Workforce Language Services

The Huffington Post dedicates 2,000 words to the celebration of translation as an art form. Let’s shout it from the rooftop! They interview Edith Grossman, one of the art form’s most renowned practitioners, who expounds on this truth in her book Why Translation Matters.

If you only speak English and have read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels or Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, you’ve probably read Grossman’s translations. She is highly regarded for her work, and in steady demand.

The art, Grossman and others will say, is more than finding the appropriate word. Translation is about words and music, fidelity and feel, the balance between getting too caught up in the literal meaning and improvising so freely that the author’s voice is lost entirely.

In “Why Translation Matters,” Grossman writes of taking on the opening phrase of the first chapter of “Don Quixote,” among the most famous words in Spanish literature: “En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme,” which in an earlier English-language edition was translated into, “In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind.”

It may surprise you to know that only 3% of books released in the U.S. are translated from other languages, compared to numbers in the double digits in Western Europe. This probably says a lot about our worldview in general, but in terms of literature specifically, we’re really missing out! And thus, the added importance of literary translators, who function as cultural bridges and messengers.

“It seems that the American public is allergic to certain kinds of books. When people sense somehow that the book is a translation, they think, in a subliminal sort of way, that they don’t need to read it,” says Daniel Halpern, editorial director of Ecco Press, an imprint of HarperCollins that commissioned Grossman for the “Don Quixote” translation.

But, is it the American public who’s lazy, or book publishers? Many don’t want to get involved because of the extra work. Read more opinions about the state of literary translation in the U.S. in the full article, here.

Google has refined its translation tool to a point that “can make the language barrier go away,” as one of the principal scientists of the company’s machine translation team said. Now handling 52 languages, Google is yet again a visionary in an area most internet/computer companies have ignored over the years.

Remember those funny Babelfish translations you’d get at the dawn of the internet age, the computer translator that would give you “They are a small potentiometer, short circuits and a beer of malzes of the tea” for “I’m a little tea pot, short and stout”? Google has made those roundabout interpretations all but extinct.

How does machine translation work? And what makes Google’s so good?

Creating a translation machine has long been seen as one of the toughest challenges in artificial intelligence. For decades, computer scientists tried using a rules-based approach — teaching the computer the linguistic rules of two languages and giving it the necessary dictionaries.

But in the mid-1990s, researchers began favoring a so-called statistical approach. They found that if they fed the computer thousands or millions of passages and their human-generated translations, it could learn to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts.

It turns out that this technique, which requires huge amounts of data and lots of computing horsepower, is right up Google’s alley.

Let’s be clear, no computer translation program will ever be able to capture the linguistic and cultural nuances beyond  the text. Only a thinking human can interpret text that way, and as we’d always prefer, a professional one with lots of experience. Google recognizes this too, but for anyone needing a quick translation of a news article, Google translations certainly will capture the “essence” of the story.

The New York Times reports: click here.

Click here to watch WLS’s founder and president Jill Bishop eloquently explain our language and cultural training services at the Midwest Security & Police Conference/Expo. (Once you’re on the page, click on the video icon.)

Some talking points:

Hispanics make up around 15% of the U.S. population, and that number will triple by 2050. Is your organization prepared for the linguistic and cultural challenges?

In our “Spanish for Law Enforcement” trainings, WLS doesn’t focus on that grammar you learned back in 9th grade and have forgotten since. You’ll learn industry-specific terminology that you can use instantly on the job. We’ll help you anticipate challenges and find the appropriate solutions.

WLS offers onsite, customized trainings and workshops to help employers (from police departements to restaurants) prepare their employees for any linguistic or cultural situation that may come up in their industry.

As Jill says, “It’s all about the expressions you need to do your job better.”

Great news for parents of bilingual kids: the first entirely bilingual brand of children’s toys has hit the market. Atlanta-based Smart Play, LLC launched Ingenio(TM) which features “10 portable, affordable toys and games that teach a comprehensive range of early learning skills in English and Spanish – fine motor, reading, writing, math, vocabulary, geography and problem solving.”

The news is refreshing to teachers and parents who have long desired Spanish language toys for their children, especially as nearly 25% of the country’s children between ages 3-6 are of Hispanic origin (a number that is rising). Bilingualism at a young age has proven benefits, such as “greater cognitive flexibility, improved powers of concept formation and enhanced creativity.”

Read the full press release here.

An estimated 850,000 adults in the Greater Chicago area have limited English competency skills, according to Literacy Chicago. With many of their children in English-speaking public schools, this creates a huge problem for Chicago schools.

Parents may not need the English communication skills on the job, but without the ability to speak in English, they are unable to communicate with teachers and other parents, as well as their children. One example:

Although Maximina Esteban’s work as a house cleaner does not require her to speak English, her duty as a single mother of two sons does.

