Business Traveller suggests ways to break the language barrier
English speakers have been resting on their lingual-laurels for far too long, travelling under the assumption that everyone will understand some of their native tongue or what they consider lingua franca. But panicked Babel Fish word-checks do not make the grade in a world where business spans continents and cultures, and making yourself understood is crucial to the success of your trip.
Hire an interpreter
If you’re visiting a place where English isn’t widely spoken, hiring a translator can be helpful. K International (www.k-international.com) has about 6,000 interpreters based in major cities around the globe, who can be called upon at a few hours’ notice. Stewart Pearce, head of marketing for the company, says he is seeing a revival in requests for face-to-face language services: “It’s cyclical. We had two or three years of everyone wanting to video-conference, then you realise it’s not quite the panacea you thought.”
Choose a translation style to suit your needs
Ensure you are comfortable with the interpreter’s method to avoid awkward pauses or misunderstandings. Consecutive translation, when you stop to let them speak, is best if you are presenting simple slides with a few pointers on each, though you need to be able to keep the thread alive and seamlessly pick up where you left off. “Some people are very good at it – actors, for one – but it’s down to the individual,” Pearce says. Simultaneous translation, when the interpreter translates quietly over you or through earpieces the clients wear, may be preferable for longer, more complex presentations.
Get some virtual help
For informal communication through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and MSN, Ortsbo (www.ortsbo.com) offers a free translation service that allows you to chat in real time with someone who speaks another language. It claims the technology is up to 85 percent accurate. More than 50 languages are covered, and once you have logged on, whatever you type in the chat box will appear with a translation beneath it. An Outlook add-on that translates emails has also been launched.
FreeTranslation.com provides free computer-generated instant translation of up to 4,500 characters at any one time. You can translate English text to 34 languages and vice versa. The automatic translation can sound a little awkward but it is intelligible enough for you to understand the overall meaning of a paragraph, which makes it handy for times when you need to read a document in a foreign language. The website also offers human translation service for as little as US$0.07 per word, as well as a host of translation tools and subscription-based services.
Download an app
Applications are making mobile learning an efficient way to cut corners. Penpower Technology’s Worldictionary (US$4.99, available from iTunes) for the iPhone translates between nine languages – just take a photo of a word and the software will provide a dictionary meaning. US-based company Speechtrans (www.speechtrans.com), meanwhile, has designed the Ultimate app (US$19.99), which allows you to record speech in US English, UK English, Spanish, French or German and have it spoken back to you in a choice of eight languages. John Frei, Speechtrans’ chief executive, predicts that the next phase of translation software will improve on its existing 90 percent accuracy by understanding colloquial terms.
Google Translate has developed a free app with 15 input languages and up to 57 audio/text output, available on Apple and Android devices, but it is missing a few handy features offered by Speechtrans – namely a 55-second speech limit (Google has 15) and no text-to-speech limit (Google offers 100 characters max). With eight language apps operational offline (costing US$4.99-US$27.99), Jibbigo (www.jibbigo.com) is a good alternative.
Holfeld offers a series of free apps through Android Market which, at a tap, read out a small selection of commonly used phrases and sentences in different languages. Full versions covering more words can be downloaded for US$31. The apps cover a wide range of languages ranging from Chinese, Korean and Japanese to French, German, Arabic, Hindi and even Farsi. On iTunes, the apps are called Speak Board, each containing 80 essential phrases, and priced at US$1.99.
Learn a little
Rough Guides’ pocket phrase books (www.roughguides.com, US$6.99) are good to have on stand-by and come with audio conversations that can be downloaded to your laptop or iPod. The 32-language World Travel Toolkit phrase book (US$11.95, www.amazon.com) was launched for Kindle e-readers this year.
