25 January 2016

French government takes bold step in internationalisation

The French government has published a pdf document listing the official designations of French government ministers and ministries in FR, EN, ES, IT and PT. Download it here.

The list is preceded by the following brief explanation:
Le Groupe de travail interministériel sur la traduction (GIT) a confié à son atelier de terminologieadministrative le soin de produire les équivalents en cinq langues étrangères des fonctions et desentités du Gouvernement français, et d’actualiser cette double liste fonctions / entités au fil deschangements de gouvernement et des remaniements.Pour élaborer cette liste, l’Atelier a notamment sollicité les avis de ses contacts dans lesambassades et dans les administrations étrangères, et a procédé à la plus large consultation de lapresse étrangère.
The initiative is to be commended.

I have long recommended that clients provide this type of information in target languages identified by their marketing teams for the benefit of anyone and everyone writing about their company, products, activities, etc. How else can a corporation ensure consistent naming, designations and terminology in key languages?

ChatGPT, a drafting aid for translation by emulation

On 17 October 2011, I published the first of two posts summarising my general approach to the type of translation/adaptation services I was ...