Atlas Newsletter – March 2009
Tom Cruise's linguistic slip
Tom Cruise needs to brush up on his language skills or his geography. The actor who stars in ‘Valkyrie’ reportedly made a slip of the tongue while promoting the film in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tom was heard saying "gracias" and "hola" to local, Portuguese-speaking Brazilians. Yet his cultural slips didn't end there. Talking about his love of Brazil, Tom said he enjoyed the “Tango”, which is actually the traditional dance of Argentina!
Voice to Picture Voiceover Workshop
Atlas is pleased that its February ‘Voice to Picture’ voiceover workshop was a great success. Here is what some of those who attended had to say about the day:
Gabriella
“We had the opportunity to practice reading and recording texts and I feel that I benefited hugely from the trainer’s feedback and indications on how to improve our techniques. What is more, he showed us a different area of services translators can provide, which I found very useful.”
Cristina
“Thank you for organising the ‘Voice to Picture’ voiceover workshop. I really enjoyed it. The trainer is great!”
Question of the month! Test yourself with our March question: English is the official language in approximately how many countries? (answer can be found at the bottom of the newsletter).
Translation and World Book Day
The reading charity Booktrust gave away 25,000 copies of their guide to a selection of the best-translated fiction in celebration of World Book Day on Thursday 5th March. This is the latest development in the charity's mission to get more people to explore and enjoy fiction from other countries. Booktrust has been trying to promote the cause of translated fiction since 2006 with the creation of the first UK-based website solely for fiction in translation www.translatedficiton.org.uk. The aim of the guide is to raise the profile of translated novels, encourage readers to try something different and to celebrate the authors and translators who work so hard to bring these books to an English-speaking readership. Author and editor, James Smith said "We want to celebrate the authors who wrote the books that feature in the guide, the publishers who have committed themselves to publishing them, and the translators, the unsung heroes of contemporary literature, whose intelligence and creativity render into English novels that deserve to be read all over the world."
Expanding EU in need of interpreters
The European Union, which is made up of 27 nations and 23 official languages, faces a shortage of interpreters, especially English mother-tongue speakers. While there is a need to find interpreters and translators from the newer EU nations of Eastern Europe, there also appears to be a shortage English native speaking interpreters and this appears to be linked to the English 'lingua franca'. "Everyone speaks English and the corollary of that is that the English don't feel the need to speak anything else," said Mr Fox, adding that there was also a view among native English speakers that they were not good at learning other languages. "There is no genetic aberration that means they can not learn languages," said Mr Fox, who was critical of the English education system, which allows pupils to drop foreign languages at an early age. "The European Commission faces a shortage of translators for a number of language combinations," the commission said in a statement. "The situation is particularly worrying in the English language department because many officials who joined the commission in the seventies following the accession of the United Kingdom and Ireland are now approaching retirement age." EU Institutions will lose at least a third of their English language interpreters by 2015 due to retirement and about half in the next ten years. Brian Fox, director of the EU's interpreting department summed up the shortage, with interpreters present, to reporters in Brussels.
"Everybody says English is everywhere but we are having real problems finding English language professionals" to interpret during official speeches and to translate written items, he said.
In order to tackle the problem, the European Commission's directorate-general for translation announced the launch of a campaign to attract qualified professionals to its translation operation. "With this in mind, the English language department has already established contact with a number of educational institutions, government departments and language organisations such as the National Centre for Languages (CILT)," the commission said in a statement. The commission will also boost its presence at careers events and job fairs, in particular across Britain and Ireland.
Hilary Clinton bears a gift of hostility rather than peace
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently found herself lost in translation when she presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a gift bearing an incorrect translation that implied hostility, rather than peacemaking. Clinton presented Lavrov with a gift-wrapped red button, which said, “Reset” in English and ‘Peregruzka’ in Russian. The problem is, ‘Peregruzka’ doesn’t mean reset. It means overcharged, or overloaded. “We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked Lavrov. “You got it wrong,” Lavrov said. “This says ‘Peregruzka’, which means overcharged.” Clinton said earlier she was presenting the gift because it “represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is, ‘We want to reset our relationship’. And so we will do it together.” Clinton’s adviser Philippe Reines said the typo would be fixed, noting that the correct translation for “reset” is only a couple letters off.
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Other News…
The Atlas Team recently said farewell to Tina who returned to Germany to have her baby. The team wishes her all the best for the future! On the other hand, Atlas welcomes new work placement Jia from Shanghai, China. Jia studied a Master of Science in Media Management at the University of Stirling and graduated last December from the University of Bath in Translation and Interpreting.
Answer to March question:
English is the official language in approximately 53 countries.
Thank you for your interest in the Atlas monthly newsletters. We welcome your feedback and ideas for future articles.
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