Website translations: Clients often ask me if they can have a look at some translations that our SalfTrans team have translated. So we've updated our website to include some more links to websites that we have translated.

"Never let the cock beat loose.... ". There, that got your attention, didn't it? But I bet it didn't quite get your attention in the way you'd like to grasp the attention of your customers when they read your product manual, did it?

Kevin Lossner, a translator based in Berlin, quotes this lovely example of shoddy translation on his blog at http://simmer-lossner.blogspot.com/2009/03/never-let-cock-beat-loose.html

Next time somebody offers you a cheap translation, stop and think. Are you sure that is what you really want?

ITI's West Midlands Regional Group (www.iti-wmg.org.uk) have very kindly invited me to speak to them in October 2009 on Customer Service, which is one of my pet topics. This will be part of a one-day training seminar for translators, and will be held on a Saturday in October 2009, probably at Aston University.

A lot of translators don't realise how important customer service is. Fortunately, there are a lot who do! The old "I don't do customer service, I just translate" attitude is dying out, replaced with a brighter, chirpier, more proactive generation of translators (although in fairness, I know some very "mature" translators who also give excellent customer service to their clients).

I spoke at a West Midlands regional group event a couple of years ago, and the day received a lot of positive feedback. Equally importantly, it was tremendous fun!

Where foreign-language teaching in Britain is going wrong: I was shcoked ( but not suprised) to see an article on the BBC News website today which claims that teachers of modern languages are being trained to use scripting to help kids pass oral exams in French or German or Spanish. Nothing wrong with that. My teachers taught me how to pass the exams, too. But they taught me how to do so on a basis of understanding, or responding appropriately by showing I had understood the question. Now, it seems, the whole thing can be scripted, with questions asked in an order that the child knows in advance:



He suggested getting pupils to learn and rehearse phrases which showed their ability to use a verb properly and then to ask questions in a particular order which elicited those phrases, interspersed with others that required "Oui" as the response.


He said it was also important that the pupil knew the order the questions would come up.



I would go so far as to suggest that while this may help kids to pass language exams, it contributes absolutely nothing to giving them the language skills or confidence that they need if they wish to travel, or to be effective in the modern international business world.



And I shake my head, sadly.

It is good to see the program for the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's Conference in May 2009 taking shape. They now have speaker details listed at http://iti-conference.org.uk/conference-2009/content/view/18/54/

I will be participating in a panel discussion on customer service, and also giving a short presentation about a professional development course for translators that ITI runs. It promises to be a fun conference!