Intercultural Communication and Translation News

Farhad Heydari lays out the complexities and the basics of doing business in the Middle East, whether in its more worldly or more insular regions.

In the early stages of David Lean’s Academy Award-winning 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” Peter O’Toole as the larger-than-life T.E. Lawrence is lectured by General Allenby’s cunning political consultant, Dryden, on what life is really like in the desert. “Lawrence, only two kinds of creatures get fun out of the desert— Bedouins and gods, and you’re neither. Take it from me,” he goes on to sermonize, “for ordinary men it’s a burning, fiery furnace.” But O’Toole, playing no ordinary man, is unperturbed by the harsh assessment and matter-of-factly retorts: “No, Dryden, it’s going to be fun.”

Perhaps he was on to something. In little more than 50 years, most of the tiny Gulf states that ribbon the northern coast of the Arabian Peninsula have morphed from a backwater of loosely organized trucial sheikhdoms, once nothing more than dhow-speckled pearling and fishing villages, to slick, tax-free hives for the mega-rich, anchored by the world’s largest oil producer next door— itself undergoing something of a measured transformation.

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Kristjan Mar Hauksson  of Multilingual Search writes:

The world’s largest search engine misses out on localization, how? Spelling error, I’m I feeling lucky button was changed to “Freysta gæfunnar”, the problem is that there is no y in freysta so the search engine that has 50% of the Icelandic population searching is greeting the Icelandic nation with a spelling error! Pls. Google fix this it is hurting my feelings!

Companies are aware that knowledge workers are key to the success of the Dutch economy and, focusing on this growing community, a new congress ‘The Impact of Expats’ aims to cover everything which companies in the Netherlands bringing knowledge workers into the country need to know.

ZuidasThe success of the Dutch economy is knowledge-based and Dutch business and industry know only too well that it is the presence of highly skilled workers in a city which increases its capacity for innovation and makes it attractive for new business.

Amsterdam, with its highly rated quality of life, cultural diversity and lively reputation is becoming increasingly popular with skilled internationals seeking to develop their careers abroad.

Read more> Expatica

Zut alors! The popular British cartoon and television series “Mr. Men” has come up with a malodorous Mr. Rude who speaks with a bad French accent.

“Pardon me,” says Mr. Rude in comedy Franglais as he breaks wind when his finger is pulled on a game played on the television show’s website www.mrmen.com.

“Ohhh, don’t seem so surpriiised,” Mr Rude exclaims when loud noises and a noxious-looking gas erupt from his behind. “I’ll geeve you rude,” he tells children as he blows a raspberry in a promotion for the new series which will run on British television on February 25.

The French embassy in London declined to comment to Reuters on whether the coarse Mr. Men character, the only one on the show with a foreign accent, would offend.

But a source at the embassy told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that this kind of humor won’t go any distance toward easing a centuries-old rivalry between the two nations.

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Ex-pats living in Spain are being recruited and trained to work as remote telemarketing staff for English businesses because there is a shortage of suitable candidates in the UK.

Call centre staffing company Sensée has hired 10 sun-soaked British workers as telesales agents for Sense On Hold (SOH), a UK-based company providing marketing to callers while they are waiting on hold. The agents will never meet their new bosses at SOH, as all elements of recruitment and training take place online.

The move reflects the growing number of employers using mobile workers for traditional, office-based jobs.

Read more> Expats 

Many employers are risking migrant workers’ wellbeing by not providing adequate health and safety training warned the Institute of Occupational Health and safety (IOSH).

It said many non-English speaking migrant workers are especially at risk as H&S training is usually delivered in English. IOSH recently conducted a pilot study into how H&S training is delivered to migrant workers in the food processing sector.

Half of the 26 companies polled admitted their H&S training did not address how non-English speaking workers were informed, instructed or trained in H&S issues and practices.

“The evidence from the food and drink sector is that too many employers are taking risks with their migrant workers by not offering proper training in H&S issues,” said IOSH policy and technical director Richard Jones.”Within this sector only 42% of employers provide English lessons to staff.”

Read more> Migrants