Apr 22, 2014

Workshop: juristisches Englisch, aber richtig!

Die drei Veranstaltungen der Seminarreihe mit RA Stuart Bugg, ein führender Experte und Ausbilder für Rechtsenglisch im deutschen Sprachraum, sind eine seltene und willkommene Gelegenheit, sich mit den wichtigsten und schwierigsten Fallen der sprachlichen und rechtlichen Aspekte der angelsächsischen Juristenwelt auseinanderzusetzen. Wieder erfolgreiche Geschäftskommunikationstagung in Cambridge neulich, diese von Stridonium in englischer Sprache angebotene Workshops für englische Verträge, rechtliche Gestaltung und kommerzielles Recht verfahren nach dem Prinzip, bekannte Experten im Fachbereich mit denjenigen, die tagtäglich mit den Themen befasst sind, zusammen zu bringen, in diesem Falle Rechtsanwälten und professionellen Sprachdienstleistern. Herr RA Bugg, Autor des Referenzwerks Contracts in English: an introductory guide to understanding, using and developing 'Anglo-American' style contracts (C.H. Beck) und Mitverfasser des Fachwörterbuches Kompakt Recht Englisch von Langenscheidt, hat Verbindungen mit Rechtsanwaltskammern in vier Ländern (Neuseeland, Australien, Großbritannien und Deutschland) und hat als Dozent an Universitäten und juristischen Fakultäten in Neuseeland, Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten agiert. Er ist einer, an den sich Leute sowohl in Regierung- als auch Industriekreise bevorzugt wenden, um Englisch für Zwecke der internationalen juristischen und handelstechnischen Anwendung besser zu verstehen und einzusetzen. Es freut mich sehr, dass die Organisatoren bei Stridonium nochmal das Niveau der professionellen Ausbildung erhöht haben und anstatt die „üblichen Täter“ in den Kreisen der Sprachdienstleister, einen echten Experten aus der juristischen Welt, in der sich unsere Endkunden befinden, für erstklassige Weiterbildung ernsthafter professionellen Übersetzer sowie Rechtsanwälte erworben haben.

Diese Workshops sind eine hervorragende Gelegenheit, bei der diejenigen, die juristisches Englisch schreiben und übersetzen müssen, die besten Ansätze lernen und besprechen können, um häufige Fehler, sowohl sprachlich als auch durch Unterschiede der Rechtssysteme entstehend, zu vermeiden, und die Grundsätze der eindeutigen, rechtsverbindlichen Anwendung der englischen Sprache im professionellen Einsatz zu beherrschen.

Der entspannende Veranstaltungsort in Holten (NL) nah zur deutschen Grenze ist einfach mit Auto bzw. der Bahn zu erreichen. Er ist bestens für formale und informale Austausche zwischen Teilnehmern geeignet, mit wunderschöner Lage am Rande des Dorfes und unglaublich leckerer, kreativer Küche. Alle Workshops finden montags statt; Frühbucher können in der Regel ein Zimmer im Veranstaltungshotel für Sonntag Abend umsonst mitbuchen (soweit noch verfügbar).

Sie können sich für die einzelnen Workshops auf der (englischsprachigen) Veranstaltungsseite von Stridonium anmelden. Der Teilnahmegebühr beträgt 350 € pro Workshop. Falls Sie alle drei Workshops besuchen möchten, können Sie das Gesamtpaket zu einem Sonderpreis mit Anfrage an die Veranstalter (info (bei) stridonium.com) buchen.

Die Anzahl der Verträge in Europa, die sich auf Englisch für Ihre rechtsverbindliche Version stützen, hat in den letzten Jahrzehnten erheblich zugenommen, mit dem Ergebnis, dass immer größer werdender Druck auf Anwälte, ihre Mandanten, Übersetzer und Dolmetscher besteht, die englische Sprache in juristischer Anwendung richtig zu verstehen, damit die rechtlichen Konzepte eines Landes in der anderen Sprache eindeutig und klar zu verstehen sind.

