On April 5, 2012, the State of New York passed legislation that will require pharmacies to provide customers with information about their medications translated into their respective languages. Any pharmacy chain with eight or more stores in the state will be mandated to follow this law in an attempt to avoid medical confusion and mix-ups. The new law will take effect March 2013 and will affect 300 chain pharmacies.
Alphonso David, Governor Andrew Cuomo's Deputy Secretary of Civil Rights, says that this law will provide critical services and information to Limited English Proficiency (LEP) communities that could mean life or death.
In 2008, a study by "Make the Road NY" reported several cases in which immigrants with limited English proficiency suffered side-effects or were refused explanations about their prescribed medications. Then-Attorney General Cuomo threatened to file a lawsuit against the pharmacies unless they agreed to reform.
Most of New York's largest pharmacy chains - CVS, Rite-Aid, Target, and Wal-Mart - already provide telephonic medical services. This new law would specifically call for simultaneous translation services in the top seven spoken languages by at least 1 percent of the residents of any metropolitan area.
Some pharmacists question whether this new law will be effective, especially in the upstate area of New York. Others believe that it will be a very costly measure to implement something that isn't necessarily widely used across the state. They also voiced legal concerns because they remain liable for any side-effects based on translated instructions, which could result in a loss of license.
Despite the backlash from the pharmacies, more people in New York will now have better access to important health care information regarding their medications thanks to the provision of language translation and interpretation services, which represents a growing trend over the past decade -- at the state, local and federal levels -- with access to critical information and services for the LEP population is being vastly expanded.
For many naturalized citizens in the United States, one of the greatest privileges when receiving their citizenship is the ability to vote. Some of these new citizens are still learning English, and so many states, counties and local municipalities provide foreign-language versions of ballots and voting instructions in order to guarantee these new Americans fair access to our voting system. However, even the best intentions when it comes to providing free and fair access to our newest citizens can go astray.
As an example, in Arcadia, California the week of March 12, 2012, nearly 29,000 voters were sent election ballots which had been translated into Chinese with a grave translation error in the instructions. This error was critical enough to invalidate votes in Arcadia?s general municipal election in April.
This ballot provided instructions in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese. The English, Vietnamese and Spanish speakers received instructions to "vote for no more than two" of the five candidates for City Council. The instructions in Chinese, however, read: "Vote for no more than three." Ballots with more than two votes were automatically flagged as an "over-vote," and therefore voided.
Martin and Chapman Co., an Anaheim-based election consulting company which uses its own translation vendor, prepared the incorrectly translated ballots that went out to every registered voter in Arcadia.
Seemingly small translation errors like these can lead to high costs to correct the situation, as the City of Arcadia learned in providing replacement ballots and alerting City voters of the mistake through nearly every medium.City Manager Don Penman estimated that the translation error would cost the City between $7,000 and $10,000, and suggested that the election consultant reimburse these costs and stressed the need to double-check translations for the future.
In situations with such high stakes as official public elections, the need to correctly and accurately communicate information is even greater. That is why it is imperative that translations be checked and re-checked by qualified, professional translators to avoid costly mistakes such as what happened in the Arcadia municipal election.
For years, the term "LEP" has been known mainly to those in the language services industry.With the ever-growing population of immigrants in the United States, as well as an increased focus by the Federal and State governments to provide services to these important new communities (as well as businesses that are either looking to hire from this population segment or market their products and services to them), "LEP" is popping up more and more frequently.
What exactly does "LEP" mean? In the language community, the term "LEP" stands for "Limited English Proficient". LEP individuals are people who do not speak English as their primary language, and have a limited ability to speak, read, write or understand English. The LEP population in the United States represents a variety of languages, categorized across four major language groups according the U.S. Census Bureau: Spanish (which includes Spanish, Spanish Creole, and Ladino), Indo-European languages (French, German, Russian, etc.), Asian and Pacific Island languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, etc.), and all other languages (Uralic, Semitic, African, native North, Central and South American). The English-speaking ability of each of these language groups varies greatly as do the levels of English-speaking ability vary across the United States.
LEP individuals may be entitled to language assistance for certain types of services and programs. Issued in 2000, Executive Order 13166 ("Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency") requires federal agencies to review the services they provide, determine any needs for those services with limited English proficiency, and develop and execute a system so that LEP individuals can have access to their services. It is important that these government agencies know and understand what the LEP community is so that these individuals can have the same access to important services, such as healthcare, legal aid, HR support and education, as any English-speaking person would. By ensuring equal access for all individuals to these essential services, we can further embrace the diversity and preserve the unique linguistic cultures of the LEP community within the U.S.
