Rural System's

Translation Services

As part of our activities to bring knowledge about rural resources and their management to others, we are fully aware of the knowledge base and past research results that exist in other languages. Now that foreign language requirements ( Viewing Posts: The Arguments for Foreign Language Requirements) have been dropped from many Ph.D. programs and some electronic translators are available, there exists opportunity and need for translation of other languages into English.

Perhaps in competition with or perhaps collaboration, with Alternitiva as an example

Grupo Alternativa es una empresa argentina dedicada al desarrollo de productos de telefonía e Internet. Inició sus actividades en 1999, en el marco de la apertura del mercado de las telecomunicaciones en la Argentina. Para brindar sus servicios, cuenta con las más avanzadas tecnologías ubicadas en el Datacenter de MCI (Worldcom), donde se realiza la interconexión con los principales carriers: AT&T, Bell South, Impsat, TechTel, Comsat y Global Crossing, entre otros. Como misión, Grupo Alternativa asumió el desafío de construir liderazgo a partir de la innovación. Con este objetivo, desde el ámbito de la investigación trabaja permanentemente para anticiparse a los requerimientos del consumidor con nuevos productos y servicios, desarrollados con las últimas herramientas de la tecnología y el marketing. Estructuralmente, Grupo Alternativa posee 4 unidades de negocios: Alternativa Gratis, Red Alternativa, Hola Argentina y Netfono.

Rural System perceives needs in both this country and other places. To the extent that we can learn from and contribute to people in other areas of the world, we shall do so. Language has been a barrier and also the grounds for and source of conflicts. We hope to reduce those and through Translation Services and the Rural Knowledge Base move knowledge into messages and models that improve conditions on the land for people.

We prefer local (USA) expert translators, but to the extent that these are unavailable in specific fields, we shall seek work with others. We realize the time and resources needed/required for artistic translation, even for technical articles. We also realize that each article often has local background and detail that is irrelevant to conclusions and to specific findings. Total translation is rarely our intent but deciding on exclusion is difficult and requires a special level of knowledge and information on likely use of final reports. The risk of "missing something" is small compared to the risks of not using the major findings as soon as possible to meet daily-arising rural crises.

We invite translators , especially those interested in homesourcing, to contact us (in English) so that we may develop translation teams in French, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. We are willing to explore alternatives in special knowledge and resource areas.

By careful accounting of time spent, salary equivalents may be donated to Rural System for state and federal tax credits. Financial arrangements are made for each translator for each document or electronic message.

Perhaps you will share ideas with me about some of the topic(s) above .

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Rural System
Glossary
Robert H. Giles, Jr.
July 3, 2005