The Man Who Helped ‘Simplify’ Chinese
Students struggling to learn Chinese might not know it, but their task has been made easier because of the work of one man. Zhou Youguang helped invent Pinyin, a writing system that turns Chinese characters into words using letters from the Roman alphabet. This makes it easier to learn how to pronounce Chinese words, and [...]
Click here to continue readingE-reader App Translates Books and Reads Them to You
A new e-reader translation app from a Toronto-based firm could eliminate the language barrier when it comes to reading books in a digital format. Intertainment Media Inc. filed for a U.S. patent for its e-reader translator application, the company announced this morning. The app, called Ortsbo e-reader, is currently in closed beta and can translate the [...]
Click here to continue readingTranslators Earn Millions from UK Government
Millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money is being spent providing translation services for benefit claimants. If you need to claim welfare benefits but the only language you speak is Nigerian Pidgin, you are in luck. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) can deal with claimants in 165 languages, providing translators at taxpayers’ expense. Among [...]
Click here to continue readingCan You Work Out the English Song Title from these Translated Beatles Lyrics?
Somewhat Lost in Translation For most people the world of translation and translators themselves is a strange and mysterious one. Their work is one that people do not ask questions about, preferring instead to send off a document and receive a perfectly rendered translation back. But for those of us who have ever wondered what [...]
Click here to continue readingGoogle Now Shows Translated English Results In Non-English Searches
If you have ever tried searching Google for “आईफोन” (the “iPhone” transliterated in Hindi), you know that the search engine returns hundreds of thousands of results, but the official Apple website is nowhere to be found on it. Recently, Google took on the challenge of fixing this issue by including English results for search queries [...]
Click here to continue readingGoogle Now Shows Translated English Results In Non-English Searches
If you have ever tried searching Google for “आईफोन” (the “iPhone” transliterated in Hindi), you know that the search engine returns hundreds of thousands of results, but the official Apple website is nowhere to be found on it. Recently, Google took on the challenge of fixing this issue by including English results for search queries [...]
Click here to continue readingNow You Can Translate Your Facebook Posts!
Facebook has launched a new translation tool that lets you translate posts and comments directly inline on Facebook Pages. The service, which is powered by Microsoft’s Bing Translator, means Facebook users can read Page content regardless of the language it is written in. If a comment posted on a Page is in a language that is [...]
Click here to continue readingHow Google Translate Works
The web giant’s translation service might serve up the odd batch of nonsense, but it’s still one of the smartest communication tools of all time. Using software originally developed in the 1980s by researchers at IBM, Google has created an automatic translation tool that is unlike all others. It is not based on the intellectual [...]
Click here to continue readingAll You Need Is Liebe: The Beatles’ German Translator
The eccentric Berlin singer Klaus Beyer has made it his life’s work to re-record the collected works of the Beatles in German. Now, with the release of his version of “The White Album,” he’s finished. He plans to tackle John Lennon next. It took The Beatles a little more than seven years to record and release [...]
Click here to continue readingNorthants Police Spend £1.2m on Interpreters in Three Years
Police in Northamptonshire have spent £1.2 million on foreign interpreters in the past three years. Wootton Hall bosses have revealed the force is having to spend around £400,000 a year on employing a vast array of foreign language speakers to help officers interview increasing numbers of criminals, as well as witnesses, from countries across Europe, [...]
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