Through accurate and clear translation of corporate communication materials, customers and employees can gain a better understanding of the corporate message and guidelines and can thus better contribute to the greater success of the corporation.

Global companies working with Monterey Language Services are growing stronger because they have chosen a translation and interpretation company that gives individualized attention to each translation project entrusted to them.

Our company stands firmly by what we believe in and provides the following to our global corporate customers.

Specialty: Translation and interpretation that require high level of expertise

Domains: Medical, legal, technical, and business subjects

Approach: Clear, accurate, and complete translation and interpretation

Value: Professional, efficient, and high quality services

Languages provided: Over 175 languages (including Arabic, Japanese, Hebrew, Malay, German, French, Indonesian, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Hindi Norwegian, Polish, Russian and more)

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.

Our interpreters are professionally qualified. They have studied translation and interpretation at the graduate or undergraduate level, or are professionally certified, or have received training in medical, legal and technical subject areas. They are experienced medical interpreters, legal interpreters and technical interpreters. Furthermore, they pursue continuing on-the-job training and education.

Our interpreters are not only local, able to come to our headquarters or to our client sites to perform services, but also distant, working remotely through a range of technology options such as video remote.

Our interpreters work consecutively, but also at conference, offering simultaneous interpretation.

Monterey Language Services has been providing language support to hospitals for years. A short list includes Spanish, ASL, Vietnamese, Arabic, Mandarin and Cantonese, Korean, Tagalog, Russian, French, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Punjabi, Gujarati, and indigenous languages such as Triqui, Mixteco, Zapotec. Even when a rare language is needed, we can vet and bring interpreters to our customers in a matter of hours.

We stand by ready 24-7, either work with a regular schedule of interpreting appointments, or provide last minute on-demand interpretation, for example for a hospital’s emergency needs.

It is our goal at Monterey Language Services to provide a full line of interpretation services. And it is to that end that we maintain our huge pool of professional interpreters to serve you whenever or wherever you need them.

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for more information.

It may involve a dozen sound engineers to make preparations ahead of time.  First, several booths must be set up for the interpreters. Each will represent one language and contain interpreters all working at the same time. The location of the booths should allow all interpreters to see the speaker and the activities on stage while the booths should blend in with the conference setting.

Before the conference starts, the interpretation system has to be connected and tested to ensure each booth’s interpretation can be clearly heard from the headsets that will be provided to the audience.

When the audience gets there, each member is provided a headset connected to a radio-like device that receives the channels of interpretation in different languages (English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Japanese, German, etc.). Using all of this high-tech equipment makes you feel like you’re in the U.N.

The interpreters should arrive early and get as much information beforehand as possible.  Simultaneous interpretation is a very difficult and energy-consuming task. Therefore, there are usually two to three interpreters in each booth. They are like a relay race team, taking turns to interpret, 20 minutes each turn. While one interpreter is interpreting, the others must also listen to the speaker so that the next interpreter knows when it is his or her turn to interpret. The three interpreters also depend on each other for help. For example, they may need their partners to write down big numbers or look up the terms in the glossary. Teamwork is crucial to the success of the interpretation.

At the end of the communication relay race, every audience member has understood the conference. The team feels mission accomplished. Monterey Language Services is getting ready for one such conference as we speak. We look forward to helping the panel communicate to the audience.

Since its creation, Twitter has been a worldwide phenomenon that has connected everyday people with their favorite celebrities, friends, and everyone in between.  Although the service has been provided worldwide, the company has been trying to translate the business tools into 33 languages in order to reach an even broader audience.

These languages include: Afrikaans, Arabic, Basque, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Urdu.

At the Twitter Translation Center, translators can sign on using their Twitter account and help translate various blocks of text for the company. The upside for the translator is experience in the field, as well as their name possibly on the “Top Ten Translators” for those who have been translating the most.

The @MRYLanguages Twitter account isn’t in this top ten just yet, but it does connect directly with Director of Translation Mei-Ling Chen where she will gladly answer questions posed about the company, translation services, or any other related topic in the industry.

In this era of social media and instant communication, translation has stepped up to meet the needs for the Facebook generation. Most people have some friends on Facebook who speaks more than one language; personally I see posts in Spanish, Italian, French, and Croatian.

Recently, I have noticed a new feature underneath these posts in languages other than English that says “See Translation.” This is a button to click that will automatically translate the above text to English, or whatever default language you may have. I tried this out with a post in Spanish and the results were subpar. Instead of translating the text as a complete sentence, this feature translated every word individually, which can change the understanding of the post.

If I knew someone was translating my Facebook posts from English into a language of their choice, I think it could be unfortunate for them to take the post out of context because of poor translation. This could cause for a strain on a relationship with someone who is a Facebook friend, but may speak a different language.

The benefits are for those trying to learn and practice their vocabulary with a new language. It can be beneficial to follow a celebrity who posts in Spanish with proper vocabulary and translate their posts into English. Another way it can be positive is that these words that were once unknown can at least be given a general idea of what the post is about. Pau Gasol is one person who writes his posts in English followed by the same post in Spanish in order to avoid confusion.

By Sam Pereira

Why is it important that a translation service is located in Monterey Bay? Well, some of the finest language institutes are located in Monterey. The Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS) and the Defense Language Institute (DLI) are specialized institutions. The DLI also does research in the Language field and provides linguistic and cultural instruction for the Department of Defense. MIIS provides 15 different fields of study within the umbrella of Language studies. Some of these include Social Change, Terrorism Studies, Environment, Business Studies, and Translation.