Die geplanten Workshoptermine sind:
English Contracts - 28. April 2014
    - Common Law vs. Civil Law
    - Cross-System Contracts
    - Legal English Terminology
    - Lost and Found in Translation


Legal Drafting - 26. Mai 2014
    - Basic Drafting Principles
    - Legal Terms
    - Principles of Drafting and Interpretation
    - Avoiding Ambiguity: Exercises in Drafting

Commercial Law - 2. Juni 2014
    - Overview
    - Legal Entities
    - Employment Law
    - Bankruptcy and Insolvency
Jeden Sonntag Abend vor dem entsprechenden Workshop findet eine entspannte Networking-Abendessen statt, an der sich alle beiteiligen können. Die Kosten für die Mahlzeit sind nicht im Programm enthalten. Einzelheiten zu den Themen und der Zeitplanung jedes Workshops sowie Registrierungslinks sind in englischer Sprache auf der Stridonium-Veranstaltungsseite zu finden.

Für jeden Workshop werden 6 CPD-Punkte vom niederländischen Bureau BTV und 6 ATA CE-Punkte anerkannt.

Anfahrt (Google-Karte):

Mit Zug
- 10 Minuten Fußeg vom Bahnhof (Beukenlaantje)
- ODER informieren Sie die Organisatoren über Ihre Ankunft damit sie Sie oder das Hotelpersonal Sie abholen können.

Mit Auto (kostenlose Parkplätze reichlich vorhanden)

Aus Richtung Deventer (A1)
A1 Richtung Hengelo/Enschede
Ausfahrt 26: Lochem/Holten
Links abbiegen nach Raalte, den (ausgeschilderten) Weg nach Holterberg fahren
Geradeaus über den Kreisverkehr, nach der Hochbrücke rechts abbiegen, dann links an der T-Kreuzung
Dann links am Kreisverkehr und nach 50 m nach Holterberg rechts abbiegen
Nach etwa 1 km rechts abbiegen (am gelben Gebäude)
Aus Richtung Enschede/Hengelo (A1)
A1 nach Deventer/Apeldoorn/Amsterdam
Ausfahrt 27: Holten/Markelo
Weiterfahren durch Holten, dann am Kreisverkehr die Ausfahrt für Holterberg nehmen und nach 50 m nach Holterberg rechts abbiegen
Nach etwa 1 km rechts abbiegen (am gelben Gebäude)


Apr 20, 2014

New Frontiers in Electroconvulsive Translation

Linguistic Sausage Providers and corporate commodity traders have struggled for years to come to grips with the shocking persistence of translator resistance to advanced technologies such as Human Assisted Machine Synthesis of Translation and Editing of Rubbish (HAMSTER) and Clownsourced Rendering of All Price Sensitive Translations for Utterly Fantastic Text (CRAPSTUFT). Attempts to incentivize wordworkers with faith-based rate reports from the Common Nonsense Advisory, bonus bags of peanutZ, letters of encouragement and even working vacations in Across re-education camps have failed to increase cooperation of "professional" translators to target levels.

There is good news at last, however. As a result of close collaboration and exchange with key LSPs and government agencies in Russia, North Korea and the United States with an advanced understanding of motivational techniques, new electrical feedback methods have been developed to bring even expert translators into line with the expectations and requirements of our Brave New Information Age. Thus it was with pleasure that I learned of funding by the EU's Ministry of Information Access (MIA) for a new research initiative and summer Ph.D. indoctrination program at universities across Europe. Already, major LSPs such as Liarsbridge, thepigturd and Moreslavia have agreed to divert postediting resources from the Soylent Rainbow project in the Russian Republic to feed the new initiative.

Contributions from German and Chinese translation research in the solar industry will also ensure that the new motivational technologies are totally green, like optimally motivated translators. Improvements in speech recognition technology have facilitated the use of green geothermal blanketing methods, in which translators are buried up to the neck in warm sand near anthills and their heads smeared with honey as they are taught to dictate text quickly and accurately to cope with the explosion of demand for affordable corporate wordwork. Combined with the latest solar-powered convulsive motivators keyed to throughput rates and edit distance, considerable advances in cost savings and human resource recycling are expected.

SDL has also announced its contribution to the new productivity initiative: an OpenExchange extension modeled on Kilgray's memoQ Zen feature. As is always the case when it follows the leader, the Maidenhead-based company has introduced a clever twist developed by Securitate-trained programmers at its new development center in Cluj, Romania. Instead of the trippy hippie space music used by the Hungarian company to produce an unproductive, trance-like state of Translation Enlightenment, the improved SDL plug-in will electrify translators with exciting buzzer sounds and a USB-powered surge of motivation to optimize acceptance of machine-translated content. This can be delivered anywhere, but it is expected that most will find their muse with the wired underpants included with delivery, which bear the inspirational message "I ❤ Sodrat".

