Omniglot - the blog

There are many sites that translate between different languages, but a site I found today called Sign Translate is the first one I’ve seen that translates between English and sign language.

The site is intended for health professionals working in Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) and provides translations from English to and from British Sign Language (BSL), and also between English and Arabic, Bengali, French, Gujarati, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. The BSL translations are displayed as videos, while translations in the others languages are available as text and audio.

The system does not in fact translate anything you say to it; instead it is programed with a set of typical questions and answers used in medical situations with versions of these in BSL and the other languages. Online BSL interpretation by real interpreters using webcams is also available.

This kind of system could be useful in other places such as hotels, police stations, banks, etc.

Have you come across any similar systems?

There’s a saying in English that goes something like this: “don’t criticise someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes”. A corollary that’s sometimes added is: “If they don’t like your criticism, you’ll be a mile away and you’ll have their shoes”.

Aislinn Thomas, whose blog, In Your shoes, describes how she puts this saying into practice by actually wearing other people’s shoes for a day, is looking for equivalents of this phrase in other languages. Can you help?

Most British managers think they should make more effort to learn about the business practices of other countries before visiting them, and two thirds find their lack of knowledge about other cultures embarrassing, according to an article I found today.

A survey of just over 200 senior managers and directors of major UK companies found that the vast majority rely on their foreign colleagues being able to speak English, only one fifth said they spoke another language, and a quarter of them admitted making cultural faux-pas when dealing with foreign business people. In spite of this, 80% said that they often do business with people from other cultures, and 66% said they travel overseas regularly on business.

Perhaps what they need are cultural interpreters, who could accompany them on their trips and explain the culture and etiquette of the countries they visit, maybe acting as interpreters of language as well. Do such people exist?

The other day the editor of Lingro contacted me asking for comments on his site, which describes as a multilingual online dictionary and language learning site.

The dictionary part can be used to look up words in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Polish. You can also open a webpage, Word doc, PDF or text file within the dictionary and look up any of the words by clicking on them. This brings up a pop up with translations of the words, and definitions in some cases. Here’s an example of one of Omniglot’s pages in the English-Spanish dictionary - you can change the language combination at the bottom of the screen.

You can save the words you look up in a personal wordlist, which you can peruse later to check if you remember them. There are some virtual flashcards you can use to help you with this in the games section. You can also edit words and add definitions.

I received an email today from a nurse who works in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia and who is compiling a collection of multilingual phrases to assist communication with non-English speaking patients while an interpreter is being sought. He is looking for more translations and sounds files. Can you help? His contact details are on the site.

In other news, tomorrow I’m off to Ireland to take part in the Irish Language & Culture Summer School at Oideas Gael in Glencolmcille. I’ll be away for a week and won’t be blogging during that time.

Amárach beidh mé ag dul go hÉirinn chun páirt a ghlachadh san Scoil Shamhraidh i dTeanga & Cultúr in Oideas Gael i nGleann Cholm Cille. Beidh mé as baile ar feadh seachtaine agus ní bheidh mé ag scríobh ar mo bhlog i gcaitheamh an t-am seo.

The Chinese versions of candidates’ names in some Massachusetts ballots apparently have some unfortunately comical or negative meanings, according to an article I came across today. For example, one candidate’s name could be translated as “Sticky Rice” or “Uncooked Rice”, another’s as “High Prominent Noble Educated” or “Stick Mosquito”.

I’m trying to work out what character were used for these names. Any ideas?

This week I started putting together a page of translations of the phrase “Stop the world, I want to get off”. I was looking through my page of ‘useful’ phrases and noticed that I have a Spanish version of this phrase. I wondered if I could find translations into other language, and so far have found a few. Could you supply versions of this phrase in any other languages?

I’ve also added a new section to my site - Can o’ Songs - a collection of songs that I’ve learnt in Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, with English translations, background info (where available), links to other versions of the songs and lists of albums which include the songs. I plan to add recordings of me singing the songs and/or playing them on the tin whistle, and I’ll be adding quite a few other songs to this section when I have a spare moment or two. If any of you feel inspired to send in recordings you’ve made of any of the songs already there, or would like to suggest any other songs I could have a go at, please let me know.

Today I discovered quite a good online translator that translates between a number of different languages from Arabic to Russian. I’ve been using it to get an English translation of the Arabic text I’m adding to a website to ensure that the text is going in the right places. This is necessary where the translation is inadequately labelled, or doesn’t follow the original English text.

When translating between Arabic and English, the results are often a bit strange, probably due to the very different structure of the two languages, but they give you the gist of the text. Here’s an example of a sentence in Arabic, with the English translation from the online translator, and the original English text:

كمجمع يجعل من أشد وأكفأ المنافعين لها منذ وقت طويل (The Green).

Online translation: The pool makes it more efficient Almenavaina time since fold l (The Green).

Original version: A campus to make many of its longer-established rivals turn green.

Here are Chinese and Russian translations of the same sentence with online translations into English.

這是一個令很多這所大學的長期競爭者眼紅的校園 [这是一个令很多这所大学的长期竞争者眼红的校园]
This is a campus which command very many this universities’ long-term competitors is jealous

является предметом зависти для многих более старых университетов-конкурентов
Is a subject of envy for many older universities-competitors

In English jealousy is associated with the colour green - the ‘rivals turn green’ with envy. The equivalent expression in Chinese is 令…眼紅 - ‘makes … (their) eyes red’. What colour is jealousy in other languages?

Another useful site I found today is an online spell checker for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish & Ukranian.

Can you spot the difference between the following two Urdu words?

If your house was on fire and you had to jump out of the window, which of the above would you prefer to land on?

One of these words means cushion (gadda), the other donkey (gadha), and they got mixed up in the Urdu translation of a fire safety leaflet that was produced in Scotland, according to Translation is an Art. The English text said “Never jump straight out of a window. Lower yourself on to cushions”, while the Urdu translation said “Never jump out of a window straight. Put yourself on a donkey.”

According to the dictionary on UrduWorld.com, gadda actually means mattress, rather than cushion.