KEEPING track of trade means keeping track of the tongues in which it is transacted. English as a language has ruled the roost for so long that business-people may forget that words can get in the way of, as well as woo, new opportunities. Translating and interpreting along the way to deal-making are, in fact, in themselves only a start.
Though the collapse of the bubble has led to a difficult period for the bits-and-bytes industry, it has now returned to stable and sustainable growth coupled with vibrant innovation in many departments. The coming years promise to be exciting as the software industry, once again, reinvents itself to reach a whole new level.
It's "fly cup"' time at Charmaine's Prize Bingo in the heart of Glasgow's historic Gallowgate, close to the city centre. The tea break means there's no bingo lingo to be heard, but the walls echo with patter sharp enough to bring a smile to the tear-stained faces of the china clowns who look on mournfully from their plinths. "See ma weans,"' invites Agnes Davidson, placing a steaming mug on the table.
Well, it looks like Today Translations will go down in history as the company that advertised for Glaswegian interpreters. Since we placed the ad - in Gumtree, Craigslist and the Glasgow Herald - we seem to have generated something of a media storm. Apart from the Herald, we made The Sun and The Times. On the BBC, we were even bigger news - the most popular story at one point on the BBC News site and the subject of live interviews on BBC Radio Birmingham, BBC Radio Lincolnshire and BBC Radio Cambridge.
What do Sir Alex Ferguson, Gordon Brown, Billy Connolly and Bill Paterson have in common? That's right, they're all Glaswegians. And, at Today Translations, they love our friends from Glasgow. If you're an avid reader of The Sun, The Times or The Glasgow Herald, or a listener to BBC Radio or Scottish TV News, you might know why.
Four AMs campaigning to keep a fully bilingual assembly record are insisting all 60 AMs vote on the issue next week. The four rejected a deal allowing a full translation to be published in up to 10 days, not the current 24 hours. They say the Assembly Commission has refused to meet them and not noted the concerns of politicians across parties.
Firms that trade abroad should steer clear of using jargon when communicating with foreign contacts as their meaning will be distorted when literally translated. The translation business has published a list of some of the most common phrases which make no sense when translated from English into other languages.
The special words that are somehow lost in translation. The Times has translated for you the most untranslatable word in the world. The word is ilunga, from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, and means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. The Times - IlingaIlunga came top of a list drawn up with the help of 1,000 professional translators
If you think English words are difficult to translate, look at some foreign ones
Go-ahead Lithuanians form European links that are set to translate into business opportunities across the board. Exploring land of promise in the not-so-far eastern exhibition of exquisite wooden sculpture in the parliament building of Vilnius might seem an unlikely springboard for the promotion of international trade and services, writes James Brewer.
