Workforce Language Services

This article tells how Latino work-related deaths are on the rise and two of the main factors are that Latinos disproportionally work in dangerous fields, and that they don’t understand basic safety materials. While the politics and economics of immigration drive Latinos into higher-risk jobs, US companies can easily take greater responsibility in providing either English safety training or safety materials that are translated into a language that is understood by their employees. It really is a matter of life and death.

The ability to understand workplace warnings in English, said Juarez, can make the difference between life and death.

”If you only have a split-second to react, you better hope you know the language they’re warning you in,” said Juarez, a foreman with Florida-based Power Design.

The language barrier is likely a factor in Hispanic deaths, as researchers note that a high percentage of those who died on the job were foreign-born.

Steve Pegula, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C., said there was an 18 percent increase in deaths of Hispanics in the workplace between 2003 and 2006. The fatality rate of Hispanics is 21 percent higher than for all workers, he explained.

“And these Hispanic fatalities, a large part of them, are being driven by those born outside of the United States,” Pegula said, noting that foreign-born Latino workers accounted for 65 percent of Latino fatalities in 2003, rising to 67 percent last year.

In Houston, it is not uncommon to encounter Hispanic workers who speak only a few words in English.

”There is a need for more Spanish-language safety classes out there,” said Doug Watson, director of safety services for the Houston chapter of the Associated General Contractors.

However, Watson said the large numbers of Hispanics in the work force may contribute to the high death rate of Hispanic workers. Other factors could be a lack of bilingual training and high job turnover that limits training opportunities, Watson said.

There never seems to be a lack of examples of the hilarity of poor translations. In this story, the author humorously describes the perils of using translators who are not competent in both the target and source languages. Very fun reading.

There is a shortage of bilingual people who are strong in both languages and can be trusted to do a good job while authorities who check and approve the final copy are equally bad, if not worse, in the English language.

Sometimes, the translation is so ridiculous, even offensive, that I have the sneaky suspicion that someone is playing a crude joke on the Chinese, taking advantage of their ignorance.

Otherwise, how would you explain the ATM machine being translated as “Help Oneself Terminating Machine”?

Or, dumplings stuffed with crab eggs being translated, disgustingly, as “dumplings stuffed with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab”?

Once I even spotted an item on a menu which described fried noodles as “screwed-up noodles” because the Chinese word, kan for dry fried also sounds like the “f” word in Chinese. How does one explain such translations, apart from assuming that the translator was out of his mind or simply being wicked?

Most translations are more amusing than atrocious, though. Still, they can be totally misleading.

Someone once e-mailed me a picture of a signboard placed by a riverbank, urging people to “carefully fall to the river”.

One of the more hilarious ones was written in bold on a placard displayed at a store. The sign read: “One-time sex items” You would be forgiven for thinking that that was an adult shop specializing in some kind of kinky stuff. But, no, it was just an ordinary shop selling disposable items like paper plates and cups.

The trouble is, there is no single Chinese character that means disposable, so the translator had resorted to using a phrase comprising three innocent characters – yi, ci and xing.

The phrase literally means “one-time in nature”. In other words, you can use it only once, after which it has to be discarded. The tricky word here is xing which can mean nature or sex.