JR Language would like to wish a very fun, happy and relaxed Labor Day to all our clients and friends in the translation business! The hard work and dedication of our Project Managers, translators and, interpreters inspires us to improve every day and provide better translation, localization and, interpretation services.

As an interesting fact, the International Worker’s Day, which is celebrated on May 1^st, often gets confused with Labor Day, which the United States and Canada celebrates the first Monday of September. The origins of the International Worker’s Day date back to the 1886’s Haymarket affair in Chicago when workers assembled demanding the 8-hour workday. Labor Day, on the other hand, was established by president Grover Cleveland in 1887 as a way to show his support to the Knights of Labor, the largest and most important American labor organization of the 1880’s.

Pay tribute to those who fought before us so we can all enjoy better labor conditions and: take a day off!

It is not a secret that the U.S. Hispanic community is growing, as predicted in 2000. Being the only sector of the American population with growth of 2.5 (Replacement Value), according to the U.S.Census, Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority in the United States. As a consequence, the younger generations of Hispanics are an appealing target audience that will boost the consumer base of any product or industry.

We would like to share some statistics that will illustrate the allure of this segment for the American and global market:

-          Internet Search: 33.3 million visits were made to top websites by U.S. Hispanics

-          Social Media around the world:

1. Facebook reached 13.5 million Hispanic users
2. Twitter have 8.1 million Hispanics

-          U.S. Politics: 5 party nominations for the U.S. Senate

-          Advertising: 31.1 million dollars spent by top 50 advertisers reaching Hispanics in the U.S.

By the end of 2011, the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies’ report indicated “consistent investment on Hispanic marketing (15%) and high levels of overall top-line revenue growth.”

Evolution in technology and diversity of platforms, particularly in social media and Internet, are giving new challenges to Hispanic media users, prompting Spanish- Language TV networks, magazines and advertisers to hone new skills to connect and stay in the radar of the Hispanic population according to the decisions and patterns this users exhibit.

In this line, it was seems as “relations are extremely important for Latinos online and studies reveal that, especially in purchasing decisions, friends’ recommendations precede other factors in decision making due to the fact that Latinos revolve around tightly knit networks.” As a consequence, relationships built with Hispanics have more potential to subsequently drive more traffic and business to your website and company. It might be worth  to capitalize on connecting with them through social media platforms.

According to HispanTelligence, the research division of Hispanic Business Inc.,(link no follow) the cities that receive more advertising budget for  Hispanic marketing in TV, radio and print are (in order of importance):

• Los Angeles
• Miami
• New York
• Houston
• Chicago
• San Francisco
• Dallas
• San Antonio
• Phoenix
• San Diego

Even though TV, radio, newspapers and, magazines are very important mediums to reach Latino buyers, significant growth of internet advertising investments in 2011 indicate that internet and social media are ready to be embraced as part of the Hispanic marketing plans and, that there is a good strategy in motion to transform it into an effective and efficient tool to target the Hispanic market.

Are you in tune with the changes? What are you doing or what would you do differently? We would like to read your comments.

We have already discussed in this translation blog the importance of interpretation services, the difference with translation services and the abilities, qualification, and training that an interpreter needs to have to accomplish their job. The idea of this post is to point out the importance of medical and legal interpretation services and the seriousness of an inaccurate rendering.

Medical Interpreters and Legal interpreters are the facilitators that bridge the language gap during a Medical Interpretation and Judicial Interpretation session. Due to the nature of the matters involved, medical and legal interpreters have a responsibility and ethical duty to complete the task successfully. One deals with the health and well being of a person and the other might even determine the freedom of an individual or maybe the loss of assets. Needless is to say there are many moral elements involved in the selection of the appropriate trained individual for the duty and that there are many components to consider, including budget and planning, to facilitate the interpretation service.

In addition to the ethical and training issues regarding interpretation, there are important rules to execute the job appropriately. Nonetheless during the activity the primary goal of an interpreter should be delivering an accurate and complete interpretation. With that in mind the following conditions should be met:

• Setting the stage-set clear expectations of their role. Interpreting activity is mainly about transmit information.
• Managing the flow of communication- so that important information is not lost or miscommunicated.
• Managing the triadic relationship – the interpreter’s role is not to take sides or take control over the message, rather to achieve the communication process.
• Assisting in closure activities – prepare communication for follow ups and aid the connection with other services required particularly in the medical setting.

All of these conditions do not need to be covered in every interpretation setting but are vital in Medical and Legal interpretations.

Recently we stumbled upon 2 articles that show how important medical and legal interpretation is. One article is a success story about how medical interpretation has helped a local hospital in Rochester, New York bridge the language barrier and shorten hospital stays and readmission rates.

The other article we found is a story about Nevada’s court system. There, insufficient resources to aid the Spanish speaking defendants waiting for trials and the controversy surrounding budget cuts, which resulted in a bigger shortage of legal interpreters, created conflicts that arise both moral and justice issues.

After reading Sophie Pitman’s blog post about the 2012 London Olympics’ Opening Ceremony, I can’t help but wonder: What went wrong (and what happened to Elton John)? On her post she explains how amazed she was after receiving many emails from her American friends who were totally lost by some elements of the ceremony. Maybe this is the reason why China decided four years ago to give the world a pyrotechnic show instead of one filled with historical references.

Although the United State and the United Kingdom share the English language, they do not share the same historical evolution, which creates a significant cultural gap. For this reason and, as Pitman points out, NBC should have had a British commentator to explain the elements that could have seem obscure to the American audience. Obscure as the giant baby born before our own eyes; maybe some of us did not take advanced English Literature and did not read Paradise Lost (if you read John Milton you realize that Cruella De Vil and Lord Voldemort were completely appropriate).  What surprised me the most was that her friends did not recognized Kenneth Branagh! Most of us have  read and watched countless versions of Shakespeare’s plays; I am sure the younger generations recognized him as Professor Lockhart from Harry Potter.

The Opening Ceremony was not the occasion to globalize but the perfect one to localize; after all the whole idea was to highlight what is intrinsically British, the good and the bad (very moving the commemoration of the War to End All Wars) but also, a local perspective would have helped understand what was happening.

Sports inspire universal values: Unity, Friendship, Equality, Patriotism and, maybe, this is where the Ceremony failed. Maybe they were too patriotic; maybe they failed at conveying a more global message that not only gave the world an in-depth vision of the United Kingdom but made the world feel welcome and part of it.

Fortunately we, at JR Language, know the difference between globalization and localization, and can help in deciding which is best for each situation so that our clients can benefit from it and prevent their copy from getting lost in translation.