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New laws to promote the Welsh language

The BBC recently published an article on a bid by the Welsh Assembly Government for more powers to make laws to promote the Welsh language. Read the full text of the article below:

A bid by the Welsh Assembly Government for more powers to make laws to promote the Welsh language has been published.

The legislative competence order (LCO) includes the right to require some private companies to use the language, including energy and telecoms firms.

But some MPs may resist the idea that using Welsh could become a legal requirement for private firms, and the bid was criticised by business leaders.

This LCO is a key part of the Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition agreement.

Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said the transfer of powers was needed “so that we are better able to secure our goal of creating a truly bilingual Wales”.

South Wales Chamber of Commerce managing director David Russ warned that “requiring private companies to embrace the Welsh language wholeheartedly would be particularly thoughtless during these tough times”.

However, Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy stressed “the detail of this draft legislative competence order is not set in stone”.

The LCO is the first stage in passing a Welsh law (measure) and seeks to give the assembly government more powers over the Welsh language.

If the LCO is approved the assembly government will introduce a measure (Welsh law) on the matter.

Before it is approved it has to be scrutinised by both the Welsh assembly and Westminster.

The process of drawing it up has taken a year longer than planned.

The LCO would allow the assembly government potentially to bring a wide range of organisations under the provisions of the Welsh Language Act 1993.

The private companies which could be compelled to treat Welsh and English equally include gas, water and electricity services, telecommunication services - including mobile phone companies - and railway operators.

BT called for clarification, saying it would prefer the existing voluntary system to continue and could not see the benefits of legislation.

The move could also mean any company which provides services to the public under an agreement with a public authority, like a contract with the assembly government or council, could be compelled to provide those services bilingually.

Mr Jones said the assembly was the “appropriate place” to make laws on the language.

He said: “Westminster passed three laws on the Welsh language during the last century, the last occasion was in 1993.

“With the existence now of the national assembly, it is unlikely to introduce another one.

“We need to make sure that any legislation is suitable for the 21st Century, and allows the assembly to make decisions that secure the development and sustainability of the Welsh language”.

But Mr Russ insisted that “the last thing that businesses in Wales need at the moment is unwanted regulation saddling them with additional costs”.

“Whether or not to use the Welsh language should remain a matter of choice for private companies,” he said.

Lingua franca

“Legislation is not the right way to encourage the adoption of Welsh and more effort should be made to quantify the business benefits of using the language.

“Successful businesses evolve to meet the needs of their customers and, if providing services in both Welsh and English proves more beneficial than just using the lingua franca, the take up of Welsh by companies will inevitably increase.

Mr Russ said that while customers’ rights to deal with businesses through the medium of Welsh “must be respected”, business should have the right to “opt-out of any proposed Welsh language initiatives”.

Several Labour MPs have privately expressed scepticism about extending the scope of current language legislation to the private sector.

Welsh Conservative heritage spokesman Paul Davies said his party would study the plans “in detail”.

“While we remain committed to supporting the Welsh language - as we set out in our 2007 assembly manifesto - we do not want to see any barriers erected to businesses in Wales which would damage investment and competitiveness, particularly at a time of economic recession,” he said.

Mr Murphy promised a “transparent debate on the implications of the proposed order, especially at this time of economic downturn”.

He said he had been “approached by business leaders” who were “keen to discuss issues relating to the proposed order”.

But any serious weakening of the order would cause tension between Cardiff Bay and Westminster.

Any changes may also cause problems between the two coalition partners in the Welsh assembly.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, a Welsh language pressure group, challenged the assembly government to be more ambitious in its requests for further powers.

Chair Menna Machreth said: “Even though there are many things about the LCO to be welcomed, the Welsh Assembly Government has prevented the people of Wales from gaining access to the Welsh language because of the absence of comprehensive statutory rights in the LCO.

“The Welsh Assembly Government has erected large ‘no entry’ signs preventing access to large areas of the private sector.”

Ms Machreth promised a “new period of campaigning” on the language, demanding a “measure that is strong, transparent and just”.

Further information on this article can be found here.

The Importance of Checking

The Guardian newspaper recently reported that Welsh drivers have been treated to a bilingual road sign informing them that “I am out of the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated”.

In fact, the Welsh translation should have informed drivers that there was “No entry for heavy goods vehicles”.

What seems to have happened is that following Swansea council’s request to their in-house translator to have the sign translated; an automatic email response set up by the absent translator was received, stating “I am out of the office at the moment”. Staff mistakenly thought this was the correct translation and had the sign printed.

The council has taken down the sign after Welsh speakers informed them of the mistake.

This highlights the importance of having translations checked before they are published.

At Syntacta we can provide accurate translations from English into Welsh or from Welsh into English. Please contact us for more details.

We’re Moving!

We are delighted to announce that from Monday 2nd June 2008, Syntacta will be providing translation, interpreting and typesetting services from shiny new offices at the Basepoint Business Centre in Swindon.

Please make a note of our new phone and fax numbers as well as our new postal address. Our email addresses will remain the same.

