By Heather Clancy, SmartPlanet

There is a veritable frenzy of mobile application development underway as businesses look to extend their identities and services to smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.

But any company hoping to win over an international audience can make that job significantly easier by planning ahead for the translation process, said Matt Hauser, vice president of technology sales for TransPerfect, which develops linguistics and translation technologies.

“When you are dealing with a mobile app, you don’t have to worry just about the different operating systems, but you also have to deal with the variations in the different handsets,” Hauser said.

TransPerfect is taking on an increasing number of mobile application development projects across 32 different languages, he said. The company’s services included testing across Apple iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows, as well as verification and workflow testing.

One example is a relationship that TransPerfect recently forged with AccuWeather. The weather information service is planning a series of localized mobile applications and it believes translation is a necessity for making these apps more accessible.

“Regardless of where our users are or what type of mobile device they use, we want to be their first choice for accurate weather information,” said Pascal Racheneur, vice president of Interactive Media for AccuWeather, in a statement. “TransPerfect is helping us achieve that goal by translating our metereological information into local languages, which makes it more accessible to a far broader user base than would be possible in only one language.”

Companies can make the process of created localized mobile apps simpler if they consider the following ahead of time, Hauser said.

1. Think carefully about words used to describe menus. In other languages, these words might have unique cultural meanings or they may take up too much space.
2. Keep word counts to a minimum. Some languages, including Spanish, Italian or French can take up to 20 percent or 30 percent more space when translated from English. So a design that works for the English version of the mobile app might look crowded when localized.
3. Get a native-language linguist to test your application. When you test a translated mobile application, you need to pay attention to both the logical workflow as well as whether the application flows well from a linguistic point of view. Find a translator who also has subject-matter expertise related to the application’s target audience.
4. Avoid colloquialisms. Stay away from slang and phrases difficult to translate into another language.
5. Consider navigation. When translating into Arabic or Hebrew, for example, your application will need to read from right to left instead of left to right. Make sure the design template doesn’t get in the way.

1. Language Learning Blogs: blogs about the language learning process, both from the learners and teachers perspective.
2. Language Professionals Blogs: blogs by people using languages in their profession, such as translators or interpreters.
3. Language Facebook Pages: Facebook Pages related to language topics, such as dictionaries, translation tools, language lovers’ communities and more.
4. Language Twitter accounts: Twitterers who share content about languages.

All information on the competition is available here

What’s a fun way to combine OCD with the written word?  Palindromes!  Not to be confused with the dark and depressing Todd Solondz movie, palindromes are words, phrases, or sentences that are spelled the same way forwards and backwards.

We are probably all aware of the classic examples from childhood, when that annoying friend who thought he had stumbled onto a language conspiracy would not stop repeating, “Did you know ‘race car’ spelled backwards is ‘race car’?” Or, even worse, “Hey Matt, ‘A man, a plan, a canal: Panama’!”

While palindromes are a fun way of annoying your friends, they can actually be pretty cool when you find new ones that make sense and are pretty clever.  Even more fun is coming up with your own.  Instead of filling out that Sudoku box on the train, why not try Palindromania! (Sorry, I’m trying to make it catch on).

Here are some palindromes you may or may not have seen before, but I found to be the most clever.  If you know any others, feel free to add your own in the comments section.

A nut for a jar of tuna.

A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.

Dennis, Eve saw Eden if as a fine dew, as Eve sinned.

A Toyota! Race fast, safe car! A Toyota!

Amy, must I jujitsu my ma?

“Desserts, sis?” (Sensuousness is stressed).

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

Borrow or rob?

Cigar? Toss it in a can. It is so tragic.

Desserts I desire not, so long no lost one rise distressed.

Lived on Decaf; faced no Devil.

Devil never even lived.

Are Mac ‘n’ Oliver ever evil on camera?

Do geese see God?

Yo, bottoms up! (U.S. motto, boy.)

Dr. Awkward

Ed, I saw Harpo Marx ram Oprah W. aside.

Yawn…Madonna fan? No damn way!!

Erupt on Naomi? I moan, “Not pure!”

