Intercultural Communication and Translation News

“… [E]ffective communication and successful negotiations with a foreign partner–whether with a partner in peacekeeping, a strategic economic partner, a political adversary, or a non-English speaking contact in a critical law enforcement action–requires strong comprehension of the underlying cultural values and belief structures that are part of the life experience of the foreign partner.” - Dr. Dan Davidson, President of the American Councils on International Education

“A different language is a different vision of life.” - Federico Fellini, Italian film director

“No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.” - Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian nationalist and spiritual leader

Learning another language gives the learner the ability to step inside the mind and context of that other culture. Without the ability to communicate and understand a culture on its own terms, true access to that culture is barred. Why is this important? In a world where nations and peoples are ever more dependent upon on another to supply goods and services, solve political disputes, and ensure international security, understanding other cultures is paramount. Lack of intercultural sensitivity can lead to mistrust and misunderstandings, to an inability to cooperate, negotiate, and compromise, and perhaps even to military confrontation.

Intercultural understanding begins with individuals who have language abilities and who can thereby provide one’s own nation or community with an insider’s view into foreign cultures, who can understand foreign news sources, and give insights into other perspectives on international situations and current events. For survival in the global community, every nation needs such individuals. A person competent in other languages can bridge the gap between cultures, contribute to international diplomacy, promote national security and world peace, and successfully engage in international trade.

Read more > 10 Reasons

Foreign Language Lessons London

Guido Westerwelle, who is widely expected to become foreign minister in the next German government, admonished a reporter who asked him a question in English on Monday, saying: “We’re in Germany here.”

The head of the Free Democrats (FDP), who are poised to enter government in coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, was giving his first news conference since Sunday’s election when a BBC reporter asked whether he might be willing to respond to a question in English.

“Would you please be so kind, this is a press conference in Germany,” Westerwelle replied in German.

Undeterred, the reporter then asked Westerwelle if he could respond in German to a question in English, only to be rebuffed again.

“In Great Britain people are expected to speak English and it is the same in Germany, people are expected to speak German,” Westerwelle answered.

Using a translator, the BBC reporter then proceeded to ask a question about how German foreign policy would change with Westerwelle as foreign minister.

Read more > BBC

The Canadian federal government is pumping another $7.7 million into French language services for the 2010 Winter Games following criticism that the Games may not be fully bilingual.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore made the surprise announcement during question period Tuesday.

It came after opposition MPs noted that Official Languages Commissioner Graham Fraser complained of “dismal” efforts to date by the Vancouver Organizing Committee and its government partners.

In a scrum later, Moore said the money will go toward translation and interpretation services as well as “permanent signage in and around all the Olympic sites in Vancouver as well as to medal ceremonies to ensure that they’re officially bilingual.”

Read more > Canada

At Kwintessential we like to think big, to think new and to think in a way that benefits our website visitors. Over the past few weeks our Kwint-techies have been working away creating the latest addition to our suite of online tools and resources.

Let’s re-cap what we already offer to the world wide web for absolutely free:

> Country Etiquette Guides - great resource for anyone travelling to Athens or Azerbaijan on the local business culture.

> Articles - a range of unique and useful articles offering various  intercultural insights.

> Intercultural Business Communication - a popular tool for business people and students alike based on Hofstede’s research.

> Free Online Translation - use our software for gist translations.

> Website Translator - a widget for website owners allowing them the free instant translation of web pages.

> Language Identifier - can’t work out what language some text is? We can help.

For more of our tools and resources visit the Culture Vulture who will give you an intercultural tip for the day and show you around the things we offer.

We are now proud the announce the launch of Kwint-Vision. Essentially we are building a library of free online videos for our visitors. All the videos fall under the umbrella of our interest - cross cultural communication. We hope you will be pleased with the new resource. To visit simply click the logo below!

Free Online Intercultural Videos

Customers who use Lastminute.com can now enter some well known phrases into their search and get a translation into a number of British accents. Visitors to the site can ask how to say things with a Geordie, Glaswegian, Mancunian, Scouse and Brummie as well as the accent of the Bristol folk.

One example for travellers to Newcastle would be how to ask for a flight to Barcelona, which would go something like this; “Howay man! Aa’d leik te gan bi plane te Barcelona.” This new tool could help many who struggle to with the different accents of British residents. However it could get messy if a customer from Japan was trying the lingo.

