatley how he could remain so calm under such abuse did he realise he was not getting a true picture.

Though Mr Wheatley claimed this gave him an advantage, in truth it is far more important to get a true and accurate translation or interpretation than it is to worry about causing offence, if you were closing an important business deal, interviewing a witness in court, or having medical instructions translated, then accuracy would be your highest concern.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/exchange/2011/03/09/happily-lost-in-translation/

Friday 21st of January saw the conclusion to South Korea’s dramatic rescue of the crew of the Samho Jewelry, who were being held hostage by pirates on board the hijacked ship 800 miles off the coast of Somalia.

During the operation the South Korean Lynx helicopter blared out a recording in Somali: “Throw down your weapons. Then you will be spared.” This caused two of the pirates to surrender peacefully. The helicopter also spoke to the hostages in Korean, a language not spoken by the pirates, telling them to lie down, which allowed the commandos to distinguish who was hostage and who was captor.

None of the South Korean Navy’s unit involved in the operation spoke Somali; the South Korean government searched the country for translators, finding two, who then wrote messages which were passed to a Somali speaking Korean resident in Oman who made the recordings.

The rescue mission resulted in 8 pirates dead, 5 captured, 3 commandos with minor injuries, and all 21 hostages rescued. However, without this method of relay interpreting and translation the casualties on both sides would undoubtedly have been much higher.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/01/27/2011012701014.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12248096

Last week saw the start of Canada’s first translation rights fair “Expand Your Horizons”. The event is being hosted by the Canadian Council for the Arts and is part of the $5 million National Translation Program for Book Publishing.

The idea behind this event was to introduce English- and French-language publishers, in order to encourage cultural exchange within the bilingual country.

“The enhanced Translation Program at the Canada Council is, in my opinion, a fabulous development allowing both English and French publishers to bring hitherto unknown stories to a much larger audience,” says Brian Kaufman, publisher of the Anvil Press.

The two day affair included readings, expeditions, displays of simultaneous translation, in which different translators will read out the same texts in different languages, and even a “speed dating” session aimed at introducing various publishing agents.

“Anything that supports translation in Canada, or anywhere else, is a good thing,” says Daniel Wells, publisher of the small Ontario press Biblioasis

http://www.quillandquire.com/google/article.cfm?article_id=11669