Ron! OH! Sex in a Toyota nixes honor!

Eva, can I stab bats in a cave?

Golf? No sir, prefer prison-flog.

I saw Ed under Deb’s bed; red, nude was I.

Lager, sir, is regal.

“There is so much information out there that isn’t in your native language, some of which reflects cultural viewpoints,” says team member Patti Bao.

The team’s goal is to provide access to all of the online encyclopedia’s wealth of knowledge – not just the paranoia-stoked bits. To do this, Omnipedia exploits the sidebar links between different language editions added by multilingual Wikipedia editors. The system follows these links and analyzes which topics are universal within the subject area and which are particular to each language, and displays them all (see picture, based on Wikipedia’s “New Scientist” entries).

This method of topic analysis is not foolproof: many languages’ “conspiracy theory” entries link to an article about UFOs, for example, but the Spanish Wikipedia does not, even though it has an article about UFOs, entitled objeto volador no identificado. So the team also applies an algorithm that hunts for such missing links.

Omnipedia displays each topic found within a particular article as a circle split into colored segments, each representing the language in which the topic is discussed. Clicking on a circle opens the relevant snippet from the article, which is automatically translated using the Bing Translator service.

Bao and colleagues asked 27 volunteers from a range of linguistic backgrounds to try out Omnipedia. Many said they had not realised how much information was absent in the English Wikipedia, while others were surprised at the breadth of coverage in other languages, such as a Japanese entry on reggae.

“We should always be aware of the inevitable biases in the knowledge we produce and reproduce,” says Mark Graham of the Oxford Internet Institute in the UK, who was not involved with the work. “Omnipedia helps us to do that.”

The team presented the system at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, Texas, last week.

Source: Jacob Aron

CARRION CROWS CAN DIFFERENTIATE between familiar and unfamiliar humans solely by the sound of their voice, according to a new study.

Crows have long been considered crafty, but the new research out of Europe confirms their intelligence, at least in discerning friend from foe.

Scientists played a random selection of familiar and unfamiliar voices saying “hey” to a group of carrion crows (Corvus corone corone) and found that the birds reacted more strongly to the voices of unfamiliar humans – whom they likely see as a potential threat.

When it came to another bird species, however, the crows tuned in more to the familiar calls. Researchers found that crows had a stronger response to jackdaws (Corvus monedula), which shared the same aviaries than those that were unfamiliar to them.

Researcher Claudia Wascher from the University of Vienna, says the results fit in well with what is already known about crows. “Crows have shown remarkable cognitive skills, which are expected to have evolved because of the requirements of living in complex social groups,” she says.

Crows eavesdropping on other species

Crows and other corvid species have recently become known for their cooperative and competitive skills with members of their own species, Claudia says, but the interaction between crows and other species is just as fascinating.

According to behavioural ecologist Rob Magrath from the Australian National University, many animals warn members of their own species about the presence of predators, and often, individuals of other species will “eavesdrop on these calls and so get ‘free’ information about danger.”

“The current research is interesting because it suggests that animals can even recognise the voices of individual members of other species [which] might be helpful in giving extra information, such as whether that individual is a friend or foe, or whether another individual’s alarm call is likely to be reliable or unreliable,” says Rob.

“But [the research is] carried out on aviary birds [and] it is important to look at wild birds, to work out exactly what benefits animals get from recognising individuals of other species.”

The human-crow relationship

The new research, published in the journal Animal Cognition, confirms just how intelligent crows are.

“The fact that crows can recognise familiar humans is something which most people who know crows would have observed at some point,” says Claudia.

But the relationship between humans and crows is typically a tense one, with crows being considered a pest in many regions of the world. This dislike of crows may have sped up the development of the bird’s ability to recognise “dangerous” humans, says Claudia.

Crows as intelligent as chimpanzees?

Behavioural ecologist Darryl Jones and his PhD student Matthew Brown from Griffith University believe that crows possess intelligence comparable to that of chimpanzees, with the added benefit of having a completely different brain structure to mammals.

“Understanding what kind of clever behaviours crows are capable of could (and indeed already has) completely change our view of how brains work,” says Darryl.

