A new system that translates the names of Ottawa’s bus stops leads to some curious results.Since Canada is an officially bilingual country, all public communication must be presented in both French and English. Thanks to a recent initiative from Ott…

Almost 90% of companies outsource at least some of their language service work…and that’s not all…I always follow the excellent blog, Global Watchtower, published by language industry expert Common Sense Advisory. The global-oriented research com…

A New York video firm releases innovative, quality film material about health care and other social issues.Fanlight Productions would appear to work in an impossibly tiny niche: documentaries and DVDs about health care, disabilities, and workplace issu…

Total immersion in a foreign language can be a great way to learn, but it is not always a magical solution.You hear it all the time: “the only way to learn a foreign language is to go live in a foreign country.” As a long-time language tea…

I’ve never seen an art exhibit about translation, and I’ll probably never see one……but it’s certainly interesting to know that one is going to take place at one of the U.S.’s top museums. Indeed, an exhibit sponsored by the &l…

Language translators have reaped great benefits from the Internet revolution.Some occupations lend themselves easily to working remotely, and language translation is one of them. Through the Internet, freelance translators can contract with language s…

What’s in store for the language service sector in 2011? Research group Common Sense Advisory has some ideas.Since 2005, the major research group Common Sense Advisory has been publishing predictions about the language service industry. The group&rsq…

A new site called Viki claims it has 100,000 volunteer translators subtitling for free. Subtitling is a highly difficult and painstaking translation task. Comprehension of film dialogue can be difficult even for native speakers; rendering the dialogue …

Technology now allows learners to study languages interactively at home, in the car or on the plane. But how effective are these methods?Today’s language learner is faced with a dizzying array of methods. Traditional classes are of course offered…

An award-winning author argues that Twitter facilitates cross-cultural communication more than other social networks.Everybody knows that the Internet has made cross-cultural communication easier. Social networking platforms have played a key role in a…