Thursday, May 1, 2008

U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, is urging the federal government to offer Asian language translation videos to international tourists arriving at Honolulu International Airport.

...Akaka noted that more than 1.3 million Japanese tourists flew to Hawaii in 2007. More than 100,000 came from China, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

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Wen Huang brings dissident Chinese author's stories to America

April 13, 2008
BY MARY HOULIHAN

For the past two years, Chicago writer Wen Huang has immersed himself in an unusual project -- translating the oral histories compiled by Chinese dissident Liao Yiwu. In China, the "illegal interviews" were published as Interviews with People from the Bottom Rung of Society. The book fast became a thorn in the side of supporters of Mao's Communist movement, whose goal is to create a society free of the very people Yiwu was bringing to the forefront.

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Asia Has Embraced The Global Movement To Spread Knowledge

March 28, 2008
By JEREMY WAGSTAFF

A revolution of sorts is sweeping education.

In the past few years, educational material, from handwritten lecture notes to whole courses, has been made available online, free for anyone who wants it. Backed by big-name universities in the U.S., China, Japan and Europe, the Open Education Resources movement is gaining ground, providing access to knowledge so that no one is "walled in by money, race and other issues," says Lucifer Chu, a 32-year-old Taiwanese citizen and among the thousands world-wide promoting the effort. He says he has used about half a million dollars from his translation of the "Lord of the Rings" novels into Chinese to translate engineering, math and other educational material, also from English into Chinese.

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SHENZHEN, Mar 24, 2008

...Following the heels of Youdao.com, Internet giant Yahoo also comes up with the upgraded version of its desktop translation product Happy Translation.

As for Kingsoft, the time-honored electronic dictionary developer in China, launches online dictionary iCiba at www.iciba.com, which is free for download.

These newly launched dictionaries are all focusing on translation and lookup of Chinese buzzwords, providing big convenience to college students, translators, and white collars.

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March 12th, 2008

It’s a piece of cake. In fact, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi says Chinese is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn.

“Otherwise,” Yang reasoned at today’s National People’s Congress, “it’s hard to explain why 1.3 billion have chosen it as their mother tongue.”

...According to the U.S. National Virtual Translation Center Mandarin is a Category III language, which is deemed exceptionally difficult for native English speakers. Others in the category are Cantonese (another Chinese dialect), Arabic, Japanese and Korean. That’s two of the top five.

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By: Priyanka Pradhan | May 24,2007

Microsoft has announced a collaboration with the Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics) to create an open source translator project between China's Unified Office Format (UOF) and the Ecma Open XML File Formats.

The company has also announced the beta release of translation tools for Windows XP, and the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office PowerPoint as part of the Open XML Translator project, which was launched in July 2006.

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Rohit Bhargava on Wed, 05/23/2007 - 15:37.

Intel, a current Ogilvy PR client, has just launched a new Chinese language blog focused on technology and is generating some great conversation through comments already.

Unfortunately, automated translation software cannot provide a coherent picture of the content yet - so you might be out of luck with getting much from the content of the blog, but it's a great example of a company building out their global strategy when it comes to social media and providing an outlet for more smart minds within the company to share their voices, regardless of the language barrier. A bit of insider info ... coming soon will be other multilingual blogs from Intel designed on bringing out even more of the expertise from individuals inside the company from other countries.

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With China headed toward becoming the world’s largest economy during this century, the teaching of the Mandarin Chinese language is suddenly growing in American schools.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages estimates that the number of American students learning Mandarin Chinese – by far the world’s most commonly spoken language – has risen from about 5,000 six years ago to around 50,000 today.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006
By Peter Leo, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Even little kids over there speak it

Semi-trick question: What is the world's most commonly spoken language? No, not English. Or Spanish. The answer, of course, is Mandarin Chinese, because the answer to almost any question about "most" or "biggest" these days is some variation on the word "China."

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NEW YORK, Nov. 14, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- China Natural Gas, Inc. (OTCBB:CHNG), http://www.naturalgaschina.com, a company engaging in the transmission and distribution of natural gas in China to a diverse base of commercial, industrial, wholesale and residential customers, announced financial results for the third quarter and nine months ended September 30, 2006.

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DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c45274) has announced the addition of “China Discrete Devices Market Report, 2005-2006” to their offering.

At present, China has been the world’s largest market of discrete devices. In 2005, the market capacity reached RMB64.38 billion, taking more than 40 percent of global market share.

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China's ambassador to the U.S. comes to campus as exchanges increase between Duke and China.

By James Todd

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

Durham, NC -- Speaking to a Duke audience Tuesday evening, China’s ambassador to the U.S., Zhou Wenzhong, touted diplomatic, cultural and economic ties between the two countries, while making clear his country’s “One China” policy does not allow for an independent Taiwan.

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01st Nov 2006

The World’s First Chinese-English Email Portal Chinglish.com Live

Writing in Chinese Online, Sending it out in English, and Vice Versa, Bridges the Language Barrier Between China and the West

Chinglish.com is live. It is the world’s first bilingual Chinese-English internet portal with specialized language tools. Messages can be written and translated online in Chinese or English.

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Beijing, Oct 19. (PTI): People in China will have a chance to get insights into the mind of President A P J Abdul Kalam with the release on Wednesday, of the Chinese version of his book.

'Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life', penned by Kalam and scientist Arun K Tiwari, a vivid account of the inner experiences of India's first citizen, was released here by Vice Minister of International Department of the ruling Communist Party of China Liu Hongkai.

Liu said the release not only provides a chance for the Chinese to read a book by a world-acclaimed scientist and statesman but also enhances people-to-people exchanges and cultural interactions between China and India.

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October 20, 2006
Associated Press

HONG KONG – China's biggest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, raised $19 billion Friday in the world's biggest initial public offering, pricing its IPO at the top end of expectations, thanks to overwhelming demand.

The stock sale, the first ever for shares to list in both Hong Kong and Shanghai, surpasses the previous record, a $18.4 billion IPO by Japanese mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo Inc. in 1998.

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