They also say the study shows these crows are not only recognising familiar calls but also using this recognition together with knowledge of other species to determine how to react.

“This study also comes just over a year after the Americans discovered crows are able to recognise and remember individual human faces,” says Matthew. “Next time you see a crow, try to remember its face and its voice, because it will probably be able to remember yours.”

Source: Jenna Hanson, Australian Geographic

Milton Fingerman, who, as a GI during World War II, was an interpreter for the cadaverous survivors of Dachau when that death camp was liberated, died Monday at East Jefferson General Hospital. He was 90. Those who knew Mr. Fingerman, a retired clothing buyer who had worked for stores such as Lord’s and Krauss during the 52 years he lived in New Orleans, said he was a kind, gentle man who loved children and was a longtime holder of New Orleans Saints season tickets, a volunteer at his synagogue and the Aquarium of the Americas and a member of the Krewe of Caesar.

But in the spring of 1945, Mr. Fingerman, a native of New York City who held an associate degree from the City College of New York, was a staff sergeant in the Army’s 20th Armored Division. One of the division’s companies liberated Dachau, the concentration camp where thousands upon thousands of people — there is no reliable number — had perished. Mr. Fingerman arrived at the camp about two hours later.

Because he could speak Yiddish, he volunteered to be an interpreter for the survivors. The experience of being in the camp and talking to the inmates, many of whom were too weak to stand, about what they had endured haunted him for the rest of his life, friends and family members said.

“They spoke to us, but it wasn’t what they said that mattered,” Mr. Fingerman said in a 1995 interview. “It was the way they looked — how thin, how drawn. Emaciated would be the word. They looked like walking skeletons. You wouldn’t think they had enough strength to move around, but they managed.

“Their voices said one thing; their eyes said something else. Their voices said … thank you. … But their eyes — their eyes were dead. When you looked into their eyes, you saw death there. Like somebody looking without seeing. What I saw in their eyes, the ones I interviewed, was a look that I don’t want to see again.”

When Mr. Fingerman went into the Army, he was a typical, carefree young man who had been interested in golf, dating and having a good time, said Cathy Fingerman, his daughter-in-law.

But, she said, Mr. Fingerman felt that being at Dachau “had changed him from a carefree teenager … into a man. The things he saw that people could do to each other, those images stayed with him a long time. They were so shocking that he couldn’t bring himself to talk about them.”

In recent years, Cathy Fingerman said, her father-in-law started talking about being at Dachau. Last year, he spoke about it at a service that his temple, Shir Chadash Synagogue, held during Memorial Day weekend to honor veterans.

In that speech, Rabbi Ethan Linden said, Mr. Fingerman “realized that a lot of the people he was seeing (in the camp) were Jews, just like him, and he realized that if he had been born in a different time and place, he could have been in the camp.

“One of the lessons he drew from that was to take care of people even if they weren’t there in front of him.

“For those of us who were there to hear him talk, it was a classic Milton Fingerman talk. He saw himself as someone who had never done anything noteworthy. He told this story so matter-of-factly, as if he were just another person doing his job, that it was really powerful.”

Survivors include his wife, Roslyn Weissman Fingerman; a son, Dr. Irwin Fingerman of Birmingham, Ala.; a daughter, Ellen Fingerman of Arlington, Va., and three grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Wednesday at 3 p.m. at Shir Chadash Synagogue, 3737 W. Esplanade Ave., Metairie. Visitation will begin at 2:30 p.m.

Burial will be in Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, N.Y.

Tharp-Sontheimer Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Samuel Beckett, born in a suburb of Dublin in 1906, was a native English speaker. However, in 1946 Beckett decided that he would begin writing exclusively in French. After composing the first draft in his second language, he would then translate these words back into English. This difficult constraint – forcing himself to consciously unpack his own sentences – led to a burst of genius, as many of Beckett’s most famous works (Malloy, Malone Dies, Waiting for Godot, etc.) were written during this period. When asked why he wrote first in French, Beckett said it made it easier for him to “write without style.”

