‘Government Translation’ Archives
Cultural Bridge Weight Limits
Bridges are incredibly useful and help many people reach important destinations quickly and easily. However, bridges can also be dangerous when misused, and exceeding a bridge's maximum load capacity can obviously result in disaster. Similarly, bilingual workers can be incredibly beneficial and can help bridge the gaps many organizations [...]
Machine Translation Gisting
99% of the time when companies request machine translation, they actually need high quality human translation. However, there are instances in which a quick and dirty machine translation can be very useful and appropriate. ...when users merely need to understand the "gist" of a document, machine translation can provide low-quality translations [...]
Israeli Journalists and a Dutch Diplomat
Machine translation is appropriate for some situations and very inappropriate for others, as explained in the article "Machine translation can bring blunders, successes in international business." In (one) instance, Israeli journalists nearly set off an international incident when they sent a list of machine-translated questions to a Dutch [...]
Machine translation can bring blunders, successes in international business
In 2008, a Chinese restaurant displayed a bilingual sign above its storefront to accommodate English-speaking patrons. To save a few ennies in creating the sign, someone working for the restaurant skipped use of a professional human translation. Instead, the restaurateur typed the restaurant name into a machine translation program, which [...]
Execution Yard
Russian prisoners at Lincoln Prison in England received a pamphlet informing them about prison facilities, including an "execution yard." They were almost certainly relieved to learn that "execution yard" was actually an English-to-Russian mistranslation of "exercise yard." Nick Hardwick, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said, "This is an example [...]
Elections Won and Lost in Translation
Would you vote for the current dragonfly? That was the question posed to Spanish-speaking voters in Worcester, Massachusetts, according to Telegram.com. The ballot for the upcoming election omitted a single letter in a Spanish translation and consequently listed one candidate’s occupation as “current dragonfly” (“aguacil actual”) instead [...]
United Nations Interpreter Bloopers
United Nations interpreters are among the best in the world. However, UN interpreters work under very stressful circumstances and do not have the luxury of an editor to review words before they are spoken. Under such circumstances, UN interpreters are bound to make an occasional mistake. According to the BBC, one mistake actually resulted in a [...]
Bladder Disease Sign Translation in Welsh
Welsh speakers have been complaining for years about terrible public sign translations from English to Welsh. WalesOnline.co.uk reported that in 2006 one sign was translated from "Cyclists Dismount" in English to roughly "Bladder Disease Has Returned" in Welsh. For your enjoyment, here is another baffling public sign translation from English [...]
Election Ballot Translation Errors
Would you vote for the current dragonfly? That is the question being posed to Spanish-speaking voters in Worcester, Massachusetts, according to Telegram.com. The ballot for the upcoming election omitted a single letter in a Spanish translation and consequently listed one candidate's current occupation as current dragonfly ("aguacil actual") [...]
Language Use by Region
What are the top 10 languages by population in New York and other states? Where are the most Armenian speakers living in the United States? The U.S. Census used to track and report the number of language speakers for virtually every language in every state and county. This data was very useful for companies planning localized multilingual [...]