Read more > LastMinute.com

Top 20 spoken languages according to sporkle.com

1.  Mandarin
2.  Hindi
3.  Spanish
4.  English
5.  Arabic
6.  Portuguese
7.  Bengali
8.  Russian
9.  German
10. Japanese
11. Punjabi
12. Wu (Chinese)
13. Javanese
14. Telugu
15. Marathi
16. Vietnamese
17. Korean
18. Tamil
19. French
20. Italian

Could you translate this?

“The promise of reform which the Green Paper heralds holds much for the public and Service alike; local policing, customized to local need with authentic answerability, strengthened accountabilities at force level through reforms to police authorities and HMIC, performance management at the service of localities with targets and plans tailored to local needs, the end of centrally engineered one size fits all initiatives, an intelligent approach to cutting red tape through redesign of processes and cultures, a renewed emphasis on strategic development so as to better equip our service to meet the amorphous challenges of managing cross force harms, risks and opportunities.”

Read more > Gobbledegook

While universities have been warning of a surge in applications for courses this autumn - some language courses are struggling to attract applicants.

The University of the West of England is to stop courses in French, Spanish and Chinese this year because they received only 39 applicants.

The university has seen a 14% rise in applications for other subjects.

But the university’s vice-chancellor says “there are too few students who wish to study languages”.

As such there will be no new intake for these modern languages this autumn.

Read more > BBC

The growing translation bill makes a mockery of the Government’s pledge that migrants wanting to settle in the UK must demonstrate a command of the language.

By the time newcomers are applying for a passport they will have already passed a citizenship test and are supposed to at least be able to answer basic questions.

But translators are still needed for some when they attend the new face-to-face interviews, designed to question applicants and cut down on identity fraud or bogus claims.

More than a quarter of a million pounds was spent on such services by the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) last year.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is absurd that interpreters are being provided for people who the rules say must be able to speak English to qualify for a passport.

“This suggests that the Government’s pledge to make sure a passport was conditional on being able to speak the language and integrate is simply hot air – leaving taxpayers to pick up the bill.

“We must have proper control of migration and citizenship, but the authorities seem more interested in talking tough and then leaving taxpayers to pay the price.”

Read more > UK

Persian (Farsi)

Within the Iranian branch of indo-European languages, Persian is a member of the West Iranian group. The three main dialects of Persian consist of that spoken in Iran (also called Farsi), the Persian of Afghanistan (commonly known as Dari) and the Persian spoken in some of the ex-Soviet central Asian states including Tajikistan.

Iran is a multilingual country where although Farsi is the official language, there are large communities of speakers of other languages such as Arabic, Kurdish and Turkic dialects.

Origins of the Persian Language

The evolution of Persian as the culturally dominant language from Iran to Central Asia to north-western India began with the political domination of these areas by dynasties originating in the south-western province of Iran.  Parsa, later Arabicised to Fars, was ruled by two dynasties: the Achaemenids (559-331bc) whose official language was Old Persian, then the Sassanids (225 -651 AD) who spoke middle Persian. Hence the entire country used to be called Perse by the ancient Greeks, a practice still continued by some today. The name Iran derives from Old Iranian aryanam ‘the realm of the Aryans’.

Standardisation of Persian

Persian appeared fairly standardised first in early poetic diction, which showed few dialectal variations by the tenth century. Nevertheless, the peculiarities of eastern poets led to the compilation of dictionaries explaining those in common Persian.

The formative period for prose writing lasted until the end of the twelfth century where religious, scientific, historical and philosophical texts paid less attention to high style than to reaching the public. By the thirteenth century the regionally marked features had largely disappeared in poetry and prose.

The dominance of classical Persian continued until the beginning of the nineteenth century when new political and cultural conditions brought about under European influence sponsored gradual simplification in style.  This brought the acceptance in writing of standard educated speech developed in Tehran, first through journalism, followed by prose and finally poetry.

Colonial Persian

Persian was cultivated at the courts of the Ottoman rulers, several of whom are known for composing Farsi poetry. Urdu also developed under heavy Persian influence. Persian first entered India with the conquest of North West India by Ghaznavid armies in the eleventh century. Four centuries later, Persian was chosen as the court language by the Mogul rulers, who were major patrons of Persian literature, unlike the contemporary Safavids in Iran. It was at the courts of India and Turkey where many of the major traditional dictionaries of Persian were compiled from the mid tenth to the eighteenth centuries, simultaneously a Persian vernacular was developed in India and it was from here that the English officers of the East India company learnt Farsi before abolishing it as an official language of the Indian courts in 1837.