This article was originally published in Business MK in January 2003.

Transport chiefs praise translation firm's key role in summit

A top-level meeting between government officials, rail chiefs and Japanese transport leaders went that much more smoothly thanks to the expertise of a Milton Keynes company.

The Department of Transport appointed K International, based at Linford Wood, to handle the translation and interpretation aspects of the three-day summit, held in 'London, Derby and York.

Rosalba Venturi, K International's client services director, said: "To prepare the Department for Transport fully, we also briefed them beforehand on the correct etiquette and protocol to adopt when meeting Japanese visitors."

Technical

Transport chiefs contracted K International to interpreters during the actual meeting, translation of material before and during the summit, typesetting, printing and proof reading of all documents.

The company has a wide choice of linguists whose mother tongue was Japanese. However, K International preselected and tested the most likely candidates to ensure that they had the necessary technical understanding of the subject.

Brian Spurrell, who co-ordinated the event on behalf of the Department for Transport, praised K International's efforts. "Their thorough preparation meant that their interpreters were well-versed in highly technical rail terminology, and that the visiting Japanese had translations of the British papers to hand," he said.

"The interpreters were versatile and flexible enough to participate fully in all aspects of the event, and seemed to enjoy themselves as much as the delegates did."

Demand from corporate and government clients has prompted K International to launch a new telephone interpreting service.

Multi-national business, government departments, call centres and organisations such as job centres, social services departments and the National Asylum Support Service are expected to reap the benefit of the service.

Competitive

It also is intended to assist local government, housing associations and the emergency services, said Rosalba Venturi.

She added: "Telephone interpreting gives a competitive advantage to any companies who need to communicate in their customer's preferred language; and speeds up the flow of information for government bodies."

K International has a database of more than 2,800 linguists working in more than 150 languages.