Schreiber Translations, Inc. (STI), one of the leading language service firms, is pleased to announce that we have pledged our support to help humanitarian translations reach more people around the world by becoming a "Silver" sponsor of Translators without Borders. Since the devastating Haiti earthquake in 2010, Translators without Borders has been stepping up efforts to provide humanitarian translations to aid groups, not just to those working in Haiti, but to NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, working across the globe in disaster relief, healthcare and education. The financial support provided by sponsors is critical to sustaining and growing the organization, particularly in under-resourced languages. "In the course of our work, we've become aware of a huge global need, which is for people in poor countries to be able to access global knowledge in their own language," explains Lori Thicke, co-founder of Translators without Borders.
Commenting on Schreiber Translation, Inc.'s decision to become a sponsor, Marla Schulman, STI's President said: "STI is proud to include Translators without Borders as a part of our STI CARES Program, which strives to support both the local and global communities through language, service, compassion and hope. In addition to our financial sponsorship of Translators without Borders, we also provide the organization with staff time to provide much-needed volunteer administrative support."
Lori Thicke adds: "We are incredibly grateful to [your company] for this assistance, which is critical to enable us, in turn, to support more humanitarian work around the globe."
The financial support provided by sponsors is critical to sustaining and growing Translators without Borders.
Schreiber Translations, Inc. (STI) is proud to be supporting Translators without Borders in this work.
On Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 we dropped off the donations from our annual Holiday Donation Drive to "A Wider Circle" in Silver Spring, Maryland, including several boxes of non-perishable food items and several large bags of clothing and baby items, donated by our staff and neighbors in our office building here in Rockville. It is especially significant at this time of year when it is so important to keep in mind those in our community who are in need, and all of us at STI are happy to be able to give back to such a good cause.
Another important facet of our STI CARES community service program this past year was our work with "Translators Without Borders", an organization that provides free translation services to NGOs, with the goal of allowing them to be able to use funds that otherwise would have had to be spent on translation costs, directly for their important work, whether assisting with re-construction and development efforts in Haiti or working towards stamping out malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Marla Schulman, STI's President, works actively with the executive committee of "Translators Without Borders", and this year, STI provided a financial donation to the organization on behalf of all of our clients and translators, and will continue to work closely with the organization this coming year.
This past year was an exciting and successful one for STI. We experienced exceptional growth, were awarded a number of new language services contracts, and have increased our in-house staff by more than 25% in order to meet the growing demand for our services. There will be many exciting things coming up for us in the New Year, and we look forward to meeting the challenges of 2012!
From all of us at STI, we wish everyone a very successful and Happy New Year!
Schreiber Translations, Inc. (STI) will again be hosting its annual Holiday Donation Drive in support of the "A Wider Circle" organization in Silver Spring.
The mission of "A Wider Circle" is to help individuals and families lift themselves out of poverty. At the heart of their work is the realization that breaking the cycles of poverty requires more than just the provision of basic need items; it also requires a restoration of dignity and self-worth. Their comprehensive wellness programming helps individuals gain greater control of their well-being, while the delivery of furniture, home goods and more helps individuals and families meet their basic needs.
STI's annual Holiday Donation Drive is a part of its comprehensive STI CARES community service program, which is focused on giving back both to the local community, as well as the global community. Other initiatives in this program have included donation of translation services to "The Children's Inn at NIH", as well as donations to other groups, such as "Translators Without Borders," the Montgomery County Humane Society, the American Red Cross and more.
We will be collecting healthy, non-perishable food items, personal care items, non-toxic cleaning supplies, clothing and baby items at our office in Rockville, MD, from Wednesday, November 16th through Wednesday, December 14th, during the hours of 9 AM to 4 PM. If you have any questions, or would like more information about the STI CARES Program, you can call us at (301) 424-7737, ext. 125.
STI has been a leading provider in the patent & IP translation industry for more than 30 years, helping numerous government and private sector clients to meet their translation, localization, and interpretation needs. STI integrates the best in human and technological resources to help our clients break down language barriers and face the demands of increasingly rapid globalization. With an effective, personalized, a nd proven system of project management, there is no project too big or too small.
STI is a Corporate Member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and a Charter Member of the Association of Language Companies (ALC), the only trade association in the U.S. devoted to the language industry.
STI is located in the Washington D.C metro area. To learn more, please contact STI at www.schreibernet.com, or call (301) 424-7737.
In 2011, Google and the European Patent Office (EPO) signed a deal under which the EPO would provide Google with a large volume of patents and translated patent content in multiple languages in order to feed into their Google Translate program.
