“Pandemic” is just one of the thousands of words third graders can look up in the new dictionaries they received from the Rio Grande Rotary Club, along with words like “generosity,” “service” and “compassion.”
The club has donated and delivered nearly 30,000 dictionaries – enough for every Las Cruces Public Schools third grader– since 2007. It didn’t happen last school year for the first time in 15 years because of the pandemic, but club members figured a way around COVID-19 this year.
On March 15, LCPS employees picked up two years of dictionaries (more than 3,400 total) and delivered them to all LCPS elementary schools “so that teachers could give the books to the students,” said club member Gene Gant, who is a former member of the LCPS Board of Education and the state Public Education Commission.
“This is not the usual manner of doing the delivery but the only way that it could happen,” he said, because of state public health orders.
The dictionaries the third graders receive “are not just words,” Gant said. Each dictionary also has a small encyclopedia section that includes information about American presidents, the Declaration of Independence, the states and more.
The project will happen again during the 2021-22 school year, Gant said.
“It is just hoped that we will be able to pull it off as we have in the past,” he said.
That will mean 60-65 Rio Grande Rotary Club members will visit every LCPS elementary school to personally deliver the dictionaries and tell students about the Rotary Club’s Four-Way Test and “its importance in the everyday lives of Rotarians and how it can be used in the lives of each student,” Gant said.
Since that couldn’t happen this year, the club created a video that will be available on YouTube explaining about the dictionary donation.
Taking a quick glance at the modern translation industry makes it obvious that we are dealing with a creative field where the ability to provide unique content and think outside the box constitutes the driving force behind success and the list of accomplishments. Without a doubt, when even ten years ago the majority of professional translators have tried the AI-powered solutions only to test how it works in practice, it has already become a standard for certain agencies. Although the implemented algorithms and memory translation databases gained their popularity, they often took the human element away, which has forced educators to stress the importance of analysis in translation work. Still, how has translation changed in the last ten years and what factors constituted these changes?
4 Ways in Which Translation Changed in the Last 10 Years
The Challenges of Automation & Human Translation. While it may seem that the use of translation tools like SDL Trados has become more popular during the last decade, it is far not the case. Since only a human translator can offer an insight regarding the original content, more people see the importance of education and the personal skills of a particular translator. For example, The Word Point translation service focuses on human contribution to every translated work as it deals with technical manuals, poetry, literary works, and official documents. Doing so helps to avoid various mistakes when a translator must implement creativity.
More Focus on SEO & Marketing Aspects. Since we are dealing with the global community regardless of our initial purpose, the nature of modern translations became even more focused on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and various marketing aspects. While we are not always working with localisation, translators are forced to study the subject and adjust various sentences to make them more suitable even before they start with their work. As one may assume that such an approach has always been the case, it has also impacted the field of modern education where every research paper translated represents a commercial value.
Multilingual Content Applicability. Another major change in the field of translation relates to the creation of multilingual content, which means that translators tend to implement certain global standards that focus on the cultural aspects of the country. While we could see a more carbon-copy approach to the translation of large projects in the past, modern linguists prefer working from scratch, which helps them to provide their customers with unique content that follows the cultural factors of the language and the changes that have taken place in the society.
Additional Expertise Becomes Even More Important. While it was mostly implemented only for technical translations where the presence of an expert is crucial, more and more ordinary customers request this particular feature these days. It must be noted that working with additional expertise is not always a sign of not trusting your translator’s skills because it is only done to receive an opinion in terms of style and accessibility. Once an expert checks the final translation, the comments that are left help the customer consider certain additions or shortenings of their final translation.
The Influence of Freelance Translation Work
It must be noted that the majority of professional translators have tested their skills in terms of freelance work, which has allowed them to focus on creative aspects without feeling challenged by urgent deadlines. It had a positive impact on how translations are being approached since every linguist received more freedom to analyse things a bit differently and add more analysis.
Furthermore, it is especially important for the translation of poetic works, advertisement campaigns, and educational materials where the style and being precise represents an important accessibility element. In a certain sense, modern translation has implemented numerous elements from the field of localisation like purely British phrases where the sociocultural element always comes first. Considering this aspect, one can safely assume that modern translation is coming back to being more human.
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Project Bergamot is an initiative to provide client-side machine spoken language translation in Firefox. Under development since 2019 this work-in-progress it is now available in Firefox Nightly. Currently, it is possible to translate Spanish and Estonian to English and vice versa, and English to German.
One of the advantages that Chrome and Edge have over Firefox is their integrated translation facilities. However these rely on cloud-based translation services and require that webpage content be transmitted to a third party for translation. Given it's emphasis on trust and privacy and data protection Mozilla wanted a solution that would work locally on the user’s machine, ensuring that no data leaves the user’s computer for the purpose of translation.
