The sooner we make it actually, close the feedback loop…Because if we don’t do that, then we may see 競爭力 everywhere.

Yeah, because they’re considered normative for the bilingual websites going forward, whether it’s bilingual or whether it’s a new website. What you’re doing now is actually going to have a rippling effect. Every organization in their canonical translation will refer back to term NAER.

They are no longer in control of their current interface. They didn’t commission the current interface.

They have a review board powered by professionals, but the NAER actually didn’t develop this system. They just maintain it from, I think, the NDC. At that time, whatever they were called. In any case, they are also very eager to keep the database, but make something, a radically different ...

That loop, I think, need to be closed. If you imagine a better way than the current forum board, which nobody really reads, I think we’re all ears and eyes.

We finally fixed that. Then we really want to go back to the term NAER and say, “It was a mistranslation. That term doesn’t even belong to information science. I don’t know how they find way there.” [laughs]

That informed two generations of students, thinking about core competency as about fighting with Europeans. It has immense cultural negative externality. What?

Because IT people have, I don’t know, we were much louder, I guess. Somehow, the trendy magazines use the 競爭力 as the Mandarin translation of competency since 1994.

Now, in education, now, of course, it was 核心素養. Only in information science, which is my field, it’s translated as 核心競爭力, which is a bad translation. In English, that’s “core competitiveness,” which is not the same with core competency.

For example, in the social welfare, it’s translated as 核心知能, “To know and to use capability.” In administration, it’s 核心能耐. Psychology, it’s 勝任能力. In traffic, it’s 適任力. In library science, it’s 素養能力.

Yeah, this was this morning’s conversation. We found a very important word of core competency being translated in both different Mandarin ways in both different fields. You’re bilingual, right?

You can’t say, “I want to see land prices on the term website.” That’s out of scope.

That wouldn’t work, because it’s extra jurisdiction for them. As long as it’s within the NAER purview, like other NAER websites, other NAER resources, it’s all fair game. Actually, if it’s within the Ministry of Education, it’s all fair game.

It would be like the exercise we did on the tax filing system. Just ignore how bad the current filing system is. Let’s just ideate on a perfect one, but using the same API, the same data. It’s not like, “I wish this tax filing system can also help me ...

That’s right. I think the NAER will take a somewhat different structure. It will probably be your ideal English, like pure English or bilingual, interface into NAER. It would be like more of an interface reimagination.

If a website never has a website mobile, or it doesn’t advertise itself as RWD, we don’t even bother testing it. You know it will be horizontally scrolling, and they know about it, too, so what’s the point? If they have a button that says mobile, click into it, and ...

The Times website isn’t English at all. It doesn’t advertise itself as an English website. That’s, I think, the line we draw. We hire 20 interns to test usability every year. For example, last year’s theme was mobile.

No, it’s fine. I think the NAER is not obviously bilingual. While mountain nominally has an English button, that does the important part. It claims that it’s English, which is why we can say that, “Yeah, but…”

I also is very happy to see that the severe, like “must change now” mistranslations, because even machine translation cannot get this wrong. This must be a human translation, like controlling mountain climbing. It’s not forbidden to climb mountains.

Also, because if you require, like director general-level approval, they would have to print it out. If they download it as Excel, they know how to print it. If you use Power BI or whatever, they have no idea how to print it. Again, it’s an easy to visualize advantage.

Everybody knows how to use a spreadsheet. Because this is Google spreadsheet we’re talking about, you can even import the HTML from elsewhere. That enables system integration and things like that. I think spreadsheet is good.

It also allows interesting combination with Typeform or Google Form, so that you can crowdsource this much better. It’s just writing more rows into it. If you design specialized software, you have to actually provide training, as we did with Pol.is.

I like spreadsheets, obviously. I wrote one. [laughs] I think spreadsheets is the most scalable one, because you don’t need training to use a spreadsheet. I think the spreadsheet with three or four subsheets is definitely the way to go.

I’ve read through them all.

No, seriously. This is serious national security matter.

They have to provide us with a, like, “This is a list of US nationals that we think are not working for PRC.”

The AIT.

The AIT still have to vet them?

One of them may actually include something like that.

Instead of like with Mexico and Canada, which is a large package, maybe we do some section, then another section.

I don’t think we have that in ANZTEC in the New Zealand agreement. I would have to check with Canada, but I don’t think we have that clause there, either. With AIT, it’s a lot more room, because we are talking about…What was the word in our Digital Dialogue about? ...

Not necessarily from the US. They could come from UK, Canada, or New Zealand, for that matter.

Ministerial fellows. It will be, like the French fellow is actually coordinated by the French foreign service. If it’s our MoFA, it will be sending our people out. What you are talking about is the other way around.

Our idea would be sending fellows to the US, or to Japan, for that matter. It’s our talent that become a foreign government’s fellows.

Like Ryan and friends. Have you talked to the AIT folks about this idea?

How’s AIT thinking about this, because they have to drive this?

Yeah, France has a fellow in science and technology and also culture, like working as a staff, semi-permanent staff, but then also, serving as a liaison. I don’t know how much the other way around. I’m pretty sure France has that model, with not even francophone, just France-friendly countries.

We had that original response, by the way.

Yes.

Oh, yay. Good idea.

Other than their interface with NDC on one hand, and their interface with MoFA on the other, if I’m a minister, and I have parts of my purview unrelated to these two entities, then the priority is necessarily not the top.

The NDC cares a lot, and by nature of that, every ministry that have to interface with the NDC, namely the regulations that concerns foreign people, are now required to be correctly bilingual. That’s something that the commission general cares very much about.

In the previous government, it’s like 7 days or 14 days, and the English translation is not even correct. They have to hire another translator to translate. Then 7 days has passed, and what’s there for meaningful participation? [laughs]

I think the National Development Council cares a lot. The NDC traditionally is the interface to AmCham, to the European counterpart, and so on, who have all strongly voiced that not only we have a not-long-enough regulatory announcement period before…

If there’s a competing interest for the budget or for the website, web presence, of course, you’re going to prioritize Amis, Atayal, or something. In this spectrum lies every other ministry.

Obviously, that’s because English is the lingua franca – wrong terminology, but anyway – the lingua anglica of international diplomacy, of foreign affairs, so they care a lot. If you are, for example, the Council of Indigenous Affairs, you should care, because the Austronesian link, but you mainly care about ...

I learn new English words from reading his Twitter. England is doing pretty well also, both on Facebook and Twitter. Sometime, even I learn some Japanese or simplified Chinese.

Everybody cares differently. If you talk with Joseph Hu, he cares a lot. His Twitter is perfect English. [laughs]

What does the government even mean? We’re just a bunch of people.

I think that’s the Canadian mindset. They want people to accidentally learn French, or the other way around, but yes. [laughs]