Atlas Translations: News

Atlas Newsletter – November 2007

Juvenes Translatores – Young Translators

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation recently held a contest to test the skills of over a thousand students across Europe. The competition, which took place in all 27 member states on 14th November, challenged 17 year-old students to translate short texts into one of Europe’s 23 official languages.

From a total of 1500 participants, 27 winners will be selected to attend a three-day trip to Brussels, where they will receive a certificate in language excellence in a special awards ceremony.

Globe

Out and About with Atlas

As part of the company’s ongoing commitment to strengthening links with the community and promoting foreign language learning in schools and amongst the adult population, Atlas has recently attended two educational establishments to give talks and advice on languages and translation.

Classroom

Quality Manager, Anna Counsell, attended a Careers Evening in an Essex school at the end of October, where she talked to students about their options and offered insight into the exciting opportunities open to those who go on to pursue languages in further and higher education. Anna also travelled to Swansea University, where she held a talk on the realities of working in the translation industry.

Trados Course Returns

Due to popular demand, Atlas is to hold another Trados workshop on Monday 3rd December in Central London. The workshop will comprise of a one day presentation of the Trados Suite and its basic functions and will offer practical tips for beginners on how to start using Trados in an effective and enjoyable way.

The course is essentially designed for translators who do not have Trados but are considering buying it, and for those who have bought the product but not yet used it. The number of participants will be limited to a maximum of 20, to ensure that individual needs can be catered for to a high standard and all of those who attend will be able to take advantage of a special offer to purchase SDL TRADOS with a 25% discount price. For more information, please visit http://www.proz.com/?sp=training_session&training_id=349

South Bank Hosts Translation Awards

London’s South Bank Centre last week hosted an awards ceremony on behalf of the Society of Authors, with the aim of raising the profile of literary translation. Seven translation prizes, worth £16,000 in total, were presented to winners, who were deemed amongst “the best of the world of literary translation," by the society's awards secretary, Paula Johnson.

South Bank

Johnson later commented: "[Literary translation] is quite an impecunious and anonymous métier, so [this awards ceremony] is extremely encouraging on a personal level. In terms of wider visibility these prizes are crucial in bringing new audiences to world books."

During the ceremony, award winners presented extracts from their translations of literary sources on topics as diverse as the Egyptian underworld, Parisian suburbs, Franco's Madrid and 1940’s Jerusalem.

Bungled Translation Sparks yet another Diplomatic Row

Officials at the Dutch foreign ministry were recently incensed to receive an email from a group of Israeli journalists that began, "Helloh bud, enclosed five of the questions in honor of the foreign minister: The mother your visit in Israel is a sleep to the favor or to the bed your mind on the conflict are Israeli Palestinian?"

The journalists responsible for this email, which was sent as a precursor to their planned fact-finding visit to the Netherlands, had failed to arrange for a professional translation of their questions. Instead, they had used the online translation site Babelfish, into which users can type a phrase in any major world language of choice and request a translation into another given language.

What the journalists hadn’t counted on was that even in today’s world of incredible technological innovation, even the most advanced translation tools are perhaps not worth the software they are written on if used incorrectly or by those without the necessary professional experience.

The aforementioned email, which included questions such as, "What in your opinion needs to do opposite the awful the Iranian of Israel,” sparked a “major, major incident," according to one Israeli diplomat, who then went on to add: "How could this email possibly have been sent?" That’s exactly what we were thinking!

Supplier News

After the success of Atlas’s first Open Day for Suppliers earlier this year, the company plans to hold a second Open Day event on Wednesday 5th December 2007. The event will give suppliers the chance to meet the Atlas team to put faces to names and will also include short talks about Trados, Voiceover Work, how to the perfect freelancer and much more…

Atlas is currently in the process of updating its supplier database, with the aim of making it even more user-friendly. New features will be added, such as filters to alert the company when suppliers are on holiday or unavailable for work and there will also be an option for the Atlas team to contact suppliers via text message for urgent work - making translation services more efficient than ever before!

Press/Public Relations

Press Office
Atlas Translations Ltd
Clare Suttie
Director
Phone: +44 (0)20 7240 6666
Contact Press Office
Site: www.atlas-translations.co.uk

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