Alexika Christmas and New Year Closing

The office will close on the afternoon of Thursday 23rd December and re-open on Tuesday 4th January (not 3rd as previously published - the 3rd is a bank holiday in the UK!) Please send any enquiries during this period to mail@alexika.com. We wish all of our clients and suppliers a Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year.

Advent Visitors at Alexika Office

For one day only, the Addingham Community Travelling Crib is adorning the Alexika office frontage!  The beautifully knitted figures will make an appearance at a different local business each day during advent - and will then make a final journey to the Crib Service at St. Peter's Church in Addingham on 24th December. We hope that passers-by may take a quiet moment to enjoy the scene as they prepare for Christmas.

Dr. Shirley Lawes - Why Learning Foreign Languages Matters

There is an excellent article in the UK's Independent newspaper today, in which Dr. Shirley Lawes articulates why learning a second or third language is so important. It is not just the matter of learning a language but the access to another culture. Travelling through a country with no knowledge of the language can be fascinating - but language skills mean access to the culture on a completely different level.

Learning foreign languages is absolutely essential for business, for life - for international understanding and ultimately for world peace.

ISO9001 Accredited again

We are delighted to report that Alexika Ltd has been re-accredited as an ISO9001 Quality Assured firm. The inspection was demanding as ever, but very worthwhile. We can recommend the process for any business.

Thank you to the British Assessment Bureau for their assistance.

Message from Wiesbaden

It was a pleasure to visit Wiesbaden, capital of Hessen, last week for the SDL Partner Conference and Tekom exhibition. It is very good to keep abreast of the latest developments in translation technology - indeed these days essential to maintain the best service for our clients. Thought for the week - it seems that many different technologies are moving into the cloud and away from desktop or server-based software. But software companies in this industry and many others - from the likes of Adobe and Microsoft down to the smallest - are going to have the challenge of maintaining both systems for some time to come.

Many thanks for to technology partner SDL for such a thought provoking program and sharing some very exciting visions of the near future!

European patent translation update

A good summary of the situation for translation of patents in Europe can be read here on the EurActiv web site. The debate revolves around the need to translate a patent application to every European language verses the cost of this translation. It remains to be seen whether the Belgian presidency of the Council of the European Union Council will be able to simplify the process.

Conference Quotations - the White Heat of Technology

Britain's labour Prime Minister of the 1960's, Harold Wilson, is often credited with coining the phrase 'the white heat of technology." Actually what he said in 1963 was: "The Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution will be no place for restrictive practices or for outdated methods on either side of industry." Nearly 50 years ago but a familiar feeling - which rather brings to mind a biblical quotation: "There is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9.) What was true for industrial unions and bosses then is true for translations companies and their clients and suppliers today. Things are changing fast - as usual.

The conference of the Association of Translation Companies was this year a fascinating day with a recurring theme. The technology of machine translation is developing and becoming a useful tool for business in some situations. To summarise in a sentence: machine translation will increasingly be used for commercial but rough translations of non-business critical text, whilst human translators - albeit supported by both translation memory technology and machine translation technologies - will continue to be needed for the growing volume of business critical text.

It was a pleasure to co-present a seminar at the conference with our technology partner SDL. Through the use of SDL technology, we can offer our clients the advantages of the latest language technologies.

Plus ça change...

European Day of Languages - 26th September!

To mark the European Day of Languages on Saturday 26th September, do visit the Council of Europe site. There are lots of smiling linguists and a game to test your linguistic skills.

We've also had fun recently with a site which machine translates from English to various dialects. English to Yorkshire? English to Brummie? Try here.

Letter in Telegraph - Baffling Instructions!!

A letter in today's Daily Telegraph newspaper runs as follows:

SIR - I have just acquired a solar charger but the found the instructions a trifle confusing.
They said: "This machine increases intelligence battery charging newly protecting a circuit, should use the lithium battery that voluntarily go out, much better protection of red lantern has built-in, when PC or suitable orchestrate gives machine to charge."
Bruce Lee
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire.

We do not think that Mr. Lee's instructions were translated by a professional!!

Alexika on Facebook and LinkedIn

Alexika is on Facebook and LinkedIn - we look forward to meeting you there! In both cases, you can just find us under the key word 'Alexika.' The Facebook pages in particular are intended as a place where we can relax with friends and maybe enjoy some healthy debate.

Alexika speaker at ATC conference

Alexika will again be represented at the conference of the Association of Translation Companies (ATC) in London on 23rd September 2010.

In addition to looking forward to meeting old and new colleagues in the translation industry, Mark will co-present a seminar with our technology partner SDL plc. The seminar will focus on adoption of the latest version of SDL's Trados translation technology. The best use of technology is important for both our clients and indeed our professional translators, enabling both to work in as efficient a manner as possible - Alexika aims to keep abreast of latest developments and it is good to be able to discuss developments in an open forum.

The conference again takes place at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) campus on Russell Square.

The Big Society at Alexika

UK Prime Minister David Cameron launched his big idea yesterday – The Big Society. We are not going to comment on politics here – but how new is this idea?

Every year in our community in the North of England, there is a summer festival known as a Gala. This involves for example decorating houses and businesses, community groups parading through the town in costume, lots of food and drink and a race to the top of the nearest hill...something for all ages.

The theme this year was 'The Movies' - and we're delighted to report 2 pieces of success for Alexika at the Gala! Alexika's office was placed second in the competition for best dressed business frontage. The office frontage was dressed in the theme of Mary Poppins - complete with models of the main characters from the film with Mary herself flying from a top floor window! Well done to Sabine for her imagination on that project and to Becky for the support.


