Take a look at this amazing video with Disney’s impressive cast singing the localized versions of “Let it Go” from Frozen in English, French, German, Dutch, Mandarin, Swedish, Japanese, Latin American Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Korean, Serbian, Cantonese, Portuguese, Bahasa Malaysian, Russian, Danish, Bulgarian, Norwegian, Thai, Canadian French, and Flemish.

Watching the Disney multi-language video reminds us of the exciting times that our professional voice actors have brought to a variety of media. Monterey Language Services had quite a few opportunities to work on projects of this caliber. In one case, we formed a large team of voice-over talents to bring voices to multiple roles in an environmental preservation video. We were overdubbing the video from English to Mandarin Chinese. The dialogue and stories were told by various characters. village elders, youth, village leaders, national corporate executives, and local businessmen spoke about preserving their environment and the movement towards modernization.

The story was rich and compelling, so having the same actor voice multiple parts would not have given the characters as much depth. In light of this, a large team of Mandarin voice-over talents was brought in to a local recording studio to voice more than a dozen roles. The array of voices one after another was similar to the relay of different singers in the Disney multilingual video – very exciting and interesting!

We made sure that the entire production process, which required writing up a transcript, translation, voice selection, recording, and post recording engineering, was of a professional quality and thus the final product was a proud presentation that both our client and the end audience could enjoy!

Monterey Language Services provides subtitles, voiceovers, and audio recordings as well as translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us to request a quote.

Monterey Language Services has decided to look at interpreting as a profession as seen in movies. In doing so, we have found perfect examples of two opposite sides of the interpreter spectrum:  a professional interpreter in The Interpreter, and the opposite in Lost in Translation.

Although the latter was played off for laughs, by comparing these two portrayals, we can see the differences between the two interpreters and what separates a professional interpreter from others.

The Interpreter 2005, Political thriller
Starring Nicole Kidman, this movie is about a UN interpreter who overhears people planning an assassination from her interpretation booth after hours. The producers did extensive research on conference interpreting as a profession, and in this movie you can see her portraying the work of a conference interpreter simultaneously interpreting both in the booths and in a meeting between dignitaries. According to IMDB, the movie is the first to have been filmed at the actual UN headquarters.

We see her portraying a professional interpreter with a great sense of responsibility in communication shown in her paying careful attention to the smallest nuances of language. She interpreted accurately despite a personal difference in opinion while at the same time protecting confidentiality.

Lost in Translation 2003, Comedy-drama
Everyone who has seen this movie probably remembers the Suntory commercial scene, where Bill Murray’s character struggles to understand the instructions of a passionate, machine-gun talking director despite having Japanese interpreter present. This scene is possibly the most humorous rendition of an unprofessional interpreter.

We noticed a few qualities lacking in this interpreter that are holding her back from doing a professional job. First, she appeared to have a lack of language ability that left huge gaps in the message she was trying to convey, and showed a lack of sensitivity to the frustration in the client when he was unable to understand her interpretation. The client shows a great deal of discomfort and confusion, there is still a language barrier that needs to be broken down.

Interpreters in Real Life at Monterey Language Services
Monterey Language Services understands what a significance a professional interpreter can make in bridging language gaps. Every day, we successfully fulfill our mission to serve by sending professional interpreters to hospitals, clinics, community public hearing events, and high-tech customer conferences in Silicon Valley. Our customers are always happy to see the power of communication take place in everyday life!

Here is a recent encounter that required the skills of a professional interpreter — a Cantonese medical interpretation at a children’s clinic in Capitola, CA.
– The Interpreter was a certified medical interpreter, CMI and CCHI precisely: Thanks to her professional mindset, the client was fully taken care of.
– Thorough communication between the doctor and patient was facilitated: The interpreter showed her dedication and ensured all messages were fully conveyed. The assignment was originally scheduled for two hours while the actual time spent interpreting was three hours.
–A willingness to serve: although the location was a bit far, the interpreter was willing to drive all the way to the hospital to make sure that someone was there to cover the assignment.

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.