Beckett would later expand on these comments, noting that his use of French prevented him from slipping into his usual writerly habits, those crutches of style that snuck into his English prose. Instead of relying on the first word that leapt into consciousness – that most automatic of associations – he was forced by his second language to reflect on what he actually wanted to express. His diction became more intentional.

There’s now some neat experimental proof of this Beckettian strategy. In a recent paper published in Psychological Science, a team of psychologists led by Boaz Keysar at the University of Chicago found that forcing people to rely on a second language systematically reduced human biases, allowing the subjects to escape from the usual blind spots of cognition. In a sense, they were better able to think without style.

The paper is a tour-de-force of cross-cultural comparison, as the scientists conducted six experiments on three continents (n > 600) in five different languages: English, Korean, French, Spanish and Japanese. Although all subjects were proficient in their second language, they were not “balanced bilingual.”

The experiments themselves relied on classic paradigms borrowed from prospect theory, in which people are asked to make decisions under varying conditions of uncertainty and risk. For instance, native English speakers in Chicago who had learned Spanish in the classroom were given a $15 stake. Then, they were asked to make various bets based on a coin toss: if they correctly picked heads or tails, they would win $1.50, while an incorrect guess would cost them $1. From a rational perspective, these bets are a smart wager – a subject who chooses to bet on all fifteen trials would most likely come out far ahead.

But people aren’t rational creatures. When thinking in English, students only chose to bet 54 percent of their time; their fear of losses kept them from properly assessing the situation. However, when the same options were described in Spanish, subjects made significantly better decisions, choosing to place bets 71 percent of the time.

The scientists also found that thinking in a second language reduced our cognitive inconsistencies. Consider this scenario, pioneered by the great psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:

The U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows: If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved. If program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved. Which of the two programs would you favor?

When this question was put to a large sample of physicians, 72 percent chose option A, the safe-and-sure strategy, and only 28 percent chose program B, the risky strategy. In other words, physicians would rather save a certain number of people for sure than risk the possibility that everyone might die. But what about this scenario:

The U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows: If program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die. Which of the two programs would you favor?

When the scenario was described in terms of deaths instead of survivors, physicians reversed their previous decision. Only 22 percent voted for option C, while 78 percent of them opted for option D, the risky strategy.

Of course, this is a ridiculous shift in preference. The two different questions examine identical dilemmas; saving one third of the population is the same as losing two thirds. And yet, doctors reacted very differently depending on how the question was framed. When the possible outcomes were stated in terms of deaths – this is the “loss frame” – physicians were suddenly eager to take chances. They were so determined to avoid any alternative associated with a loss that they were willing to risk losing everything.

It turns out, however, that thinking bilingually can dramatically reduce this bias. When 121 American students were given a version of the scenario above, nearly 80 percent chose the safe option, just like those doctors. However, when the same situation was placed in a loss frame, that number plummeted to 47 percent. So far, so obvious: we are consistently inconsistent creatures.

But when native English speakers were presented with the same problem in Japanese, the inconsistency vanished. In both frames, the number of people choosing the safer option was just over 40 percent.

It’s worth pointing out that these results are somewhat surprising. After all, one could also speculate that forcing people to think in a second language would consume scarce mental resources, thus making it harder to select the “rational” option. We’d be so distracted by our lack of fluency that we’d become even more reliant on our short-sighted instincts. Such a result would support reams of research showing that increasing the “cognitive load” of subjects can increase their bias.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, the psychologists found that the reduced emotional valence of a second language – the words aren’t so weighted with feeling – made it easier to resist the tug of loss aversion. (Similar results have been achieved with neurological patients who, after suffering a serious brain injury, are unable to experience any emotion at all.) The scientists argue that second-language thinking can systematically improve decision-making: “People who routinely make decisions in a foreign language might be less biased in their savings, investment and retirement decisions,” they write. “Over a long time horizon, this might very well be beneficial.” Given the known costs of loss aversion among financial traders – it’s a huge issue – perhaps it’s time that those on Wall Street begin thinking in a non-native tongue. If I were a risk manager at J.P. Morgan, I’d start recruiting bilingual employees.

