More Than a Million Translators Needed for the Beijing Olympics

Coming to the rescue of China, their image to the world and to further their education, Chinese volunteers have stepped up in record numbers to provide English translation to visitors.

Made up of more than a million people, the 2008 Beijing Olympic "City Volunteers" are made up of students and other people who speak several languages that were willing to commit 5 weeks of their time to be out and about in the city to be approached and offer guidance, advice and help to visitors to China. For two years, the Beijing Organization Olympic Committee interviewed and trained qualified volunteers. In return, volunteers received McDonald's meals and complimentary Adidas clothing.

Found in the malls, streets, banks and stores wearing bright blue 2008 Olympic t-shirts, you can spot the City Volunteers just about everywhere. Some volunteers are stationed at one of the 550 kiosks set up around the capitol to provide directions, offer aid or other services.

Without the volunteers, the Olympic Games would not be able to offer such support. The Olympic Games Committee would not be able to hire a million professional translators to help all the visitors and everything else that is needed. They have hired professional translators for several other aspects of the games, which include:

• Pamphlets
• Directions
• Signs
• Websites
• Newspapers
• Schedules
• More

When it comes to the inside of the Olympic Games, translations into several languages needs to be spot on. The Olympics are serious and that means besides needing so many volunteers willing to vocally translate for visitors, hiring thousands of professional translators is also required for in-house operations.

Thousands of people from all over the world will require assistance through translation each day for instruction, direction or information during the Olympics and China will rely on their sea of volunteers to help on the outside, while they look to their professional translation team on the inside.

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