The pilot launch of the program is planned as part of this summer's Translation Data Analytics program in Copenhagen. Volunteer applications will be accepted by the organizers until the end of May, after which the required numbers will be made up by lottery from the membership of ProZ.com and Translators Cafe.

Apr 19, 2014

Survey for legal translators

Juliette Scott, author of the legal translation blog From Words to Deeds, is conducting a confidential survey of legal translators as part of her thesis research. It took me less than 10 minutes to respond to the questions, some of which I found to be useful reminders of some issues I have intended to address with a few clients for some time.

If you consider yourself a legal translator, please have a look at the survey and help her research:

Apr 18, 2014

10 Steps to Determine CAT Tool Compatibility with the Dragon

Guest post by Jim Wardell

The following steps can be used to investigate the degree to which a CAT tool is compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
  1. In Dragon NaturallySpeaking, go to Tools>Options>Miscellaneous and check the box Use the Dictation Box for unsupported applications.
  2. Open a project in the CAT tool you are testing, place the cursor in the translation target cell and start dictating with Dragon. If the Dictation Box opens immediately in Dragon, that means that Dragon has determined that your cat tool is not fully compatible with Dragon and that you must first dictate your translation in the Dictation box that it has just opened.
    You can then transfer your dictated translation from the Dictation Box into the translation target cell of your CAT tool by typing Ctrl+T or by saying “Transfer”. This extra step does not reduce your productivity too much if your source segment contains little or no formatting, tags, auto translate items or placeables. But if your source text does have a lot of these sorts of things, you’re going to have to add the extra step of first copying all of the source text segment into the Translation Box. When you do this, though, you’re going to lose any tags and formatting. Once you’ve translated the raw text in the Dragon Translation Box and have transferred the contents of the Translation Box into your translation target cell, you’re still going to have to reformat, add tags, and generally mess about a bit, maybe a lot. I went through this process for many years when using CAT tools that were not fully compliant with Dragon and eventually realized that all of this extra work was completely wiping out the productivity and income boost I was getting from dictating. Plus, it was more fatiguing because I was making my workflow more complicated.
  3. The next thing to try if the Transfer Box comes up automatically is to go back to the above Dragon NaturallySpeaking setting and uncheck the Use the Dictation Box for unsupported applications setting.
  4. Now go back to a target translation cell and try to dictate a medium-length sentence. With Tools that are completely incompatible, nothing will happen and perhaps your system will hang. In most cases, though, you will be able to dictate something. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily mean that your CAT tool is compliant with Dragon.
  5. Now, using Dragon, say:  “Select <a string of 2 or 3 words from the sentence you just dictated>. If those two or three words now get marked in your CAT tool, you at least have partial compatibility with Dragon.
  6. Now comes the acid test: Say “Correct that”. The Dragon Correction Menu should appear and give you a list of possible alternatives. If the Correction Menu does not appear, your CAT tool is not sufficiently compatible with Dragon and you should not do your translation work directly in your CAT tool target cell. Instead, you and will need to use the Dictation Box workaround if you really “must” use the CAT tool you are testing.
    I call this the “acid test” because if you can’t correct words that are not recognized correctly when you dictate, your incorrect dictations are probably being fed into your Dragon language profile. This will degrade the accuracy of speech recognition over time! It’s hard to know for sure what’s really going on in such cases, but the best that you can hope for is that incorrectly recognized words are simply being ignored by Dragon. However, anyone who uses Dragon a lot knows that the Correction process is one of the ways that Dragon becomes more and more accurate over time. Not correcting misrecognized speech is bad Dragon practice, and an application that doesn’t allow you to correct misrecognized speech should not be used or should at least always be used with the Dictation Box workaround. The most important reason to always use the Dictation Box with noncompliant software is that this permits the correction of speech recognition errors and hence ensures that Dragon will keep getting better and better at recognizing your speech and vocabulary.
    However, my recommendation to anyone who is serious about using Dragon to increase productivity and income is to use a CAT tool like memoQ or Déjà Vu that works flawlessly and seamlessly WITHIN the CAT tool target cell, i.e. with correction working properly directly in the CAT tool.
  7. If your CAT tool fails the acid test, then you might just as well stop here. But if it passes the acid test, then try a few other commonly used Dragon commands in your target cell. Use “Select …” to mark some other text strings. Then say “Capitalize that” or “Make that bold” or “Underline that”. Also try using various Dragon cut-and-paste commands. If all this works, then congratulations! Your CAT tool has a high level of Dragon compatibility!
  8. The next level of compatibility is achieved when you can also use Dragon in other functions in your CAT tool - ideally all functions. So now open a “comment” or “note” for a translation segment. Dictate something into the comment, repeating steps 4, 5, 6 and 7. If your CAT tool passes these tests, you can celebrate big-time because being able to dictate comments quickly and effectively can add significant value to your translation when it comes to working in translation teams and providing feedback to clients, or querying clients articulately about terminology questions.
  9. Being able to dictate using Dragon is also absolutely invaluable when it comes to quickly creating really good terminology base entries. So create or go to a terminology base entry and dictate something into one of the fields in which you are able to enter free-form text. In memoQ, for example, this might be the “Note” field or one of the “Definition” fields. Once again repeat steps 4, 5, 6 and 7.
  10. Now test your CAT tool’s ability to recognize dictated CAT commands. First, you will have to make sure that a configuration setting  in Dragon is set right. Go to Tools>Options>Miscellaneous and check Voice-enable menus, buttons, and other controls, excluding: … Then open the pull-down menu and make sure that your CAT tool is NOT checked.
    Now look to see what your CAT software calls the command that is used to confirm a segment and enter the segment content into translation memory. Place your cursor in a translation segment and try saying this command to see what happens. In memoQ, for example, I simply dictate “Confirm” and memoQ operates just as if I had pressed Ctrl+Enter. It is not essential to have this level of compatibility, but it is great to use when working in tight spaces on planes and car seats. In memoQ I can also dictate any of the names of the main menus and can then dictate submenu names as well and essentially “menu down” by voice commands. Again, this is not essential but it sometimes comes in handy.
If you work INTO more than one language, you’ll want to test whether you can work in the user interface of these target languages in your CAT tool and whether your CAT tool responds to voice commands from Dragon in the same target language.  This is really having your cake and eating it too! If you find this level of Dragon compatibility in your CAT tool, it means that the developer was really committed to getting maximum Dragon compatibility for working translators like you. Send them a nice thank-you note and publicize their commitment to working-stiff translators every chance you get!

