The Voice of LingoTech
10 MORE Untranslatable Words…For English!
Feb 22nd
Last week I did a repost by Jason Wire on MatadorNetwork listing 20 awesomely untranslatable words from around the world. Since it garnered so much interest, I wanted to revisit the idea and do a little research to come up with a new list of untranslatable words, this time for English.
HERE ARE A FEW examples of ‘lacunas’ whose roots may have derived from other languages, but are inherently 100% English.
10. Kitsch
Something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste.
Taken from the German word meaning “trash”, leave it to Americans to come up with a new meaning for the word that describes an American taste all its own. So all those velvet Elvis Presley pictures, inflatable neon green lawn chairs and Back Street Boys throw pillow covers with matching curtains are kitsch?? Yup, I’m afraid so. (dictionary.com)
Why Translation Cloud is going to be the Next Babel Tower?
Feb 21st
Tower of Babel, Translation Cloud
We live in an imperfect world. The MTA subway doesn’t run on schedule. It constantly betrays the lives of thousands of passengers and makes the hopes of getting from point A to point B as safely and as quickly as possible just a mere dream.
I live in the imperfect world too. Just like any human being, I see that things don’t work out and that I can’t always take my life too seriously. If I did, perhaps, I’d either commit suicide or go crazy and get sentenced to schizophrenia clinic!
And, of course, there’s always language translation. If you believe that you will build an amazon.com-like, easy-to-use online language translation tool and make a lot of money, I am going to disappoint you. 99.99% of the time it is not going to happen. At least not in Amazon’s way. And not with language itself.
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Hyperpolyg-WHAT?!
Feb 21st
Hyperpolyglot – one who can speak six or more languages fluently.
For many people, learning another language seems like a daunting, boring, only-do-it-if-it’s-necessary sort of task. We got through either Spanish or French or German in school, and haven’t used a lick of it since. Even in countries like the UK, the number of people learning a second language have dropped considerably ever since the government made learning a foreign language optional in England past the age of 14.
Even in this age of globalization, multiculturalism, immigration, and diversity, it seems multilingualism is falling by the wayside. Is it because even though we have never been more diverse, we have also never been more cut off from one another?
Due in part to computers and the internet, most of the social activities that were done face to face before, are now done in the solitude of our own homes. Instead of talking to people on the bus or sidewalk, we are listening to our iPods, lost in our own heads. Even if we need to communicate with someone who speaks another language, we have technology like machine translators and apps that will be able to provide us with the basics to get by without having to have the knowledge ourselves.
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7 Funny Translation Mistakes, In No Particular Order
Feb 20th
As we all know, language can be a tricky beast. Oftentimes, words or phrases can have different meanings not just in different languages, but even within different regions in the same country. Language is a social construct, and therefore, dependent upon society to give it context. More often then not, this can lead to meaning getting lost in translation whenever you try to bring one concept into a society that is unfamiliar with it. Add on top of this, failure to do research, faulty translators, machine translators, or just downright cost-cutting measures and you have a recipe for some bad (albeit hilarious) translations.
1. Pepsi, the Zombie-Maker!
In the early 1970s, Pepsi-Cola introduced a new catch phrase to promote its product: ‘Come Alive!’. Sounds good in English, but the problems ‘arose’ (pun intended) when Pepsi took the campaign slogan overseas. In Germany the phrase meant, ‘Rise from the grave with Pepsi!’ In China the phrase meant, ‘Pepsi brings back your ancestors!’ It’s common knowledge cola can erode a penny, but who would have thought it had supernatural powers as well!
Translation Cloud Releases API for Developers In Its Updated Version 2.5
Feb 14th
Translation Cloud, http://www.translationcloud.net, the application created by Translation Services USA, is an automated system for real time translations via a crowdsourced community of translators. This week, Translation Cloud opens its API to developers and issues new updates to its existing system.
The latest changes to Translation Cloud include altering the code to provide a more robust algorithm for crowdsourcing as well as a new and improved Translation Rank system. The new Translation Rank system now ranks the translators on a scale of 1-50, providing a more detailed and secure evaluation of linguistic accuracy. This improved quality control system helps to prevent scammers from taking advantage of the program, ensuring only qualified translators can contribute.
