Sellers of products and services in the virtual global marketplace into which the Internet is developing must be prepared to deal with a virtual world that is just as multilingual as the physical world. If they want to be successful, they had better make sure they are speaking the languages of their customers!
= How do you see the future?
As a company that derives its very existence from the importance attached to languages, I believe the future will be an exciting and challenging one. But it will be impossible to be complacent about our successes and accomplishments. Technology is already changing at a frenetic pace. Life-long learning is a strategy that we all must use if we are to stay ahead and be competitive. This is a difficult enough task in an English-speaking environment. If we add in the complexities of interacting in a multilingual/multicultural cyberspace, then the task becomes even more demanding. As well as competition, there is also the necessity for cooperation — perhaps more so than ever before.
The seeds of cooperation across the Internet have certainly already been sown. Our NetGlos Project has depended on the goodwill of volunteer translators from Canada, U.S., Austria, Norway, Belgium, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Greece, Brazil, New Zealand and other countries. I think the hundreds of visitors we get coming to the NetGlos pages everyday is an excellent testimony to the success of these types of working relationships. I see the future depending even more on cooperative relationships — although not necessarily on a volunteer basis.
[FR] Brian King
#Directeur du WorldWide Language Institute, qui est à l'origine de NetGlos, glossaire multilingue de la terminologie de l'internet
Depuis 1995, à l'initiative du WorldWide Language Institute, NetGlos (The Multilingual Glossary of Internet Terminology) est réalisé en commun par un certain nombre de traducteurs et linguistes, dans les langues suivantes: allemand, anglais, chinois, croate, espagnol, français, grec, hébreu, hollandais/flamand, italien, maori, norvégien et portugais.
*Entretien du 15 septembre 1998 (entretien original en anglais)
= Quel est l'apport de l'internet dans l'activité de votre organisme?
Le principal service que nous offrons est l'enseignement des langues par le biais du web. Notre organisme est dans la position unique d'en être venu à exister du fait de l'internet!