LACMA learns to tweet en Español

Posted On July 23, 2009By TranspanishIn Spanish Language, Spanish Translation/  3 Comments

Today, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art officially went bilingual on Twitter.

The museum launched a Twitter account, @enLACMA, that will provide Spanish-language tweets to online users. “We were looking for new ways for Spanish speakers to engage in the museum, and this is the next natural step,” said museum spokeswoman Allison Agsten.

LACMA’s tweets will be written in English for its original Twitter account, @LACMA, then will be translated into Spanish. The translation will be overseen by Marietta Torriente de León, a special-event planner at the museum, who also will monitor the account throughout the day. “Twitter is a conversation, so it’s critical that a staff member is there to respond,” Agsten said.

The museum said it tweets an average of three or four times a day and has been on Twitter since January.

So far, Culture Monster hasn’t found any other U.S. museums tweeting in Spanish. We talked to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, which tweets only in English. MOLAA said most of its online followers are bilingual and prefer to receive communication in English.

Let us know if you come across any U.S. museums that have gone bilingual on Twitter. And while you’re at it, follow us on Twitter: @culturemonster.

— David Ng

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/07/lacma-learns-to-tweet-en-espa%C3%B1ol.html

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3 more schools add bilingual immersion programs

Posted On July 15, 2009By TranspanishIn Latinos, Spanish Language/  3 Comments

The popularity of dual-language classes in Ventura County schools continues to grow, with three schools starting programs this fall.

Ventura Unified School District started a two-way immersion kindergarten class at Montalvo School about a decade ago. Five more dual-language programs have since come online at elementary and middle schools in Camarillo, Rio, Hueneme and Ventura.

In the fall, three more campuses are expected to be added to the list. Classes are set to start at Tierra Vista in the Ocean View School District; Juan Soria, a new campus in the Oxnard School District, and at Will Rogers in Ventura, which will start the district’s first schoolwide program.

“I think parents throughout the state recognize the value of having their kids be bilingual and biliterate. It’s a huge advantage,” said Associate Superintendent Roger Rice of the Ventura County Office of Education.

The county office plans to start regular meetings in the fall, bringing educators in the dual-language programs together to share best practices, Rice said.

All the local programs are offered in Spanish and English, and in most cases, classes are split evenly between native English and native Spanish speakers. The schools differ, however, in some aspects, including the amount of time students in the programs spend learning in each language.

“We’re really excited,” said Ocean View Assistant Superintendent Marcia Turner. Tierra Vista will have two dual-immersion kindergarten classes this fall, Turner said. Classes will have about one-third Spanish-speakers, one-third English-speakers and one-third bilingual students.
May attract students, funding

District and school officials had planned to reach out to the community with an information campaign to fill the available spots. But after announcing the move at the spring open house, families signed up, filling every seat.

In Ventura, the first class of two-way immersion students at Montalvo will move to high school this fall, having finished immersion classes at Anacapa Middle School. Many already have met college entrance requirements for foreign language studies.

“We knew there was plenty of interest to have a second program,” said Jennifer Robles, a bilingual education director for Ventura schools. This year, about 20 families were on a waiting list at Montalvo School.

Those students were offered a spot at Will Rogers, which will have dual-immersion in all four of its kindergarten classes this August.

Each year, as students move up a class, a grade level will be added to the program.

With the state’s fiscal crisis prompting layoffs and other cuts at local districts, officials said some might question why schools would start new programs. Dual-immersion doesn’t cost the district more money to run than current programs, Robles said, and it benefits students.

Turner said Ocean View officials think it might eventually bring more funding to the district by attracting more students.

Teaching students in Spanish began to disappear in California public schools after voters approved Proposition 227 in 1998, which banned bilingual education unless parents of English learners sign a yearly waiver consenting to the class.
Families see benefit

In two-way or dual-immersion programs, English learners and speakers learn two languages, unlike some bilingual programs in which native Spanish speakers learn in Spanish only until they master English.

