Our German transcription service for academic research is regularly called upon by students from the University of Bath.

Working from either video or audio, our German transcribers and typists can either produce a same language transcript or a direct translation from German into English.

We are frequently asked to complete ‘direct translation’ which can be from either audio, or from video. But exactly what is ‘direct translation’? Our clients frequently make foreign language audio or video recordings. The content can be literally anything, but the endgame is the same. Our linguists listen to the content (which may be in Spanish, French, German or any other language) and produce an English transcript, with no steps in between.

It is an uncomfortable fact that upheavals around the world usually result in our translators in certain languages being called upon to translate video content into English.

Here at Knockhundred we can remember when our clients usually demanded one of two things, either text translation, or interpreting. As technology has developed, so too have the demands of our clients. The increasing popularity and accessibility of multimedia platforms means that clients are demanding subtitles. Subtitles, subtitles and yes… more subtitles!

Did anybody see the bit in the second episode of the new Dr Who when Jodie Whittaker explains how the humans could understand the language of the Stenza? The answer is obvious - an alien health pod implants universal translators into the necks of Tardis team Graham, Ryan and Yaz (making them able to understand Angstrom, Epzo and Illin). Of course!

Over 2000 languages are spoken in Africa, but there are many fewer recognised at national level. When documentary-makers, journalists and charities travel to various African countries to interview people, they often don’t know which language(s) they will encounter.

We have a number of corporate clients based in the Middle East and receive regular requests to subtitle material both from Arabic into English and also from English into Arabic.

We were keen to learn more about our interpreters’ day-to-life working lives, so we spoke to one of our Arabic business interpreters, to find out exactly what it’s like….

Imagine how much time you could save by having your lectures, seminars, interviews and research material transcribed. No more having to write up your lecture or seminar notes. No more spending hours transcribing hours of interview material. Think what would be possible with all that time saved.

There are so many advantages to telephone interpreting over traditional forms of interpreting. Instant access by telephone to interpreters covering over 150 languages for a start.

With the new Air India service from Delhi flying directly to Birmingham Airport, Birmingham City University is well-placed to welcome students and academic staff from India. The university even has its own India Regional Manager based at the Birmingham campus, and the city itself is home to nearly 65,000 residents of Indian ethnic origin.

We have a number of regular clients for whom we produce Japanese transcriptions and also Japanese to English direct translations from audio. Recently, however, we’ve been enjoying working on a number of subtitling projects for independent film companies. These projects have clearly all been destined for the Japanese market, which means that instead of subtitling from Japanese into English, we have been subtitling from English into Japanese!