With the Latino population growing across the country, schools are having to deal with teaching ESL. Some schools are providing forward thinking programs to support the education of Latino students including this school in Walworth County.

So while it might surprise a visitor to this small city in Walworth County that Latino children are just shy of 40% of the district enrollment, longtime residents know the stories of families drawn to the area by a range of jobs, including work at nearby farms, canneries and resorts.

But despite the rich ethnic diversity, youths in this district of a little more than 2,700 students often found themselves on different academic tracks for years, based on how quickly they could grasp the difference between scene and seen or wade through vocabulary words specific to a chemistry class.

Thats changing this year as the district pushes to better integrate English language learners into mainstream classrooms, pairing up content-area teachers with those who previously specialized in English as a Second Language or bilingual education.

…Some additional changes are in the works to better support Delavan-Darien’s English language learners, Deavers said.

This past fall, DPI provided Spanish and Hmong translations for parts of the state achievement tests for the first time. Of students with limited English proficiency in the state, nearly 60% are Latino and about 30% are Hmong.

“We should get a better measure of what the kids actually know,” Deavers said of the new translation accommodation.

It’s interesting that taking steps as providing tests in the students’ primary language is unique enough that it is a story in the news paper. We need to move forward enough that this is common place, and that students are given the proper tools to learn, no matter their primary language.

Here’s a case where proper translation and interpretation would alleviate a growing problem - access to prescription drugs. The reality is that many non-English speakers could be put in harms way in many medical situations daily, at the hospital, in a clinic, with their family doctor, in schools and at the pharmacy. Without translations bilingual staff, how can one ensure proper health services? Read more.

Pharmacies across the city routinely fail to help non-English speakers understand their prescriptions, raising the chances that customers could harm themselves by taking medicines incorrectly, immigrant advocacy groups charge in a discrimination complaint that they plan to file today with the New York attorney general’s office.

The complaint names 16 pharmacies in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, most of them operated by chains. It argues that federal civil rights law and state health regulations require pharmacies to provide linguistic help to guarantee that people who speak little or no English receive equal access to health care. That assistance should include interpreters at pharmacies and written translations of medication instructions, the advocates say.

One of my favorite authors growing up was Ayn Rand.  In connection with the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, the Latin Business Chronicle asked three prominent Latin American admirers for their impressions of Rand and her books. One of the interesting insights was the power of her book and her influence based on recent translations of her works.

Has Rand’s influence and popularity grown in Latin America thanks to recent translations into Spanish of her work?

Carpio: Totally. If you look at the last 20 years, of 100 people [in Latin America] that knew of Ayn Rand, that figure has grown hundredfold today. They are young people, entrepreneurs and intellectuals.

Ibargüen: Yes! I believe Grito Sagrado from Argentina, and my friend Fredy Kofman have done a great service to the Spanish-speaking world publishing a new, and uncensored edition [of Atlas Shrugged] wonderfully edited.

Chafuen: Only recently some of the most famous books by Rand have been translated into Spanish. Atlas Shrugged, of “La Rebelión de Atlas” is one example. This is thanks to the admirable work of Rosa Pelz, in Argentina, who deserves much credit. It is rather unfortunate that these translations have come out when due to other circumstances, the enemies of freedom are on the upswing. I think her impact is yet to be felt.

These stories have become so commonplace - it’s amazing. The real question is who is doing these translations? One would think an airport understands the importance of global travel and communication with an international customer base. And they should also never be using translators who aren’t native in their translating language… On the other hand, translation is an art, not a science, so there will be variation. But in a single building, single project, there needs to be consistency. However, these types of stories are always interesting…

With the rise of international travel, language issues also have become critical. Should signs be multilingual? Which language gets top billing?

Translations can be especially tricky because even within the same language, idioms vary from country to country. At Hartsfield, where Delta Air Lines Inc. has been expanding into Latin American markets, officials last year began posting some signs in English and Spanish. But controversy erupted over the Spanish translation for “gate.” Delta finally decided on “salida,” (Spanish for “exit”), but some Spanish-speakers complain the word should be “puerta,” or “door,” says Mr. Yee.

Joe Labozan of Carter & Burgess prowls the world’s airports pondering questions such as, why does one sign say “toilet” and another say “restroom”? Inconsistency is one of his signage peeves. Other common problems include too many signs that create confusing clutter, and a lack of signs at “decision points” such as corridor crossings or the bottom of escalators, where people pause to decide their next move.

US Airways Group Inc. recently called in Mr. Labozan to diagnose problems in its terminals at Philadelphia’s labyrinthine airport, where passengers have such a hard time transferring that the airline has dedicated an employee to giving directions.

Translation of documents, interpretation and related communication tools are a necessary part of our culture, not a luxury, and not only for the global businesses. And while some school districts claim that providing translations of documents for parents is codling immigrants, this school district in Utah actually taking that a few step further by creating their own department of translation. Read more.

With 74 different languages spoken by families in the Granite School District, communicating with parents may take more than just sending a note or a phone call home.
“[Its] an absolutely important role for our district to get translation and interpreting services centralized,” said Rob Averett, district director of elementary school services.

This summer Granite added the Translation and Interpreting Department to offer support services for parents, students and district staff.

Before the addition, schools had to find their own interpreters and translation services. “We saw the need for it and recognized the need to reach out to the community,” Everett said.

…Prodan said one of the goals is to make sure parents are well-informed and for them to feel engaged in their child’s education.

