Parlez-vous le français?
by Deborah Phelan (boatsie)
¡Hola!, Bonjour!, 你好!, Buongiorno!, مرحبا, Здравствуйте!, Guten Tag!, 안녕하세요, こんにちは.
If you can read and write in any of these languages, WiserEarth wants you in its expanding team of translators. Meet Tatiana Alem, a member of WiserEarth in Different Languages, who is translating WiserEarth content from English to Portuguese.
"For me, translation is both my passion and my profession!" says Alem, who currently works for a law firm in São Paulo, Brazil, as an in-house translator, working specifically with legal translations as well as technical reports on patents.
With a four-year degree in Translation (Portuguese, English and Spanish) from Unesp University in Brazil, Alem says living in New York for a little over a year was also a bonus in developing her fluency in English.
"When I was asked to help with WE, I spent some days working with the translations nonstop,” she says. "I like to translate anything; however, when the content is way too technical, I usually need more time for research.”
Alem is part of an expanding group of translators working to meet WiserEarth's goal of global accessibility. To date, volunteers are translating content into French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as Portuguese.
One of the most exciting developments in this effort is the collaboration with Catalytic Communities, a Rio-based nonprofit which began its association with WiserEarth by adding their solutions and online communities to WiserEarth. Currently, seven CatComm translators are engaged in translating WiserEarth into Portuguese, with a launch date scheduled for January 2010.
"For us to be able to tap into what WiserEarth is building, to support not only the communities we've been working with but in the future, communities across the Portuguese-speaking world, is really exciting," says CatComm founder Theresa Williamson.
If you are interested in participating in translating WiserEarth into your 'first' language, visit WiserEarth in Different Languages or contact camilla[at]wiserearth.org.
