SMEs Give Little Attention to the Importance of Translation

“Mr Chan Chong Beng, president of the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, admitted that SMEs give little attention to the importance of translation”.

                                                      ~ Chairman of Goodrich Global ~

He said: “English is the predominant language used in the local market, even if there is Chinese translation, it is translation for the sake of translation. In fact, SMEs do not have the resources and talent to safeguard the standard of translation, unless their market focus is on China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.”

Professor Eddie Kuo believed that to promote translation in Singapore, the Government should take the lead.

“The Government and statutory boards should ensure that all translation work is properly done within their organizations, all Government departments should recognize the importance of translation. They should appoint suitable persons to safeguard the standard, and set up quality control mechanism, because a lot of wrong translation is not difficult to spot.”

He believed that the current issue is, “Either people don’t know the mistakes, or they know the mistakes but keep quiet, or they point out the mistakes but no one listens.” No matter where the problem lies, the consequences are regrettable.

Professor Eddie Kuo was chairman of the public forum titled “Bridging Two Worlds: Bilingualism and Translation in Singapore”. Speakers of the forum were Mr Tan Dan Feng, executive director of Interlexis Pte Ltd; Mr Ung Gim Sei, partner of RHTlaw Taylor Wessing LLP; Mr Peter Ong, assistant editor of Lianhe Zaobao, and Ms Susan Xu, Head, Translation & Interpretation Programme at SIM University.

Ms Sim Ann, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Education & Ministry of Law was the forum’s guest of honour. She is also a first batch graduate of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Translation & Interpretation programme of the Nanyang Technological University.

SOURCE:   ZABAO Newspaper, 20 April 2012.