Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Eraser Man seemed like a harmless gimmick to promote lean manufacturing throughout the global operations of Columbia, Md.-based W.R. Grace & Co. The pink eraser mascot was supposed to convey a simple message: eradicate or “erase” waste. But when the $2.8 billion specialty chemicals manufacturer introduced Eraser Man during a focus-group session in China, the company’s Asian staff was perplexed and perhaps a little miffed. That’s because in China, erase actually means invisible.

“They said, ‘Do you really want this program to be invisible?’” recalls Michael Piergrossi, W.R. Grace’s vice president of human resources. “Of course, the answer is, ‘no.’”

Also at issue was the color pink. “Pink is just not an acceptable color in China; it’s feminine. No self-respecting man would want to be associated with a program that’s marked by the color pink,” Piergrossi explains.

Grace’s cultural gaffe wasn’t unique. In fact, it’s becoming all too common for manufacturers as they go global. Fortunately for Grace, the mistake was easily corrected (Eraser Man is now tan instead of pink and employees in China are asked to “simplify” or “reduce” rather than erase). But other manufacturers worldwide can face much more serious consequences when they don’t prepare for the varying customs and workplace practices of their foreign operations. The potential fallout includes trust issues between employees at home and abroad, along with safety and quality standards that don’t quite match up with those within domestic operations.

Read more> IndustryWeek

Researchers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s School of Computing have developed an original system for building multilingual dictionaries based on multiple term equivalences from what are known as universal words. System reliability and accuracy is 88%.

The system is based on Princeton University’s WordNet database. WordNet is a lexical database developed by linguists at Princeton’s Cognitive Science Laboratory. The database was designed to inventory, classify and relate the semantic and lexical content of the English language.

WordNet is packaged as an electronic database that can be downloaded over the Internet. WordNet’s underlying foundation is synset (synonym set), a group of interchangeable words that denote a meaning or particular usage. Each synset is one possible meaning of a word, described briefly and concisely. WordNet has a lexicon of over 200,000 perfectly structured and defined English terms. This is one of the pillars of the system conceived by researchers at the UPM’s School of Computing.

Read more> Dictionary 

As part of our Doing Business in Guides - we have now launched one on the UK after many requests from visitors to the site……

The United Kingdom (UK) is comprised of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It is important not only to be aware of these geographical distinctions but also the strong sense of identity and nationalism felt by the populations of these four countries.

The terms ‘English’ and ‘British’ are not interchangeable. ‘British’ denotes someone who is from England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. ‘English’ refers to people from England. People from Scotland are referred to as ‘Scots’. People from England are not likely to take offence at being called “English”, whereas a Welsh, Scots, or Northern Irish person will.

Cultural Diversity

Formerly a very homogenous society, since World War II, Britain has become increasingly diverse as it has accommodated large immigrant populations. The mixture of ethnic groups and cultures make it difficult to define British as looking or acting in one particular manner. People may sound British and retain the cultural heritage of their forefathers while others may become more British than someone who can trace his/her lineage to the 5th century. The fact that the nation’s favourite dish is now a curry sums up the cultural mish-mash that is modern day Britain.

Doing business in the UK

The British are rather formal. Many from the older generation still prefer to work with people and companies they know or who are known to their associates. Younger businesspeople do not need long-standing personal relationships before they do business with people and do not require an intermediary to make business introductions. Nonetheless, networking and relationship building are often key to long-term business success.

Read more> British Business Etiquette and Culture 

The launch of babyboomboom’s® multilingual musical CDs struck a chord with parents and parents-to-be at this year’s Baby Show in London. The CDs familiarise babies and toddlers with other languages by repeating well-known English language nursery rhymes and songs in a second language. Conceived two years ago, and launched after much careful development, babyboomboom proved to be one of the major hits of the show.

Parents buying babyboomboom have already reported that their young children love the CDs and are quickly learning to sing in other languages.

Father of two, Chris Low said: “My three year old daughter has been listening to the French for just the weekend and I am amazed at how much she has picked up.” Another parent said, “I talk to my two year old only in French and my husband speaks to her in English, but despite my best efforts, she has only been speaking in English. After a week of babyboomboom, I caught her sitting on the toilet singing babyboomboom songs in French. I was really impressed.”Read more>  babyboomboom

Now that search engine marketing has become a global game, the need for translation services for Web sites has never been greater. Virtually every small- and medium-sized enterprise I’ve spoken with during the past year has been aggressively translating Web sites to reach global audiences. In the worldwide search engine ecosystem, that’s no surprise. What is surprising: the small number of SEOs (define) and SEMs (define) who leverage language translation.