***


Jim Wardell will be presenting optimized work methods for speech recognition once again at this year's memoQfest in Budapest, Hungary.

Pay with PayPal in OTM and more!

Version 6.5 of the Online Translation Manager (OTM) from LSP.net will be released by the end of the month with a number of important changes related to invoicing. The least of these is the convenient option to include a PayPal button in the PDF documents generated for invoices, partial invoices and payment requests and delivered by e-mail.

Documents with a PayPal button include a text above the button in the language of the invoice, which explains how payment works using the button. These messages can be customized in each customer communication language.

A PayPal button and explanatory text in a German PDF invoice created with OTM 6.5
When the button is clicked, a PayPal payment page opens in the appropriate language. Customers with a PayPal account can then log in and pay with their PayPal balance, or payment can be made by credit card without the need to register with PayPal.

The PayPal payment page in German for invoice no. SPRPDE1401100198
The payment information includes the OTM invoice or payment request number.

Other features, such as fast payment discounts offered, are also supported and verified with the OTM server. This "one click" jump from the PDF invoice to the payment site is one of the many innovative conveniences which distinguish OTM as a legally and fiscally sound alternative to much of the competition.

Other changes in the new version include improvements in the support for alternative invoicing addresses and, most importantly, inclusion of reverse charge taxation notices for VAT in the EU in the required language, which has become a bit of a nightmare for those who forget to include these notices in billing and are reminded somewhat rudely in a tax audit.

Apr 15, 2014

Speech recognition for translators: microphone tips

Guest post by Jim Wardell

Mark Myworts is heavy into a major procrastination project, pawing through moldy old copies of Popular Mechanics in Grandpa’s basement, when a small classified ad in the back pages catches his eye. He blows off the dust:
“Translators! Double your income overnight with amazing new technology! Works wonders for English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch. No obligation. Call ... Full confidentiality guaranteed.”
[Fade in “Twilight Zone” theme music.]

