About Robertson Languages
Happy Anniversary, Part 1 - When the Wall Came Down, New Life Was Born!
We are celebrating a big birthday this year. Robertson Languages International is 20 years old in 2009.
Our business was formed just as a bright new era was dawning over Europe.
- The Berlin Wall came down
- The fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc was gaining momentum
- Mobility across all parts of Europe increased
- Europe was opening up
- Buildup to Treaty of Maastricht in 1992
All this created new levels of opportunity as companies were seeing the potential of moving staff around and recruiting more flexibly than had previously been possible. With this flexibility and mobility came a need for companies to understand more about the cultural differences and similarities that existed across the new frontiers. In addition, individuals wanted to further their career by offering languages as part of their skill sets.
Bob and I had a background in language teaching, both at secondary schools and to adults in business. Bob also had national experience in designing language teaching and assessment programmes. It was an ideal combination for us and there were plenty of people at that time who were willing to put great personal effort into building their language skills. Within a matter of months it became apparent that language training was only one part of the picture. There was a demand for good-quality translations and interpreting. Although we were both graduate linguists with translation experience, we recruited a specialist translation manager and built our knowledge further in this area. Liz began to concentrate on the translation side of the business while Bob developed the training side.
As active networkers, we joined the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce and when someone suggested that we put ourselves forward for the Thames Valley Business of the Year award, we decided to give it a go. We were genuinely amazed to win the prize and this gave us good publicity in the region. This gave us the impetus to enter the UK Trade and Invest (then the DTI) award for Best Language Provider. Winning the national award followed by three years of the regional award was very exciting.
Very quickly we were obliged to rent offices and hire staff. Building a team who shared our vision was very important, and we have worked with many very skilled and creative people over the years. We embraced the technology age from the outset and chose Apple Macs as the company computer system, because they were easier to use if hideously expensive and ideal for the (then) newly invented art of desktop publishing, This meant that we were way ahead of the competition in being able to produce documents in non-Roman scripts. It was still challenging to produce French accented characters in a desk-top publishing package if they had come from a PC environment, let alone Russian and Arabic.
Differentiating yourself is always difficult for a service company, and we saw the need to prove our commitment to quality and know-how by gaining certification to ISO 9001 in 1996. We were the first company language services company to be certified in both training and translation services.
Although this was, and remains, very useful, we saw that there were specific areas that should be monitored in the translation process if the company is really to provide the quality outcomes desired by clients. Liz was already part of the European Association of Translation Companies and worked with others in the association to develop a new European standard for translation services. This was a very slow process and finally culminated its publication (EN 15038) in 2006. We are one of the few translation companies in the UK who has been able to certify to this standard.
For Liz, being involved in the professional associations for translation has been interesting, and she was thrilled to be elected as President of the European Association (EUATC) for two years, 2006-2008. Liz was awarded the tile of Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, which was a real honour and highlight.
Happy Anniversary, Part 2 – The Future is Bright
In operational terms, translation has changed more than language training over the years. Technical advances, translation memory tools, email and the internet have all made their mark.
Our training is still face-to-face, not because we have shied away from using IT resources, but because we firmly believe that to use a language at an intermediate or advanced level, you need to work with a real person; otherwise it's a bit like saying that you can learn to swim by reading the instructions in a book: yes, you can, but you will probably have an unpleasant experience when you have to jump into the water!
Movement of people and the development of a rich multi-cultural society has meant that companies around the world (not just in UK) need languages from India, Eastern Europe, Far East and most recently China. This brings its own challenges but adds to the range of work.
What keeps us going? We enjoy the business. I think we both need to be doing something that we feel is of value to people...
- Helping a family settle happily into the UK by teaching the spouse and children English.
- Translating the medical records of someone who has been injured on holiday.
- Helping a company take its products to market and grow more successful in its exporting.
- Providing the translation of evidence in a fraud case which will help justice to be done.
One of the interesting developments over the years is the popularity of certain languages created by changes in social, economic or political changes worldwide. Demand in the UK for French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch exploded in 1992 with the lifting of export restrictions in the EU, then the same happened for languages such as Polish, Hungarian and Czech and again in more recent years, membership of the EU has made a significant difference to language demands, with Estonian, Latvian, Maltese, Slovakian and others becoming essential.
Japan was the target for businesses large and small for many years, and our Japanese cultural awareness training was hugely popular for a while. Its economic crash frightened investors and businesses, and at the time Japanese all but disappeared from our training. Chinese soon became the dominant requirement and led to us taking on our Chinese in-house project manager, Xin, two years ago. In the UK, our wonderful cultural diversity gives rise to many language needs. Sylheti, Swahili, Somali – every corner of the globe. And of course, lots of Polish!
So what of the future?
I think in our industry there will be further consolidations and some companies will not survive. But Robertson Languages is in a very strong position - with a wealth of language and business experience, a first-class in-house team and a network of almost 3,000 excellent translators and trainers worldwide.
There is huge demand for language training at the moment, as companies are making sure that their staff have the highest skill levels possible in preparation for grabbing sales opportunities as they arise.
And finally....
We would like to offer a big thank you to all our clients who have entrusted their language training and translation to us over the past twenty years. We hope you will continue to work with us and recommend us to your colleagues and friends alike.
Here’s to the next twenty years!
About Robertson Languages
Founded in 1989, Robertson Languages International (RLI) has its headquarters and Training Centre near Reading, Berkshire (Directions to our offices can be found here).
Over the years RLI has served a wide range of clients, many of them blue chip organisations.
RLI provides training services throughout the UK and Europe, and translation services throughout the world.
How we meet client needs
Our objective is to assist our clients to go about their business in other languages or in multilingual and multicultural environments.
We serve our clients through a core of HQ-based multilingual staff who constitute the management and administrative backbone of our organisation. They work closely with 1500 language service providers - translators and trainers - based throughout the UK and the world whom we assess and monitor at regular intervals, according to our ISO 9001 certified procedures. We thus use the most appropriately experienced and qualified linguists for our clients' projects.
Our mission
"To be a highly regarded, profitable company providing integrated language services and customer care world-wide which enable our clients to operate successfully in any language environment."
Our Quality credentials
We are certified to ISO 9001 for all our training and translation services. This guarantees our clients receive consistently high standards of work. We are active members of various professional bodies, including the Association of Translation Companies (ATC).
Awards
- 2001 DTI National Languages for Export Awards (London & South East)
- 1999 Regional Merit Award (London & South East) National Language Standards
- 1996 DTI Award "Best Languages Provider, London & South East"
- 1994 DTI Award "Best Languages Training Provider in UK"
- 1994 Thames Valley Business of the Year for Quality
- 1992 Thames Valley Business of the Year for Training
Company Information
- Robertson Languages International Limited
- Registered in England and Wales Number 3159181
- Registered Office: Robertson House, 57-59 High Street, Twyford, Berkshire, RG10 9AJ
- VAT Registration Number GB538 0262 55
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