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Translation services for China Investment Corporation

July 1st, 2010

Last Saturday I provided translation services for Agrocenter Astana and China Investment Corporation. We met at the Beijing Palace, where the Chinese delegation stayed, and started driving away from Astana to visit the fields.

Translation services for China Investment Corporation

The discussion started while we were driving, CEO of CIC had a Chinese-Russian translator and I translated from Russian to English for the Head of Agrocenter Astana.

The discussion touched upon some agriculture issues and as I worked as an interpreter in agriculture sphere before, the vocabulary was familiar. Also I always prepare for translation by reading some materials on the topic and by making up my own glossary. Still there were some new words, such as fallow, GRS, multch. So my glossary never stops growing!

It took us about two hours to get to the fields, our guests from China were very surprised by the fact that one can drive for hours and hours in Kazakhstan and still see steppe and fields. Kazakhstan is a huge country, that’s for sure! When we finally reached our destination, we had a short  meeting there, then we also visited a silo and a place where Chinese agriculturists lived.

This trip was very interesting for me, since I like site visits. I’ve seen  tractors with ploughs where I was able to recognize plough bolts which were the subject of my translation for Unibolt company.  It was good to see what I was talking about last month 🙂

Translation at the fair AGRITEK 2010

March 23rd, 2010

I just finished translating at the agriculture fair Agritek 2010 which was held in Astana on the 17-19 of March. I was translating Per Vinther, the representative of Unibolt company, located in Denmark.

Agriculture in Kazakhstan

Mr.Vinther had kindly provided me with information on bolts and other coldformed solutions which was very helpful. I have learned about nuts, screws, washers as well as different ways of placing a bolt into a wheel, etc. These couple days were very productive for us: not only did we go to the fair, but we also contacted several companies which would be interested in what we were to offer them.

Some people don’t know that Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world, so we can produce more wheat than several european countries together. That’s why the agriculture market is very big here. The problem is that foreign people expect kazakhstani companies that need agricultural mashinery for example to be on the Internet and have their home pages with contact details. But that’s not the case here. Internet has only been around for several years and usually those who are older than 50 don’t know how to use computer. I don’t what people to have a negative impression on Kazakhstan, but this is how it is. I am sure, this situation will be slowly changing but for now I can only recommend two things: first, don’t google in English, google in Russian. Second, don’t send an email in English, send it in Russian, otherwise in 99% you will not be replied.

As for Mr.Vinther, we have found together the companies he needed and hopefully we will work together again when he arranges the meetings with these companies.