The coronavirus (Covid-19) has had a devastating impact on the way we live our lives. It has wreaked havoc on the global economy on so many levels and forced us to re-think how we work and live in ways we would never have thought were possible.
Every day, we are bombarded with the latest updates and measures regarding Covid-19. These updates keep the general public informed of not only the latest developments in the fight against Covid-19 both locally and abroad, but also the efforts taken by governments to prevent it from spreading further. However, these important messages must be communicated effectively to the general public in order for them to be of use.
In Singapore, most of the information is prepared and disseminated through our 4 official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. However, we are also an international hub with so many diverse residents from different parts of the world. They may not be familiar with our 4 common languages, which might result in the information and measures issued by the Government not being effectively conveyed. In other words, having the information available in these 4 languages alone might not suffice, especially during a pandemic. One wrong move by one person could have a disastrous effect, causing another cluster to form and spreading the disease even further. Hence, there is a need for multilingual communication for those in the community who do not speak the 4 official languages of Singapore.
We understand the importance of making life-saving information available to every single person. Over the past weeks, we have seen migrant workers living in various workers dormitories form the biggest group of those infected in Singapore. Many of these foreign workers might not be proficient or might have limited proficiency in our 4 official languages, thus failing to understand the dangers of Covid-19 and the steps necessary to keep themselves safe.
Apart from these workers living in dormitories, there are also other groups of foreign workers living within our community who might not be proficient in our official languages. They might be at risk to wrong or mis-information, which might potentially lead to them or others being infected.
In such an unprecedented crisis, it is essential to be able to communicate effectively to ensure that people respond rapidly. However, this is not without its challenges. Information needs to be provided quickly and accurately in order for it to achieve its purpose. Additionally, terms and phrases introduced can be very technical, specific and also very localised in nature. As a result, translating these terms and phrases without losing their local context can be quite mind boggling.
As a translation company with its roots in Singapore, we want to do our part in this global crisis by making available Covid-19 terminologies in 16 languages to help organisations that need to come up with accurate and consistent communication and information in these languages. The Covid-19 terminologies act as an important linguistic resource for content providers. We are doing this, in the hope that it will help you speed up the translation process by reducing the time needed for further research.
The Multilingual Covid-19 Terminologies are available for free in the following languages:
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Malay
- Tamil
- Bengali
- Burmese/Myanmar
- Hindi
- Indonesian
- Japanese
- Khmer
- Korean
- Lao
- Tagalog
- Thai
- Urdu
- Vietnamese
The Multilingual Covid-19 Terminologies are also available in the following format:
Download the Multilingual Covid-19 Terminologies here in PDF format.
Download the Multilingual Covid-19 Terminologies here in Excel format.
We have also listed the following websites for content creators and translators of Covid-19 related information to provide the necessary clarification on the meaning of some of the more crucial terms and their usage.
https://www.gov.sg/article/covid-19-resources
https://www.wonderwall.sg/health/COVID-19-glossary-of-acronyms/
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/coronavirus-glossary-every-covid-19-related-term-you-need-to-know/