Joi Ito shows a photo of a screen showing the output from steno machines. However, the ‘scribes’ are said to be hearing French and typing English – just what many clients think translators do when they work! But in the comments it becomes clear that they’re hearing the simultaneous translation in English and that’s what they’re typing. And as the picture shows, you can feed the Stenograph output straight into a computer – that’s what they did at the O.J.Simpson trial, where all the lawyers could see the transcript on screen virtually in real time.

One commenter refers to Hansard, who transcribe the proceedings of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They discuss their techniques – either fast shorthand, Stenograph machines or audiotyping. Here’s more information about court reporters in the UK.

Kevin Coyne, der berühmteste Engländer in Nürnberg, ist gestern mit 60 verstorben. Er hatte Lungenfibrose (pulmonary fibrosis) aber erwartete nicht, so jetzt zu sterben (anscheinend ein paar Stunden, nachdem er ein Interview mit den Nürnberger Nachrichten gemacht hatte).

Kevin Coyne was the most famous Englishman in Nuremberg. However, he refused to learn German – this week the integration of foreigners has been on the news (seems problematic to me to actually integrate people, perhaps less so if they integrate themselves).

There are two good sites to find links to online English translations of German statutes. One is the German Law Archive, run by Gerhard Dannemann, and the other is Carob, Robin Stocks’ weblog (click at the top right).

However, if they haven’t got a particular statute, a translation may still be out there. It might be worth doing some dedicated searching, if it weren’t for the fact that one doesn’t always want them, and they aren’t always much ehlp. This week, I found a translation of the Völkerstrafgesetzbuch.

Meanwhile, the German Federal Ministry of Justice had simply dropped the English part of its website (can be traced at the old website via a Google site search, if you know what you’re looking for). Now Professor Dannemann has got their permission to post five BMJ translations in the German Law Archive: StGB, StPO, DRiG, InsO (2004) and VöStGB. And he also recommends this link for translations of a number of statutes on employment law.

The current issue of Legal IT has an article on weblogs, especially weblogs for lawyers, by Joy London, of the always interesting blawg excited utterances. Joy works for Allen & Overy in knowledge and training management, so she calls herself a klogger, but because it’s legal KM she does, she feels closest to law blogs. She writes:

bq. When I created my blawg in May 2002, it was initially a way to manage the huge volume of web-based information I collected on law firm knowledge management. Most blawgs then online focused on law technology, and how to use it to organise and archive legal information. In law firms, this can mean piles of documents, which typically lie so buried in ancient redwells, that partners prefer to dispatch associates to recreate relevant memoranda or briefs overnight. My blawg archives expanded quickly, even though I had decided from the outset to keep my focus narrow.

Collecting information was one of my main aims too. I don’t think my categories are precise enough (if you click on a category under an entry on the front page of Transblawg, you will get a page with all entries in that category), and I haven’t found time to put in enough input of my own – I spend most of my bandwidth giving links rather than discussing legal translation. And I too was surprised to find myself part of a network of other blogs interested in the same sorts of information.

Joy has a list of her favourite blogs at the end, and I’m extremely flattered to find myself in it. Most of those blogs are KM blogs.

In England is Deutsch ein unbeliebtes Abiturfach, im Vergleich etwa zu Spanisch, weil es als zu schwer gilt (Bericht von der Deutsch-Britischen Stiftung).

According to an article in the Guardian, German is studied less at A-level and AS-Level in Britain because it’s seen as too hard (report by Anglo-German Foundation can be downloaded free of charge here, along with other reports including one on the future of work for lawyers in Britain and Germany).

bq. Catherine Watts, one of the authors of the report, called for a review of the content of the German curriculum at both GCSE and post-16 level to make it more appealing. She said: “I think we should promote the German language in a much more positive way. At the moment, it suffers from a gloomy image.”

This reminds me of the 1978 film ‘Deutschland im Herbst’, by Alexander Kluge and ten others. There was a wonderful scene where Hannelore Hoger, playing a school history teacher, was sent to the (real) SPD conference and asked the delegates what they were planning to do to improve German history, because it was not suitable for teaching. (The figure of Gabi Teichert was developed further a year later in Die Patriotin, a scathing review of which from Cambridge MA does not deter me). Deutschland im Herbst has dated, but it’s a brilliant film showing viewpoints on the Rote Armee Fraktion terrorism. There was a little documentary in it that sticks in my mind showing the family of one of those who died in prison being unable to bury their son inside the city wall and having trouble finding a restaurant to hold a funeral reception.

(Thanks to Desbladet)

Following a discussion about Schrittgeschwindigkeit (dead slow) on an ITI list, may I remind people that the Highway Code (British road rules) is online.

The German Straßenverkehrsgesetz (Road Traffic Act) is too.

Here’s an AmE>BE driving dictionary and something about road signs in the USA from the same site, which has a lot of information.

I am sure such materials are online for Austria and Switzerland and for other English-speaking countries.