Unit 81
Basepoint Business Centre
Rivermead Drive
Swindon
SN5 7EX

Tel: 08 444 121 830

Fax: 01 793 608 796

We hope to make a smooth transition to Basepoint on Friday 30th May. And we’d like to extend an open invitation to clients, translators and members of University of Bath staff - if you’re ever in the area and in need of refreshment, please feel free to call in for a coffee and a chat!

Best wishes from the Syntacta team

Patently obvious

In April, the Financial Times reported that efforts were underway to establish a single intellectual property right, giving the holder protection in all 27 countries of the European Union.

The so-called “community patent” has proved to be a stumbling block in the past, causing difficulties for entrepreneurs and companies alike, leading them to fight separate legal battles in individual countries. This expensive process has also led to conflicting decisions in various national courts.

Part of the plan will be to offer machine translations of patents in all 23 official EU languages. For the set-up costs of a few million euros, these machine translations could then be output at the touch of a button.

Of course, the translations wouldn’t be legally binding and would be solely for information purposes – most litigation would be carried out in French, German or English.

Syntacta is able to offer accurate translations of patents in almost any language, produced by human translators. Just call or email for a quotation and we’ll do the rest.

The whole article is available here.

Chinese – differences between Mandarin and Cantonese

Following Gordon Brown’s business trip to China recently and his proposal to increase trade with China to a value of £30 billion by 2010, we thought it would be useful to provide our customers with some information on the main languages used in China.

About a fifth of the world’s population speak some form of Chinese, so it’s important to prepare your copy in the correct language for your target market.

Let’s look first at written Chinese. 

When ordering a translation into Chinese you’ll be asked whether you want Simplified or Traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China and was introduced in 1949 with the goal of improving literacy rates. Outside of mainland China - Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan -Traditional Chinese is used. This form uses a greater number of strokes than the Simplified variant and consists of up to 40,000 characters.

Now let’s have a look at spoken Chinese. 

In China there are a number of regional dialects, but the two we normally receive enquiries about are Mandarin and Cantonese. Like the written form, the difference is partly geographical. Mandarin is spoken in mainland China and is the official language of the Republic of China. Cantonese, on the other hand, is spoken in Guangdong (Canton) and Guangxi provinces in mainland China, as well as in Hong Kong and Macao.  Many overseas Chinese communities in Europe, North America and Australia also speak Cantonese.

Here’s a simple summary which may help:

If you’re thinking of doing business in this part of the world, Syntacta can help.  We work with an increasing number of Chinese mother tongue translators and interpreters who are professionally qualified and experienced in specialised areas of business. We can help you get your message across and guide you through linguistic minefield with confidence.

Just call 01793 328895 for more information.

The Shadowy Life of the Translator

Who was it again who said that translators are the unsung heroes of civilisation, making possible the exchange of ideas, facilitating cross-fertilisation between cultures, even eras?  It certainly sounds and feels good, but as I sit musing about the past year in my life as a translator I feel more like a faithful shadow, a kind of honourable impersonator. 

Let’s see, whose shadow have I been this year?  I’ve shown Snowdon to thousands of tourists, and pointed out the best exhibitions and concerts in London to Dutch visitors, I’ve held the hand of a surgeon implanting a gastric band in an obese patient, I’ve installed an in-car entertainment system, helped thousands of people check-in automatically in Heathrow and been a Belgian customs officer intercepting some illegal diamonds.  

Who says it’s boring sitting behind your computer typing all day? 

Dr Lies Blom-Smith

Dutch Translator

Festive greetings in foreign languages

With the Christmas and New Year celebrations just around the corner, many businesses may be thinking about sending a greetings message to their foreign contacts in their own language.

This is another area where Syntacta can help.  Whether you want to wish your suppliers in Germany a Happy Christmas or your clients in Japan a Happy New Year, it couldn’t be easier.

We can translate the greetings for you and supply them in a range of formats including EPS, PDF, Quark and InDesign.  Simply call the number below or send an email and we’ll do the rest.

An Article on Machine Translation

By Sarah Scott

These days, almost anything can be done on the internet, from booking a holiday to tracking down a new job. But while computers and the internet have gone a long way to make translators’ jobs easier by providing communication and research tools at the touch of a button, it seems that there is still no substitute for the human brain when it comes to providing clear and readable translations from one language into another.

At first glance, machine translation provides the ideal tool for companies or individuals who need to translate text, being instant and, importantly, free. However, translators need not lose any sleep over the thought of computers taking their jobs, with machine translations often providing text only fit to make the user smile, for example this description of a Spanish hotel website:

“Comfortable and reasonable hotel located to the entrance of the city of Alfaro, that counts on manifold attractive tourist like the Colegiata of San Miguel, on that emphasizes more than 150 nests of storks.”  As amusing as the image of attractive tourists covered in storks’ nests may be, this is hardly very informative for potential visitors.

When it comes to providing help and instruction, machine translation usually does just the opposite - how many people could find their way to this Spanish city with this translation of the directions?

“Villa de Peñafiel is the center of the Region, located in a culture and crossroads, to 56 km of the vallisoletana capital, in direction this, to 35 minutes.”

