Friday, September 02, 2005

Today was good. I went to All India Radio and gave a One - hour concert in Ghazals which will be broadcast in FM Gold on the 15th at 10.05 p.m.

And now let me tell you the reason why I asked for linguists. Mom and I have now started a Company to provide language services. Through this Blog and through a lot of friends abroad, I have a circle of good linguists. The company is called Bhaashaantara, which literally means translation. Why so many 'a's? Because I dont want someone to mispronounce the name :D. And no its not numerologically named!!!

We have been busy trying to manage the legal formalities of the company, which is now done and the work that I handle and now handling people and their work has also come in. But I am glad. I think this was needed.

I shall soon be posting the AIR concert on the blog.

I also sang the title song of a serial called Kurai Onrum Illai which will soon be telecast in Doordarshan. It is a serial based on disabilities.

One of the most important things that I wanted to type in here, maybe a lot of people dont know, but Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Lagaan and Swades has now taken up the task of bringing electricity to 60,000 villages. This will be done in the procedure as shown in his movie Swades. I also happened to meet and converse with him briefly when I had gone to record for Mangal Pandey. So this is one person who is bringing about a change in our country. This is also a fitting reply, if I may say, to my independance day blog which attracted a lot of flak also. All we in India have to do is to sms to 7827 to contribute Rs. 10 towards this project. And it is now the time to dig deep into our pockets. Kudos to you Mr. Gowariker. Wish there were thousands like you, who not only make movies to give a message to the masses, but also take up the torch themselves.

And as for me I am associating myself with an Eye Donation campaign in Chennai, which will be spear headed by Dr. Mohan Rajan and Dr. Sujatha Mohan. When I went to their clinic a couple of days ago, I created a blog for them so that they could start blogging. :D But only God knows when they will!

They also have their websites www.rajaneyecare.com and www.lasikpavilion.com.

And in response to a query, you can donate your eyes online. Though I havent checked out how myself.

And I just tried the web call through Yahoo messenger. Though my friend could hear me, I could not hear her. But then we spoke over GTalk. And MY MY the clarity is just AWESOME.. thanks god for technology, and for the brains behind that! The world is such a small place!

And I am posting a picture that I took of an ancient mike which I saw at AIR and they claim that even the high tech microphones of today cannot hold a candle to it. And I also recorded with that mike.. Not too sure about the quality of the picture since I captured it on P900. check it out!!

And also I am not sure if I can post the jingle of Vivaha in here.. will have to ask permission first!!

And one query : I recently download demo version of the Trados 7 Freelance. Does anyone have an idea as to how it works? Its a translation software. And it doesnt seem to work though I have gone through the tutorial. Anyone having an idea about what I am talking about, please help.

25 comments:

Ganesh said...

Me First :)
Congrats Chinmayi.Wish you good luck for your new company.

Apparam AIR grade A clear panniayacha ?

Looking forward to hear those songs.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm a translation company ??
to be honest ive never heard of a translation company before. ive heard of several translation softwares, but not a company.....my ignorance perhaps..

and frankly, even with all the a's inserted with precision in your company name, i still dont know i'am pronouncing the name rite, is it something like baasha as in the rajinikanth movie 'baasha' and tara as in the actress 'nayantara' ?? and btw, i dont like that stupid movie chandramukhi.
baashaa and tara = chandramuki.

ashutosh is bringing cinema to reality eh ? we have to wait and see, been hearing several stories like this....

eye donation! hats off to you!wonder if there is one person in this entire world who will donate something when he is alive...jus curios...

hey u sang for mangal pandey ? wow cool! Hope you didnt get a court notice or something.....

Coming to tech talk, Google is the most happening company and Gtalk is yet another awesome product of theirs. innovation extreme !!

and where is that ancient mike picture u said uve posted, searched frantically for it and failed to find it.

Trados 7 freelance, is a decent software and the demo version has stuff you could make use of.I have installed it and have used it. what is the problem u r facing with it? not installing? not executing? be specific please...

Melon

Anand said...

Sorry could not get back to you with info about my linguist friend. She just got back from holiday. Do you still need more people?
I have seen that ancient mic at AIR. I guess it is a 40's vintage Neumann. The interesting thing about it that I remember (if it is the same mic we're both talking about) is that it is placed on a tinly pedestal in the middle of a rather sizable room. Considering this to be a ribbon mic, that pretty much shows the guts of the engineers. That is, if their intention was to actually use it in that acoustic configuration.

Kirubakaran A said...

Translation company? You should definitely check this out.

As a nitpicking virgo myself, I would just like to say that 'mic' is what you meant :) But don't get me wrong... I'm ur fan! :-)

Really appreciate your social-cause efforts. It is thrilling to even imagine the world with a billion literate Indians!