We also had an outright Gala winner though! Translations Coordinator Helen is also leader of a Brownie pack (girl's youth group.) Helen led her troupe to success as the best procession group with the theme of 101 Dalmatians - with Helen leading the pack as Cruella de Vil!! Wonderful work Helen, and we thought you were enjoying the character a little too much!

Alexika is a sponsor of the Gala, and is also proud to be one of the sponsors of Addingham cricket club this year, where Mark is Junior Chairman. The club has 130 junior members ranging from ages 6-17. There are 500 cricket clubs in the Yorkshire region of the North of England, and each plays an important role in their local community and provides a focal point for young people in particular. For our continental European readers, please ask if you would like an explanation of the rules of this fine summer sport - but you mind need to set aside a spare hour or two!

Alexika is also a sponsor of the Addingham pantomime, a peculiarly English – and very stylised – form of comedy theatre. Hours and hours of volunteer time go in to producing 8 performances to a packed theatre.

CSR for SMEs? Small and medium-sized companies also contribute to society in many ways.

Thoughts from ITI Marketing Workshop - the role of translation distributors

Many thanks to the ITI for having me as a speaker at the recent Marketing Workshop event in York.

We had some interesting discussions about the translation company/freelance translator relationship. Freelancer translators have a choice in their business life - they can work for client companies directly and/or they can work for 'distributors' such as translation companies. This situation is perhaps more commonly known in manufacturing industries than the service sector, but in both cases there are situations when either option is appropriate. Reasons for working for a distributor in this case might include:

- a strong relationship means that only appropriate work should be offered by a translation company
- the end client receives an enhanced service as the translation company may undertake preparation, checking and proofreading tasks
- freelance translators are left to focus on what they do best, using linguistic skills rather than business skills.

And for client purchasers of translations, reasons to purchase from a company rather than an individual might include:

- ease of purchase from one source for a range of languages and language services
- project management for multilingual requirements
- the knowledge that a subject specialist translator can be selected for different types of assignment

Perhaps the most interesting area of discussion of the day was around a thought from Ana Simkins of Applied Language, suggesting that the rise of the internet means that loyalty and relationships are becoming less important in business. Competitors are now only a mouse-click away. Fair point - but in a very fragmented industry such as translation, buyers may not know where to go for a particular service, and a relationship with a valued and trusted supplier can be more important than ever? Probably a question of different situations in different sectors of our translation world.

So thanks again ITI - and the National Railway Museum is a great venue for a conference.

I was pleased to recommend Malcolm MacDonald's 6th Edition of his book 'Marketing Plans' as a thorougly practical guide to marketing planning for all types of business.

Mark

Language Education in the UK

The current state of language education in the UK was summed up perfectly by Baroness Coussins in a letter to The Times this week. The plan to provide all Primary School children with foreign language education seems to have been quietly dropped. This follows the disastrous recent decision to no longer make languages compulsory after the age of 14. Baroness Coussin's letter points that only 6% of the world's population speak English as a native language and 75% speak so English whatsoever. In the past decade, the amount of traffic in English on the Internet has declined from 51% to 29%.

So what does this say about the UK? A sad mixture of complacency and arrogance. Economic complacency as we watch the BRIC and other developing nations power ahead in business - do we think that British firms will do well in China if we do not teach at least some of our children to speak Chinese? Arrogance because that old 'they all speak English anyway' attitude just won't go away despite the overwhelming evidence that the world is moving on.

Where Machine Translations fits with Human - the Translation Continuum

Many thanks to clients and suppliers who took the trouble to send to us a piece in the New York Times recently about GoogleTM's free machine translation tool. The quality of machine translation produced has improved significantly over the past year as a result of some serious investment. Google is now our first recommendation when clients want a quick and easy gist translation.

So great news for society at large - as long as society uses the technology with great care! The improvement is such that in future people will be able to communicate across cultures more easily. But how do we view improved machine translation in the human translation industry? Good news for us too for several reasons:

• Our clients have a real benefit in having a tool to give them a rough understanding of a document before deciding whether human translation is required.
• In purely business terms, the translation market is expanding - partly due to this type of technology. Machine translation means that people are communicating more in foreign languages. This drives increased demand both for machine translation but also for complex and business-critical human translation.

I have to say that I am very much a linguist rather than a scientist, and human translation remains an art. From my viewpoint, machine translation is not going to replace human translation but it moves further along the translation quality continuum. Think machine translation at one end of a quality continuum with high quality human translation at the other end of a very long line. Machine translation is moving further along that line.

And a final thought for professional translators - I'm delighted to see Google amongst machine translation options integrated  as one source of reference in SDL Trados Studio 2009 SP2, our translation memory tool of choice. The critical question here is how can machine translation be best deployed as a back-up resource for those of us using translation memory, termbases and other technologies for human professionals. I think that SDL have adopted precisely the right approach.

Alexika to exhibit at Yorkshire Business Market

Alexika will have a stand at the Yorkshire Business Market at the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate on 26th April 2010. Harrogate is a delightful town North of the city of Leeds, and is always worth a visit whether for business or pleasure! We look forward to meeting new and existing clients and suppliers.

For more information, please contact Gemma Cooper or Mark Robinson on 0800 917 9579 (outside UK: +44 1943 839227).

Mark Robinson to speak at ITI Marketing Workshop

Alexika Director Mark Robinson will be amongst the guest speakers at the Marketing Workshop event of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. The event will be held at the National Railway Museum in York on May 14th 2010 - further details can be found on events page of the ITI web site.

Mark will be discussing the importance of marketing for small businesses - and also for sole traders, particularly freelance linguists. Prior to cofounding Alexika in 1998, Mark spent 10 years in marketing management in the plastics, metals and textiles industries. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.