This is only the latest study to capture the power of bilingualism. For instance, children raised in bilingual households show increased levels of self-control and appear better at learning abstract rules and ignoring irrelevant information. (These benefits seem to exist as early as 7 months of age.) Other studies have demonstrated that people who speak two languages are diagnosed with dementia, on average, about four years later than people who only speak one language. There are some confounding variables here, of course: it takes a certain kind of smarts to learn multiple forms of expression, and those smarts might act as a cognitive buffer. And yet, even when intelligence is controlled for, interesting differences persist.

What’s behind these benefits? The answer appears to involve the extra processing triggered by holding multiple languages inside the head. Several studies using different methodologies have found that the brains of bilinguals typically activate both languages when communicating, even when only one language is relevant. This additional activity is not always helpful, which is why bilinguals are often slightly slower at retrieving their words from the depths of memory.

Nevertheless, learning how to cope with this constant interference – having to toggle back and forth between different forms of description – comes with lasting benefits. (A similar logic explains why people with Tourette’s also exhibit enhanced cognitive control. Because they are constantly attempting to control their tics, they also learn how to restrain those impulses they’d like to do without. Practice makes perfect.)

Samuel Beckett argued that the constraints imposed by a second language were inseparable from its benefits. He was right. It’s always easier to think with those words we know so well. But sometimes we need that pause of incomprehension, that blink of doubt that occurs when we encounter a verb tense we don’t recognize or an adjective with an unclear set of connotations. Language isn’t just the stuff of thought – it can also make our thoughts better.

And yet, let’s not get too practical here. Lera Boroditsky, a psychologist at Stanford who has done some fascinating work on how language shapes thought, pointed out in an email that the real benefits of bilingualism far exceed the marginal cognitive edge captured in these studies:

There is one very important advantage of learning other languages that I think beats any gains in cognitive control or delays in the onset of dementia. When you learn other languages you can then actually speak those languages, read those literatures, talk to new people in their native language, eaves-drop on their conversations on the bus, order off the menu, pick up that gorgeous stranger in the piazza.  I think that’s cooler than having a few extra points on the Wisconsin card-sorting task.

Source: Wired.com

“Our device is all about providing extreme accuracy and very timely service,” said Mat Johnson, founder and CEO of GeaCom Inc., which produces a device called the Phrazer out of the seventh floor of the Dewitt-Seitz building in Canal Park. “I could see the Phrazer and interpreters working together.”

The Phrazer is a handheld instrument that allows a patient to answer questions to quickly provide caregivers with the vital information they need, Johnson said. It can be programmed in any language to bridge the gap between, for instance, a patient who speaks only Hmong and a doctor who speaks only English.

Johnson outlined a scenario in which the Phrazer might be used:

An Asian woman seeks help in an emergency room, but the staff has no idea what language she speaks.

“Historically, you’re in for a problem right away,” Johnson said. “You can’t begin to treat somebody until you’ve figured out what her language is.”

But the Phrazer is programmed to identify a person’s language. As soon as it determines that the patient is Laotian, an actor depicting a Laotian doctor appears on the screen in front of her and instructs her in the process. She responds by pressing simple keys for “yes” and “no.”

The Phrazer measures the patient’s vital signs without anyone having to touch her, Johnson said. It will guide her to one of four major categories of triage. She will see an Asian female body on the screen and be asked to touch the area or areas on the body where she has concerns. By touching the screen, she’ll be able to describe the pain in detail. Listening through an ear bud, the caregiver will hear something like: “Stabbing pain, lower left quadrant, sudden onset, high degree.”

The information is connected directly to the hospital or clinic’s electronic medical records system.

It’s not just about languages.

“We’re just here to bridge the gap between patients and caregivers,” said Jon Oja, marketing coordinator for GeaCom. “It’s not necessarily a translating system. It’s more of a communication system.”

A patient need not be literate to use a Phrazer. And even when language or literacy aren’t issues, the Phrazer can eliminate errors and allow caregivers to bypass the routine part of an examination and focus more quickly on the patients’ problems, Johnson said.