Born and raised in Chicago, Esteban’s children, 11 and 7, spend most of their days at school speaking English rather than Spanish.

Despite her attempts to get them to speak Spanish at home, they reply in English, especially her younger son. He understands very little Spanish and rarely uses it with his mother.

Literacy Chicago, which provides free English language training to adults, had their federal funding reduced by 13% for the 2010 fiscal year. They anticipate greater cuts in 2011. Other organizations with English literacy programs are facing similar cuts.

Explains Medill Reports of Northwestern University, “This threat of budget cutbacks makes immigrant parents particularly vulnerable. With fewer opportunities for free English instruction, they will continue to struggle to communicate with their children and their teachers.”

Read the full story here.

…a really amazing food blog called The Homesick Texan. Really as much about Hispanic-American culture/nostalgia as it is about food, the blog features gorgeous photos, mouth-watering recipes, and great stories about living the Tex-Mex life.

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/

Should names of the likes of Cesar Chavez and other Hispanic historical figures be erased from the history books? Some people in Texas seem to think so, and so the State Board of Education will put the question to a vote.

The online magazine Latina Lista takes a strong stance against this in an editorial titled “Latino leadership needed to counter TX State Board of Education’s attempt to write minorities out of history.”

The article cites a new study from the Southern Education Foundation that reports that for the first time in history, more that half of students in the 15 Southern states are children of color—African-American, Hispanic and Native American. Latina Lista sees this as a blatant reason not to cut minority leaders out of the textbooks.

These SBOE board members, along with their appointees, who adhere to the perspective that it is repugnant to teach children about the historical contributions of Latinos and African Americans show they are no better, and given recent quotes attributed to some who were involved in setting the Social Studies standards, are essentially rewriting U.S. history to conform to their distorted views of how they wish to see the United States.

Click here to read the full (heated) opinion.

Sad, but true — a local Chicago non-profit will be closing its doors after 18 years due to the economic downturn. The MultiCultural Development Center (MCDC) has been an area leader in education related to issues of diversity and cultural inclusion.

From the December 7 press release:

Through its many programs, thousands of participants gained new understanding and knowledge regarding the many people and cultures that make up the world in which we live. The goal of MCDC has been to help build a culture where the attitudes and actions of people foster mutual respect so that people of all backgrounds can fully participate in the workplace as well as in the community.

From 1991 to 2009, MCDC educated thousands of people by promoting cultural understanding and inclusiveness to enhance workplace performance and community relationships. The organization was best known for its educational events, led by presenters such as Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, Tim Wise, Angela Bassett, Jane Elliott and Lee Mun Wah, as well as its trademarked Chronology of World Cultural Events poster calendar.

Workforce Language Services is sad to see this great community resource go, and wishes everyone involved with MCDC the best in the coming year.

Visit the MCDC at http://www.mcdc.org/.

Nine years ago, over 12,000 Hispanic farmers sought to put an end to discrimination with a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. federal government. To this day, they’re still waiting for a resolution.

Their hope was that the suit would change the way the U.S. Department of Agriculture treats minority farmers. Hispanic farmers with claims against the government petitioned for class-action status, which they have not yet been awarded. Without it, each farmer has to litigate his own case individually, all over the nation.

“It makes no sense from a legal, logical or moral standpoint,” [farmers’ attorney Stephen] Hill said.

“There are lots of farmers who could lose what are otherwise valid claims, and I guess in the governments’ view they see that as money being saved. But saved at an incredible cost of what is equitable and fair.”

Families like the Chavez’s believe they were discriminated against and have lost much of their farm as a result. The family was unable to get low-interest loans from the USDA, and they say that they were discouraged from applying or given misinformation. “It was like they just didn’t want us to have the money,” said Vera Chavez.

The USDA has reported special efforts to promote civil rights and end discriminatory practices. They are reviewing farmers’ complaints by a special task force. Meanwhile, thousands of farmers wait their turn in this drawn-out case.

Click here to read more.

A news story out of Columbia, SC, where the Hispanic population is 14%, reports that Hispanics are not receiving adequate healthcare. Specifically, certain perceived limitations, like having a foreign accent or not knowing a doctor, are preventing Latinos from receiving the care they need.

[Latinos are] three times less likely to have a consistent source of medical care and one and a half times more likely to use the emergency room as a primary source of healthcare. Making unnecessary trips to the emergency room is one of the most common mistakes Hispanics make, and it can cost them hundreds of dollars.

The article report on some recent data from the Pew Hispanic Center:

• 46 percent say they believe their accent contributed to their poor care.
• 43 percent say they believe their inability to pay contributed to their poor care.
• 37 percent say they believe their race or ethnicity caused them to receive poor care.

A group called “Promotoras de Salud” is trying to get information out to the Latino population about where to go when sick and other resources that will help make their experience with health care more successful.

Read the full article here.