Localization Today

At the 74 th Academy Awards ceremony Troy Kotsur took home the Oscar for best supporting actor, portraying Deaf fisherman and father Frank Rossi in CODA. He is the second member of the Deaf community to win an Oscar.

Earlier this week Microsoft announced a new upgrade to its machine translation software, Microsoft Translator, which utilizes Z-code. 

The number of Duolingo users learning Ukrainian increased by 485% in the weeks following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company will be donating all of its ad revenue from Ukrainian learners to organizations helping Ukrainian refugees.

In an effort to help Ukrainian refugees who settle in the United Kingdom, six organizations of language professionals have come together to form the Ukraine Language Support Task Force, which recently created a series of translation templates for important documents to aid refugees who arrive in the country get settled.

The acquisitions bring a suite of new capabilities to the Boostlingo brand. Interpreter Intelligence specializes in interpreter management and interpretation delivery software, while VoiceBoxer delivers remote simultaneous interpretation (RSI) technology.

Not only does the show need to have an all-Asian cast, but it also needed to be told in three languages: Korean, Japanese, and English, as its characters migrated across the world.

So you have a dream of expanding your business beyond national borders, but the rest of your management team is out of the loop. Getting organized to sell your app abroad requires a roadmap. Here are eight stops you don’t want to miss.

A recent South China Morning Post report suggests that Hong Kong’s legal system has not been adequately transparent about providing English-language judgments in recent months.

Recognizing the humanitarian disaster and tremendous need for funds, the benefit Artists for Ukraine music festival launches this coming weekend to feature Ukrainian and international musicians.   

We talk about the emotional challenges of simultaneous interpreting, how to spread truth during war, cultural appropriation, and the American flag.

Earlier this month, New York’s attorney general called on the National Weather Service to improve its language access measures, in response to the disproportionate number of non-English speaking individuals who died during Hurricane Ida last summer.

Historically, English speakers have referred to the Ukrainian capital city as “Kiev,” but you’ve likely seen a different spelling — “Kyiv” — in most of the recent coverage of the war in Ukraine. 

ZOO Digital, a Los Angeles-based language service provider specializing in localization for the entertainment industry, has announced the launch of its Korean hub, following an investment in the Seoul-based LSP, WhatSub Pro.

Worried about imploding markets and the long-term effects of the tragic events unfolding in Ukraine, LocLunch founder Jan Hinrichs came up with the idea of a Ukrainian Language Pledge to pool localization industry resources and help the Ukrainian linguists affected by the conflict.

All language uses symbols for representation and classification, just like names. But these symbols' meaning can rapidly evolve, and the Russian Z launched during the invasion of Ukraine is a perfect example of such dynamic language significance.

Belsat, a Poland-based television channel that primarily broadcasts news in Polish, Russian, Belarusian, and English has announced that it is adding Ukrainian to its slate of languages this week, in a response to the fighting in Ukraine.

Translit, an Ireland-based language service provider (LSP), has announced that it will be donating its services to the roughly 100,000 Ukrainian refugees expected to enter Ireland over the next few months.

The recent passage of House Bill 22 (HB 22) on March 1 will allow New Mexico to pinpoint weak spots in the state’s language access services, in an effort to continue improving them. The bill will go into effect beginning July 1.

When the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Maria Malykhina and her colleagues at Technolex Translation Studio were determined to continue their work by all means. MultiLingual staff writer Stefan Huyghe spoke with Maria this week, who’s a localization production manager based in Ukraine.  

The Russian government has threatened to ban the Russian-language Wikipedia site for its inclusion of “illegally distributed information” about the ongoing war in Ukraine on its page.

Last night, MultiLingual Live had the exciting opportunity to host Kateryna Rietz-Rakul in conversation, the Ukrainian interpreter who went viral this week on social media after breaking into tears while interpreting a press conference by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The result was a revealing, charming, and open discussion that sheds new light on the role of interpreters during wartime...

The local government of Ottawa’s French Language Services (FLS) branch saw an increased number of complaints regarding French language services in 2021, according to a report the branch compiled last week.

A second Ukrainian interpreter, this time translating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s European Parliament address into English, went viral on social media today after the powerful words left him in tears.

Of all the problems facing the world, there are few more pressing than climate change. Fortunately, language-industry companies are stepping up to make a difference. The latest to join that peer group is Lokalise, which announced in February that it was shifting its business operations to achieve carbon neutrality. 

In a press conference given by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today, the Ukrainian-German interpreter couldn’t help but break into tears on live TV at the end of the president’s speech.