Atlas Translations: News

Atlas Newsletter – January 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

Wishing a Happy New Year to all on behalf of the Atlas team! In keeping with the festive season, Chinese Work Placement student Rebecca talks about the imminent approach of the Chinese New Year of the Rat, which will begin on February 6th this year.

The Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival) usually comes at the end of January or at the beginning of February, depending on the lunar calendar. According to the zodiac order, 2008 is the Year of Rat. There are twelve animals in our zodiac order and each year is represented by one animal.

The Chinese New Year is the most important festival for people in China. Usually family members get together to celebrate the New Year. Children will receive some ' pretty cash' from their parents and relatives during the Chinese New Year period. (For me this is the best part of Chinese New Year –haha!)

On the Chinese New Year’s Eve, all family members have dinner together and, at midnight, we have dumplings. There are very loud fireworks outside from 10pm until midnight on New Year's Eve, as we use the fireworks to scare the evil spirits away. This ensures that we will have good luck in the New Year and that every family member will remain in good health.

Rat

The Chinese believe that people born in a particular year take on the characteristics of the animal associated with that year. Rats are said to be ambitious, intelligent and loyal to their family. They are hard-working and imaginative but not always self assured and don’t always look to the future. They do, however, make very dependable friends.

Atlas Translates Coptic

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Following on from the Coptic translation project that Atlas successfully completed at the end of last year, Atlas expects more Coptic work to be winging its way into the office in 2008. The initial project, which was the first of its kind to be completed in this language by Atlas, was very exciting and involved a lot of hard work on the part of Project Manager Christopher, who was responsible for sourcing a suitably qualified translator.

He explains:

“The problem is that Coptic is as dead a language as Latin, however, far less people learn it. It is mostly used in a religious context so there is not a great demand to use or learn it - except amongst Christians in Egypt, where the Coptic Church is based. For this reason, we spent a long time contacting Coptic churches, priests and all sorts of other people to help us track down someone suitable for the job!

Many Coptic speakers can be found in Australia but I discovered that those people are very busy with their religious duties.

Since I am German, I called several Coptic churches in Germany and an old Coptic priest was willing to help me; however, when he saw the text he told me that it was standard Sahidic (the dialect in which most known Coptic texts are written, and also the leading dialect in the pre-Islamic period of the 4th Century) and that this dialect was not his speciality.

A friend of mine studies in Oxford and takes Coptic lessons, so I contacted his tutor but he wasn’t able to help me either. I then contacted His Grace Bishop Suriel and Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic Pope - I was really desperate and wanted to try everything! At this point, Clare, Atlas’s Director, started to hum the Mission Impossible theme tune…

Indiana Jones!

Then, at long last, I found somebody at an American University, who was qualified and willing to take on the job. He was friendly and his work is of an excellent standard. He didn’t just translate the words but also gave different meanings, pertaining to different contexts and he supplied lots of background information about the text –exactly what a good translator should do when dealing with this type of source text.

The only problem I have now is that I do not always immediately understand what he tells me about these theological texts, so a nice, technical chat between the translator and client has now opened up and I have found myself in the middle, passing on the information I am given as clearly as possible.

What a great learning curve!”

Translating in the Work-speak

Are you having trouble understanding your boss? Look no further than the new Boss-to-English Translator, available at Careerbuilder.com.

Here are just a few tasters of the translation solutions it provides:

Boss-speak: "Great job on that report!"
Translation: "I'm taking credit for your work."

Boss-speak: "Let me give you some broadstroke ideas, you can fill in the rest" Translation: "I still haven't learned how to create an Excel document."

Boss-speak: "Headquarters has assured me we will not be affected by the merger"
Translation: "you are going to be fired."

Boss-speak: "I'm not sure if what you are suggesting is in alignment with our core competencies"
Translation: "what exactly are do we do again?"

Boss speak: "I hate to the bearer of bad news"
Translation: "disappointing you is the only pleasure I have left in my dead-end, job."

So, instead of spending the rest of the day ruminating over what exactly your boss was trying to infer by that last obscure comment, find yourself an instant translation on this website and reward yourself for the time you have saved with an extra half hour on Facebook. How very efficient!

Gaelic Translation

Atlas recently completed a project involving translation into Irish Gaelic. Project Manager Agnieszka found the project to be “really interesting, as Gaelic is quite an unusual language.”

Gaelic Design

In fact, Gaelic is an umbrella term for all of the Gaelic languages and not only refers to the Irish language and the derived Canadian Irish dialect; but also Scottish Gaelic and the derived Canadian Gaelic dialect, and the Manx language.

The Gaelic language family forms part of the Insular Celtic languages. As its name would suggest, Gaelic is the language of the Gaels, a group of people sharing ethnic and linguistic routes, who originated in Ireland and subsequently penetrated the Isle of Man and Scotland.

And in other news…

Atlas ran another Beginners Trados course in London in January 2008. The course was held at its new venue and ran very smoothly, with the small group of participants mentioning how keen they were on the intimate and relaxed atmosphere. For more information on future courses, please visit: www.atlas-translations.co.uk/english/company/trados.php or call the office directly.

Another Beginners Voiceover workshop also took place in January 2008 in London, more details can be found on the Atlas website: www.atlas-translations.co.uk, or by contacting the London office.

Press/Public Relations

Press Office
Atlas Translations Ltd
Clare Suttie
Director
Phone: +44 (0)20 7240 6666
Contact Press Office
Site: www.atlas-translations.co.uk

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Thank you!