Blog
Read our blog here, where we discuss all things translation and language. From time to time we also update you on our latest news, throw in some opinion pieces or give you more insight on translation trends. Join the conversation, we are always happy to hear from you.
The Hidden AI Mark Up and the Loss of Critical Human Expertise
As AI Adoption Accelerates, the twin issues to address for me are transparency and the looming cliff edge that is the loss of trained translators who AI relies upon to feed its memories and edit out its mistakes. First up the transparency issue. As machine translation...
A week of work experience at Aktuel, by Verity
During my work experience at Aktuel Translations, I had the opportunity to translate two children’s books into English, one from French and one from German, and I quickly found them to be far more challenging than they looked. At first, the books looked quite simple:...
Translation as a puzzle
Translation as a puzzle When I’m not hacking my way around a golf course or forlornly chasing balls on a tennis court, some of the things I enjoy the most in my spare time are puzzle-solving activities, specifically chess, escape rooms and social deduction games. And...
Language learning in UK schools: are we falling behind?
Explore which languages are taught in UK schools, why uptake is falling, and how growing multilingual classrooms are increasing the need for education translation. Experts are saying the UK is falling behind in language learning. Less than half of GCSE students in...
The language gap in sustainability reporting
Most sustainability reports are written in English, rendering them inaccessible to those who need the information the most. In this blog, we explore the language gap at the heart of global ESG reporting. There isn’t a corner of the world that isn’t feeling the impact...
Inside the global fight to save endangered languages
Languages carry identity, culture and knowledge. Learn what’s causing global language loss and how translation and documentation are helping endangered languages to survive. It’s thought that a language dies every two weeks on average. This is according to UNESCO...
Happy 30th to us!
1992-2022 At 23 years of age, I sat down at my new desk, in my new office to start my first venture. It was 8th January 1992: I had a £3K bank loan, a beaten up green moped for essential transport and a mobile phone the size of my forearm. By 8th Feb I had approx 40...
Carys: Interning with Aktuel
I decided to complete an internship with the team at Aktuel, following on from university. I studied French and Italian at Durham University and then moved to the University of Bath to complete a postgraduate degree in translation and interpreting. Upon leaving...
Language learning everyday
I am Carys, and I am currently completing a remote translation internship with Aktuel following on from my university studies in languages and translation. The internship has been very enjoyable, I have had the opportunity to do plenty of proofreading, technical...
Literary Revolution in User Manuals
In Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan talks about a poorly-translated user manual that came with a robot. "Its language was mostly clear and precise,” the narrator tells us, “but Adam was created across different agencies and in places the instructions had the charm of a...
Best Language Apps 2020
Here is a list of our favourite language apps in 2020 (feel free to suggest any you love): Grammarly (Chrome extension or keyboard addition) – Grammarly is an AI-powered writing assistant which checks your spelling and grammar across documents, emails and social...
Good Translator > Google Translate – Harriet’s Opinion
Good translator > Google translate There are many situations in life which encourage us to reach for the immediate assistance of Google Translate: a monolingual menu in that charming, local restaurant you discovered on holiday; a desperate attempt to give helpful...
Covid and Translation
Translation: A sure-fire investment for the future I’m 52 years old today (… why thank you – it’s all that clean living) but, I can still recall the classroom dust motes, the smell of polish and wood, and the pain and anguish, 40 odd years ago, as I sat there, utterly...
7 Deadly Sins of Translation
X, Y and Z Entrepreneurial Progression through the Generations
Shortly after I started school, the head teacher called in my mother to inform her I was hyperactive and therefore required special measures to stop me bouncing off the ceiling if I was asked to sit still and shut up for more than three and a half minutes. Drugs were...
There’s no such thing as a rational decision
I love making decisions: they are PROGRESS + HOPE = EXPECTATION and I’ve always suspected they come with their own safety net: make enough and they tend to cancel each other out eventually – just like placing hundreds of each-way bets. I’ve taken pride, throughout my...
How to get the most from your translation agency
I hate starting anything with a caveat, but here I am doing just that: this article is really just for people who do not buy a lot of translation and would like an overview of the process. As a consequence, it might seem a bit simplistic to some but will certainly...
The 4 Cycles of Translation
Thinking about it, translation now seems to be a cycle, rather than just a linear process of going from Language A to Language B. This is a good thing, as it shows the market is becoming more sophisticated and discerning. Here's my take on it (feel free to add,...
Success and Happiness
I was given a grilling once by Margaret Thatcher. It lasted the time it took to get from the ground floor in Selfridges to the 4th floor – say, 6 minutes, tops – but it was ample time to make me a) feel a bit stupid and b) re-evaluate what I was doing with my life....