Families want their kids to learn a second language while keeping their first language, Robles said, and the dual-immersion programs allow that to happen.

Carlos Avila’s daughter Penelope, 5, will start kindergarten at Will Rogers in August.

“I want her to know that it’s OK to speak a different language,” Avila said. His parents were fluent in English and Spanish, but he learned Spanish only by taking classes in school.

He took part in a student exchange program in Spain. There, he said, children are encouraged to learn multiple languages, unlike the culture he has experienced in the United States.

Because of his family’s Spanish-speaking history, Avila loves that his daughter will learn Spanish and English. But, he added, “I would love to see (programs) not just in Spanish but other languages, too.”

Source: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jul/15/3-more-schools-add-bilingual-immersion-programs/

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Hispanics have a wild card to play

Posted On July 8, 2009By TranspanishIn Latinos/  3 Comments

Did you know that Hispanics are less impacted by the recession, and their overall outlook about the condition of our economy is more optimistic? They are also more avid shoppers and have a tendency to react better to TV advertising than the general population. The Hispanic consumer is able to rebound quicker to trends than their non-Hispanic counterparts. In other words, they are prime prospects in today’s troubled marketplace.

Years ago in junk mail, we discovered that many Spanish-speaking potential customers wanted to be contacted in their native language, so linguists were hired in the copy-writing field to translate junk mail offers into Spanish. It worked gangbusters, and the concept has once again been confirmed by a study done on Hispanics for Univision Communications, the premier Spanish-language media company in the U.S.

Here are some figures you probably did not know. Just 45 percent of Hispanics carry credit cards compared to 71 percent for non-Hispanics. And even a lesser amount take out loans, only 34 percent versus 53 percent for non-Hispanics. They shop more frequently than non-Hispanics, take more brand prescriptions, and pay more attention to advertising. Univision says that marketers have determined recently that Hispanic sales have outdone non-Hispanic sales.

The buying power of the Hispanic community is growing at a rate 50 percent faster than non-Hispanic, and Univision predicts it will hit $1 trillion by 2010. Some of the reasons might be that Hispanics are more optimistic about their finances by almost 10 percentage points, the same margin being optimistic about the economy. About twice as many Hispanics rent their home compared to non-Hispanic, therefore, less are affected by the wave of foreclosures.

On the surface, it looks like Hispanics are better able to manage their finances, and more prominent in the marketplace as shoppers than non-Hispanics. So why isn’t the Hispanic community using this buying power to negotiate better rights for their families and friends? They made a good start in the 2008 Presidential election as they got out the vote that gave Barack Obama a margin of 56 percent over John McCain’s 41 percent in Arizona. Nationwide it was 67 percent Obama, 31 percent McCain.

Hispanics cast 9.7 million votes in 2008 (7.3%) out of 132.6 million voters nationally. There were 19.5 million eligible Hispanic voters in 2008, and less than 50 percent of those registered to vote actually went to the polls. You’ll have to do better than that, even though the total turnout was only 56.8 percent. You’ll have to beat the general population if you want to make your point and convince this Congress that you are serious about your rights. In Arizona, Hispanics represent 13 percent of the vote.

On July 2, I did an article on why Republican dominance is on its way out in Arizona, “The elephant has left the room Arizona so you’d better get used to it,” that emphasized the new Independent voter impact—more Democrat, more moderate—as well as the increase in the Hispanic vote. Washington, D.C. think Tank, NDN, believes Hispanic voters could turn Arizona into a Blue state.

A comment from the above article asked me to define a “fair” immigration law, and inquired why I skirted the word amnesty. Maybe the day has come for Hispanic activists to join together and “define” exactly what they would consider a “fair” immigration bill and take their thoughts to Congress as a unified group that represents all Hispanics. The current situation is not one we will be able to contain much longer.

By: Jack Dunning

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-7834-Phoenix-News-You-Can-Use-Examiner~y2009m7d6-Hispanics-have-a-wild-card-to-play

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Translators Wanted at LinkedIn. The Pay? $0 an Hour.