Rags said...

Congrats on Bhaashaantara. Talking about pronoucing it...give it to a american...with all those a's, he will still get it wrong.

Is the Kurai Onrum Illai title song the famous MS number or is it something else?

I would defintely want to hear that.

btw where is the picture of the mic.

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

The problem is I am not able to connect the phone to my comp.. as soon as it is established it shall follow

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

Melon: Welll does Trados really translate words? And in the demo version I dont happen to find the multiterm.dot file..
so it is not going anywhere

Anonymous said...

There is no word called 'mic' in the english dictionary.

'mike' is closer .'to supply with a micro phone'

KRTY said...

let me suggest a caption.

Bhaashaantara ! -
We Speak Your Language.

Anonymous said...

yes it does chinmayi. looks like u need technical interference :) what OS r u using? try reinstalling. if problem persists, let me know, i will come home and fix it :)

anon, 'mic' is informally used, so is 'mike'. both are allowed. but mike is more appropriate.
so, chinmayi, u were right. americans write 'mic', so what? we r indians.




melon

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

Melon: My sys runs on XP. And if I reinstall how long will the demo version run?

Keerthi: nice tagline.. but I think someone is already using it!

Krish said...

Congratulations on the new venture :-)

Jo said...

That is nice to know about Asuthosh's efforts. Swades is my fav movie and now the more I admire him.

All the best for your business.

Anjali said...

chinmayi!U want IS ANY LANGUAGE INTERPRETER LEAD OK WITH U.i'LL MAIL IT.

Anonymous said...

hmm i havent tested on XP. will try when i find time. but what do mean by how long it will run on XP ? Its the same for all OS i guess.

melon

Unknown said...

good luck Chinmayi Sripada :)...
on your language translations effort....... :)
u gotcha cool B-log !

Jeevan said...

My wishes to u r New Company

Anonymous said...

Hi Chinmayi,

My best wishes for your new company. Keerthi : "We Speak Your Language" is simple great.

Eagerly waiting for your AIR concert. Great to know about Ashutosh Gowariker, will send a SMS to 7827 .. hmmm BTW is there any key word I need to type in the SMS Message or just a blank SMS.

KRTY said...

chinmayi, dont think some one is using it..nyways.. here's one more.

"Language is never a barrier, atleast with us".

and, Prabz sollradha try pannungalen !!

Chinmayi Sripada /Chinmayee said...

Thulasi : yup

pavi said...

Hey sripada do one thing keep ur total concert online the music (mp3 or wma or any format)
We would not only read blogs but also listen co-bloggers music

IBH said...

wow! so adhu than news a? Bhaashantara is a very classy name....

and abt Ashutosh....where was he all these while? will surely do my part!

Arvind Srinivasan said...

Congratulations and All the best :-)

LAK said...

Visited yr blog just today thru surya's. Good to see so many different facets of a person. Ooh, you sang for Mangal Pandey?! Eye donation and electricity to villages--its all about light, isn't it? Kudos to ashutosh Gowarikar--he might just deliver what he promises. Also Kudos to him for making SRK act like something other than himself in Swades. Talking of pronunciation, my daughters friend pronounced Swades to rhyme with 'aids'!

dondu(#11168674346665545885) said...

Hello, do you remember me? I am now blogging in English as well, see http://raghtransint.blogspot.com

It is mainly oriented to translation activities.

As for Trados, it is a computer aided translation (CAT) tool. What it does is just to remember your translations and if a similar text comes along, it will suggest a translation. Let me explain:

Take the German sentence, "Ich habe sieben Buecher." You translate it as "I have seven books." Next time you get another sentence "Ich habe zwei Buecher", the suggested translation will be "I have seven books" and you will have to edit it to change seven to two and then press enter. Here out of four words three remain the same and the match is said to be 75%. There you are.

As you do more and more translations, you will get your translation memory richer and richer. So Trados by itself does no original translation. It all depends on the user's skill.

The trouble with Trados is that it is very costly and causes a lot of glitches. What is more, the agencies expect you to charge 75% of your rate for 75% match and so on. Thus you spend money and buy Trados only to have your rates slashed!

So I suggest you proceed as follows. Don't let on that you have Trados. Use it but it is your business. Client is just given the translation. Never accept reduced rates for matches, even 100% matches. Clients ask so many things of you. They expect you to give uncleaned files, translation memories and what not. All stuff and nonsense.

How about me? I do not have Trados nor do I intend owning one. If there are repetitions and I use the copy and paste technique in texts with repetitions (especially in case of patents) that is entirely my affair.

By the way, your company Bhaashaantara is to be pronounced as பாஷாந்தர or பாஷாந்தரா? Better give the title in Devanagari script to avoid any mispronunciations.

Regards,
Dondu Raghavan