Recent Blog Posts

Moo’ve over, the 2016 CowParade has started!

On July 22, 2015, the CowParade SLO (San Luis Obispo) was officially launched at the California Mid-State Fair. This year, San Luis Obispo County will exhibit these cows around the county for everybody to enjoy from January 2016 until August 2016.

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 KBG84, a troupe consisting of 33 female singers whose average age is 84 years old, has a new hit single in Japan, Come on and Dance, Kohama Island. The band featuring 97-year-old Haru Yamashiro, is taking Japan by storm, selling out their upcoming tour.

 KBG84 members are from the remote island of Kohama in Okinawa. They chose their name as a play on a popular teen band AKB48. The music KBG84 sings reflects their love of nature and the island they call home. Lyrics include “whales in the sea spouting or dolphins doing somersaults.”

 Though Yamashiro and the rest of her troupe may be considered old by most standards, these ladies are young at heart and winning over the hearts of people of all ages.

By Amanda Scott

 Pocket-sized travel books with translated phrases are a thing of the past, at least to any smartphone users. There are now several apps that help travelers traverse through language barriers while traveling. The new app “Excuse Me” is another one to add to your download list before setting out abroad.

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The Saragossa Band is a German pop band from Munich, Germany. From the late 1970s until about the mid-1980s it was one of the most successful and sought after professional party bands in Germany.

The Saragossa Band mixed pop with elements of Calypso and Samba. This band was the only German band to ever tour the South Pacific, which turned out to be extremely successful for them.

Their biggest hit came in 1977 with the song “Big Bamboo”, which is sung in the Caribbean dialect of Papiamento. “Rasta Man” and “Zabadak” followed, two songs with relatively few lyrics, which, despite that, made it into the top ten in the German charts.

The songs “Ginger Red”, “Agadou”, and “Aiko Aiko” did not make it into the top-10, but “Agadou” is the song with the greatest long-term success and is even today by far the most popular song of the group.

Today, the Saragossa Band still performs in concerts and also plays during major festivals. You can still hear all their songs on the radio or on TV, but especially in beach bars and popular discotheques.

We recently received a request for transcribing the lyrics of “Big Bamboo”. In order for a native to be able to transcribe a song, especially a song performed by several people, listening to the song many times is required because often the words are difficult to understand.

Before tackling such a difficult transcription, one of our German translators did a quick search on the Internet, but that did not reveal any lyrics. When the translator then searched the German forums, he found a company that was selling the sheet music with the lyrics and he also found one individual who had the lyrics and was willing to fax it.

The client was very pleased with the service.

By Amanda Scott

Good news for Hawaiian language immersion schools. Last month, senators from Hawaii, North Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico introduced The Native American Language Immersion Student Achievement Act.  The Act would create $25 million in grants to support language immersion programs, specifically Native American ones, like the endangered Olelo Hawaii, a Polynesian language.

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In the video above  Sakamoto plays Forbidden Colours, which was originally written for the movie Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, and later was adapted into a hit single.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Japanese musician and composer. His rise to fame came as a member of the electronic pop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. He played keyboard and occasionally sang. The band had worldwide hits, like “Computer Game/Firecracker”, “Behind the Mask”, and “Rydeen.”  After much joint success, Sakamoto pursued a solo career.   He has since collaborated with many international artists.

Ryuichi Sakamoto also had huge success as a film composer, earning himself a Golden Globe, a Grammy and an Academy Award for his work in The Last Emperor, as well as several other awards for other works. He also composed music for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Sadly in 2014 Sakamoto was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer. Shortly after his diagnosis, Sakamoto announced that he would be taking a hiatus from his work to focus on healing, with promises to return after a full recovery.

Nikolaos “Nikos” Vertis, born in The Netherlands with the name Nikolaos Vertis Arvantidis, or in Greek ‘Νίκος Βερτης Αρβανιτίδης’ is a modern Greek Pop singer.

When he was six years old, his family moved to Greece where soon afterwards he started playing the bouzouki. The bouzouki is a musical instrument of the lute or string family. It is closest related to the mandolin. Immigrants traveling from Asia Minor introduced it to Greece. The bouzouki is played with a plectrum and has a slight metallic sound. The instrument comes with either three or four strings. It is the main instrument used in Greek folk music.

At the age of 16, he went to a technical high school in The Netherlands so he would not forget his native language, Dutch. After graduation and his military duties in Greece, he started performing in local clubs. People started to notice his voice at the popular club ‘Rodon’. In 2003, after signing with ‘Universal Music Greece’, he released his first album and won the award for “Best New Artist”.

Since then he performed various concerts around the world.

To date, he has released five albums as well as one CD single, and two special edition CD/DVD albums.

By Amanda Scott

UCL Centre for Translation Studies, commonly referred to as CenTraS, is teaching translation through editing Wikipedia. The program had 36 translation studies postgraduates contribute to the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.  The event was co-organized by CenTraS’ Rocío Baños Piñero, Wikimedia Gender Gap Project Worker Roberta Wedge, and Dr. Mira Vogel.

Students of the program translated women’s health articles from English into several other languages. The subject was chosen based upon it being an underrepresented topic, as well as a relatable one, to the primarily female students.

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