“If we connect with the parents a lot better, we can get better results,” Prodan said. “This program really serves the community. . . . I’ve seen the good results that come out of it.”

Staff can send written work for translation to the office to provide information to those parents who have limited English skills.

Translation holds so many places in our society, and it can be very interesting to learn about some of them. I’m not a big opera fan, and I never thought about translation needs of an opera house. In the Baltimore Sun, they wrote of an opera performance where a poor translation lead to a distraction of laughter during the performance.

The Baltimore Opera Company’s opening performance of Verdi’s darkly beautiful ‘La forza del destino’ was nearly ruined for me by a sound not typically associated with this work: laughter. No, I’m not talking about the mild comic relief Verdi intended, a la Shakespeare, in a couple of scenes involving an out-of-sorts friar. The giggles and guffaws came instead in the midst of deadly serious business. I consider the primary culprit to be supertitles, the translations of the text projected above the stage. Sometimes I think people were better off not knowing every line in an opera.

…The line in ‘Forza’ that started the laughter Saturday night at the Lyric Opera House came at one of the most introspective and lyrical passages in the score, when the doomed Alvaro contemplates his misery. The original words from the libretto are probably best translated as ‘Life is hell for those who are unhappy.’ The translation used here (if memory serves) was ‘Life is miserable when you are unhappy.’ Either way, it’s not a great line — in English. And I can understand why it would strike some folks as comical. I still wouldn’t disturb a performance by laughing, or blurting out, as the man behind me did, ‘Boy, that’s profound.’ The point, expressed by Alvaro in more poetic Italian, is that the heavy curse of a cruel fate has made him feel that living without his beloved Leonora is worse than not living at all. When people are robbed of what gives them happiness, life is hell. Not such a belly laugh, now, is it? I hope the opera company will replace that supertitle translation in the remaining performances, and just get the gist across, not worrying about the closeness of the translation. Or just remove it entirely. Nothing, at any rate, should disturb Antonello Palombi’s gorgeous singing in that scene.

It may strike most of us as a minor difference in meaning, but to the intended audience is meant a lot. Like many translations, it’s not the literal meaning of the words, but the shades of language and communication that are so difficult and so important to capture. Read more.

This is a fun site - translations of High School the Musical in Spanish. But what’s more interesting to me is the preface that describes the translations…

Welcome to Breaking Free, a humble site for fans of the Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical who are either Hispanic or studying Spanish in school. After hours of strategic paraphrases, syntactical experimentation, revisions, and verbal debugging, I am pleased to present a complete collection of all the songs from the movie translated into Spanish.

What makes these Spanish lyrics useful is that I did not translate the songs literally. The translations here are pro canendo (Latin: “for singing”) translations. Each one remains as faithful as possible to the meaning of the original lyrics while expressing that meaning in words that fit the rhythm and melody of the song. While some specific meaning is sacrificed, the loss is minimal and well worth the preservation of the musical quality.

Translation is not a static job. A good translation is not about a literal word for word English to Spanish change. You need to take into account context, subject and purpose. In this case, the purpose is to have singable and possibly rhyming / musical lyrics. Read more and enjoy the music.

 Harry Potter made the news again, this time with the most recent translation into Ukrainian. Not long ago, HP made the news because of the throngs of “netroot” fans doing mass unauthorized translations of this popular book. Now it’s making news because of a current and new translation was the first in the Russian states. Read more. And if you want to see photos from the release party, click here.

In an attempt to win over extra readers, the A-Ba-Ba-Ha-La-Ma-Ha publishing house once released “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix” – the fifth installment in the famous series – considerably earlier than Russian publishers, which made the book an absolute bestseller in Ukraine. The same thing happened with the sixth novel.

But with the latest seventh and final installment, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Ukrainian publishers literally beat everyone, having officially released the Ukrainian translation of the book on Sept. 25, which made it the very first translation of the book to be released in a foreign language in the whole world.

I just came across this 10+ year old interview that Madonna had when she was filming Evita in Budapest. Apparently Madonna sat down with a Hungarian reporter, and the reporter’s questions were posed in Hungarian, then translated into English for Madonna, whose replies were then translated back into Hungarian for the paper’s exclusive. Shortly thereafter, at the request of USA Today, Madonna’s comments were then retranslated from Hungarian back into English for the benefit of that paper’s readers. The results are humorous to say the least.

A few highlights:

Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odor? You are the biggest fan of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies in response.

Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments for all to see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made.

Blikk: Madonna, let’s cut toward the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts on men who are tops?

Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman advances on her prey in a discotheque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a more normal attitude toward leather play-toys that also makes my day.

Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other people in your bed at the same time?

Madonna: No, he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb using him. But as regards these questions, enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by him, not a sex machine.

Read the entire interview.

This is so interesting to me. Translation is so important to communication, to our spirits, to living. This article says that they completed the first translation of the old and new testaments into Persian in over 100 years! No matter your religion, it has to be important to know that we have the ability to reach out to people all over the world with our messages.

“Today’s Persian Version” of the Bible has been completed and was officially dedicated in Istanbul, Turkey in August, enabling Persian-speaking people around the world to have a present-day translation of the Old and New Testaments.

The translation is significant because the last Persian translation of the Bible was done in the 1890s.

“This means that we now have a translation that is easy to understand and is in contemporary modern Persian language,” said the Rev. Kenneth Thomas, translation consultant for the new Bible and a former Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission co-worker in Iran.

Persian is the language of more than 100 million people worldwide, with the majority of them living in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.