An alternative way for those who want to learn more about foreign cultures and languages is to rent/download movies from the target country/language in original version, watch it once with subtitles and then immediately a second time without subtitle, making the effort of understanding what is said and had just been heard with translation. Ideally, repeat viewing teh movie the next day without subtitles to reinforce the process.

Not only does this improve the passive knowledge of the language, but it trains to predict the answers of the protagonists, which are a reflection of the culture, so it does kills two birds with one stone and at minimal cost.

I'm always amazed and inspired by those out there able to work in what are essentially 'dead' languages, such as Latin. I got some genealogical information translated from Latin into English by a most impressive company, Classical Turns (http://www.classicalturns.com/), which is run by a Lector at Cambridge. It was a fantastic service and amazing to see how well some people can know a language such as that.

Darian J

Good news for the translation business then!

I find that point 4.3.1.5. which indicates that choosing a company abiding to the new standard EN15038 does not imply quality reflect the consequences of the competition from Eastern European country who force translation companies within Europe to lower their rate to remain competitive.

Compounding lower rates with the additional burden of maintaining the requirements to meet standard EN15038 ends up guzzling valuable time that would be better invested in improving the quality, especially in smaller companies.