11/08/2006 - 11/09/2006

business protocol - estonia

Since independence in 1991, Estonia has experienced a revival of its own language and culture. Estonian has now had a new lease of life, being seen as a language in its own right rather than one taking a secondary place to Russian.

As with visiting any country, it is always a good idea to learn a few phrases. A simple “hello�, “good day� or “how are you?� in Estonian will go down very well and help start the relationship building process.

Employers failing to keep top talent as increasing numbers of expats walk out

Companies that send employees on international assignments are failing to capitalise on this investment and losing talented staff through inadequate arrangements for repatriation and professional development.

A study of 3,450 expatriates - by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Cranfield School of Management - looked at return on investment in this area and found that, on average, 15% of international assignees (often an organisation's top performers) resigned within 12 months of completing their posting.

Immigration figures drop as Britons move abroad

The number of people entering Britain has fallen while more people from this country are leaving for lives overseas, new figures have revealed.

Last year 565,000 people arrived here from abroad - the equivalent of 1500 every day - although that was less than the 582,000 in 2004. As the number of people entering Britain fell, despite the high number of Polish immigrants, the number leaving has been on the rise. However, the number of people leaving the country was significantly less - 1000 a day or 380,000 in the whole of 2005, half of whom were British citizens.

dorset Police diversity training wins a top award

Dorset's Police force has won a prestigious award for the innovative way it trains staff. The force came in for praise for its diversity training programme which is interactive and involves officers and volunteers from the community acting out real-life scenarios. It aims to improve relationships with vulnerable and minority groups such as gays and lesbians and people from different ethnic backgrounds.

Chinese language learning booms

In recent years, the popularity of the Chinese language has gained momentum in line with the international community's growing concerns about China. Many countries and regions have established Chinese language courses at higher education institutions and secondary schools. More and more students are choosing China as the destination for their overseas study. According to the China Scholarship Council, in 1991 there were only 11,000 foreign students studying in China. In 2000 the number increased to 20,000. In 2005, 140,000 overseas students chose to study in China. This year there are more than 160,000 students studying in China.

26 percent of Belgians never use internet

A survey published by the Federal Government's General Directorate of Statistics and Economic Information reveals that almost a fifth of all Belgians have never used a computer.

Belgians slow to pick up blogging habit The survey also found that a staggering 2.6 million Belgians (a quarter of the population) had never used the internet.

word of the day: congries

congeries \KON-juh-reez\, noun:
A collection; an aggregation.

As the great French historian Fernand Braudel pointed out in his last major work, The Identity of France (1986), it was the railroad that made France into one nation and one culture. It had previously been a congeries of self-contained regions, held together only politically. -- Peter F. Drucker, "Beyond the Information Revolution", Atlantic Monthly, October 1999

William Rothenstein described the Academie as a "congeries of studios crowded with students, the walls thick with palette scrapings, hot, airless and extremely noisy." -- Jeffrey Meyers, Bogart: A Life in Hollywood

Boardroom diversity is good for business and society

The stereotypical white male middle-class board serves most companies at a time when nearly all significant businesses face intense competition. Market forces are encouraging chairmen to take a critical look at the profiles around the table.

Both commercial and public organisations are under fierce pressure to deliver value. For commercial enterprises, this is profit and profitability; in the public sector it is the efficient and effective delivery of universal services.

chinese big in africa

Chinese language learning has become increasingly popular on the African continent in recent years. According to the Office of the Chinese Language Council International, China has sent delegations of language teachers to Africa as many as 210 times. There are currently six Confucius Institutes and 20 Chinese teaching posts in 11 African countries.

Top Minds Tapped by Translation Task

The past few years have shown that U.S. government intelligence goes only so far. One of the biggest challenges is recognizing vital information in foreign languages - and acting quickly on it.

That's why the military would love software that can listen to TV broadcasts or phone conversations and read Web sites in Arabic and Chinese, translate them into English and summarize the key elements for humans.

But each of those steps has long bedeviled computer scientists. Perfecting them and combining them - well, that is "DARPA hard." That means it's difficult even by the extreme standards of the Pentagon's next-generation technology arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Google tops translation ranking

Google has built an English translation tool for Chinese and Arabic texts — using a team that speaks neither of the two languages.

The system, which last week topped an international exercise to find the best Chinese and Arabic translation technology, is symbolic of a shift in approach to computer translation. Current software, such as the industry leader in Arabic-English translation, made by Cairo-based company Sakhr, draws on knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to translate documents.

ASD launches next generation translation memory technology

Alchemy Software Development Limited, the world leader in visual localization solutions, today announced the launch of an industry test drive for their Alchemy Language Exchangeâ„¢, a powerful, high-performance translation asset repository that enables global companies to centralize the storage of any translation asset and help accelerate global product launches.

"put yourself on a donkey"

Thousands of fire safety leaflets in Scotland have been withdrawn because a wrong translation in the leaflet's Urdu version for people of South Asian origin mixed 'gadda' (cushion) with a 'gadha' (donkey).

The leaflet, titled 'Fire Kills - You Can Prevent It', was produced by the Scottish Executive and has been made available to the public for five years. Its piquant mistranslation has only now been brought to the notice of the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service.

The leaflet's English version reads: "Never jump straight out of a window. Lower yourself on to cushions, etc." But language experts charged with putting the passage into Urdu - there is a large minority in Scotland speaking the language - translated it as "Never jump out of a window straight. Put yourself on a donkey."

word of the day: agrestic

agrestic \uh-GRES-tik\, adjective:
Pertaining to fields or the country; rural; rustic.

The funniest and most agrestic of all his paintings were, undoubtedly, the cows. -- Robert Hughes, "An Outlaw Who Loved Laws", Time, July 26, 1993

Grass plants possess an agrestic simplicity that probably connects them, at some level of mind, with wholesome grain and the restorative country life. -- George Schen, The Complete Shade Gardener