Happy Holidays from the team at Monterey Language Services! As a medical translation and interpretation provider, we are always exploring tips on how to stay healthy, especially during this busy time of year, when we all face the temptation of overeating.

Here is some food for thought: The following are some health tips from a small Chinese article found on the internet, which shares a few Chinese principles on how to live a healthy life.

Monterey Language Services has translated and summarized parts of it and hopes that this can become a thought-provoking little tidbit for everyone as we reflect on how to stay healthy, especially during the holiday season.

Chew Carefully

Diabetes is a systemic metabolic disorder. One main cause is a pancreas that’s working too hard. One way to avoid overworking your pancreas is to reduce the burden on it by chewing your food slowly!

The “One Less, Three More” Rule

One Less: Less eating
Three More: More rest, More water, More sweat

Sweat Is Your Friend

Sweat can be a powerful ally because when your body is sweating, it helps protect you from all kinds of diseases!

Eat Until You Are Only Half Full

The more you eat, the more oxygen your body uses up. This creates a lack of oxygen in the cells, leading to more pressure on your heart and thus, higher blood pressure. So, eating until you’re only half-full is actually a good idea, since your body will use less oxygen. When your body signals hunger, it’s the best time for it to detoxify and increase the functioning of your immune system.

An empty stomach and a warm, sweating body are an effective way to stimulate your body’s metabolism, to cleanse/detoxify the blood and to activate the regeneration of cells! When your digestive system is in action, it slows down your body’s natural method of detoxifying itself.

Oxygen Is a Panacea

Oxygen is a panacea that helps the body cure diseases. It strengthens the body’s immune system and the ability of the glands responsible for regulating it. It also controls the ability of cancer patients to fight the disease!
Chinese article source: https://www.fun01.cc/post/489843/

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to request a quote from us.

Around this time of year, colleagues at Monterey Language Services come together to create an original holiday greeting, taking photos of the environment around us, developing a new theme fitting for the year ahead — all of it to bring our most heartfelt wishes to the people we care about.

We are grateful to have become a part of so many people’s lives in our profession as translators and interpreters. In 2018, we hope to reach greater heights, connecting even more people within our vibrant community locally and globally. Together, we can make our wishes come true and make the new year unforgettable!

Happy holidays from the Monterey Language Services team; may 2018 bring you joy, fulfillment and new achievements!

You may not think twice about seeing a sign language interpreter in a classroom, meeting, conference, or training session, but what about onstage at a musical or concert? What does it look like? Performance in sign language gives interpreters a chance to sing with their hands, mind, body, and heart which takes artistry and creativity. It’s an art to enjoy!

Here are just a few examples of sign language performances taken from Tiffany Hill and Bjorn Storm’s channels on YouTube. Check them out and see how talented interpreters can combine signing, acting, and rhythm to capture the meaning and feeling of any song.

Firework performed by Tiffany Hill

Crazy performed by Bjorn Storm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYcSAMWIcAE

Yesterday evening Monterey Language Services had the unique opportunity to help spread some holiday cheer by providing ASL interpretation in a performance setting. When a local children’s theater group reached out wanting to include the deaf community in their upcoming Christmas musical, one of our interpreters happily joined the cast to teach them the lyrics of the show’s finale in ASL.

Even with no sign language experience, the 35 kids learned quickly and had a blast. Now when they take the stage they’ll be able to share the song’s message of happiness, warmth, and joy with their friends in the deaf community. Everyone deserves that on the holidays, and we were thrilled and grateful to the theater for allowing us to be a part of their wonderful idea.

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages. When it comes to American Sign Language, we specialize in highly technical meetings and trainings, for example: JAVA training sessions for engineers, CPR first aid training for firefighters, brain injury medical seminars, along with doctor’s visits and performance events. Please feel free to request a quote from us.

To accommodate very large audiences in cross-cultural communication, the usual method of simultaneous interpretation with all the necessary equipment may prove too expensive. In its place, Monterey Language Services presents a cost-effective solution that addresses clients’ needs: the Instant Translation method, in which a meeting is presented in one language with an instant translation displayed visually on a screen, or conveniently readable from audience members’ phones, tablets, and other personal devices.

