Do you know how it feels to handle 19 languages in one week? You might think it is a lot to manage, but in fact, it is AWESOME! Other than dealing with the language routine, we amuse ourselves with some of the interesting differences between languages.

Did you know that…

– translation of “Sincerely yours” in Russian depends on gender? How you translate it depends on who is signing it, man or woman.

– in many languages, including Polish, addressing someone depends on gender?
Szanowny Panie [for men]!  Szanowna Pani [for women]!  

– Finnish attaches case markings directly onto the noun? (“Facebookin” in Finnish for the possessive noun “Facebook’s” in English).

– Chinese likes to convert nouns in English to verb forms a lot? In Chinese, “renewal of company values” is commonly & easily switched to “renew company values.” (perhaps it is because a Chinese verb makes no difference between past, present, future, gender, singular and plural form!)

– in Portuguese, we do not repeat terms as much as in English? (variety=better style)

– written Spanish tends to use more synonyms than written English? For example, you can rotate between “compañía” and “empresa” as translations for “company.”

– in Turkish, indented paragraph alignment in a ‘written letter’ is a punctuation rule?

– Triqui, an indigenous language in Mexico, has three variations? Alto, Media, Bajo (high, middle, low) and they can’t understand each other.

Every language has its own intrigue and subtleties, and when comparing one language to another, these differences stand out. That is, their intrigue is magnified. This is one of the reasons we are drawn to working on so many languages simultaneously

by Mei-Ling Chen

A new client commented: “I trust you will get the meaning as well as the words in all translations. It is very important.”

When customers say this to us, as Director of Translation for many years, I understand what they mean.

It is vital to get the correct meaning in translation. Even more important is to know who your author and target audience are. With this information, the experienced translator is able to make a judgment call.    

Then the translation can be written from the point of view and background of the original author. Whether from a CEO to employees; a department of communications to the general public; or a teacher to a student—the tone, style, and presentation will have to vary. This is a powerful difference that an excellent human translator can make!

With due respect to machine translation, I must say that in order to achieve the above requirements, excellent human translators are needed.  These are translators who have good sense, can analyze the text and the background, and successfully conduct research.

Sure, machine translation may be able to get a rough idea of what a passage is about and what languages are involved. But think twice whether it can boost your company’s image, or provide the quality that your company is looking for.      

If you are lucky, things might turn out right; but if a human has to edit or find bugs in the work done by machine translation, what could possibly happen?

– a waste time, resources, energy
– the need to scrap the work, and redo the entire project
– troublesome enough where you may want to smash the machine software!

This is why we believe in real, genuine devotion to quality and research when working on a translation project.

Recently quite a few new friends have “liked” us on Facebook. We would like to take this opportunity to welcome our friends from all across the U.S. and let them know a little bit about who we are and what we do!

Our team is made up of graduates and students from the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) and other translation universities. We are language people and a solid provider of translation and interpretation services. Almost all of us have been in the language industry for our entire lives.

Bridging languages is something we do every single day. We consider ourselves a bridge, connecting two different languages and two different people. We put this idea in our logo, which represents us as the red apex, signifying the spirit which underlies our work.

Imagine: an interpreter is facilitating communication between doctors and patients in a hospital setting (medical interpretation), a translator is working on a PowerPoint presentation from English to French, two colleagues are working in an office to utilize their language skills to compose a blog… you get the picture. These are all happening simultaneously in Monterey Language Services. What a powerful experience this is we are encountering!

Learning foreign languages can open a lot of doors and lead to opportunities you never would have expected. Monterey Language Services is the place where all of these things come together and that is one major reason students love coming to work with us.

We are fulfilling our passion, and most importantly, we have fun doing it! 

As a director of translation for years, I have worked with many translators and interpreters.  The most important quality I found in them is being responsible and taking their jobs to the heart.  It’s such a pleasure to work with them.   Here is one good example.  ~Mei-Ling Chen

by Lee Eisenberg

I have done many translation projects.  I find translation to be a satisfying practice because I feel as though I have just contributed something to the world that I’m living in.

I just translated a newlywed marriage certificate from Spanish to English.  The work involves not only translating each word.  We must know how to translate a position such as Mexico’s Secretaría de Gobernación (Secretary of Interior), and what an extemporaneous birth certificate is.  We also have to ensure to format the translation properly.  Correct formatting makes the translation look official and easier to read.

