Three cheers for alcohol? Speaking in a recently learned foreign language can be a difficult task. There are lots of new words to remember and verb tenses to keep track of, and you may not have developed total confidence in your abilities yet. A recently published study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, however, revealed that […]

Glaring incompetence is a no-no, a faux pas of the first degree so we like to keep it under wraps, particularly at work. We can all fool some of the people some of the time but it’s getting harder in the digital age. In face-to-face communication, being flashed a smile by someone you’ve just met […]

Without additional visa allotments, the Special Immigrant Visa program for Afghans is coming to an end. This doesn’t bode well for Afghan linguists, some of whom have been hunted down by the Taliban for aiding US troops. Nor for the Americans who will soon be deployed to Syria and looking for new local allies.

For those who play at the top of their game, is it the nirvana of complete focus or the roar of the crowd that drives them to bust excellence’s envelope? Case in point: Interpreters for combat sports. These days some translators achieve a degree of fame along with the literary works they help popularize among […]

Are you ready for some ridiculous translation? Bad translation as spotted by consumers and Internet users can be so funny it hurts. Unless they’re talking about your business, of course, and then it just, well, hurts. Sit back and enjoy the latest roundup of translation no-nos!

Used to be what happened in the interpreter’s booth stayed in the interpreter’s booth, except for the audio feed. But now thanks to a hit Chinese TV show, the passionate, glamorous lifestyle of global linguists is revealed for the first time in glorious HD video.

Ready or not, the French language is changing. In fact, you’ll want to sit down before you read this, s’il vous plaît.

English aid for second-language speakers or red carpet disrespect? Hollywood stars shine showbiz light on second-language manners. Jennifer Lawrence recently made her mark on the language business when she snarked a foreign reporter for holding up a cell phone during a Golden Globes press conference recently. (The Golden Globe Awards is a ceremony hosted by […]

We’ve been thinking a lot about exams at Responsive Translation lately. We talked about Scottish kids being moved to tears by a math exam this year. We proudly released the white papers “How to Get a Top Score on Assessment Translation” and “Maintaining Cognitive and Psychometric Integrity of Testing Instruments in Translation.” We also attended […]

Translators and interpreters around the world are being threatened, jailed, kidnapped, tortured and/or killed for doing their jobs helping people communicate.