Blog

Google Translate is perhaps the most well known example of machine translation and the conversation about humans versus machines has been an ongoing theme with the Tone blog, and for good reason. 

It's Valentine's Day! You can probably expect to see a barrage of emoji but, does anyone know what they mean or why bother to use them? Learn more about the history and purpose of emoji and how they fit into the grand scheme of communication in this week's installment of Illegible Stamps and Untranslatables!

In order to understand where an industry will go, we must know where it has been. Trend data on language pairs (translating from one language into another language) is the most frequently cited data. Just like other industries, the machines are coming...or maybe they have already arrived. The technology used in the translation industry is heavily researched and mined to anticipate trends. As we translate nearly everything, it isn’t just in Tone’s best interest to be prepared, but in your best interest to know the trends and demand that as a partner in your success, we are on top of these trends.

Each celebration of the Gregorian new year gives us all an opportunity to reflect on the past, plan for the future, and assess our values. Please join us in welcoming a new member to our team, Derek Nekritz. Derek will be joining Team Tone in the position of Translation Assistant Coordinator. Create understanding and opportunity this year by requesting a translation to support your employees, your consumers, your clients, and yourself.

September 30th is International Translation Day! Now officially recognized as a United Nations International Day! On May 24, 2017, the United Nations adopted a resolution titled, “The role of professional translation in connection with nations and fostering peace, understanding and development." Our translators want to be your partner and your bridge.

At tone we are focused on dignity for the people we serve, for the community organizations we support, and for the individuals we employ. This September 30th join us as we recognize and thank “team tone” our professional translators. 

Welcome to the quarterly tone up(date)! We thank you for tuning in to learn what tone has been doing for the first three months of 2017.  We are offering new languages, new services, new expertise, and are making new appearances!

Fa La La La...Ho! Ho! Ho!...”silver bells are ringing”...Tis the season for tone(s) of all kinds. We wanted to share one of our favorite stories about translating the holidays. We were recently asked by a company’s Human Resource department to translate a flyer telling employees about an “Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest” the organization would be having. This was a great gesture from the company to be inclusive of all employees...but cultural complications abound.

We try to remember nearly everything...except that we promised to share information with you. On September 30th, in honor of International Translation Day, tone participated in the Proz.com Virtual Conference.

September 30th (today!) is recognized as International Translation Day! To honor International Translation Day, tone is participating in the Proz.com Virtual Conference happening all day today. Tone will be presenting this afternoon on Languages of Limited Diffusion: Translation Trials and Tribulations with a focus on the Burmese (Myanmar) Language.

Tone would like to thank our team of translators. Tone translators you make the translation of nearly everything possible.

Wanted: a human with the ability to experience emotions in real time and explain them to a machine so they can learn about real life. “Systems like Siri and IBM’s Watson can follow simple spoken or typed commands and answer basic questions, but they can’t hold a conversation and have no real understanding of the words they use.” (AI’s Language Problem) Understanding how the meaning of words are used in context is not just communication, it’s culture.