Translation Industry News

Two very different dictionaries have been in the spotlight this month both in Spain and the UK. Compiled by an ex-prisoner and available online, the popularity of a prison slang dictionary has soared to such an extent that it is being used as a training resource by the government in Valencia. Whilst in the UK,…

Yesterday the European Commission (EC) announced welcome plans to make full and proper translation and interpretation services available for all suspects involved in criminal proceedings. Human Rights organisations have applauded this move which will enable citizens to exercise their right to a fair trial anywhere in the community, regardless of their country of origin or…

Described as a “translator”, a mode of communication between humans and dogs, Bowlingual is a “translation” tool developed by Takara Tomy, a Japanese toy company. This device first came onto the market in 2002, but has been back in the media recently with the imminent release of a Bowlingual application for mobile phone devices. Although…

Google recently announced that it was working on a real-time speech recognition app for phones powered by the Android operating system. The Internet giant has a strong interest in language translation technology and the last six months alone have seen Google launch automatic captions (autocaps) for YouTube videos which use automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology;…

Internet giant Google has recently sponsored a competition in Tanzania and Kenya offering students the chance to submit articles (either original works or translations of existing material) for possible entry on the Wikipedia website. The deadline has now passed (29 January); the entries are all in and the jury are in the process of deciding…

The Academy is due to announce the nominations for the 2010 Oscars at 1.30 p.m. this afternoon and viewers worldwide will be tuning in to see how foreign language films will fare in this year’s nominations. In the past, this category has been dominated by Western European countries but things are changing on the cinematic…

The popular series Gavin and Stacey has been making waves over the pond in more ways than one. Talks are already underway for it to receive the ultimate localisation treatment – a rewrite aimed at American audiences which is set in New Jersey and South Carolina. Having been equally well received in both the UK and…

The German language seems to be taking over in Birmingham! Not only do the people who come to man the annual German Christmas market speak German, it appears that ticket machines in Birmingham also prefer to speak in Deutsch. Drivers trying to park in Brunel Street car park in Birmingham were recently encountered by a…