Project Bergamot is a research project funded by the European Union and involving University of Edinburgh with partners Charles University in Prague, the University of Sheffield, University of Tartu, and Mozilla to add and improve client-side machine translation in a web browser. Its distinguishing feature is that Bergamot’s machine translation engine will run locally on the user’s machine, eliminating the need for data to be sent to cloud-based third-party translation service providers.
Another advantage offered by Bergamot is that it can estimate its own accuracy and indicate where it “isn’t sure” about the translation, warning the user that the translation may not be accurate in those circumstances. This is in contrast to other current systems on the market which do not warn users about potential inaccuracies allowing users to be misled by seemingly fluent translations that skip important content.
One use case for Bergamot is for completing forms on the web in a foreign language. Such forms often request sensitive information which makes it very desirable for reasons of trust and privacy for having the entire process completed locally on the user’s desktop. In this situation the system will flag translations it is less confident about. Users can then rephrase text in their own language and the system will use both versions to arrive at a better translation.
If you want to try it out, Martin Brinkman provides setup instructions for doing it from Firefox Nightly on ghacks.net. While noting that the initial translation of a language in a session takes a long time currently, between ten and thirty seconds, due to the need to download the facilities needed, Brinkman comments:
The translation quality is quite good already for the supported languages, especially when you consider that everything happens locally in the browser.
This sounds like a really useful tool for individuals, businesses, organizations and government departments and it makes a very welcome change to report some positive news for Firefox.
More Information
Bergamot webite
Bergamot-translator on GitHub
You can now test Firefox's local translation implementation - ghacks.net
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Kamel Guemari stands in front of the community center housed in a former McDonald's in Marseille. Eleanor Beardsleyhide caption
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Eleanor Beardsley
Kamel Guemari stands in front of the community center housed in a former McDonald's in Marseille.
Eleanor Beardsley
Every company has its own corporate culture. Slogans and values that you're expected to learn and live by as an employee — and then probably forget when you clock out at the end of the day.
But what happens when the employees of a company take that corporate philosophy so deeply to heart that it actually gets in the way of business?
In this episode, we revisit an immigrant neighborhood in Marseille, France, where a group of former McDonald's workers have turned a local franchise into a bastion of their community values. Back in 2019, as the future of their restaurant hung in the balance, we followed these workers as they launched a revolution of sorts.
And now, in a year when so many restaurants have closed due to the pandemic, this McDonald's has arrived at an unlikely afterlife.
Send us an email at roughtranslation@npr.org.
Listen to Rough Translation wherever you get your podcasts, including NPR One, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, and RSS.
Starting in the spring 2020 semester, the University of Connecticut began offering a minor that allows students to explore literary translation while learning how to interact with people from other cultures or those who speak different languages. The minor is a excellent way for students, who are intermediate or fluent, in another language to really engage in literature and have the opportunity to gain experience in fields like publishing, translating or editing. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com
Starting in the spring 2020 semester, the University of Connecticut began offering a minor that allows students to explore literary translation while learning how to interact with people from other cultures or those who speak different languages, according to the minor’s website.
The literary translation minor is interdisciplinary, incorporating many majors outside of its own department.
Translation classes, currently capped at 90 students, will allow for a hands-on environment in which students can work closely with professors and classmates.
The prerequisite for the minor is knowledge of a non-English language well enough to read literature and translate it. Most students in the program can be divided into three categories: fluent in their first language, intermediate to fluent in their heritage language and American students studying a foreign language.
The literary translation minor requires a minimum of 15 credits at the 2000-level or above, with two required translation courses (TRST 3010 and 3011), two literary or cultural courses from areas like Japanese or German, and one creative writing or related genre course from English (ENGL 3701, 3703, 2407, 4407W). Students may count up to six credit hours in independent study in the place of courses in literary and cultural or creative writing.
Peter Constantine, the director of the literary translation minor, said the program is popular because of its low pressure and enjoyable environment, where students have the opportunity to take classes they wouldn’t normally take.
“I was surprised at how many students come from outside literatures, cultures and languages, and I think that’s because we’re fun. It’s enjoyable, not high intensity; it’s like a writing course without some of the pressure,” Constantine said. “There seems to be a lot of students who were passionate about things like mathematics but are also passionate about literature or culture, and this is one way of really exploring that in a way that’s useful academically.”
“There seems to be a lot of students who were passionate about things like mathematics but are also passionate about literature or culture, and this is one way of really exploring that in a way that’s useful academically.”
