Atlas Translations: News

Atlas Newsletter – July 2008

It's all Chinese to us…

Soup

Regular readers may remember that several months ago Atlas News reported on efforts by the Beijing local authorities to standardise menu translations in preparation for the Olympics…

Recent reports by the Western media indicate that much progress has since been made; they cite examples such as the new offering of 'Steamed Pullet' to replace what was formerly known as 'Chicken without sexual life' and the concise and cosmopolitan-sounding 'Mapo Tofu', in place of the somewhat disgustingly over-translated dish of 'Bean Curd Made By a Pockmarked Woman'.

Nevertheless, there are some who will greet the loss of the seemingly endless wealth of nonsensical culinary translations with great sadness; amongst the favourites on the menu of linguistic misdemeanours are 'Strange-flavour rabbit', 'Drifting-fragrant fish' and, for those who possess a slightly cruder sense of humour (together with a familiarity with the adult film industry), 'Sea Urchin Bukkake - served with all the condiments of bukkake'.

What are notarisation and certification services?

Among the many professional services that Atlas has to offer clients is that of notarisation – the act of certifying a document through a notary public. Such certified documents receive the notary's seal or stamp and are then recorded the notary's register. This process of certification and registration is known as a "notarial act".

Typical examples of documents requiring some sort of certification include certificates for marriages, births and deaths, diplomas and degrees and important company documents, such as memorandum and articles of association and the like.

In countries which subscribe to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, only one other act of certification is ever required. This act is known as an “apostille ” and is issued by a government department. In countries where this Convention was not adopted, a special "authentication" or "legalisation" must be issued by either the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the country from which the document is being sent or the Embassy, Consulate-General or High Commission of the country in which it is being received.

Atlas can provide any of the following certifications upon the client's request: a certifying letter on headed paper, signed and stamped by Atlas to confirm that the translation was completed by the company; a notarised or legal translation, signed and stamped by a notary public; an apostilled translation, stamped by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Atlas continues to work in minority languages.

Atlas is currently completing various translations in minority languages, including a Tibetan document about railways, a Gaelic healthcare document and a Kazakh marriage certificate.

Tibetan is typically classified as a Tibeto-Burman language and is comprised of a group of languages which are mainly spoken by Tibetans across the area of Eastern Central Asia which borders South Asia. Tibetan's classical written form is a major regional literary language and is predominantly used in Buddhist literature; however, spoken Tibetan includes dozens of regional dialects and sub-dialects which cannot always be understood from region to region.

Irish Gaelic ( Gaeilge ) is a Goidelic language , which originated from Ireland . It is now spoken natively by only a small minority of the Irish population but still has a visible symbolic role in the life of the Irish state. It also enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is an official language of the European Union .

The Kazakh language is a member of the Turkic language family and is one of the principal languages spoken in Kazakhstan , along with Russian . It is also spoken in parts of Mongolia and in the Ili region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China , where it appears in Arabic script in its written form.

Graduate Work Placement Programme goes from strength to strength

Atlas' Work Placement scheme is still proving to be an extremely popular choice for translation students wishing to gain experience in the industry and is currently booked up until the end of February 2009. The programme is longstanding (nearly 16 years now) and very successful in its goal of offering budding translators an introduction to the industry, along with a range of professional development and recruitment opportunities. The programme also provides students with realistic expectations of what translators actually do, while teaching them many of the skills that they will need to survive in the profession.

This month, Atlas welcomes new Work Placement student Delphine into the team and wishes long-term work placements Justine and Maria goodbye and good luck! Below, Justine looks back on her time with Atlas:

“For me, this work placement was an excellent opportunity to experience office life, to take on professional responsibilities and to better understand the relationship between translators, interpreters and a translation service provider such as Atlas. As part of the team, I have learned Project Management skills and I was really happy to be names Work Placement Team Leader after only 2 months at Atlas.

Support within the Atlas team were excellent, I never felt left alone as I could ask as many questions as I wanted and always received all the help I needed. This work placement is a very good conclusion to my first few years at university, as I have learned about realities of the translation profession and gained first-hand experience working in the industry that I want to enter once I finish my studies

To find out more about the Atlas Work Placement Programme please visit the recruitment pages on the company website.

North East Wales Institute to be named after Owain Glyndwr

The North East Wales Institute in Wrexham was last week granted university status by royal assent of the Queen and is to become known as Glyndwr University after Wales' famous visionary leader, scholar and nation builder Owain Glyndwr.

The iconic figure, Glyndwr, was born near Wrexham circa 1355 and fought in the English army as a supporter of the English King, Richard II. When Richard was usurped by Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), Glyndwr led his forces against the usurper and defended his homeland. According to the Principle of Glyndwr University, Professor Michael Scott, Glyndwr:

“…was arguably the most important and widely known figure in Welsh history.”

Students

He added:

“It is fitting, also, that a figure who embodied the spirit of enterprise should be associated with an educational institution where enterprise is at the very core of our activity."

The institute, which has nearly 8,000 students, will become the tenth university in Wales and the only university in North East Wales. Scott believes that achieving university status means that the institute will be able to “deliver significant benefits not just to the student population but to the whole North Wales economy”.

Foreign Secretary champions languages for London students

In a new initiative to promote language learning, the Department for Children, Schools and Families has launched a new programme to shows schools, colleges and businesses how they can work together to help young people see how important languages are for their future.

As part of this programme, students from Hornsey School for Girls were recently partnered with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in RLN London's Business Language Champions programme and invited to meet with the Foreign Secretary to share their experiences of visiting the FCO.

Their teacher, Ann Reid, felt that the visits had made a real impact. “Even though they live in London, they rarely, if ever, get the opportunity to see behind the scenes of big London companies or offices. The visits gave the students something to aspire to.”

The initiative, which has been strongly endorsed by the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, has so far worked across eleven London boroughs in 2007/2008 and involved over 400 students. A toolkit to help schools and businesses participate in this programme has been created by the Regional Language Network (RLN) and is now available for download, along with case studies, from its website at www.rln-london.com/champions

Newsletter/Press

Atlas Translations Ltd
Anna Davies or Clare Suttie
Phone: +44 (0)20 7240 6666

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