Karen Arthur, whose Clarity Interpreting Services provides human interpreters, said she’s sees a role for a Phrazer, such as in an ambulance on the way to the emergency room. But she thinks it would have limits.

“Out of people’s brains come all kinds of expressions and combinations of words,” Arthur said. “That would be a challenge for a tool like that.”

Added John Atella, who interprets between Mandarin and English: “A tool couldn’t see body language. It couldn’t understand culture.”

But the Phrazer is programmed with painstaking attention to cultural and language nuances, said Zach Anderson, manager of content and software integration. The script is first translated into the needed language by a medical translation company. It is videotaped in a studio — either in Duluth or Minneapolis — by a medical interpreter. If the interpreter doesn’t agree with the wording, it can be recorded both ways. The result is sent to yet another expert for quality checking and final decisions.

The device isn’t programmed with a set number of languages, Oja said. Instead, it’s programmed within four to six weeks to meet the needs of the purchaser. “Basically, we have our setup, and that can be translated into any language,” he said.

The Phrazer is assembled in St. Peter, Minn. The devices are typically leased for $600 a month, Johnson said. The company expects to ship between 6,000 and 10,000 Phrazers this year.

He declined to say how many employees GeaCom has.

“We’re going from research and development to sales and marketing,” Johnson said. “It’s a roller coaster moving slowly upward. We can finally start stabilizing.”

Source: Duluth News Tribune

Effective translation and interpreting are both vital assets to global businesses looking to seek growth in rapidly expanding economies, such as Brazil, China and India. However, there are many distinct differences between these two disciplines and it’s important to establish the right service for your needs when embarking on a multilingual project.

Put most simply, translation deals with the written word, while interpreting deals with the spoken word. Translators and interpreters are not interchangeable, and the two disciplines are very different. Each is a profession in its own right and specialists hold different skills, expertise and specializations.

Another myth is that anyone who speaks two languages can translate written material from one to the other, or can interpret spoken language from one to the other. Being fluent in a language and having the capacity to translate or interpret into or from that language are very different things. An English speaker is not necessarily a good writer or a good communicator; a bilingual person is not necessarily trained/qualified to interpret or translate. Good translators and interpreters usually translate into their native language and have gone through rigorous training, education and qualification processes for that purpose.

Translator vs. interpreter – which specialist skills do you need?

Translation and interpreting are very different but share one common theme. Both aim to communicate the message and the tone of the original content into a different language. Translation is usually required for a written leaflet, instruction manual, a website or even a business email correspondence, while an interpreter is usually required in a hospital for patient explanation, training course, a speech or a meeting.

What makes a good translation?

High quality translations read like an original document, rather than as a translation of an original document. For example, a legal document that has been translated well will hold as much ‘authenticity’ in the legal world as the original. High quality translation ensures that along with the meaning of the source document, its tone and register are also communicated to the new readership. Expertise in the nuances of both the source and target languages is essential, allowing the translator to use grammar and style tools to accurately convey messages to international readers.

What makes a good interpreting?

Interpreting is a more customer-facing, quick-thinking profession, which does not allow for consultation or research and demands a high level of initiative and diplomacy.

Whether interpreting in a meeting between international partners, interpreting for a speaker at a conference or working in a training situation, an interpreter takes on the voice of the speaker. He is required to convey the speaker’s messages with the same level of intensity while commanding the same authority. He will never add his own opinion or views and will use his own intuition to respond rapidly to challenging situations.

Lastly, some tips on getting the most from translating and interpreting services.

When dealing with a translation provider:

• Make sure the source language used in your documents is complete
• Ensure you seek out a language service provider (LSP) who has qualified native speakers of the target language
• Ask for references, number of years of experience and subject matter expertise if deemed necessary

When dealing with interpreters:

• Brief your interpreter as far ahead of a job as possible
• Make sure everyone involved in an event or meeting knows of the interpreter’s involvement
• Ask for client referrals and/or testimonials

For both translation and interpreting, check to see if the potential service provider has the required quality accreditation, such as ISO and EN quality standards and membership of professionals associations.

Source: Kontax