[Cut to Mark talking intently to his computer.] “... should be used instead of the diminutive terms ‘pud’ and ‘loser’” ...

[Fade to Mark and kiddies.] “Well daddy, can we? can we? Can we go to the circus tonight?” “Sure kids, I’m knocking off early today,” says Mark nonchalantly, getting a kiss and one of those sexy “well-what-about-after-the circus” looks from his admiring wife.

Science fiction? 1950s social mythology? Perhaps.

But the simple fact remains – at least now in 2014 – that translators into English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch really can double their productivity on average using some amazing, although not quite so new technology: speech recognition.


***

I’ve been using speech recognition to translate from German into English for nearly 20 years. But it was not until about seven or eight years ago that computing power and speech recognition software had improved to the point where serious productivity gains became possible. It was at that point that it became imperative for me to find a CAT tool that was totally compatible with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. At the time, only two products met this requirement: Déjà Vu and memoQ. For various reasons, which I won’t get into now, I decided to go with memoQ, a decision I have never once regretted.

Most any CAT tool can be made to work with Dragon by using the little “Dictation Box” text buffer that’s provided as a workaround in Dragon for software that is not truly Dragon compliant. The procedure needed to translate average moderately sophisticated technical documents in noncompliant CAT tools can often be cumbersome and inefficient: one copies the contents of the current source segment text into the Dictation Box so any strings that do not need to be translated can be left as is or moved around as desired and so that sections of text that need to be translated can be overwritten by marking them and then dictating the new translation “over the top”. Once the source segment has been duly massaged in the Dictation Box, the contents of the box are then transferred to the target box in the noncompliant CAT tool. Of course, various tags and formatting that might have been present in the source segment are often lost when source text pasted into the Dictation Box. So they need to be put back in again after the contents of the Dictation Box have been pasted into the CAT target box. If this sounds gruesome, it is.

So why not just dictate straight into the noncompliant target box and fix the messes as they occur? The answer is simple: there are often too many messes, and, worse still, any incorrect speech recognition that occurs cannot be corrected in a way that will ensure that correct and not erroneous data will be fed and saved in the Dragon speech recognition engine. Over time, this would degrade speech recognition accuracy! I spent some years trying to address this issue with publishers of CAT tools other than memoQ and Déjà Vu ... with zero success. So if you’re not already using Dragon and want to use it with a CAT tool, make sure that the CAT tool that you are thinking of using is really fully compatible with Dragon and that you can get your money back if it’s not. Do not trust and do verify.[1]

At one point before I switched memoQ, I was compelled to do a good bit of this acrobatics moving text into an out of the Dragon Dictation Box. I began to have the feeling that the cutting edge that I was working on in a number of well-known CAT tools was so dull that I might just as well have been typing in my translation in the old-fashioned way. So I collected some statistics discovered that that was indeed the case. My output was the same in noncompliant CAT tools and Dragon as with touch typing without Dragon.

All that changed with the memoQ’s full Dragon compatibility! Incidentally, memoQ has full Dragon compatibility throughout the interface and not just in the translation grid. So if you want to dictate notes or definitions in term base entries, you can, and you can still use all of the selection and correction features you are accustomed to using in Dragon. Want to write a longish note to a client in a memoQ Comment box? No problem. Dictate away.

* * *

Anyone who has dealt with integrated technologies, any process in fact, knows that the old saying “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is totally true. So to get really great speech recognition results, not only does one’s CAT tool have to be compatible and outstandingly good, one’s computer needs to be sufficiently powerful, and one needs to use the best available microphones. I heartily recommend KnowBrainer.com as a source of top quality microphones for speech recognition. To my knowledge, KnowBrainer is the expert in the USA, probably the world, when it comes to speech recognition products. People who want to achieve maximum accuracy with speech recognition software should make their first stop KnowBrainer’s Microphone Comparison page.[2] For many years, I used KnowBrainer’s top-rated Samson Airline 77 microphone. This microphone was vastly superior to anything I had ever used in the past and came delightfully close to delivering 100% speech recognition accuracy. Earlier this year, however, I learned that the wireless channel used in my old Airline 77, which I bought while I was still located in the United States, was being shifted to use by mobile phones in Europe and would no longer be legal. So I checked out KnowBrainer again, and learned about a relatively new microphone being produced specifically for speech recognition by a Belgian company: SpeechWare. Upon consulting with KnowBrainer’s Lunis Orcutt (Mr. Speech Recognition in my book!), I ordered the SpeechWare 3-1 TableMike. This desktop mic is a great product and just as good as my old Airline 77. It’s the mic that Lunis himself uses.

