With the 2012 London Olympics just around the corner, how will professional translation services play a vital role in ensuring the international event runs smoothly?

Although English and French are the official languages of the Olympic Games, event organisers will no doubt want to cater for as many participants and attendees as possible, and with more than 200 countries taking part in the games, communication is no mean feat! Conference interpreters and other language professionals will play a fundamental part in helping organisers, participants and visitors from all over the world to successfully communicate. However, it’s not just the professional interpreters that will be flexing their language skills, but also all the many ground and organisational staff (or “hosts” as they’re more commonly known), since they’ll be dealing with people from a multitude of different nationalities. The 2012 organisers will be employing hundreds of volunteers with language abilities, who will be strategically placed to help support the operation at all levels. If you’re interested in volunteering for the Olympics then visit the volunteering page of the official website at: http://www.london2012.com/volunteer. There’s no doubt that the support provided by language volunteers will be essential to the smooth running of the event and will help portray Britain as a friendly and accommodating country. As a self-confessed language obsessive I find the display of large-scale and complex human communication that is integral to the ...

When requesting translation services you may find that you are quoted different rates for ‘general translations’ and ‘technical translations’. The word ‘technical’ can be pretty difficult to define, so how do you know whether your piece of work falls under the category of ‘technical translation services’?

For many language service providers, the term ‘technical translations’ is used to designate any project that involves the translation of specialist terminology. Of course, this includes technical sectors in the obvious sense – such as manufacturing, electronics, engineering – but also other specialist fields, such as complex medical or legal documents. In short, if a document contains specialist terminology that will require the services of a specially trained technical translator, or significant background research, then it can be considered a ‘technical translation’. Technical translators are often much more highly qualified and experienced than other translators.

In contrast, not all documents that contain content relating to a technical field will be classed as ‘technical translations’. For example, you could have an advertisement for a new technical gadget that doesn’t actually contain any complex information, therefore a general rate would apply.

So before contacting any technical translation agency, check through the content of your document, so that you can be sure you’re being quoted the correct rate for the service you require. You don’t want to be paying more than you need ...

We have some fantastic news here at Veritas – our dedication, passion and enthusiasm has been noted by the lovely people at the Swansea Bay Regional Business Awards. Veritas has been recognised as one of the region’s most promising new businesses, and we will soon find out if we have won the category. The Swansea Bay Regional Business Awards are being held at the beautiful Brangwyn Hall tomorrow, so please wish us luck!

We’re not even at the end of the year yet, but 2011 has been an exciting time for Veritas – from the re-launch of our website with many useful resources, to gaining accreditation in both the BS EN ISO 9001:2008 and the BS EN 15038:2006 quality standards, we’ve achieved a lot. Our blog was also listed as one of the top 100 Language Lover blogs worldwide!

Let’s hope tomorrow brings even more reason to celebrate!

Is it true that anyone who speaks a second language has the necessary qualities to work in translation or interpreting? Certainly not! Translation and interpreting are very demanding skills, which require extensive training and practice before they can be mastered. At Veritas, we hand pick the best translators around the world to work for us, and we have a very strict recruitment process to make sure that our translators can supply a service of the highest quality.

First of all, experience plays a key role in choosing people for translation or interpreting roles. We believe it is important to use only trained professionals, who have developed skills within a specialist field. They should also have experience in translation software and be conscious of deadlines.

Referees play a key role in assessing the actual skills of a translator or interpreter. We request at least two referees from past employers who are active in the translation industry, to prove that the person is as exceptional as they claim to be on their CV. This step of the process assesses whether what freelancers say on their CV is true.

As we want to assess all aspects of prospective sub-contractors, it is necessary for translators to submit at least one translation sample for every language combination they work in. This is done so that experienced staff within our translation company ...

The air travel business is on the rise. Recently, more and more people have been choosing air transport to make their trips. Air travel around the world has been increasing rapidly over the last few decades, as has the number of air companies rivalling each other in terms of price. Due to this tough competition amongst airlines, sometimes they do not take enough care over some of the services that they are offering, such as business translation services. So why is translation so important in this industry, and what are the consequences of not offering a high quality service?

Just like in any other international industry, business translation services must be taken seriously for a company to succeed. Tourism services like airlines, which will be used by so many customers from so many nationalities, must offer reading materials, brochures, pamphlets or videos about their services in the customers’ languages, and the quality of these translations will reflect the professionalism of the business.

An illustration of how this professionalism towards business translation services is not applied is the case of a Chinese airline that recently got in trouble. Business translators working for an airline corporation called China Airlines incorrectly translated a the name of a county in Taiwan and included it on one of the inflight maps. One day, a Taiwanese traveller noticed the error. They took offence to it and made a ...