With the release of version 2.5 comes another big milestone in the continued success of Translation Cloud. Recently, the program reached 10,000 qualified translators signed up in the system. Right from the start, Translation Cloud has consistently attracted more and more new translators to its increasing community. However, according to Alex Buran, CEO and founder of Translation Cloud, the goal has only been 10% achieved.
20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words From Around the World
Feb 6th
This post is a re-post by Jason Wire on MatadorNetwork On October 9, 2010
There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English – or any language – could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive.
HERE ARE A FEW examples of instances where other languages have found the right word and English simply falls speechless.
1. Toska
Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
2. Mamihlapinatapei
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start” (Altalang.com)
3. Jayus
Indonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh” (Altalang.com)
Will The Telugu Language Soon Be Dead?
Feb 1st
According to a law laid by the UN, if less than 1/3 of the state population does not use the state language then it is declared a ‘dead language’. Ironically, today less than 1/3 of the Hyderabadi population does not use Telugu as a medium to communicate. This trend has scholars worried that the language will soon be declared officially dead. 
“Out of the 250 students in my school only 40 chose Telugu as their second language. Right from the schooling stage Telugu is being neglected. Parents do not guide their children well. They themselves choose Hindi, as they believe that it will be useful if they move to any other state. But if parents continue to do this, then how will the child learn the importance of our mother tongue. The management is also under the impression that as more number of students are opting for Hindi why give importance to Telugu. Every year several publishers send books to our school but none come from the Telugu department. We hardly have any Telugu books in our library,” laments Padma Sree, Telugu teacher at Pallavi High School, Secunderabad.
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Twitter Adds Arabic Language
Jan 31st
Twitter announced last week that they were working on adding Right to Left languages, starting with Arabic, Persian (Farsi), Hebrew and Urdu to their website by this Spring.
These additions are thanks in large part to the @supportarabic campaign, and the fact that according to a study by Paris-based agency Semiocast, Arabic is the fastest growing language on Twitter. Out of 180 million tweets posted daily, 2.2 million were posted in Arabic, amounting to an astonishing 2,000% increase in 12 months.
The @supportarabic account holds over six thousand followers and the Support Arabic campaign has over five thousand members, pressuring the social media company to meet the demand. Support Arabic have supported their demands on their website, by saying: “It is one of the oldest languages, the official language of more than 22 countries and spoken by 350 million people around the world. Many languages have borrowed vocabulary from Arabic and that makes it a source language.”
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Twitter Selling Out to Censorship Pressure?
Jan 30th
In a controversial step, Twitter announced its new censorship plan to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.
This comes as quite a big shock and disappointment to those in other oppressive countries, where there is no freedom of speech. Recently, Twitter has played a pivotal role in many political protests, in particular the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and Syria; countries where Twitter is often the only outlet many citizens have of being able to communicate freely. Censoring them on Twitter would be like turning your back on them, ostensibly pulling away the life preserver from someone who is struggling to survive.
Due to this, many of the tweets calling for a boycott of Twitter on Saturday – using the hashtag (hash)TwitterBlackout – came from the Middle East. “This decision is really worrying,” said Larbi Hilali, a pro-democracy blogger and tweeter from Morocco. “If it is applied, there will be a Twitter for democratic countries and a Twitter for the others.”
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Mobile Smartling to the Rescue!
Jan 27th
At a recent New York Tech Meetup, Smartling‘s Sales VP Matt DeLoca introduced the company’s next BIG venture: Going small. Smartling has decided to enter the mobile platform to localize languages on mobile apps.
You have to give CEO Jack Welde credit. Hitting the mobile front with translation services is a stroke of business genius. In a market that’s already over flooded with useless apps, now with Smartling’s help, those apps can be available to just about everyone. As most people are aware, unless your app is listed on the first few pages in the app store, chances are likely that only a few people will ever come across your app, much less download it. But with Smartling’s help, those apps now have the unique chance to be overlooked in over 50 languages!
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