Blogging en español and other international affairs
Well, OK, it’s not me who’s blogging in Spanish. I studied French. But someone who reads this blog does write in Spanish. I got a mention this week in the blog entitled “Noticias seleccionadas por Sanitic” concerning my July 26 post on open-source software.
Muchas gracias for the mention. You are officially added to my blogroll on the right side of the screen.
From what I can gather, “sanitic” essentially means “health IT” in Spanish, at least in Castillian Spanish because this seems like a European site, which helps me segue nicely into my next thought.
I really do want to attend and cover the first World of Health IT conference in Geneva in October. As a freelancer, I usually have to cover my own travel expenses, so I make sure I have enough work to make any work-related trip worthwhile. This, of course would be an expensive trip.
I’m not begging for a sponsor here (I’ll do that privately with some of my clients), just fishing for names of English-language publications around the world that might be interested in my services for that conference, which is focusing on health IT in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Muchas gracias.
Neil, thanks for your posts and to add me in your blogroll. I really appreciate your blog. ‘Sanitic’ cames from two words: SANIDAD that means Health in spanish and TIC than means ‘tecnologías de la información y comunicaciones’, in english ‘Information technology and comunications’. I Live in Madrid and I´m Information Systems and Technologies consultant with more than fifteen years of experience and I interested in health systems and bioinformatics.Again, “Muchas Gracias a tí” for your posts and commentaries.Alberto Alías.
Alberto,I’ve always been astounded by the language skills of so many Europeans, especially when it comes to English. I survived three days in Madrid by learning one handy phrase: “¿Habla usted inglés?”I really was guessing when I thought that “sanitic” meant something along the lines of health information technology. “Information and communications technology,” or ICT seems to be the preferred terminology in Britain, so the Spanish translation makes a lot of sense, at least for someone who doesn’t know Spanish. I think “sanitic” is a pretty cool word. It reminds me of “courriel,” which means e-mail in French, a combination of “courrier électronique,” or electronic mail. (Of course, “e-mail” has made its way into the French vernacular anyway.)It’s great to keep up with what’s going on in other countries, which is why I’m considering attending the World of Health IT conference in Switzerland this fall—if I can afford it. Are you going? Perhaps we can have a blogger meet-up, kind of like what a number of us did at the HIMSS conference in the U.S. last winter.
Neil, I believe that the most important thing when you are abroad is to understand each other, I have used the same phrase to survive in other countries, but directly translated: “Do you speak english?”. As you can see I can do it but with errors, but it helps me enough, (by the way, sorry for my english).It´s a shame but it will be not possible for me to go to the World of Health IT conference in Switzerland, I will follow it from Madrid.