Peter Constantine, the director of the literary translation minor
The purpose of the required courses is to have students engage with literature and have the opportunity to gain experience in fields like publishing, translating or editing. Constantine described the minor as a whole as a “gateway to world culture and literature.”
Constantine added that having international cultural understanding is a unique skill and opens doors for many areas, but specifically international relations, business, diplomacy and education.
Literary translation involves the utilizing one’s knowledge of a particular language and/or culture, in order to translate a series of text. These skills allow students to gain international cultural understanding that opens doors in many areas, but specifically in international relations, business, diplomacy and education. is the Photo by Matej on Pexels.com
David Lassy, a junior UConn student double majoring in Chinese and history as well as pursuing a literary translation minor, said he’s been taught relevant skills he can utilize post-grad. He plans to teach English as a foreign language as a career and continue his current contemporary Chinese poetry translation work, and this minor helped him to improve both his Chinese and English understanding and translating abilities, whether it be reading comprehension or writing.
“The minor not only gave me a better understanding of Mandarin idioms and cultures, but also developed my English writing abilities as I worked to create accurate and colorful translations,” said Lassy. “Literary translation gave me an avenue to improve my reading comprehension in Mandarin. I’ve found it to be one of the most helpful skills to combine with language learning because the study of one compliments the other.”
“Literary translation gave me an avenue to improve my reading comprehension in Mandarin. I’ve found it to be one of the most helpful skills to combine with language learning because the study of one compliments the other.”
David Lassy, a junior UConn student double majoring in Chinese and history as well as pursuing a literary translation minor
Professor Brian Sneeden also said the global connectivity of the modern world requires knowledge of other cultures and the ability to interact with those who are different from us.
“As our world becomes increasingly connected, it’s more important than ever for students to gain skills for navigating multilingual texts and settings,” said Sneeden. “UConn’s Literary Translation Minor is designed to offer students comprehensive instruction in the major theoretical approaches to translation — while putting those theories to practice creating our own literary translations.”
Sneeden emphasized the importance of having a skill for translating.
“Often our students find that the skills for translating works of literature carry over to other types of translation,” Sneeden said. “If you can translate a nuanced text like a poem, for instance, you’ll also likely be able to translate a speech from a politician, or a report for the United Nations.”
Students interested in pursuing a minor in literary translation should contact program director Peter Constantine.
Soprano Amira Selim sings Reverence for Isis at the Golden Parade on April 3, 2021 - Youtube still
CAIRO – 6 April 2021: The song in the ancient Egyptian tongue performed at the Golden Parade of ancient Egyptian royalty has stuck in the minds of many, leaving them curious to know the meaning of the lyrics.
The lyrics are extracted from Isis Reverence Hymns found in Shelwit Temple in Luxor under the supervision of Dr. Maissara Abdallah Hussein, a professor in the Faculty of Archeology, Cairo University.
Modern people know to an extent how the language was pronounced from Rosetta Stone, which unlocked Hieroglyphics for having a Greek translation below an ancient Egyptian text. It translated words but not names; they were written the way they were pronounced in ancient Greek. That is how we can imagine how ancient Egyptians produced sounds.
Below is the song’s lyrics in English after being translated from Arabic as posted on Dr. Hussein’s Facebook page.
O people and gods above
She is the only lady
Reverence for Eset (Isis)
She gives birth to the day
Reverence for Eset
The lady of the west and the two lands
Reverence for Eset
She is the great eye of Ra in the provinces
Reverence for Eset
You offer the dear and precious for the king of Egypt
For years, Google Translate has been one of the better ways to quickly exchange information between two languages. Over the weekend, the Google Translate app for Android reached a whopping 1 billion downloads on the Play Store.
Given its incredible utility, Google Translate has gradually become less of an app that you install and more of an integrated experience throughout Google’s ecosystem. You can find Google Translate in places like Google apps like Lens, Chrome, and Assistant, as well as third-party apps like Twitter.
That said, Google Translate does indeed still have a dedicated Android app, with simple features like translating copied or typed text from one language to another. The app is also home to more in-depth experiences like camera-based translation that can put real-world languages into your native tongue, as well as a handy “Tap to Translate” option.
Though the app has not seen a major redesign in a few years, carrying the appearance of a classic Material Design app instead of the newer Google Material Theme style, it’s an essential app that almost every Android owner should have installed.
To that end, as reported by Android Police, Google Translate reached a new milestone in the Play Store, crossing the threshold from over 500 million downloads to over 1 billion. For comparison, Microsoft Translator has only 50 million Play Store downloads.
The milestone comes as Lens, Google’s other major experience for Translate, gets a deeper integration into Android 12.
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