However, after using it for a week or so, I realized that it was not for me because I had to keep my mouth relatively close to the microphone and couldn’t move around like I was used to in the past in order to relax my back muscles and stay fresh. I then ordered a FlexyMike headset mic from SpeechWare that basically uses the same technology but allows one to move around freely. SpeechWare has three models of the FlexyMike: the FlexyMike Basic (FMK01), the Single Ear (SE) and the Dual Ear. I chose the Dual Ear on the principle that distributing the weight of the mic over two ears would be more comfortable and stable for hours and hours of continuous use.

When I was still using the tabletop TableMike, I found that I had a tendency to move a little too far away from the microphone over time, which occasionally reduced speech recognition performance. The TableMike has two settings: a long-range setting, which allows one to have one’s mouth as far as 30 cm (12 inches) from the microphone, and a “normal and VoIP” setting (with a maximum distance of 15 cm / 6 inches). The greatest accuracy is achieved with the closer distance. Lunis says he likes the TableMike because he moves around in the office a lot and doesn’t need to fumble around with headset whenever he leaves his desk. For this reason, I would recommend the TableMike as the best choice for project managers and administrators who may frequently have to leave their desks and who mainly use Dragon at brief stretches to dictate e-mail messages or enter data in translation business management software. For hard-core translation work, the FlexyMike is the way to go. I find the accuracy with the FlexyMike to be perhaps a tad better than that of the Airline 77, which is saying a lot. I can use the FlexyMike while listening to the radio a moderate volume levels, so the noise cancellation is also quite good. KnowBrainer gives its noise cancellation a score of 9, which is better than that of the Sennheiser ME3 KB headset mic (gets an 8), which I have used with good success for years in automobiles, trains and airplanes! All the same, if anyone has to dictate in an extremely noisy environment, one might want to check out “theBoom v4 KB”, which gets a high accuracy rating and a 10 for noise cancellation (but only a 9 for comfort!) from KnowBrainer. My experience is that KnowBrainer is pretty fanatical about these evaluations and that they are quite reliable.

For the average translator, who works long hours in a relatively quiet environment, accuracy and comfort are the two most important factors, more important than noise cancellation. I don’t need speakers on my headset, which means that the headset can be as light as a feather and can be worn comfortably all day long. If need be, Skype calls or music can be played through normal computer speakers. On the other hand, if one is working in an open office setting with a number of other translators close by, one might want to have a headset with speakers covering both ears to block out distracting voices so one can concentrate better. In such cases, I’d consider the mono Umevoice “theBoom Pro-2 KB” or the stereo hi-fi equivalent “... 3 KB” if you want to block out room noise and also want to listen to music while you translate. (I translate very complicated, detailed stuff and usually extremely distracting to listen to music while translating, but not all material that gets translated requires extreme concentration. I could also easily imagine listening to a high-bandwidth feed from, say, jazzradio.com premium (unabashed plug) to make routine administrative work more pleasant.

Getting back to the FlexyMikes: SpeechWare was kind enough to also send me a single-ear model to test and evaluate, so I have used both versions extensively. Both the single-ear and the double-ear mics are extremely comfortable and both are very easy to adjust to get a custom fit that is secure and comfortable. The materials used in both mics are of exceptionally high quality and should provide many years of reliable service.

Both FlexyMikes connect to a computer USB port across a “SpeechMatic MultiAdapter”, which has been especially configured for high accuracy with speech recognition. I am convinced that the special design of the MultiAdapter is one of the main reasons why the FlexyMikes work so well.[3] Be sure to buy this along with your FlexyMike. The same circuitry that’s in the MultiAdapter is integrated into the TableMike units. So if you already have a TableMike, you don’t need to buy a MultiAdapter, unless of course you want something really small and light to use with a notebook computer when traveling.

I did not test the basic version of the FlexyMike, from the pictures it didn’t look as comfortable as the other models.