The idea behind the deal is that the large influx of translated patent content will improve Google Translate's ability to translate patent materials, providing a no-cost option to those seeking to use such content for research purposes. With the ever-rising costs of patent translations in the EU, and the lack of a final deal between EU member countries to simplify, centralize and consolidate a Europe-wide patent filing system, having such a system in place could reduce translation costs significantly.
How does 'Google Translate' work?
Google Translate is a rule-based, statistical machine translation program. Essentially, Google's statistical approach focuses on aligning sentences with their translations. Google Translate has done this for hundreds of millions of sentence pairs. When a new text is to be translated, is statistically matched against a huge database of pairing and a probable translation calculated.
The statistical approach has become popular because it is cheaper to develop large scale, general engines. Google has automated engine development so that it can take place dynamically.
The Flaws of Google Translate's Method
While Google Translate has certainly allowed for increased access to foreign language content, it still have some significant limitations. Google Translate's machine translation methodology frequently yields ridiculous translation errors, swapping in common terms for similar but nonequivalent terms, as well as switching the meaning of a sentence altogether.
This is especially problematic when it comes to such a specialized field as patents. For example, a statistical machine translation tool, like Google Translate, is dependent on dialect. As a case in point, a statistical machine translation engine that has been trained for patents written in Mandarin Chinese as used in China cannot be used very effectively to translate patents written in Mandarin Chinese as used in Taiwan. Even though the grammars are virtually identical and both are Mandarin Dialect, scientific terminology used in Mainland China and Taiwan have evolved separately over the past several decades.
The "Symbolic" Machine Translation Method
The "symbolic" approach focuses on the grammatical structure of linguistic segments. For a text to be machine translated, it is first broken down into segments (sentences, phrases and words) based on certain grammatical rules. These segments are then translated individually and the target language text rebuilt from those parts, again following grammatical rules for the target language.
The advantage of the symbolic approach is that it can be better adapted to special projects and special kinds of texts, such as patents, as opposed to the statistical method that programs like 'Google Translate' utilize.
While programs that utilize this more specialized approach to patents are not free-of-charge like 'Google Translate', they are much more reliable in terms of quality of output, and certainly more affordable than full, certified translations. This is especially useful when large numbers of documents need to be reviewed but do not necessarily need to be a professional, legal-grade quality.
What the future holds, though, for 'Google Translate' and its foray into the world of patents and patent translation remains to be seen. How quickly and effectively the influx of EPO documents into their system yields positive is still and unknown.
STI has been a leading provider in the patent & IP translation industry for more than 30 years, helping numerous government and private sector clients to meet their translation, localization, and interpretation needs. STI integrates the best in human and technological resources to help our clients break down language barriers and face the demands of increasingly rapid globalization. With an effective, personalized, and proven system of project management, there is no project too big or too small.
STI is a Corporate Member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and a Charter Member of the Association of Language Companies (ALC), the only trade association in the U.S. devoted to the language industry. STI's President, Marla Schulman, is the Immediate Past President of the AlC.
STI is located in the Washington D.C metro area. To learn more, please contact STI at www.schreibernet.com, or call (301) 424-7737.
An event that may have gone largely unnoticed by the average person, but was widely lamented in the music industry, was the sudden, tragic passing of keyboardist & arranger, Guy Babylon, aged 52, on September 2, 2009.
Guy Babylon, who was originally from Carroll County in Maryland and attended Francis Scott Key High School, was probably best known for his years of collaboration with Elton John, serving as both the keyboardist in his band (since 1988) and as an arranger on much of Elton's music and Broadway musical productions, such as Aida, Billy Elliott, and Lestat (a musical production based on Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles). For the former, Babylon was awarded with a Grammy for his contributions in 2001. He was also a founding member of the band, Warpipes, in 1990, a collaborative project with Davey Johnstone, lead guitarist of the Elton John Band.
According to a statement released by Elton John, "He [Guy Babylon] was one of the most brilliant musicians I ever knew, a true genius, a gentle angel and I loved him so much."
Guy Babylon is survived by his wife of 24 years, Kathy, as well as two sons and a step-daughter. It is his youngest son, Ben Babylon, 12, who has begun to follow in his father's footsteps as a musician, and at such a young age, already displays much of his father's musical prowess on the keyboards.
As a tribute to his father, Ben penned the song "Goodbye Superman" (which is currently available on iTunes), and has performed it live at a number of venues, including the House of Blues, and will also be performing it at a tribute to Elton John's music to be held by Rock Nation, where Ben will be joined on-stage by the members of the Elton John Band on September 26, 2010, in Agoura Hills, California.
