Intercultural Communication and Translation News

We are happy to announce the addition of a new DVD to our library of >> Training DVDs.

The new title, “Diversity Challenges” is an engaging training program designed to stimulate classroom discussion of two challenging, open-ended scenarios.

Put your team to work solving these situations:

* The Interview – You interview a candidate who has all the right, hard-to-find skills you need for the job, but he is clearly uncomfortable with your diverse team. The hiring decision is yours. What would you do?
* Do I Have to Work With Him? – You teamed up two skilled employees for a big project. Now one wants a new partner claiming she is uncomfortable with their differences. As the deadline approaches, what would you do?

Each scene has two parts:

* The Situation shares the storyline and the interesting human dynamics affecting the characters. Then, the video stops and asks the question, “What would you do?”
* The Debriefing provides additional insight by allowing participants to hear each of the character’s inner self-talk. This self-talk sheds light on their inner feelings, motivations and backgrounds.

Special offer: Any quoting reference “ICN12″ when placing on order for this DVD will get a 10% discount. Simply send us an email asking for “Diversity Challenges VL6646″ and quoting the reference. Normal charge is £410 + VAT.

At Kwintessential we like to react to our customers needs. One thing we noticed with many of our valued translation and interpreting clients was that sometimes they were unsure as to what languages are spoken in which countries.

So what do we do? We invent a little widget that answers this for them in a second! The widget can be added to their own site and will soon also become a Google Widget (watch this space).

We hope you like it…try the widget out > here.

In a world where international careers are becoming commonplace, the phenomenon of third culture kids (TCKs) – children who spend a significant portion of their developmental years in a culture outside their parents’ passport culture(s) – is increasing exponentially. Not only is their number increasing, but the cultural complexity and relevance of their experience and the adult TCKs (ATCKs) they become, is also growing.

When Ruth Hill Useem, a sociologist, first coined this term in the 1950s, she spent a year researching expatriates in India. She discovered that folks who came from their home (or first) culture and moved to a host (or second) culture, had, in reality, formed a culture, or lifestyle, different from either the first or second cultures. She called this the third culture and the children who grew up in this lifestyle third culture kids. At that time, most expatriate families had parents from the same culture and they often remained in one host culture while overseas.

This is no longer the case. Take, for example, Brice Royer, the founder of TCKid.com. His father is a half-French/half-Vietnamese UN peacekeeper while his mom is Ethiopian. Brice lived in seven countries before he was eighteen including France, Mayotte, La Reunion, Ethiopia, Egypt, Canada, and England. He writes, “When people ask me ‘Where are you from?,’ I just joke around and say, ‘My mom says I’m from heaven’.” What other answer can he give?

Read more > Telegraph

PepsiCo’s Indra K. Nooyi is on a new realisation about the land of her birth as she leads the board of her global food and beverage empire at a meeting in Mumbai this week.

“We feel that solutions which have been devised by us around the world, cannot be imposed here. The company needs to find unique solutions for India,” Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo told a news conference in Delhi.

PepsiCo’s brands such as Lays are already being complemented by local tags like Kurkure and lemon drink Nimbooz in a market in which its mainstay business, soft drinks, has faced a tough battle with traditional rival Coca Cola, which made waves in the rural hinterland with its Rs. 5-rupee bottle that attracted attention.

For Coca-Cola, which entered India in 1993, four years after its rival, sales volumes have grown for more than three years.

Nooyi said PepsiCo plans to customise its food and beverage products to suit the requirements of the Indian market.

Atul Singh, president and CEO of Coca Cola India said he would not discuss strategy. Coke has introduced local products such as Aam Panna as it eyes an investment plan of $250 million for India.

“We do not devise our marketing strategies according to any company’s plans. We continuously evaluate our options and our products are a result of continuous research initiatives,” said Singh.

PepsiCo’s three-day board meeting, scheduled to begin on Wednesday, is also aimed at creating awareness about India’s culture and product needs.

Read more > India

By Donna Marsh

As an American/British dual national, it is always interesting to consider the innumerable cultural differences between the two countries.

Of course, these differences extend far beyond your definition of football, when you think World War II began, or in which hand you hold a fork. The current debate concerning proposed American health care reform has provided a platform that clearly illustrates how different the two countries can be.

Individualism Versus Collectivism

Americans are taught from an early age to take care of themselves, i.e., to pull themselves up by their bootstraps if necessary. Many Americans view health insurance—supplied by many but not all employers to their employees and their families—as something they individually earn, along with their wages or salaries. Some also are of the opinion that those who do not have health insurance should be motivated to find “better” work that does include this benefit. Indeed, there are a portion of Americans who view health care as a privilege and not a human right. Some Americans’ general mistrust of government-controlled social programs further fuel this attitude.

However, America’s scepticism is not as clear cut as it initially might seem. The American government has been sponsoring two important health programs since the 1960s. America’s Medicaid system provides health benefits to certain low-income groups. The Medicare system provides comprehensive health benefits to those older than 65.

