Bop as in “bang.” You know, like to “nail.”  As in, “whack the gopher.” That’s what I mean. But in Hausa you say bop the snake.
My head hunter, Mike Klinger, used to be in the Peace Corp in Niger. (Just to be crystal clear, by head hunter, I mean Mike helps me to recruit people for 1-800-Translate. What he does in his own time is his own business, mostly, but I’ll get to that in a minute.)
Mike had been living in the sticks (“en brousse” ) in Guidan Roumji―a wide spot on Route N1 outside of Maradi in Niger―for the last two years with the Peace Corp. He was headed back Stateside, with a pile of gear stacked next to his table at a dusty teahouse, the only white face [...]

Once upon a time, it was another one of those interminable board meetings that the bigwigs like so much over here at 1-800-Translate. Typically, I was distracted, having rolled up the corporate minutes into a pretend spyglass so I could keep a better eye on my minions as they went on endlessly about profits and workflows and other mind-numbingly tedious matters.
Through the chaff of their interminable chatter, I heard my name mentioned. “And Ken is going to do a blog.”  I dropped my spyglass. Threw it down is more like it.
“Whoa, Nelly!  Uncle Kenny doesn’t do blogs, that’s the company policy.” I banged my shoe on the table for emphasis. “I’m much too busy bossing you guys around!”
Well, they didn’t buy that for a minute. So we compromised―that is, I [...]

“Blazing a Trail to Business Success” was the title of the American Translators Association, Translation Company Division conference last week in Phoenix. Made me think of a pack of grubby woodsmen running through a darkened forest, swinging axes and defacing trees, which is a nice way to visualize your competition.
Actually, I found them to be a pretty nice bunch (especially after I had a few drinks), and it was great to see old friends, make new ones, and compare notes on the trade. As we hurtle towards the Translation Singularity, I’m going to start going more frequently to these meetings to keep my fingers on the fading pulse of translation as we know it. I was amazed by some of the stuff people in the industry are doing and thinking.
I had [...]

Written for the encouragement and instruction of all that have taken up the profession of translation, especially the common translator.  Second in a series.
The ancient and honorable profession of translation is changing as never before. With the rise of the machine translators, and the technology that enables swarms of hobby translators (aka “community translators”), the profession is beset by opportunity and challenge.
As the field of translation expands exponentially, growth is fastest at the bottom of the market. Why should people pay for translation if they can get it instantly for free, or by persuading others to contribute their translation labors for nothing? Sometimes it seems as if the profession of translation is beset on all sides, and a new translation model is required if professional translators are to create the value [...]

Geeks who care. Geeks like you. Is that fair to say? Na’vi is a recreational language, which is a recent linguistic wrinkle, conceptualized on corporate demand, then passed on Google-like to guys and gals like you and me, who  do the dirty work of content-building all over the Web. In the world of Web 2.0, fans do the work, and the aggregators make the profit. But the fans have all the fun. The language was designed to reflect the thoughts, the deep thoughts of a race of profound spiritual authority. Does speaking Na’vi make you think higher thoughts? That invites a new kind of play than the Spartan antics of Klingon speakers.
Watching a new language emerge so rapidly  is the same kind of thrill as the volcanologist gets when a [...]

Machine translation technology is available for free on the Internet.
Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all provide free translation of any text using their computer-based translation technology.
Google has announced that documents stored in Google Docs can now be translated and shared with others. Microsoft also announced that you can integrate its translation technology into Office 2007 to translate entire documents.
We used to offer free translation at 1-800-Translate but stopped years ago. I’m thinking of starting again. With all these new solutions available, I’m sure people are using it differently than they used to. I’m trying to figure out how. Tell me what you are looking for and I’ll see if I can come up with the machine translation field of your dreams.
How do you use MT? What do you want to use [...]

Jerry Birenz, top lawyer for Conde Nast, issued the dictate: “Management has decided that the September issue of U.S. GQ magazine containing Scott Anderson’s article ‘Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise to Power’ should not be distributed in Russia.”
Reported on NPR Friday, Journalist Scott Anderson, found his story spiked on digital and international editions. GQ’s corporate owners went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure no Russians will ever see it.
So of course, the story is all over the internet. If Conde Nast thought they could keep it under wraps in the face of internet bloggers and tweeters, they must have been pretty dumb. Yeah, dumb like a fox. Birenz has figured out a way for Conde Nast to have its cake and eat it too, and serve themselves a second helping. [...]