One Hour Translation Blog

Whenever people try to express themselves across a language barrier, it usually goes terribly, awfully, and hilariously wrong. Even supposedly professional translations from honest-to-goodness translators get victimized by this phenomenon. Gaffes, blunders, and double entendres tend to happen because—let’s face it—no translation service on the planet is perfect. Work made via human translation may come out like machine translation with a simple slipup or a minute of negligence. These types of instances are so well-known that there isn’t really a need to cite an example.

At any rate, professional translation companies and individual translation services are no longer exclusively working in the political or commercial domain. After all, communicating with foreigners isn’t something limited to businessmen and government officials any longer. People everywhere are wishing for their own personal human translation service because of the sheer amount of foreigners flooding the streets nowadays, especially in a melting pot of cultures like New York City.

Overcoming the Language Barrier

Businesses, governments, and employees are presently attempting to find answers to their communication and translation needs in order to operate, travel, work, and live abroad. Language training has grown to be an industry that’s worth billions of dollars because many people across the planet are continuously trying to learn a new tongue for the sake of opening a new chapter in their life, love, or career. Global groups like the European Union or the United Nations even have huge wages reserved for their army of translators and interpreters.

The world has finally opened itself up. It’s a small world after all, and in order to survive in this rapidly shrinking planet—and avoid being stuck in the middle of some strange biblical scene reminiscent of the babbling people at the foot of the Tower of Babel—you need to accommodate the cultures of other people as much as they need to accommodate yours. Avoid culture shock by giving yourself some culture schooling. Open your horizons and educate yourself.

Modern-Day Translation

Interacting with people from all walks of life and from different races and circumstances has nearly become a normal, unavoidable situation for many an individual. You’re now just as likely required to know a few words in Japanese in order to impress a potential hot date you’ve meet in a local pub as you are when visiting Tokyo for some important business dealings. Being able to bridge the cultural divide in both instances has become a critical part of everyone’s everyday life.

Ergo, don’t get lost in translation. How? Research and avoid trying to impose your culture, values, beliefs, and experiences on other people. That should be the whole article right there, but most companies and people who need to learn this simple lesson the most just don’t get it. Forget about the storm of clichés found in the Coppola-daughter-directed “Lost in Translation” film; there’s a reason why the “lost in translation” saying still rings so true even today and has remained relevant for centuries on end.

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