What could possibly go wrong?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Some time back the US State Dept. approached Pat Clancy, my partner-in-crime at Hyperwar about supplying certain Russian school with material for teaching WWII. (The amount of non-Soviet history on the Great Patriotic War is rather limited there.) We selected 100 books that we have online for an initial reading list. The Russians have just notified us that they are contracting a firm to translate the books into Russian. The firm is based in France somewhere. And apparently nobody on this side of the water knows anything about them. I have a slight concern.

[Svartalf]

If they want to contract the French... why did they ask the US State dept for recommendations?
Then again, maybe that firm does have decent Russian born English speakers... though the sheer volume of the endeavour tells me that either this is a long term thing that will take years to complete, or the translation will be largely machine handled, and given modern standards for rereading, error checking, editing, and correction, I fear that the books will get FUBAR in the process.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If they want to contract the French... why did they ask the US State dept for recommendations?
Then again, maybe that firm does have decent Russian born English speakers... though the sheer volume of the endeavour tells me that either this is a long term thing that will take years to complete, or the translation will be largely machine handled, and given modern standards for rereading, error checking, editing, and correction, I fear that the books will get FUBAR in the process.

The Russians contacted the State Dept. to make it clear this was an "official" project. (Don't ask me why that matters.) State contacted the Army and Navy historical offices and they both recommended Hyperwar. :puffed up:

People are looking into the French firm, we are thinking it's a "single use" company fronting for another firm. The fact that they want to translate the books into French first, then into Russian,and get paid for both steps, tells us something about their motivations, I think. I have no idea how they plan to do the translations.

[MiM]

Why would such a project need 100 books as initial reading?
Why double translation?
Who pays the translation?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why would such a project need 100 books as initial reading?

This is university level work, so they need a selection of books for the students to chose from. The first one hundred books will be lowest level of study, introductory material. Later, as the profs read the books and look for more detail on certain topics, we will be asked for more recommendations.

Why double translation?

Beats the tits off me, Tonto.

Who pays the translation?

The Russians will be paying for everything, at this point. The US would have picked up some of the bill if the work was done in the US. Jobs for translators here.

[klr]

Is the suggested reading list publicly available? Just curious ...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Is the suggested reading list publicly available? Just curious ...

Patrick has it, I didn't keep a copy after scanning it and making some suggestions. The "Official Histories" are on top, of course, HMSO, The Green Books, and Morison's USN series. We don't have all of them on disk, but a fair few. If the US translators wind up doing the project State has talked about getting us some money to fill in the blanks. A university in Denver would supply the personpower for the scanning.

[Clinton Huxley]

I hope you are going to include all the stuff about the captured Nazi UFOs.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I hope you are going to include all the stuff about the captured Nazi UFOs.

Don't laugh, that was one of the question the Russians had. We've set up a small forum to correct the information they've been getting via Youtube and TV.

[Clinton Huxley]

I hope you are going to include all the stuff about the captured Nazi UFOs.

Don't laugh, that was one of the question the Russians had. We've set up a small forum to correct the information they've been getting via Youtube and TV.

Funny. Watching too much Russia Today can send you doo-lally.

[Jesus_of_Nazareth]

Run the books through Google translate..........

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I hope you are going to include all the stuff about the captured Nazi UFOs.

Don't laugh, that was one of the question the Russians had. We've set up a small forum to correct the information they've been getting via Youtube and TV.

Funny. Watching too much Russia Today can send you doo-lally.

The fun part is making sure the questions are actually what the profs wanted answers for, and not some language boondoogle. We finally got a English-speaker and a Russian-speaker teamed up to translate for us.

Run the books through Google translate..........

That's what we're afraid the French are going to do.

[Svartalf]

If they want to contract the French... why did they ask the US State dept for recommendations?
Then again, maybe that firm does have decent Russian born English speakers... though the sheer volume of the endeavour tells me that either this is a long term thing that will take years to complete, or the translation will be largely machine handled, and given modern standards for rereading, error checking, editing, and correction, I fear that the books will get FUBAR in the process.

The Russians contacted the State Dept. to make it clear this was an "official" project. (Don't ask me why that matters.) State contacted the Army and Navy historical offices and they both recommended Hyperwar. :puffed up:

People are looking into the French firm, we are thinking it's a "single use" company fronting for another firm. The fact that they want to translate the books into French first, then into Russian,and get paid for both steps, tells us something about their motivations, I think. I have no idea how they plan to do the translations.

Wait, they are doing an 'official' thing, and will be paying a foreign company to do the job in an inefficient manner wich will double the fees and multiply the risk of mistakes and whatnot?

Nothing can go wrong, the kickbacks will find their way where they are supposed to, likely via Switzerland.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The Russians are considering using the French firm. This was sprung on us yesterday. Still waiting for State's position, and information about the firm. They could be golden, we just don't know at this time.

[Tyrannical]

The Russians are considering using the French firm. This was sprung on us yesterday. Still waiting for State's position, and information about the firm. They could be golden, we just don't know at this time.

I'm shocked the State Department can't recommend you a list or Russian speaking retired workers that may be interested. With the Cold War over, they can't have nearly as much to do.