Today, we all must think about our impact on earth. Increasing climate change and accumulating waste threaten our survival. We must find more sustainable methods. We need to support laws that help protect our environmental health, which will, in turn, help our public health.

Whether you feel like helping save Mother Earth, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, or fight for our sea friends, even the sharks, you need to get your message out in more than one language. We at Monterey Languages Services can help carry your environmental message in different languages with our conference translation and interpretation services.  Please feel free to contact us for more information. 

By Melissa P. Coyne

How do translators deal with these terms? How do they communicate the newest information on the issue in terms that everyone can understand? How do you build a “green building” in Thailand without the building being painted green?

Freya Williams, a columnist from the Guardian Professional, noticed the miscommunication when she visited multiple business conferences.

“…the lack of alignment on a common [sustainable business] language can lead to meetings in which some participants are left wondering what exactly they are discussing, while others are talking at cross purposes, and some are trying express ideas for which a name may not yet exist.”

In a conference as such, interpreters/translators have to convey the same level of vagueness or specificity or pragmatism, as the situation may be. Translators have to recognize the term coined in the target language, which might tend to be a literal translation of the English term. Hence, translations to these concepts may be just as vague as expressed in the original language.

New words are made to keep up with the changing times, but not everyone is on the same page with these changes. Perhaps it’s time for the world community to work together on the definition of the new vocabulary, so everyone can truly understand and communicate in an environmental conference.

Info: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/blog/articulating-sustainability-language-green-business

Image: http://sustainablebusinessincubator.com/