Newsletter Policy About Services and ProductsCross-Cultural Communications does not accept paid advertisements. Our focus is not on commercial products but practical resources. If you have news that may be of interest to our audience, please send it to INTERSECT.
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The Problem with Artificial Intelligence and Language
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You see them often now, articles about mistranslations. Hilarious and horrific errors come from using applications like Skype Translator or Google Translate. 
In a nutshell, humans learn on their own, and computers are only starting to do that. But even when they can, super-computers aren't out there doing what humans do in real life.
Face it. Unless you have to deal with things like a crying baby who threw up at midnight, your missing cat or a nephew's divorce, never mind earthquakes and wars, you don't have the context for language that is needed to use it effectively and accurately.
Human experience is vast. Computer programs, well--they don't live. Not yet!
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Japan Recruits Volunteer Interpreters for the Tokyo Olympics
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So what kind of interpreting job requires you to compete for the job, travel, pay all your own expenses and work for free eight hours a day for 10 days?
Interpreting for the Olympics, apparently. The Japan Times reports that to make the process a bit easier, Japan is holding four-day intensive workshops for 400 specially selected potential volunteers this September. The Tokyo Games are in 2020.
And 400 interpreters is a drop in the bucket. The Games' organizing committee estimates it will need about 80,000 volunteers.
At least one language policy professor at Kyoto University is not impressed.
"It takes years of effort to gain the mastery of a foreign language to work as an interpreter," he said. But those in the committee "think it is OK not to pay for such significant skills. That shows [their] ignorance."
Agreed.
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 Guidelines on International Body LanguageDon't try putting your thumb out to hitch-hike in Germany. That would likely offend German drivers mightily. So would two thumbs up in some countries.
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Address:
Cross-Cultural Communications
10015 Old Columbia Road
Suite B-215
Columbia, MD 21046
Phone: 410.312.5599
Email: info@cultureandlanguage.net |
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The Summer Before the Dark
Doris Lessing, Vintage, 2010/1973
Here is a literary beach read. It's August, after all!
The Summer Before the Dark, written by a Nobel Prize winner who is one of the most acclaimed writers in English in the world, is about a British woman having a midlife crisis. When her husband and kids go off for the summer, Kate realizes how disconnected she is from all of them--and her own life.
Adventures ensue.
And what is the connection with language and culture? After her husband takes off, Kate gets a job interpreting for a global conference. (Because of course, conference interpreting is easy work to walk into, right?)
At any rate, it's a high-quality beach read!
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September Offers a Wealth of Conferences!
Whether in the U.S. or abroad, September 2016 offers a plenitude of conferences for interpreting and translation! Here are just a few.
United States:
Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters & Translators (TAHIT)
September 9-10, 2016
Tennessee Assn of Professional Interpreters & Translators (TAPIT)
Tennessee Association of Medical Interpreters & Translators (TAMIT)
September 9-11, 2016
Delaware Valley Translators Association (DVTA)
September 10, 2016
Abroad:
European Society for Translation Studies (EST)
Aarhus, Denmark
Monash University Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Let us Hope We Can Save a Dying Language -- Hawaii Sign Language
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Let us Hope We Can Save a Dying Language--Hawaii Sign Language
It was an amazing discovery in 2013: a new language hiding, of all places, in Honolulu! 
But for Hawaii Sign Language (HSL), that discovery could prove to be a case of "easy come, easy go."
The language is dying. By the time it was discovered, only a handful of signers knew it. Now the linguist who discovered HSL, Linda Lambrecht, is on a passionate mission to save the language from extinction.
We wish her well!
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You've Heard About "Growing Pains"--What about "Growing Joys?"
Yes, the numbers of our staff and contractors are growing. That growth simply multiplies the numbers of adventures, conference tables, travels, requests for training and more. Never a dull moment at CCC!
Do we sound happy?
It Breaks My Heart: Interpreting for Victim Services
This fall we debut a new two-day program on November 10-11 that is based on our own groundbreaking work.
It Breaks My Heart is a compressed version of Breaking Silence: Interpreting for Victim Services. We created that four-day Breaking Silence curriculum for the partnership of DC Office of Victim Services & Justice Grants and Ayuda, a nonprofit legal service in DC.
Every participant of It Breaks My Heart, will get a print copy of that amazing textbook and workbook!
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LOOK INSIDE all of our publications at: www.cultureandlanguage.net and go to Books and Products.
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Sincerely,
Marjory A. Bancroft
Marjory A. Bancroft
Director & Founder
Cross-Cultural Communications, LLC
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Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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