ACI Global Home Middle East Region Portal Western Europe Region Portal
Email Address is required Invalid Email Address
In today’s market, it is imperative to be knowledgeable and have an edge over the competition. ACI members have it…they are engaged, informed, and stay up to date by taking advantage of benefits that ACI membership provides them.
Read more about membership
Learn More
Become an ACI Member
Topics In Concrete
Home > News and Events > News > News Detail
2/1/2016
Share this article on Social Media
In preparation for a recent international trip, I engaged ACI's new Translation Coordinator, Aimee Gurski, for assistance in developing an appropriate greeting to the conference attendees. I was pleased to learn that the ACI staff in Farmington Hills, MI, speak 15 languages and that last fall, eight members of ACI staff participated in a 12-week course to improve fluency in Spanish. The course emphasized business interactions and ACI official concrete terminology. Through these efforts, ACI is focusing on eliminating language barriers for our members and customers from around the world, and ACI staff are now better prepared than ever to answer phone calls or e-mails and to assist international visitors during conventions. ACI's first efforts to provide documents in languages other than English were the direct result of interactions with international partners and counterparts. Perusing the staff engineering library reveals translations of ACI's Concrete Primer in Portuguese (1929), Italian (1934), German (1963), and Dutch (1964). Currently, ACI publications exist in more than a dozen languages, including Spanish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Turkish, Arabic, Romanian, and Korean. While not exhaustive, more than 70 translations can be accessed through the International Translations page of the ACI website. In addition, the ACI website has a quick-translate feature that supports 90 languages, and the ACI marketing toolkit currently provides promotional brochures in Spanish; additional materials will be developed as needed. The greatest body of translations exist in Spanish, which were developed for use in Latin America. For many years, translations were created through ACI's international partnerships. Then in 2004, ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, formed a subcommittee to produce a Spanish translation of ACI 318-05. ACI Subcommittee 318-S quickly addressed many challenges and created what would become our model for a collaborative translation process. Through the efforts of 318-S and other dedicated members, ACI now provides 15 titles in Spanish. Not surprisingly, the demand for more Spanish publications has grown steadily with each new release. In addition to being available in an official Spanish translation, the reorganized 318-14 Code has been translated into Chinese (traditional), and translations into Chinese (simplified), Korean, and Indonesian are in progress. Eight certification programs are provided in Spanish, two in French for Quebec, two in Chinese (traditional), and seven are being developed in Indonesian. Members interested in getting involved with ACI can assist with a translation review. With more than 10 Spanish projects underway, a request for volunteer assistance was sent to all ACI members in Latin America last fall. Within a week, more than 100 volunteers enthusiastically responded, many of whom indicated that they had been looking for a way they could increase their level of engagement with ACI. In 2015, we received more than 30 new requests to translate ACI materials into more than a dozen languages. Anyone interested in volunteering as a translation reviewer or generating a translation of an ACI product into any language can make a request through the ACI website or by sending an e-mail to translations@concrete.org. In many ways, ACI is regarded as a leader in translations for our industry. Our members and staff navigate the challenge of selecting appropriate terminology for clarity and accuracy across a variety of regional dialects of a given language. Industry partners often approach us for advice when they have concerns with translations. Our lexicon of consensus-based Spanish concrete terminology has been shared with ASTM International, the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, the Post-Tensioning Institute, and others for use in their Spanish publications. The common language of ACI will always be "concrete," and through translations we are striving to make that language universal. Sharon L. Wood
In preparation for a recent international trip, I engaged ACI's new Translation Coordinator, Aimee Gurski, for assistance in developing an appropriate greeting to the conference attendees. I was pleased to learn that the ACI staff in Farmington Hills, MI, speak 15 languages and that last fall, eight members of ACI staff participated in a 12-week course to improve fluency in Spanish. The course emphasized business interactions and ACI official concrete terminology. Through these efforts, ACI is focusing on eliminating language barriers for our members and customers from around the world, and ACI staff are now better prepared than ever to answer phone calls or e-mails and to assist international visitors during conventions.
ACI's first efforts to provide documents in languages other than English were the direct result of interactions with international partners and counterparts. Perusing the staff engineering library reveals translations of ACI's Concrete Primer in Portuguese (1929), Italian (1934), German (1963), and Dutch (1964). Currently, ACI publications exist in more than a dozen languages, including Spanish, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Turkish, Arabic, Romanian, and Korean. While not exhaustive, more than 70 translations can be accessed through the International Translations page of the ACI website. In addition, the ACI website has a quick-translate feature that supports 90 languages, and the ACI marketing toolkit currently provides promotional brochures in Spanish; additional materials will be developed as needed.
The greatest body of translations exist in Spanish, which were developed for use in Latin America. For many years, translations were created through ACI's international partnerships. Then in 2004, ACI Committee 318, Structural Concrete Building Code, formed a subcommittee to produce a Spanish translation of ACI 318-05. ACI Subcommittee 318-S quickly addressed many challenges and created what would become our model for a collaborative translation process. Through the efforts of 318-S and other dedicated members, ACI now provides 15 titles in Spanish. Not surprisingly, the demand for more Spanish publications has grown steadily with each new release.
In addition to being available in an official Spanish translation, the reorganized 318-14 Code has been translated into Chinese (traditional), and translations into Chinese (simplified), Korean, and Indonesian are in progress. Eight certification programs are provided in Spanish, two in French for Quebec, two in Chinese (traditional), and seven are being developed in Indonesian.
Members interested in getting involved with ACI can assist with a translation review. With more than 10 Spanish projects underway, a request for volunteer assistance was sent to all ACI members in Latin America last fall. Within a week, more than 100 volunteers enthusiastically responded, many of whom indicated that they had been looking for a way they could increase their level of engagement with ACI.
In 2015, we received more than 30 new requests to translate ACI materials into more than a dozen languages. Anyone interested in volunteering as a translation reviewer or generating a translation of an ACI product into any language can make a request through the ACI website or by sending an e-mail to translations@concrete.org.
In many ways, ACI is regarded as a leader in translations for our industry. Our members and staff navigate the challenge of selecting appropriate terminology for clarity and accuracy across a variety of regional dialects of a given language. Industry partners often approach us for advice when they have concerns with translations. Our lexicon of consensus-based Spanish concrete terminology has been shared with ASTM International, the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, the Post-Tensioning Institute, and others for use in their Spanish publications.
The common language of ACI will always be "concrete," and through translations we are striving to make that language universal.
Sharon L. Wood
ACI University is a global, online learning resource, providing on-demand access to a wide range of topics on concrete materials, design, and construction
LEARN MORE »
These Awards will celebrate innovation and inspire excellence throughout the global concrete design and construction community.
The American Concrete Institute's newest Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete (ACI 318-19) and Commentary is now available in print and digital formats. Learn more about the 2019 edition, plus supplemental resources from ACI.
Visit the ACI 318 Portal Now »