MONTEREY, California – March 29, 2017 – This evening Monterey Language Services (www.montereylanguages.com) provided Instant Translation for a Seaside, California meeting with an expected turnout of over 400 attendees.

The issues surrounding sanctuary cities have recently become a source of major concern for many of us in California and the country. In order to give ordinary people the chance to have their opinions on this important topic heard, the City of Seaside – not far from Monterey Language Services’ base in Monterey – organized a public meeting devoted to sanctuary cities – with an expected turnout of hundreds of people.

Monterey Language Services implemented an Instant Translation solution, in which the meeting was presented in English but instantly translated into Spanish with the translation displayed visually on a screen. Audience members were also able to read the translation on their phones, tablets, and other personal devices. Follow the link to see Instant Translation in action: https://youtu.be/dRP5lQHQ0tM

This real-time display of translation proved to be a success and made the important content of the meeting accessible to everyone. “Tonight’s meeting is a testament to the method’s suitability for large audiences. When it comes to providing cross-cultural communication for very large audiences, Instant Translation is a time- and cost-effective solution,” says Mei-Ling Chen, Director of Monterey Language Services.

When the City of Seaside approached Monterey Language Services with a request for a Spanish language option for tonight’s meeting, Monterey Language Services was happy to take on the challenge: “What sets us apart from the competition,” says Mei-Ling Chen at Monterey Language Services, “is finding solutions that meet our clients’ needs. That’s our strength.”

The usual method of simultaneous interpretation with a sufficient number of headsets, transmitters, and receivers to accommodate such a large audience proved too expensive. Instead, Monterey Language Services presented a cost-effective solution that addresses the City’s needs: a method that can service a full house without adding extra hours to the meeting’s duration because of language interpretation needs.

For more information, please contact Mei-Ling Chen at 831 655 3460 or mei-ling@montereylanguages.com

Monterey Language Services is committed to bridging the world’s languages by providing high quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages.

Contact Information
Mei-Ling Chen
Monterey Language Services
http://www.montereylanguages.com
831-655-3460

Translators often use different techniques to produce a high-quality, natural translation. Experienced translators may even apply them so freely and flexibly that they forget they’re even using a special technique or strategy. This blog breaks down three of the most frequently used translation strategies: detour translation, repetition, and addition.

Detour translation
Because of the differences between two languages, a direct word-for-word translation is not always possible, and translators may have to find another way around – make a translation “detour.” For example, the source language may prefer affirmative statements (like “Staff Only” in English) while in the target language it is much more natural to use a negative statement for the same idea (like闲人免进 or “Non-staff not allowed” in Chinese). This sign could of course be translated literally, but the result would be something that is not idiomatic, natural Chinese. In situations like this, translators would use the detour strategy.

Repetition
To avoid misunderstanding and make the meaning clear, translators frequently use repetition as a technique. In English, pronouns such as “he,” “she,” “it,” etc., avoid repetition by referring to things that have already been mentioned. Chinese, however, does the opposite and usually repeats the original words rather than replace them with pronouns. For example, in translating a sentence like “George put his bag on the table, which is in the middle of the room,” a translator working into Chinese would repeat the word “table” where English replaces it with “which.” Repetition can also be crucial to preserve the style of a source text in which the author repeats specific words to create a certain effect.

Addition
To make a translation acceptable in the target language, translators may need to add more information. For example, when translating “ease the tension between the two countries” into Chinese, translators need to add the word “situation” (i.e. tense situation) to make the translation complete. A proper translation is “缓解两国之间的紧张局势.” Addition is important when translating culture-specific words or expressions because additional explanation is needed to help readers who aren’t familiar with the source culture. In a case like this, a translator may even need to provide a footnote to provide additional information without cluttering up the main text.

The ultimate goal for a translator is to translate the source text’s meaning simply and clearly. The above strategies and techniques can help produce more idiomatic translations, and are a required part of every translator’s toolkit.

