Now Surely This Has Got To Make Sense?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9924577/Stop-wasting-millions-translating-leaflets-into-foreign-languages-Eric-Pickles-tells-councils.html

/// Independent figures show that local authorities spend nearly £20million a year translating documents into a variety of different languages. ///

/// In one case last year Crawley Borough Council spent more than £600 translating a 12-page glossy 12-page quarterly ‘Homelink lifestyle magazine’ into Urdu after a single resident complained they couldn't read English. ///

[DangerUXD]

This is UK why would we translate anything? Really, leave here? learn the lingo!

[DangerUXD]

...."live here, learn the lingo"

[sandyRoe]

Freudian slip, there? ^

[emmie]

toooooo late....

[Buenchico]

Translating documents for non-English speakers makes sense. However (while I respect the rights of Welsh people to retain their language and culture) translating documents into Welsh (for people who have a full command of the English language anyway) does seem to be using up money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Possibly what is most worrying about a council having to spend £600 translating a document into Urdu is that they (presumably) didn't have any Urdu speakers on their staff, who could have done the job for free. Perhaps that council should be asked questions about the ethnic diversity of its staff?

[emmie]

the council, GP surgery, CAB, Schools, Hospitals, all do this, leaflets in our borough are printed in many languages, way too late... that is of course without the countless interpreters,

[magsmay]

Well -a local town near us has commissioned street signs in Polish so the workers won't get confused - at a time when they are cutting down on the hanging basket budget in the town as they are strapped for cash -oh and the local paper has a Polish Edition .

[emmie]

don't you think that's wrong, because i do.. whatever happened to the old adage when in Rome...

[ChillDoubt]

I agree Chris and I'm Welsh.
Whilst I'm proud of my country, heritage, culture and language I speak only smatterings of it, just the way it is.
I believe I read somewhere recently that SWALEC or someone similar were considering getting rid of their Welsh hotline as it received 0.6% of calls.


This however caused a bit of a stink locally a few years back:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/6420453.stm

[emmie]

thought i read that Polish has overtaken Welsh in the language stakes

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/polish-is-second-most-spoken-language-in-england-as-census-reveals-140000-residents-cannot-speak-english-at-all-8472447.html

[FredPuli43]

Quite right. I was about to cite the US, with its long history of immigration from many countries, as an example of how this should be done. They didn't translate anything; immigrants had to find earlier immigrants who had some English. That seems the right approach. However, even the US now translates some documents into Spanish; in particular, election addresses !

[emmie]

i also read that Spanish will outstrip English as the preferred, spoken language in the USA in the not too distant future...

[emmie]

not quite yet, but interesting for all that...

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/02/us-will-be-biggest-spanish-speaking-country-by-2050-says-scholar.php

[pdq1]

I don't often agree with Eric Pickles but I do on this. What encouragement is there for immigrants if they know English is a taboo language and not for them.

Its bad enough travelling to Wales and see motoring signs doubled up. Another far greater waste is in the EU itself. All the proceedings their have to be translated into more than 20 different languages and thats not including cross language barriers. ie English>French; French>German. A mathematician may be able to work out this cross fertilisation but isn't it factorial 20! or 20x19x18x...etc.

[FredPuli43]

Must say it never occurred to me to require or expect the French government to provide tax returns, or anything else, in English, on the grounds that French was not my native language but I was resident in France. Would anybody British and anglophone expect that ?

[emmie]

in all my travels and it has been fairly extensive, never once did i assume every sign, paper, should be in English. I assumed that if i was in a foreign country, no matter where, that my language wouldn't do, that if i wanted to get to some place i better learn some of the lingo..

[Peter Pedant]

I agree with Freddie - I would not dream of going into a French hospital without someone 'qui ordonnera pour moi' etc etc

The original idea was to include excluded minorities

however by providing translation services to monophones it was found that husbands were more able to increase social isolation - because there was then no pressure to learn English, and this was a worthwhile social goal for some minorities.

surely not surely not I hear you all say.

[FredPuli43]

Mind you, Peter, an immigrant patient in an NHS hospital is likely to find that a doctor and nurse have the same native language as he has! And French doctors, particularly specialists, tend to have good English. However, the bureaucrats must be under orders not to reveal that they have ever learned a word of English; this shouldn't worry the British, who ought to learn the right phrases in advance,and because French bureaucrats set out,as a life ambition, to be as awkward and unhelpful as possible to French citizens, and thus it is a valuable introduction to French culture.

[anotheoldgit]

Buenchico

/// Possibly what is most worrying about a council having to spend £600 translating a document into Urdu is that they (presumably) didn't have any Urdu speakers on their staff, who could have done the job for free. Perhaps that council should be asked questions about the ethnic diversity of its
staff? ///

This so called document was a lifestyle magazine for goodness sake, it was not an important document.

And are you suggesting that that councils should employ persons that speak all the different languages they are lible to encounter, would that be the ideal ethnic diversity of its staff that you are suggesting?