All in all, translating this project gives me a true feeling of accomplishment.  I feel joy for the people who have just gotten married.  It might be a small thing to do, but I’m definitely proud to have done it, and I wish the newlyweds well.

February 25, 2011 Career Fair

Tate Miller, Dean at the Center for Advising and Career Services at Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), conveyed to us that many students had wonderful conversations with us at the MIIS job fair. This brought back a lot of fond memories. The feeling is mutual; we also had a fantastic time talking to the students. Among the interesting topics we discussed:

– how a translation and interpretation company like Monterey Language Services is operated

– how all of the languages are supported at Monterey Language Services

– how to distinguish yourself from your peers in a competitive job market

– how medical interpretation involves human life and feelings that go beyond technical interpretation

– how instant messaging has changed the way language is processed in our minds

– how something like music is related to language and translation

We consider all of the students our colleagues. They showed us a lot of talent in their conversation and works, enriched us with their different perspectives and strengths, and we were very happy to share our experiences from 12 years working in the translation and interpretation industry. In fact, we enjoyed talking with the students so much that we were the last table at the career fair and at the reception the night before. Like the last table remaining after a busy night in a lively restaurant or at a good party, the one that stays the longest laughs and enjoys themselves the most!

In short, we care about each individual encounter. To us, it is not only a process of submitting and collecting resumes; instead, we always seek to bridge different hearts, minds, and ideas, whether participating in an event like the MIIS Career Fair or connecting at the workplace. As a result of this conviction, students’ passion, energy, fun, and laughter is seen coming out.

The team at Monterey Language Services would like to send you our warm holiday greetings.  We wish you happy holidays & a healthy and successful 2011!  

Thank you for your continued support and friendship.  We look forward to furthering our relationship in the coming year.

Click to enjoy our holiday special presentation!

Happy New Year Greetings from Monterey Language Services

‘Fresh Produce’ is gaining awareness everywhere in the world.  Fresh produce markets (or Farmer’s market) are sprouting up all over, in cities big and small.  Many of these Farmer’s markets specialize in local, organically grown products.

We were curious about the official translation of the term ‘fresh produce’ in other languages. Our search in Spanish was unsuccessful (no official translation).  Most people use the term in English, or translate it as ‘productos frescos’ (or ‘alimentos frescos’ to include both agricultural and livestock production).  However, the term ‘organic food’ does have an official translation in the European Union: ‘alimentos orgánicos/ecológicos/biológicos’ (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alimentos_ecol%C3%B3gicos)

In French, ‘fresh produce’ is known simply as, ‘le frais,’ which is short for ‘produits frais.’  The French are no strangers to locally grown products.  This is evident by the myriad of online grocer’s offering home delivery of ‘le frais’ in France.

We hope you enjoy some fresh produce this holiday season!

Authors: Mei-Ling Chen and Emily Frye

Monterey Language Services was out in the park at the celebration of Marina’s 35^th Anniversary, among cultural groups such as Kiwanis International, Youth Leadership Forum of Medicine, Our World Peace Park, and many others. 

People who speak different languages came by and talked to us, Czech, Pashto, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, etc.  People shared with us their experience dealing with interpreters.  We also got interviewed by local TV.

This was a great day to witness our community’s incomparably rich culture diversity.  It’s hard to grasp the significance of the culture mix until you come out and see it for yourself. 

It’s wonderful for Monterey Language Services to be out and reach local resources & make translation and interpretation services accessible to the people in the community. 

The City of Marina, where Monterey Language Services is headquartered, is the 7^th largest multilingual city in the United States. 

On its 35^th anniversary, we would like to wish the City a Happy Birthday in the following languages: Spanish, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, German, Tagalog, Hebrew, Samoan, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese.  Thanks to our many translators who responded quickly to contribute to this special occasion.

Hindi and Turkish just got in:

Hindi – जन्मदिनमुबारकहो!

Turkish – Mutlu Yillar Sana

Happy 35th, City of Marina!

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, being able to speak more than one language can help ward off dementia in old age.  As language professionals, we celebrate the news by sharing it!

“Specifically, the advantages of bilingualism are thought to be related to a brain function known as inhibitory or cognitive control:  the ability to stop paying attention to one thing and focus on something else…  Fluent speakers of more than one language have to use this skill continually to silence one language in their minds while communicating in another.”

Reference:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703794104575545923443462444.html