Need instant translation from English to Spanish? We can make it happen. This video shows how it looked at tonight’s City Council meeting on sanctuary cities in Seaside, California.

The audience at today’s event received Spanish translation through reading rather than listening. Why? Because this method can accommodate a large turnout, since everyone can read the translation on their phone or tablet.

This instant translation solution involves a combination of simultaneous interpretation and real time captioning.

Simultaneous interpretation first appeared as a mode of oral translation in response to the need for a way to receive interpretation without doubling the length of a meeting. Using technological advances that are now available, Monterey Language Services combines simultaneous interpretation and real time captioning to provide “instant translation” or “visual interpretation.” This method gives audience members the convenience of a translation they can read on their phones, tablets, or other devices. Instant translation is suitable for audiences of any size and useful for those who are hard of hearing and require CART or Remote CART services.

Monterey Language Services is a long-time provider of Simultaneous Interpretation, Remote Real Time English Captioning, Remote Real Time Spanish Captioning, and other services, which cover All Languages. We specialize in providing solutions to address both the cost and time-saving needs of our customers, regardless of the size of their audience.

Contact us if this type of service is what you need for your next event or conference!

Based on their job title, it’s easy to think that a translator’s only duty is to translate, but a good translator also needs to be a skilled editor. A good translation often goes through several stages of editing, which is just as important as the translation process itself, because it helps refine the work and spot mistakes. But how should we edit a translation, and what should we look for while doing it? Here are some suggestions.

Look through the translation only
It’s possible to be too “close” to your own work. Artists will say that after hours of slaving over a piece of work and still feeling unsatisfied, they have to step away for a while to give themselves some distance. Coming back later with a fresh view, they might instantly see what’s wrong and know where to put the finishing strokes. As a self-editor, translators should do the same: a few days after you’ve done a translation, come back to it and reread it as if it were originally written in the target language – that is, without looking at the source. The combination of a fresh look and reading the target text by itself can help you judge whether the translation flows well in the target language, sounds idiomatic, follows the structure of the source too closely, etc. Taking a fresh look will also help you identify errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc., which you may have missed the first time around. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can completely toss out the source as soon as the first translation draft is done, which brings us to the second suggestion.

Compare the source and target text
After reading the translation, the second step is to refer back to the source text to see if there are any meaning errors, omitted information, etc. Avoiding any meaning shifts is always on a translator’s mind, but it’s possible to make them without realizing, which is why comparing the source and target again is necessary. Editing a translation, just like translating itself, requires solid command of both languages in order to feel the subtle differences between them and tell whether the translation is a proper rendition of the source text. Be particularly attentive that terminology is translated correctly, and consistently. Make use of term bases provided by the client or agency, and don’t be afraid to ask for them if they haven’t been given.

Format checking
After making sure the content is all good, the last step is to check formatting and layout of the translation. This often may be as simple as matching font and font size, making sure that a few bold, italic, or underlined words in the source are mirrored in the target, or that a hyperlink is in the proper place. Other documents may be formatted in a more complex way, with tables and images which need to be properly recreated or inserted.

The fundamental aspect of producing a translation may be, well, translating, but skilled and careful editing is also imperative. How many authors can write a novel without ever looking at what they’ve written? Following the above three steps will provide a good basis for editing a translated work properly in order to get it ready for delivery.

Monterey Language Services was at the annual Middlebury Institute of International Studies Translation, Interpretation, and Localization Management Career Fair on Friday March 3rd. We would like to thank everyone who stopped by our booth – it was a pleasure to meet all of the Middlebury Institute’s brightest up-and-coming talent. A special thanks to everyone who participated in our raffle giveaway: just like the whole fair, our contest was a big success, and we’re happy to share that our three lucky winners were MIIS students Christopher Madison, David Chen, and Zongqi Li. You can watch our official video announcement of the winners below:

Monterey Language Services wishes all students of the Middlebury Institute success in their coming careers, and looks forward to working with the next generation of translators, interpreters, and localization managers!