Public service agencies seek to speak their user’s language

OAKLAND, Calif. - Nov. 6, 2014 - PRLog -- Councilman Noel Gallo introduced a proud Carla Itzkowich, CEO of International Contact, Inc., the multilingual communications agency that organized the session to celebrate their 32nd business anniversary.

“Reaching out to the residents who don’t understand our messages in English is as important as it is difficult.International Contact brings excellence to the difficult task of providing Equal Access to all by working hard to use language that they understand, instead of simply translating English materials. Congratulations on bringing communicators, marketers and translation experts together to develop best practices.”

International Contact has been blazing the trail in translation and interpretation for 32 years. They hosted this lunch as a forum for their clients to bring up issues and to share about current tools and best practices in translation, interpretation and localization.

Participants from 8 major Bay Area organizations, discussed issues such as how to assess whether the translation is appropriate for different educational levels, and how to make your materials “world ready” before you begin the process of translation.

Despite the Giant’s parade and the rain, the event drew 2-3 people from most participating organization indicating the priority that translations are getting as organizations are faced with Title VI and other compliance issues. They are also seeing the benefit of outreach in the communities’ native languages.

Questions were raised about whether machine translation can be used with editing, when to use Mandarin or Cantonese, or if to use traditional or simplified Chinese characters, and when to use formal or informal address in the many languages that offer that option.

The topics discussed represent pain points clients face every day as they try to produce materials that truly communicate their message to LEPs in the language they speak.

International Contact intends to continue the exchange of ideas in a series of forums and/or in a large symposium with multiple tracks focusing on issues such as typography, developing a body of reference materials like glossaries and style sheets, etc.

They got overwhelming support for the ideas and now have a longer survey open to anyone with an interest in these issues. It takes 5 minutes to reply and sign on to the project: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZRL2PH5

International Contact experts are available to further discuss the growth of language services and any of the issues that were brought up at this event.

Here’s a link to photography:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.849402401760665...

(pictures are available in High Definition - if you want to get them, please email us your request)

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Thomas Rostaing - 510-836-1180 (about:blank)