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2006-03-03 Europe
US firm told to translate documents into French
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Posted by lotp 2006-03-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11135 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Hey - obey local laws. I don't care where you do business.
Posted by gromky">gromky  2006-03-03 02:58|| http://communistposters.com/]">[http://communistposters.com/]  2006-03-03 02:58|| Front Page Top

#2 GE medical will pay up and quit doing business in France at all. That is how this usually goes.
Posted by SPoD 2006-03-03 06:46|| http://sockpuppetofdoom.blogspot.com/]">[http://sockpuppetofdoom.blogspot.com/]  2006-03-03 06:46|| Front Page Top

#3 Yeah, and you need to start rewriting your medical prescription in Latin again.
Posted by Snaiper Jeretch8186 2006-03-03 06:46||   2006-03-03 06:46|| Front Page Top

#4 There is no need for GE to base operations in France, other than onsite techs and maintenance engineers. It may even turn out cheaper to move operations to other offices in the Netherlands, Italy, or better yet, to New Europe, though the sales commutes may be tough.
Posted by ed 2006-03-03 07:50||   2006-03-03 07:50|| Front Page Top

#5 If it was not for GE (and other 1940's era US companies) this would not be an issue: Siemens would be making all the med-tech equipment for France, and all the docs would be in German only. Of course, that would not be a problem, because German would be the national language of France.
Still, it makes no sense that GE would not print documents in whatever the local language is where the equipment or services are being used. And how hard is could it be - computers can translate most of it, and the technical words stay in English anyway.
Posted by Glenmore">Glenmore  2006-03-03 09:38||   2006-03-03 09:38|| Front Page Top

#6  And how hard is could it be - computers can translate most of it, and the technical words stay in English anyway.

Not in France. All English technical language words have Frenchified equivalents. ]They'll pick up some liability risk for poor translations as well as the immediate cost of translation. Pull out, Jeffrey.
Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-03-03 09:57||   2006-03-03 09:57|| Front Page Top

#7 No big deal _ there's plenty of people in the Dead Languages Departments of universities that wouldn't mind part time jobs.
Posted by Shilet Throse6198 2006-03-03 15:30||   2006-03-03 15:30|| Front Page Top

#8 FWITW: Aall US companies require the US-based companies they deal with to have their Quality Management System documents in (at least ) English, so this is not unreasonable. This is also applicable to companies doing DOD work, regardless of the company's nationality. I think that if the full story were known, they were probably asked nicely several times and then after being told, "OK we're on it" for many moons, the fun-meter pegged and the laywers took over.
Posted by USN, ret. 2006-03-03 16:14||   2006-03-03 16:14|| Front Page Top

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