At Syntacta we’ve been asked occasionally about our experience of machine translation, so we decided to undertake a brief experiment in back translation.  We borrowed a few sentences from the BBC website and used a well-known internet translation site to translate into the text into German.  The results were interesting to say the least, and not entirely incorrect. We then used a different internet translation site to back translate the German text into English and the results are detailed below.  

It was clear that there were some words the software didn’t know what to do with. In addition to that, proper names caused some confusion. Worst of all were the mistranslations, for example,  Spurs “fans” being translated as “ventilators”!

Original English

Martin Jol has been sacked as manager of Spurs after three years in the job.

Reports swept around White Hart Lane as Jol presided over Tottenham’s 2-1 Uefa Cup defeat by Getafe, but the club only confirmed the news after the match.

“I shall never forget the Spurs fans,” Jol said in a statement. Assistant Chris Hughton was also dismissed.

Clive Allen and Alex Inglethorpe take charge for Sunday’s game with Blackburn while Sevilla coach Juande Ramos is favourite to take over.

German internet translation

“Martin, den Jol gewesen ist, sacked als Manager der Sporne nach drei Jahren im Job. Die Reports, die um weißen Hart-Weg gefegt wurden, während Jol Niederlage die Schale 2-1 Uefa Tottenhams durch Getafe vorsaß, aber die Verein bestätigten nur die Nachrichten nach dem Gleichen. “ich vergesse nie die Spornventilatoren,” Jol, das in einer Aussage gesagt wird. Behilfliches Chris Hughton wurde auch entlassen. Clive Allen und Alex Inglethorpe Nehmen lädt für Spiel Sonntags mit Blackburn auf, während Sevilla Trainer Juande Ramos der Liebling ist, zum zu übernehmen.”

Back translation into English using internet translator

“Martin that Jol was sacked as a manager of the spur after three years in the job. The reports that were swept around white hard-way while Jol defeat presided the shell 2-1 Uefa Tottenhams through Getafe, but the societies of confirmed are similar only the messages after that. ”I never forget the spur ventilators,” Jol that is said in a statement. Helpful Chris Hughton was released also. Clive of all and Alex Inglethorpe taking loads for game of Sunday with Blackburn while Sevilla trainer Juande Ramos of the favorite is, to receive to that.”

So, unfortunately there is no quick solution to translating and it is always better left to the experts.

Although machine and internet translation can be useful when translating single words if used with care and a knowledge of both source and target languages, it is currently no replacement for the years of knowledge and experience accumulated by a human translator.

The Language Show 2007

Whether you’re currently learning a foreign language or have a burning ambition to start, at The Language Show you’ll find the latest tools, products, information and advice to get involved and pursue the language of your choice.

There will be 130 exhibitors showcasing many of the different ways to learn and teach - including evening classes, language schools, distance learning, self-study courses, CDs, online courses and software.

At The Language Show there is also a varied seminar programme on offer.  In addition, there are half hour simple introductions to up to 20 different languages.  You can sample typical phrases and greetings and look at a few of the basics.

You’ll also find The Language Recruitment Fair at The Language Show.  Whether you’re interested in becoming a translator or curious about opportunities to use foreign languages in a professional environment, The Language Recruitment Fair is the place to get help and advice.

Make your languages work for you!

The Language Show

2nd-4th November 2007

Location:

Olympia 2

Hammersmith Road

London

W14

TUBE: Kensington (Olympia)

Krystyna Lenik reports on Swindon’s flourishing Polish Community

There has been a large and tight-knit Polish community in Swindon since the end of the War when Poles from refugee camps, which had been located in the surrounding areas, moved into the town to live and work. From the beginning they were grateful to the British people for offering them refuge and the chance of a new start when they needed it most. Above all, this meant working hard and respecting the British way of life, integrating into British society but at the same time sticking together without creating a ghetto.

Initially, the majority of Poles were convinced that they would return to Poland and so organised their lives in preparation for that day by building (literally with their own hands) a Community Centre where they could meet and continue to uphold their traditions, customs and language and pass them down to their children. Many organisations were formed and in 1954 a Polish Saturday School was also established at the Community Centre.

It was, however, inevitable that the community would dwindle with the passing of the older generation and with the younger generations marrying outside of the Polish Community, but since Poland joined the EU in 2004 there has been a large influx of Poles, mostly young and single in their 20s and 30s, but even some entire families.

Their presence is very evident in Swindon: you can’t walk down the street without hearing Polish being spoken; you can tell where Poles are living from the Polish satellite dishes attached to their houses; the red and white Polish flags were out in force during last year’s football World Cup; Polish car registration plates are abundant; a 3^rd Polish delicatessen has just opened in the town; a 4^th Mass has been introduced on Sunday evenings; and the Polish School now has more than 125 pupils, catering not only for 3^rd and even 4^th generation Poles, but also children newly arrived from Poland, who feel more at home in our school than in English school, where they have difficulties with the language.

These are exciting times for all Poles in Swindon, old and new. However, the new influx of Poles is transient and somehow I think very few will stay here for the next 50-60 years as did the original émigrés. In the meantime, it might be easier to find a plumber!