The Internet Marketers of New York invited me to a dinner recently, hosted by Search Engine Watch Forums leader and SEW blogger, Frank Watson, head of SEM for FXCM, a global forex trading brokerage. FXCM uses 10 languages. Not surprisingly, the talk turned to translating titles and tags.

“Successful marketers understand the subtlety required for multilingual Web sites,” Watson said. “There are variations in Spanish depending on country, as well as Chinese and other languages.”

Chris Winfield, CEO of 10e20.com, told the roundtable of fellow SEO gurus why he translates titles and tags. In short: he’s found that translated titles and tags can dramatically increase high-quality traffic to a Web site. That means traffic that converts.

Read more> Kevin Heisler 

 Libya has launched its third conference on translation, organised by Libya’s Academy of Graduate Studies, the British Council and the Italian Institute in Tripoli.

Present at the event were Dr. Saleh Ibrahim Al Mabrouk, Dean of the Academy of Graduate Studies; Mrs. Anna, Director of the British Council in Tripoli; Peter Rosily, Head of the Italian Institute in Tripoli; Mrs. Jennifer, Advisor at the US Embassy at Tripoli; Cultural Attaches of the Tunisian and Moroccan embassies in Tripoli; and a number of scholars, professors and students.

During the conference, Mabrouk stressed the important role of translation in the advancement of civilisations, noting that it is translation (not merely learning a foreign language) that led the Arabs previously to take a leading position in science and knowledge in the world.

“Translation is an important subject that must not be undermined. The Arabs had advanced previously due to translation, not due to learning foreign languages. Learning a foreign language on its own does not lead to a Renaissance. In order to revive knowledge, translation and the transmitting of scientific information is needed,” said Mabrouk.Read more> Libya 

Kalima, one of the most significant cultural initiatives to come out of the Arab world in years, launched today and announced a much-anticipated list of 100 books, selected as candidates for translation into Arabic. Kalima (”word” in Arabic), funds the translation, publication and distribution of high-quality works of classic and contemporary writing from other languages into Arabic.

“The rest of the world enjoys a wealth of domestic and translated writing, why should the Arab world be any different?” asked Karim Nagy, Founder and Chief Executive of Kalima. “Today Kalima is bringing Arabic readers all over the world quality writing in their mother tongue - something they have been deprived of for so long. Kalima has taken the first steps on the long path toward rebuilding the Arab library.”

Read more> Kalima 

The United Arab Emirates is the world’s top destination for expatriates in terms of personal taxation, according to a new study.

Mercer’s ‘Worldwide Individual Tax Comparator Report’, a global survey of expatriate hotspots, looks at tax and benefits systems across 32 countries, focusing on personal tax structures, average salaries and marital status. Data from the survey is used by multinationals to structure pay packages for their expatriate and local market employees.

For single managers, the UAE has the most attractive tax environment according to the percentage of net income available, the survey finds. The country earns its no. 1 ranking by not assessing income tax, with social security contributions amounting to just 5% of a local employee’s gross salary.

Read more> UAE 

Chung Dong-young, a former television anchorman and candidate to be president of South Korea, may be behind in the opinion polls but one of his campaign commitments is eye-catching. If elected, he promises a vast increase in English teaching so that young Koreans do not have to go abroad to learn the language. The country needed to “solve the problem of families separated for English learning”, the Korea Times reported him saying.

In China, Yu Minhong has turned New Oriental, the company he founded, into the country’s biggest provider of private education, with more than 1m students over the past financial year, the overwhelming majority learning English. In Chile, the government has said it wants its population to be bilingual in English and Spanish within a generation.

No one is certain how many people are learning English. Ten years ago, the British Council thought it was around 1bn. A report, English Next, published by the council last year, forecast that the number of English learners would probably peak at around 2bn in 10-15 years.

How many people already speak English? David Crystal, one of the world’s leading experts on the language and author of more than 100 books on the subject, estimates that 1.5bn people – around one-quarter of the world’s population – can communicate reasonably well in English.

Read more> The FT

MTV continues its localization strategy, this time with MTV Arabia. The channel started broadcasting this weekend. “The region is attractive because it’s awash in petrodollars and two-thirds of the population is under 25.” according to BusinessWeek, adding “Middle Eastern youth may not agree with U.S. politics, but they can’t get enough of Western music and fashion.”

This is bound to be a popular channel, and “the first Arabic youth lifestyle channel will air locally produced programs, as well as international imports such as “Pimp My Ride” and “Cribs” , which should prove popular in the car and property-obsessed Gulf.” However, this move is still bound to face serious geocultural challenges, highlighting regional social and political issues that may not be so “cool”, as pointed out by the Financial Times.

Read more> MTV