KnowBrainer.com ships internationally. SpeechWare microphones are also available directly from SpeechWare in Europe.

[1] If you want to see what “fully compatible” means, have a look at http://kilgray.com/news/once-upon-time-there-was-dragon.
[2] http://www.knowbrainer.com/core/pages/miccompare.cfm
[3] So is KnowBrainer: See http://www.knowbrainer.com/NewStore/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=464



***


Jim Wardell will be presenting optimized work methods for speech recognition once again at this year's memoQfest in Budapest, Hungary.

Apr 14, 2014

Legal English: Getting It Right!

That's not the title of the upcoming workshop series by attorney and linguistic specialist Stuart Bugg, but perhaps it ought to be. Like the recent successful business communication conference in Cambridge, these Stridonium courses for English Contracts, Legal Drafting and Commercial Law once again bring together a recognized subject authority with those involved in practice with the topics, both working attorneys and professional linguists. Mr. Bugg, author of Contracts in English: an introductory guide to understanding, using and developing 'Anglo-American' style contracts (C.H. Beck) and co-author of Langenscheidt Fachwörterbuch Kompakt Recht Englisch, has been associated with legal societies in four countries (NZ, AU, UK and DE) and has taught at universities and law school in New Zealand, Germany and the United States. He is one of the "go-to guys" in Europe training attorneys as well as government and industry professionals to understand legal English better and improve their use of it in international commercial practice. I cannot say how pleased I am that the Stridonium organizers have once more raised the bar and gone beyond the "usual suspects" of the translation circuit to connect more effectively with real experts who are at home in the world of our direct clients and offer first-class continuing education for serious professionals.

These workshops are an excellent opportunity for those who write and translate legal English to learn and discuss best practice, common pitfalls based on linguistic issues as well as differences in legal systems, and how to apply the principles of good, professional language for unambiguous, legally sound communication.

The relaxing venue in Holten, in the east of the Netherlands near the German border with excellent road and rail connections, is a perfect place for formal and informal discussions and exchange of ideas and is noted for its beautiful setting in the woods at the edge of town and its outstanding cuisine. Each workshop is scheduled on a Monday, and early registrants can usually secure a comfortable room at no charge as part of the event registration (subject to availability).

Attendees can register for individual workshops on the Stridonium events page; the fee for each full day of instruction is €350. But if you plan to attend all three workshops, a special rate can be obtained by inquiry to the event organizers at info (at) stridonium.com.

The past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in the share of European law contracts relying on English for their binding version. The result is ever-greater pressure on attorneys, their clients, translators and interpreters to understand and use legal English correctly and to understand how best to explain the legal principles of one country in the language of another.

The schedule of workshops is as follows:
English Contracts - April 28, 2014
    - Common Law vs. Civil Law
    - Cross-System Contracts
    - Legal English Terminology
    - Lost and Found in Translation

Legal Drafting - May 26, 2014
    - Basic Drafting Principles
    - Legal Terms
    - Principles of Drafting and Interpretation
    - Avoiding Ambiguity: Exercises in Drafting

Commercial Law - June 2, 2014
    - Overview
    - Legal Entities
    - Employment Law
    - Bankruptcy and Insolvency
There is a networking dinner each Sunday evening before the Monday workshop for early arrivals. Details of each workshop's topics and schedule as well as registration links are on the Stridonium events page.

Each workshop has been awarded 6 CPD points by the Dutch Bureau BTV and 6 ATA CE points.


How to get there (Google map link):

By train
- A 10-minute walk from the station (Beukenlaantje)
- OR let the organizers know when you arrive and either they or hotel staff will collect you!

By car (plenty of free parking!)

From Deventer(A1)
Take the A1 towards Hengelo/Enschede
Exit 26: Lochem/Holten
Turn left for Raalte, follow the signs for Holterberg
Go straight ahead over the roundabout, turn right after the viaduct and left at the T-junction
Turn left at the roundabout and after 50 m take a right turn for Holterberg
After approx 1 km turn right (at yellow building)
From Enschede/Hengelo (A1)
A1 towards Deventer/Apeldoorn/Amsterdam
Exit 27: Holten/Markelo
Continue through the center of Holten, take the Holterberg exit at the roundabout and after 50 m take a right turn for Holterberg
After approx 1 km turn right (at yellow building)