Chartered Institute
of Linguists

NEWS & VOICES

Category:
CIOL Voices



Can impactful human-to-human communications be outsourced successfully to AI, asks Michael Schubert, CT

 

Embracing tech

I’m a technophile. In my very human career field of translation and copywriting, I embrace technology wholeheartedly. I also advocate for it when I teach and mentor others. I think tech skills are just as critical as language skills for a...

Published on Tuesday, 28 October 2025 - 2:35pm
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices



By Julian Hale

 

Languages have opened many cultural, professional and ‘romantic/friendship’ doors for me over the years.

Learning Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish has enabled me to become a kind of ‘factotum’, working as a professional interpreter, including for Nigel Short, who challenged Garry Kasparov in the World Chess Championships and...

Published on Wednesday, 22 October 2025 - 10:47am
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices


 

Zoe Moores, David Orrego-Carmona, Pia Ghosh, Tom Bartindale, Delvin Varghese and Margherita Angelucci:

The Action Translate Team, based at the Universities of Warwick, Northumbria and Monash


  What is Action Translate?

Action Translate is an all-in-one team, initiative and crowdsourcing platform that supports volunteer translation initiatives....

Published on Tuesday, 21 October 2025 - 1:30pm
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices

 


My journey and learning method

by Giulia Bonanzinga

 

Learning a new language as an adult is both exciting and daunting. On one hand, there is the dream of opening doors to travel, study or career opportunities. On the other, daily life is already full, and the thought of adding hours of grammar drills or endless vocabulary lists can feel...

Published on Tuesday, 14 October 2025 - 10:19am
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices

 


By Cat Burns

 

It is no secret that the role of translators is evolving, and quickly. Linguists have always needed to be agile and adaptable, but in a world increasingly influenced by machine translation and artificial intelligence, apprehension about the impacts of automation on the profession has grown. As a vendor manager at an LSP, I’ve witnessed this ...

Published on Thursday, 9 October 2025 - 12:47pm
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices
    As part of our ongoing conversation with the CIOL community, we recently ran a ‘snap’ poll to ask you, our members, about your confidence in marketing yourselves online. CIOL Head of Membership Dom Hebblethwaite reports back on the findings.

 

The results, along with some detailed and very thoughtful comments, provide a candid snapshot of our community's relationship with digital...

Published on Monday, 6 October 2025 - 10:19pm
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices

 

  By John Worne CIOL CEO

 

I attended a really upbeat event with Duolingo last week focusing on what we can do to promote language learning in the UK.

 

Published on Monday, 29 September 2025 - 3:03pm
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices




By Mark Robinson

 

On a recent visit to Volterra in Tuscany, I took time to explore the Museo Etrusco Guarnacci, one of Italy’s oldest museums and a treasure house of Etruscan artefacts. Among the urns, sculptures, and delicate jewellery, one fact stood out: the Etruscan alphabet - adapted from the Greeks - was the very script that later formed the basis...

Published on Wednesday, 24 September 2025 - 11:58am
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices

 


By Pham Hoa Hiep


The full version of this article was published in MultiLingual magazine's September 2025 issue. 

 

Recently, my sister called from Australia, worried about my job as a freelance translator now that AI is everywhere. “If work has become scarce, maybe it’s time to go back to teaching,” she suggested.


She’s not...

Published on Tuesday, 23 September 2025 - 10:29am
Category:
CIOL Voices
Category:
CIOL Voices


by  Dr Eyhab Abdulrazak Bader Eddin

 

A trilingual realm unfolds

Imagine walking into a 13th-century English courtroom. The judge addresses the court in French, the clerk scribbles notes in Latin, and the plaintiffs mutter to each other in English.

This vivid scene captures the reality of post-Norman Conquest England, where three tongues coexisted in a...

Published on Thursday, 11 September 2025 - 12:46pm
Category:
CIOL Voices