Along with these schools, California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB) has many students graduating with a degree in Japanese or Spanish. CSUMB also provides classes in American Sign Language (ASL) and introduces students to the deaf culture. Many of the students who graduate with these majors have also studied abroad and have been immersed in the culture with which they study. The same kind of culture can be found at MIIS and the DLI.

Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) also provides language classes that include ASL, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. This concentration of high quality language instruction in the area calls for the inclusion of a high quality translation service.  ~ By Sam Pereira

Monterey Language Services is happy to call this place “home”.

Siri, Apple’s new iPhone 4S app, is still struggling with picking up dialects and its ability to recognize language, so this application is long in the works. 

New technologies come up almost every day with ways to make life easier and more efficient, but may not cover the entire subject. For example, in the case of the new translation services the iPhone application Siri is looking to provide, they only offer services in six languages and dialects, American English, British English, Australian English, French, German and Japanese.

Here’s how the new translation technology is set to work, from the technology blog pcworld.com:

“The voice commands are recorded by the iPhone and then shipped to the cloud for interpretation. For example, when in Paris, a user’s iPhone could offer a translation to: “Quelle est la date d’aujourd’hui” and in response the user could reply in English, with the other person’s Siri translating the answer into their own language. The iPhone could use the GPS location to speed up translation by defaulting to the most likely language.”

Monterey Language Services can provide a more diversified translation experience with the highest quality. Monterey Language Services has access to over 10,000 translators and interpreters, offering translation and interpretation services for 175 languages and dialects to clients around the world. This broad range is sure to meet the needs of any who use the service. 

The fight with new technologies is usually about quality or quantity, but Monterey Language Services has them beat in both.

At a conference, an English-speaker stands at the front of a table giving a speech in a normal presentation voice.  There are two interpreters seated near the speaker at the front on opposite sides of the table.  Each interpreter wearing a transmitter listens to what the speaker says and verbally translates it into Spanish and French in a softer volume, so as not to interfere with the speaker or each other.  Through the receivers the participants seated around the table hear the interpretation very clearly in their own languages, no matter how far away from the speaker they are seated.  The conference goes off without a hitch.

What is magic is that there are two languages being spoken, but people only hear their own languages.  If you do not wear a receiver, you will hear the dominant voice and the two softer voices in the background.  The interpreters, however, ingeniously stay focused and manage to perform two complex tasks at once.  It is an almost mystifying process.  Just as in Robert Altman’s movies there are many conversations going on at once but it is still clear what the focus is, the focus is very defined in this situation.

Unlike consecutive, which is a stop-and-go process, simultaneous interpretation happens concurrently with the speaker, which saves time.  All the while, the brain has to perform two processes at once: listening to the speaker, and then converting the speech into another language and speaking it at the same time.  Practically everyone can drive a car, but not everyone can simultaneously interpret a language, which requires training.

Simultaneous interpretation is the preferable form for conferences.  Interpreters have to go through training to acquire their skills.  Technology and interpretation equipment are also employed to assist in the process.  Interpreters work in pairs and take a break after a certain amount of time due to the concentration required.  In the process, interpreters might also have to interpret a speaker’s tone and emotions and convey the speaker’s personal style.  In that sense, interpretation is almost like a performance.  In the end, because of the thrill and excitement, an interpreter can feel like a singer does after the curtain call.

Imagine what the future routine of translation and interpretation can be.  You could end up doing something very interesting, like addressing the United Nations General Assembly from your virtual office, or making a presentation from your home to people in China.  Regardless of where you are or what you do, chances are that you will need an interpreter at some point in your daily life.

Scenario #1: simultaneous interpretation

 An American firm hopes to gain exclusive rights to market a Mexican company’s product in the United States.  The Mexican company’s executives show the American representatives a short film in Spanish about the company via video conferencing.  So, the American company hires a Spanish-to-English interpreter versed in technical argot.  The interpreter, wearing a headset, verbally translates the film’s dialogue into English.  

Scenario #2: consecutive interpretation

A French sales representative wanted to go to San Francisco to negotiate with a winery about sales rights in France.  Without enough time to meet directly with the executives, he has to have a video conference with them.  He has an English-to-French interpreter, while the company has a French-to-English interpreter.  The two sides discuss the business deal through consecutive interpretation.

Scenario #3: sign language interpretation

A hard-of-hearing person has had a medical condition and is in the hospital.  The doctor has to explain the condition and what has to be done, but of course cannot simply tell the patient directly.  The ASL interpreter performs sign language interpretation through a videoconference where the interpreter can see the patient and doctor.  They jointly explain the patient’s condition, with the doctor speaking and the interpreter manually translating.  The patient understands perfectly.

With these ideas in mind, Monterey Language Services is not just imagining what the future could be: it is moving towards the future by providing video remote interpretation services and video conferencing services.  To Monterey Language Services, the future is now!

Check out our webpages:

http://www.montereylanguages.com/video-conferencing-services.html

http://www.montereylanguages.com/video-remote-interpretation-services.html

The City of Marina, where Monterey Language Services is headquartered, is the 7^th largest multilingual city in the United States. 

On its 35^th anniversary, we would like to wish the City a Happy Birthday in the following languages: Spanish, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Afrikaans, German, Tagalog, Hebrew, Samoan, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese.  Thanks to our many translators who responded quickly to contribute to this special occasion.

Hindi and Turkish just got in:

Hindi – जन्मदिनमुबारकहो!

Turkish – Mutlu Yillar Sana

Happy 35th, City of Marina!