Both programs generate strong feelings in the American public. Some may feel resentment toward the Medicaid system for any number of reasons, mostly relating to a belief that these individuals have not “earned the right” to access a system paid by taxpayers’ dollars and thus “don’t deserve it.” This reluctance to help the less fortunate, especially if there also is a perception of “not pulling their weight” is a telling example of the Protestant work ethic and its belief in reward for hard work.

However, Medicare most often is seen as an entitlement to be accessed at the age most Americans retire from work, and often—not insignificantly—lose their work-related health care benefits, as well. It would take some effort to find many Americans who would argue against the availability of the Medicare system for their elderly relatives or for themselves at some point in the future. The shift from individualism to a more collectivist approach is being made, at least in this instance.

In the United Kingdom, the National Health Service is free at the point of need to all British residents, including foreign nationals with a legal right to remain in the U.K. (including expatriate Americans). The NHS is funded through the National Insurance system, paid by both employees and employers. It undoubtedly is considered a human right by the British public, expected to be provided for all by the government.

This approach also fits into the U.K.’s value system of fair play and characteristic support for the underdog. Although it is not difficult to find many British people criticizing their government, there is not an equivalent level of mistrust as found among many Americans.

Read more > D. Marsh

Russia has agreed to donate three Siberian tigers to Korea, the Environment Ministry announced Monday. Siberian tigers, also known as Manchurian or Korean tigers, once widely inhabited the Korean Peninsula but the species is now on the verge of extinction with only a small number living in the wild in the Russian Far East. Korea currently has 51 of the tigers living in captivity which came from the United States and North Korea. Of them, 24 are in the Seoul Zoo.

Russia’s tiger donation came about partly through an interpreter’s mistake. While visiting Korea in June, a Russian delegation led by Vladimir Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Federal Supervisory Natural Resources Management Service, went to the National Institute of Biological Resources with Vice Environment Minister Lee Byung-wook to see a display of mounted animals, including a Siberian tiger.

During the tour, a Korean official said, “Korea is very interested in Siberian tigers.” But the interpreter mistranslated the comment, and asked about Russia’s willingness to donate the animals. In response, Kirillov asked if Korea could raise donated tigers in the wild.

“The government didn’t give much thought to the remarks at the time, but it seems Kirillov proposed the donation while briefing Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on his visit to Korea,” a ministry official said. The Environment Ministry made an official request to Russia for the donation of the tigers in a bilateral environmental cooperation meeting in Moscow on Oct. 30.

Read more > Error

In a bid to break communication barriers and help people sharpen their linguistics skills in a remarkable way, a Japanese firm NEC has designed a high-tech gadget, which offers users instant real-time language translation capabilities.

Dubbed as “Tele Scouter”, the gadget’s shape resembles that of a pair of glasses, and it helps users establish conversations with people of different languages by offering real-time language translation directly onto their retina.

The system incorporates voice recognition technology, microphones, along with various translations programmes to interpret conversations as they occur, projecting subtitles on the user’s retina, thereby eliminating the need of human translators completely.

In addition, the device also has the feature to offer audio translations via headphones.

Speaking about the features of the device, Takayuki Omino, NEC’s market development official, said in a statement: “You can keep the conversation flowing. This could also be used for talks involving confidential information, negating the need for a human translator”

Read more > NEC

HealthForumOnline (HFO), a nationally-approved (APA, ASWB, NBCC, PSNA, CA-BBS) provider of online continuing education (CE) for psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses and other allied healthcare professionals announces the addition of a new online CE course for health professionals working with children and their families, Cultural Competency in Pediatric Psychology: Issues & Clinical Applications to their extensive online continuing education library.

This addition to HFO’s online CE course selection is important as psychologists, social workers, counselors, nurses and other allied health care professionals in the U.S. have had a growing awareness of a shift in the demographic characteristics of their pediatric patients and their families over the last decade. Among them, is a marked change indicating a growing trend towards a more multi-ethnic society. However, despite this demographic shift, evidence suggests that Americans still do not equally share in the hope for recovery from mental illness despite the availability of effective and well-documented treatments.

Although a decade has passed since the U.S. Surgeon General first asserted that culture counts in mental health research and treatment, little has been done to address cultural variables in any way. One review of the research literature reported that only 11% of American samples included minority participants (i.e., African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics), only18% reported the SES of participants, and only 6% discussed potential moderating cultural variables such as a specific ethnic-related variable. Moreover, the existing literature typically focuses on adults, further limiting our ability to offer theory- and evidence-based interventions that are culturally sensitive to an entire population base – children and their families. Not surprisingly, U.S. minorities, particularly children, continue to face obstacles to accessing mental health care, including barriers related to language, geography and cultural familiarity, resulting in culturally-based disparities in the quality of care received and mental health outcome.

Read more > HFO