International Translating Company Blog
Welcome to the International Translating Company blog, where we share insights, tips, and industry news related to translation, interpretation, and language services. Our team of experts and linguists provides regular updates on topics ranging from machine translation to cultural adaptation, from legal translation to the nuances of interpreting for different contexts. We believe in the power of language and communication, and we are dedicated to helping our clients bridge cultural gaps and succeed in a global world.
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Translating Official Documents
Obtaining a passport or other government documents in the US can be stressful. Sending and processing official documents outside the US is sometimes downright dreadful. The United States process tens of millions of official documents every year, with an average wait time of 2-8 months, the information must be 100%[...]
Artificial Intelligence and Human Parity in Language Services
A few weeks ago, I attended the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder meeting. During the meeting, I was surprised to hear Warren Buffet put into words my exact thoughts concerning AI. If I recall, he said current artificial intelligence is more hype than results. I was pleased to hear him say[...]
When Translation Errors Cost Lives
While modern medicine advances at a staggering pace, some hospitals and healthcare providers are finding it difficult to break down language barriers, sometimes resulting in tragic accidents. It’s common to see family members, including children, step in, and translate to hospital staff, often with little fluency. The following are three[...]
Wow! Impressive! – Two Wow’s In One Day
Many of our conversations surround metrics and data. For many years we have tracked everything from client feedback, employee and contractor feedback, to detailed feedback on every project. It’s an amazing system and network of data that rolls in thanks to excellent process design and amazing systems. At any moment,[...]
INTERESTING LANGUAGE FACTS
The other day I read an article about a language called Ayapaneco. Wikipedia states that there are approximately 15 speakers whose ages range from 67 to 90. What caught my attention about the language, however, was not its rarity, but the story surrounding it. In 2010 a story started circulating stating[...]
Know Your Interpreting Need
The history of interpreting is almost as old as language itself. From the Tower of Babel to Luis de Torres (Christopher Columbus’ official interpreter) and the Aztec slave woman interpreting for the Spanish during their conquest of the Aztec empire. Interpreters have been conduits for communicating everything from religious, legal,[...]
Blunder At Your Own Risk
What do the following names have in common; Jimmy Carter, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Thamsanqa Jantjie? If your guess was biggest, baddest or most humiliating misinterpretation blunders, congratulations. Jimmy Carter: You might be thinking, “Since when did the 39th President of the US get involved in interpretation?” Well, in a speech[...]
Language Comes A Long Way, So do We
The need for communication has been around since antiquity, and although the origins of language in the human species have been the topic of much discussion for millennia, there has been no consensus on the origin or age of human language. That withstanding, no one can deny the evolution of[...]
Hard to sound beautiful when the piano is broken!
Mongolian vs GT– Artificial Intelligence and Machine Translation A serious bug was recently discovered in the AI translations from Mongolian to English. This bug suggests the Artificial Intelligence software may be filling blanks to make sense of just random combinations of letters. We did tests in other languages and found[...]
Courtroom Mistranslation Postpones Trial
Mistranslation many times can lead to substantial loss of time and money, but in some extreme cases, it can even lead to jail time. Laura Plummer, a British citizen, is currently facing up to twenty-five years in a foreign prison for charges of drug trafficking a controlled substance in Egypt.[...]