10/23/2006 - 10/24/2006

Business Culture and Etiquette in China

Chinese business culture and etiquette The Chinese business practice is vastly different from the Western method that most of us may be used to. Of course, with the Chinese economy opening up, China's joining of WTO and the Olympics in 2008, many Chinese business practice are now beginning to align with more conventional methods.

However, China will always have their own unique business culture and etiquette, given their unique history and background.

Help for schools with EU pupils

The UK government is earmarking £400,000 to help schools teaching more foreign pupils as a result of EU expansion. The Department for Education said the programme would help schools with little experience of teaching pupils who have limited knowledge of English.

Diners say service is lost in translation

Dealing with waiters who cannot speak English is the most annoying problem when eating out, according to a new survey. A poll of 5,000 diners found that bad service was common in British restaurants.

Meals are marred by everything from unpleasant reservations staff to food taking an age to arrive - or conversely service being rushed by staff trying to fit in another sitting. But the most common complaint was about waiters whose poor grasp of the language makes ordering an ordeal.

IBM Aims Translation-By-Email Service at Teachers

IBM recently added email translation to their Tradúcelo Ahora (Translate It Now) translation program so that school teachers can communicate with their pupils' Spanish-speaking parents.

Tradúcelo Ahora was started in 2003 with a large grant from IBM. Originally, it was a simple Web site translation tool. But with the new functionality, teachers at registered schools can send an email to a recipient of their choice and have it translated from English to Spanish, or from Spanish to English.

word of the day: solicitous

solicitous \suh-LIS-uh-tuhs\, adjective:
1. Manifesting or expressing care or concern.
2. Full of anxiety or concern; apprehensive.
3. Extremely careful; meticulous.
4. Full of desire; eager.

He does not appear to have suffered from homesickness, although the suspicion that this might have been due to the unsatisfactory nature of his 'home' life seems belied by the tone and content of his letters; he makes frequent and solicitous inquiries after not only Mabel and his mother but also his father. -- Matthew Sturgis, Aubrey Beardsley: A Biography

japanese tourists suffering from french culture shock

Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported Sunday.

"A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

MI5 suffering from lack of translators

The use of control orders to restrict the movement of terrorist suspects is being undermined by a chronic lack of resources within MI5.

Sources have revealed that the demands being imposed on Britain's spies to produce the intelligence needed to allow control orders to be issued is hampering the ability of the security services to uncover terrorist conspiracies.

"The current process of issuing control orders is complex, costly and time-consuming. In some cases there could be hundreds of hours of material in Urdu which need to be translated by MI5 translators so that it can be made available to special advocates. This will take months of work when these linguists are also needed on live operations. If intercept evidence was made available the demands on MI5 would be significantly reduced."

a plate of your finest Corrugated iron beef please

Hungry tourists in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics are advised to approach the following menu items with caution: "Corrugated iron beef," "Chop the strange fish," "Government abuse chicken."

Actually, these dishes are fine to eat. However, the Chinese-to-English translation of these culinary specialties has proven to be hazardous to the language.

word of the day: felicitous

felicitous \fuh-LIS-uh-tuhs\, adjective:
1. Suitably applied or expressed; appropriate; apt.
2. Happy; delightful; marked by good fortune.

We do this sort of thing most weekends anyway, said a lean rebel with gunpowder smudges on his face and the felicitous name of Troy Cool. -- Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic

I always have a pad of paper and a pencil within reach, to catch on the wing this turn of phrase which strikes me as felicitous, that idea which I hope to be able to examine more closely in the light of day. -- Roger Martin du Gard, Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort (translated by Timothy Crouse)