Posted On July 3, 2009By TranspanishIn Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  1 Comment

About half of the 42 million members of LinkedIn, the online professional networking Web site, are outside the United States, and to further expand internationally, the company hopes to be translated into more than its current four languages — English, Spanish, French and German. But when LinkedIn asked thousands of its translator members to complete a survey this month that asked whether they would consider volunteering to translate the site into other languages, many said “nyet.”

Chris Irwin, who lives outside London, was irked by the third multiple-choice question, which asked what “incentive” translators would prefer, with five nonmonetary choices including an upgraded LinkedIn account and none (“because it’s fun”). Mr. Irwin checked a sixth choice, “Other,” typing in that he would prefer cash. In a phone interview, Mr. Irwin said he was surprised that LinkedIn “would have the effrontery to ask for a professional service for free.”

Another translator, Matthew Bennett, who is based in Murcia in Spain, started a group on LinkedIn for those annoyed by the survey, and it swelled to about 300.

Some translators are upset because LinkedIn showed “an enormous amount of disrespect towards them and their work from a networking site for professionals where ‘relationships matter,’ ” wrote Mr. Bennett on his personal blog, referring to one of LinkedIn’s marketing slogans.

But LinkedIn insists that the interpreters are, well, misinterpreting.

Nico Posner, the LinkedIn product manager who circulated the survey, declined to be interviewed but in a post to Mr. Bennett’s group wrote that the survey was not asking translators to volunteer per se. He said he was trying to find out whether they would consider “crowd sourcing,” borrowing the term applied to companies like Wikipedia that rely on volunteers’ collective wisdom.

“While I realize that many professionals in the translation and localization field will not be interested in participating in a crowd sourcing opportunity on LinkedIn,” Mr. Posner wrote, others “would welcome an opportunity to volunteer some of their time and skills towards translating the LinkedIn site and highlight their professional work on their LinkedIn profile, not only for pride and glory, but hopefully to land more paid work.”

In a post on LinkedIn’s company blog, Mr. Posner added that thousands of respondents said they would volunteer, especially if credited on the site.

“I didn’t feel cheapened or exploited at all when they asked,” said Erika Baker, of North Somerset, England. “I just thought, ‘Wow what an opportunity.’ ” A translator for more than 15 years, Ms. Baker said that she had rarely been credited as she would be on the LinkedIn project and that she was certain it would bring in paying work.

“These are new ways of marketing, and the Internet is really the way to go,” Ms. Baker said.

Recently a group of illustrators took umbrage when Google asked them to provide free artwork to feature on its Chrome browser; Google countered that it was offering free exposure and that dozens of other artists had signed on.

In 2007, Facebook asked volunteers to offer translations of the standard explanatory language throughout the site into more than 20 languages, with translators voting among themselves for preferred verbiage. Some faulted the company, saying it was shortchanging translators.

But Nataly Kelly, a former Spanish translator who is an analyst at Common Sense Advisory, a research firm that studies how companies translate, said that Facebook’s critics had missed the big picture.

“It would have been far cheaper for Facebook to pay translators 10 cents a word to translate material than to build a community and pay engineers to set up all this infrastructure,” said Ms. Kelly, who volunteered on the Facebook project herself, casting a vote on such head-scratchers as what to call the Facebook profile “wall,” since in Spanish there are different words for interior and exterior walls.

Web sites may expand using volunteer translators, but they often also pay for work, not only in editing and proofreading the volunteers’ efforts, but also in translating content that requires less local flavor and more legal precision, like privacy policies, Ms. Kelly said.

But Ms. Kelly is sympathetic to translators, who “are often taken advantage of and paid late if at all,” and said LinkedIn had acted undiplomatically.

“It might have been more appropriate for LinkedIn to make it very clear what kind of process this was, and the fact that they employ full-time translators, to appease the fears of translators,” Ms. Kelly said. “That would have prevented a lot of the backlash.”

By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/technology/start-ups/29linkedin.html?ref=business

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