The orchestral version of "Goodbye Superman" opens with ethereal, haunting chords reminiscent of Elton John's classic "Funeral for a Friend", before being joined by Ben Babylon's technically flawless and emotive piano playing. Having grown up around Elton's music, a similar style can be heard in this song. The lyrics themselves " sung passionately by a pure voice, as yet untouched by the throws of puberty " echo both the pain caused by the sudden loss of his father, but also of the deep love shared between father and son, reflecting a maturity that belies Ben's tender age. "Bubble gum pop-rock" it is not; but rather, it shows a unique and tender soulfulness.
With the popularity of young musical acts like the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and Greyson Chance over the past several years, Ben Babylon certainly has the potential to join the ranks of an already accomplished group of teen stars, and by utilizing digital and social media tools like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, which were the driving forces behind the discovery of Bieber and Chance, he is already gaining publicity and momentum in his fledgling musical career. And, it doesn't hurt to have the support of such an amazing musical legend as Elton John, who has proclaimed, "You better watch out for this kid, He can really play!"
To anyone who who happens to check out this unique, young talent, it will be clear that Ben Babylon has an exciting, inspiring future ahead of him, one that his father would certainly be quite proud of.
You can read more about Ben Babylon at www.benbabylonmusic.com, or check him out on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter!
UPDATE (July 2011)--Ben Babylon is currently in the studio working on his debut album, with me mbers of the Elton John B and. Click here to check out a preview of one of his brand new songs!
STI has been a leading provider in the patent & IP translation industry for more than 30 years, helping numerous government and private sector clients to meet their translation, localization, and interpretation needs. STI integrates the best in human and technological resources to help our clients break down language barriers and face the demands of increasingly rapid globalization. With an effective, personalized, and proven system of project management, there is no project too big or too small.
STI is a Corporate Member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and a Charter Member of the Association of Language Companies (ALC), the only trade association in the U.S. devoted to the language industry. STI's President, Marla Schulman, is the Immediate Past President of the AlC.
STI is located in the Washington D.C metro area. To learn more, please contact STI at www.schreibernet.com, or call (301) 424-7737.
ALC & GALA: Language Industry Association Cooperation - A hop across the pond for me, a giant leap for the language industry
At the end of March, I attended the Globalization and Localization Association's (GALA) third Language of Business Conference in Cascais, Portugal. I was there representing the Association of Language Companies (ALC) as the ALC's Immediate Past President, along with current ALC President, Sandy Dupleich. The ALC is a US-based national trade association representing businesses that provide translation, interpretation, localization, and language training services. GALA is an international non-profit association that promotes translation services, language technology and language management solutions.
When I first took over the running of Schreiber Translations, Inc. (STI) in the late nineties, I was astounded to learn of how little conversation and cooperation existed between language companies and language company owners. Over the years since then, I've been gratified to be a part of the movement to change this and to bring maturation to our industry. STI joined ALC as a Charter Member in 2004, and in 2008, I was elected President of the association. ALC, along with GALA and many other language groups, brings language companies together to exchange ideas, raise the profile of the industry and even to influence policy.
However, as fabulous as these associations are, and as much as they've brought positive progress, their very existence has caused some divide and the many events put on each year by all the various groups has caused a challenge and a competition for language companies' time and dollars. This year, ALC and GALA came together to begin to address this situation. Our two groups announced a collaboration to exchange member rates at each others' 2011 conferences and to exchange signature sessions at each others' events as well.
Which brings me back to my trip to Portugal. GALA put on a wonderful event, with well over 200 attendees and sessions focused on business, technology, content, tools demos and more. One of the most rewarding parts for me was leading our ALC's signature Town Hall session along with Sandy Dupleich. We were able to introduce GALA members to our dynamic presentation geared solely towards topics of interest to session attendees, which they face in running their language companies. In Cascais, issues centered around European or other non-US-based companies looking to do business in or with the United States. Areas covered include motivating U.S.-based salespeople, ensuring payment from U.S. clients and working with the U.S. Government.
Equally rewarding for me was the opportunity to be a member of the panel for the last day's plenary session, State of the Industry. Led by GALA Chair Hans Fenstermacher, the panel also included leaders from the EU Translation Division, ATA, FIT, Rosetta Foundation and Translators without Borders. The panel addressed a wide spectrum of industry issues, including translators' attitudes towards Machine Translation, a suggestion that the industry needs to focus on being a conduit for global communication vs. financial gain, mobile communication as the next front line and more. At the ALC's annual 2011 conference, in Las Vegas May 18-21, I will be leading a follow-up discussion, a panel called The Future of the Language Industry, with some of the same participants from the GALA panel along with some new ones.
