The day after the Super Bowl is typically filled with water-cooler chatter about our favorite commercials, the successes and failures of the halftime show (this year there were no wardrobe malfunctions, just one big middle finger), National Anthem, the broadcast, its announcers, and if there’s anytime left, perhaps even some quick commentary about the quality of the football game itself. Since by now we have all been over-exposed with Super Bowl hype, we thought we’d share some interesting tidbits you may have not heard until now.

* Hispanics make up just about one percent of the players in the NFL these days, and Puerto Ricans are just a fraction of that number. Even so, last night we were guaranteed to have a Puerto Rican coming off the field with a Super Bowl ring (not literally, those monstrosities will be ordered in the Spring). Patriots’ tight end Aaron Hernandez hails from Puerto Rico, as does the Giants’ Victor Cruz.

* Cruz, who likes to Salsa after his touchdown catches, turned down an opportunity to be on Dancing with the Stars (true story).

* The average Super Bowl party was attended by 17 people.

* According to the NFL, the Super Bowl was broadcast to 232 countries and territories worldwide in 34 different languages.

* Thanks to Sirius, the game could also be heard in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and French.

* We have some staff with NY roots — they are very happy today and will undoubtedly share their joy with the rest of our non-partisan team members.

A few of them even follow football more than they follow futbol, too!

See? Everybody wins.

Does being bilingual make you a qualified translator?

Anyone who knows me knows that my answer to that question is a big, hearty “no.”

This Psychology Today blog post, “Desperately Seeking a Final Translation,” offers a fascinating read on the difficulties of translating and the importance of specialized training in the art and science of translation.

The author, François Grosjean, Ph.D., explains it well:

“Translators must express in one language, in as faithful a way as possible, the meaning and the style of the text in another language. This entails fully understanding the original text in the ‘source language’ and having the necessary transfer skills, as well as the linguistic, stylistic and cultural skills in the target language to produce a correct translation.”

He goes on to say:

“Translators are very much ‘special bilinguals,’ and translation is definitely a difficult bilingual skill.”

This is especially true with a subject like healthcare.  My family moved to the United States from Argentina when I was in junior high.  My parents never really mastered English, so as a child I was often called upon to interpret for my family members.  When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, it was difficult for him to understand the information given to him.  Without a full understanding of the medical terminology and cultural nuances of both languages, it’s impossible to convey the true meaning of the life-and-death information being communicated. That’s one reason I’m so passionate about being able to bridge the linguistic and cultural barriers in any setting.  It’s the only way we can take this terrifying and unfamiliar world and make it familiar.

Since those are the stakes, I wholeheartedly agree that being bilingual is not enough.

Have you ever been called on to interpret or translate something simply because you’re bilingual?  Or, have you ever had to enlist the help of someone who is bilingual, but not a trained translator?  How did it work out?  We’d love to hear your experiences.

–George

Malaysia’s defense ministry has recently used Google Translate’s free translation tool to translate their official website from Malaysian to English. As a result (of course) many of the words were mistranslated, often humorously, much to the chagrin of Malaysian officials.

Defense minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi admitted the inaccurate translations caused much embarrassment to the ministry, Malaysia’s The Star reported. “We have corrected the mistakes and translations are no longer done that way. “It is now done manually,” Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said here yesterday.

But not before many of the more humorous translations made it around Facebook and Twitter.

One such example was the phrase “pakaian yang menjolok mata,” which means revealing clothes in Bahasa Malaysia, which was translated as “clothes that poke eye.”

Another was the brief summary of the ministry’s history on the website: “After the withdrawal of British army, the Malaysian Government take drastic measures to increase the level of any national security threat.”

Welcome to the new ISI blog!

This has been quite a year so far, and it’s only half over. We’ve been busy with so many exciting changes – new office, more business, additional staff. As we launch yet another change – our new website – it seemed like a great time to start a blog.
One goal we have for ISI is to reach out regularly to share news and insights that will help you comply with translation requirements and use language to expand your businesses.
We’ve started doing that through email newsletters and via our Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ISITranslations). And now here we are with a blog.
We study and immerse ourselves in the culture of language, and we just can’t help but share some of the interesting nuggets we find.
Is there anything about translation or localization that you want to know? Anything about a particular language or culture? Let us know and we’ll do our best. Otherwise, watch this space!

–George Rimalower