May 2013: Egypt

An article in Business First, discusses the interpreter certification program conducted by the Ohio Supreme Court. This past February, the Court certified 22 interpreters in Spanish, French, Russian, and American Sign Language. During the certification process, interpreters must complete and pass a written examination and an oral performance examination. It is widely acknowledged that there is “a lack of interpreting schools in the Midwest.” The article mentions that Access 2 Interpreters, in Columbus, has initiated a preparation course for legal interpreters. The course includes topics on legal procedures and terminology. The article also quotes Yana Schottenstein, Access’s General Manager, who stated that, “[Legal language] is a completely foreign language for a lot of people, including native speakers of English.” For more on Access’s Interpreter Education Department, see the “Access Academy” page.

Read more here. http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/print-edition/2013/04/05/certification-program-applies.html

Microsoft’s CEO recently demonstrated live speech-to-speech translation at a presentation in China. The speech recognition software converts spoken word into text, then translates that text into the desired language while correcting the word order so that an accurate sentence is delivered in the target language. Finally, the sentence is spoken out loud.

The most exciting part? The sentence is spoken out loud, not in a computerized voice, but in the speaker’s voice. The software is able to replicate the speakers voice and vocal patterns in order to create a seamless speech-to-speech translation. The software, namely the translation accuracy, is still in the developing stages, but the demonstration was a taste of what’s to come with advances in technology.

Read more here. http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/11/08/microsoft-demos-amazing-english-to-mandarin-translation-allowing-for-real-time-audible-translations/