I would like to thank GALA for allowing to me attend their conference in Portugal on behalf of the ALC and I look forward to welcoming GALA to our ALC conference in Las Vegas. Greater cooperation among industry groups and associations is the next frontier we need to conquer together.
STI has been a leading provider in the patent & IP translation industry for more than 30 years, helping numerous government and private sector clients to meet their translation, localization, and interpretation needs. STI integrates the best in human and technological resources to help our clients break down language barriers and face the demands of increasingly rapid globalization. With an effective, personalized, and proven system of project management, there is no project too big or too small.
STI is a Corporate Member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and a Charter Member of the Association of Language Companies (ALC), the only trade association in the U.S. devoted to the language industry. STI?s President, Marla Schulman, is the Immediate Past President of the ALC.
STI is located in the Washington D.C. metro area. To learn more, please contact STI at www.schreibernet.com, or call (301) 424-7737.
It has been almost four decades since the Convention on the Grant of European Patents and the establishment of the European Patent Office (EPO). The EPO provides a single patent grant procedure, but not a single patent from the view of enforcement. What this means, then, is that the patents granted are not European Union patents or even Europe-wide patents at all, but rather, just a bundle of national patents.
It is no surprise, then, that the issue of a truly centralized system for handling patents in Europe is still a hot button issue, and one that the EU has been recently struggling to solve. One of the main reasons for both the necessity of a better solution, as well as the heated debate, comes down to translation.
The Cost of Patent Translations in Europe
One of the biggest issues for inventors (and their attorneys) is the enormous cost involved with translating patents into all of the languages of the EU (even though the EPO has only three official languages, English, German and French).
According to European Commission estimates, the average cost to translate a patent for just six countries costs around $4,500 (approximately US $6,300), and up to $26,000 (approximately US $36,300) for translations in all member countries. Due to the costs of translation, as well as annual renewal fees across all countries can lead to the costs being up to 11 times higher than in the United States..
And, when you consider not only the costs to obtain translations in the languages of each member country, but also the annual renewal fees for the patents, the costs can be truly overwhelming for many smaller companies or individual inventors.
Proposal for a Unitary Patent System & Opposition from Italy and Spain
Most of the EU member countries have agreed, in principle, to the need for a unitary patent system in Europe, which would allow for a single intellectual property right in all EU member states. Under such a unitary system, the process would be much cheaper and more efficient than the current system of individual national patents, which then have to be validated and enforced separately in each member state.
In terms of the translation issue, patents would only need to be translated into a few languages, with a heavy focus in English, German and French, rather than into every official EU language, thus saving significantly on translation costs. In addition, with a unitary patent system, there would only be one annual renewal fee, and ownership could be transferred in only one transaction, simplifying the process considerably.
While most member countries have accepted this plan, however, Italy and Spain have blocked passage of the measure, insisting that this would not be fair to the other member countries whose languages are not represented among those few.
Finding a Compromise Solution
After months of wrangling, and with continued opposition from a minority of EU member states, the European Parliament, in mid-February, agreed to a compromise plan, the so-called "enhanced cooperation" procedure. Under this plan, a group of EU countries would be permitted to go ahead with a cooperative agreement amongst themselves, even if all member states did not agree. While this isn't a final solution, and still far from the eventual goal of a truly "unitary" patent system in Europe, it does represent a step in the right direction.
This doesn't mean, however, that the battle is over. It is almost certain that Italy and Spain will continue their opposition, and there have even b een threats to take t he issue to th e European courts. This could potentially ad to years of legal wrangling and uncertainty among the intellectual property rights community in Europe.
In the meantime, translation remains a critical part of the entire patent lifecycle, whether for research purposes, foreign fili ng or litigation. And, while the recent announcement by Google in regards to enhancing its machine translation capabilities based on an agreement with the European Patent Office to add its massive corpus of translated documents into its system will allow some cost savings, at this point, it will not be able to replace certified translations by human translators needed for filing and other "official" purposes.
STI has been a leading provider in the patent & IP translation industry for more than 30 years, helping numerous government and private sector clients to meet their translation, localization, and interpretation needs. STI integrates the best in human and technological resources to help our clients break down language barriers and face the demands of increasingly rapid globalization. With an effective, personalized, and proven system of project management, there is no project too big or too small.
STI is a Corporate Member of the American Translators Association (ATA) and a Charter Member of the Association of Language Companies (ALC), the only trade association in the U.S. devoted to the language industry. STI's President, Marla Schulman, is the Immediate Past President of the AlC.
STI is located in the Washington D.C metro area. To learn more, please contact STI at www.schreibernet.com, or call (301) 424-7737.
