Written for the encouragement and instruction of all who have taken up the profession of translation, especially the common translator.
In 1644, Oliver Cromwell wrote the “Souldiers Catcechisme” for the New Model Army, a new military organization (and the first modern professional army) that, through conviction and consistent regulation, was finally able to sweep the King’s men from the field and restore the rights of the Parliament in the English Civil War.
Now the profession of translation faces its own version of the King’s men. Powerful institutions in search of something for nothing are eager to follow the path of Facebook in obtaining their translations for free. They have mobilized the enthusiasm of bilingual speakers for their products, enabling technologies that allow multiglots to provide their labor for nothing, or for a bit [...]

Some British scientists have programmed a computer to figure out what languages people are speaking by the movement of their lips. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090421205226.htm
Kind of useless at this point, but there are some interesting implications here.
Automatic lip reading, also known as automatic speech reading, is a growing branch of speech recognition technology. By monitoring a speaker’s lip movements and other related elements, software can interpret verbal messages when cross-talk or background noise interferes with listening comprehension.
Even when audio is good, visual data is a really important part of the communication agenda, and often telephone interpreters are left in the dark.
While computers can produce useful translations of written content, automated translation for audio interpretation has a long way to go. The applications I’ve seen start with voice recognition, transferring [...]

Language Managers juggle all the aspects of getting from good to great translations. For translation super-tailored to client and end-user needs, it’s all about the words. Language Managers are all over the words even before translation begins.
Projects begin with a glossary and a style guide, no matter how sketchy they may be at the beginning of the project (we have style guides with just a single line of instructions).  Language Managers then keep adding more and more wonderful words to the project, and the glossary expands, the style guide is re-styled, and our client’s collection of repeated phrases in the translation memory grows. As the project matures, the Language Manager introduces more efficiency, more consistency, and greater accuracy to the project.
But above all, the Language Manager makes sure that each [...]

As translators, we hate to admit it, but translation is only part of the foreign language communication process. Language Management is the method used to make sure that the translation process delivers a well-crafted translation as quickly and inexpensively as possible.
So Language Managers become the ringleaders for the entire translation show ― but they stand alone. When we provide translation services to our clients, our language managers stand aside, looking on from on high, since we don’t want them to be influenced by the translation team. So it’s not “church and state,” as the magazine ad salesman promises with a wink, but more like New York and New Jersey: side by side, but commuting back and forth.
Language Managers pull all the details required for good translation from every source. It’s [...]