Arabic Translation and Localization Tips

The Middle East is a unique situation for those who seek to do business in the region.  The geographic area is even difficult to define.  It has been known as the Near East (pre WWII), Southwest Asia, Western Asia (what people in India refer to the region).  The term Middle East is a very Eurocentric and American term. 

The multiple languages and cultures are just as varied and can be confusing.  In the largest definition, the Middle East includes a majority of Arab populations, non-Arab Muslims; Persians, Turks, Kurds, and also Jews and Christians.

Arabic is by far the main language of the region.  Yet many Middle Eastern markets include translation into Turkish, Hebrew, Pashto or Urdu.  All of these languages with the exception of Turkish are right to left languages and present all the challenges and attention to detail of bi-directionality languages.  This bi-directionality can cause issues with translation software and in the desktop publishing (DTP) software.  In addition, many technical terms do not have a modern Arabic equivalent.  Only an experienced subject matter expert whose native language is Arabic should work on these types of projects so that your products and services are truly understood in the Middle East markets.

Simply understanding the nuances of the Arabic language and the translation challenges can help you and your organization be better prepared for the localization and internationalization process.  Experienced Arabic translators understand these pitfalls and will have created software work arounds to meet the challenges of your translation and localization projects into the right to left and bidirectional languages. 

The Middle East certainly presents many benefits for businesses going global – looking east is the easy part, translating your documents can be easy too if you have the right Arabic translation partnership.

Tips For Your In Country Review Process for your translated documents

Reduce your translation costs and reduce headaches in your international communication process.  In-country (or client review as many translation agencies call it) review is one of the most crucial, yet challenging, steps in the translation process.

In-country review is the process of sending translated material to an individual in the target language country to review linguistic concerns associated with a given translation project. For example, industry or company specific terminology. The reviewer is generally a co-worker from your organization who resides in the country  and most often a sales manager, country manager or distributor. To ensure a successful review process, follow these guidelines:

1. Create Goals of In-Country Review for your organization and your documents.  The overall goal should be to gain local acceptance for the product/service or product/service materials in the target market.

2. Decide who would perform the reviews? Ideally reviews should be performed by individuals with a linguistic background, solid product knowledge and previous review experience. However, review is more often performed by local sales staff or distributors who have a vested interest in the translation quality, but no formal review experience. Therefore it is critical that a clear set of guidelines or instructions be provided to ensure consistent and timely feedback from reviewers. Guidelines become even more important if you plan to have more than one person per language conduct the review. Your translation supplier should be able to assist you in developing your product/service specific guidelines.  Be sure to do this as far in advance of a project as possible.  In addition, establish delivery dates for when reviewers will receive materials for review and when the reviewer’s comments are due.  Please try to prevent reviewers who tend to make many minor and often just personal preference changes vs. major linguistic and terminology changes.

3. Achieve excellent in-country reviews.

• The first step in this process is creating glossaries and style guidelines before translation starts. This step will establish preferred terminology, usage of acronyms, punctuation, etc. Glossaries and style  guides enable translators to choose preferred terminology and style at the outset of a project. Involving your reviewers in this process will enable them to provide input at the outset and minimize the number of revisions later. Why is this so important? There is often more than one way to correctly express a concept or idea and without guidance on key terminology, a good translation that is faithful to the original text may not reflect the preferred expressions of your in-country staff.
• The next step is to help your reviewers understand the purpose and focus of the review process by providing them specific parameters and guidelines for their review process.  Items like adherence to the glossary and style guide, consistency of the translation, compliance with instructions (I.e. items that should not be translated are correct), country-specific measurements and other standards are met, accuracy of terminology, and style.

4. Determine how review comments should be provided? Depending on the source files or document, there are different ways to capture reviewer comments; however, the original translated text must remain in the translated document. A reviewer can make suggestions and comments using the change tracking feature. If they are using an application that does not support change tracking such as Excel, Quark, PowerPoint, etc. they may be able to designate their comments in another way such as using a different colored font. Reviewers may also use a separate document to communicate comments. In this case it must be very clear to which text the comment relates. This will minimize follow
up queries from your localization vendor and save time in the process. If you must use multiple reviewers per language, it is best if the client coordinates and consolidates the reviewers’ comments into one single document before sending to the vendor. Reviewer comments should be as clear and specific as possible.  Reviewer comments should arrive prior to any formatting (DTP) activities for printed materials and prior to testing for software, web or help materials. A delivery schedule should be agreed at the outset of the project to allow translators adequate time to implement the changes.Your localization vendor will implement the changes where valid. For some changes, particularly in the case of stylistic preferences of the reviewer, it is helpful for your vendor to have your reviewers available to answer any questions that may arise during comment implementation.

Just like most other business functions, the in-country review process can go smoothly if planned in advance, when expectations are clearly set and communicated, and when scheduled realistically.  The in-country review can be a powerful means to ensure the success of your product in international markets.

4 Common Translation Myths

Often when our clients come to us for translation, they have never had to translate their documentation.  However, translation is in fact a serious business that should be approached thoughtfully in order to avoid poor results. There are four translation myths that many people don’t bear in mind regarding the translation industry.

1.  If you know a foreign language, you can be a translator

This is perhaps the most common translation misconception and the most damaging one. Being able to read, speak and write a foreign language does not give anyone licence to undertake translation work. Firstly, a translator must have an in-depth understanding and knowledge of at least two languages: a foreign language and a mother tongue. Secondly, translating is a skill. You must be able to write well and have an excellent command of the nuances in language use. Thirdly, language is not free of cultural influences. If the culture behind the language which is being translated is not appreciated, an accurate translation is extremely difficult.

2.  Translating is simple and easy to do

Translation is far from easy. Translation is an intricate, complex and arduous work. Having to simultaneously concentrate on two different texts, often times very technical documentation is mentally taxing. This is because a translator is continuously moving between two languages and contexts. A translator must first read and register source information then manage to understand the text and all the nuances completely and then present it accurately in the target language. This means having an excellent vocabulary and appreciating the subtleties in language such as phrases, metaphors, tone and intention all in under tight time constraints.

3.  Computers can now do translations

We have yet to see a translation program that is able to take the place of a human translators. This is because computers do not understand what language is, how it is used, the subtleties within it and the ever changing use of it. Language is very organic and placing code to understand it’s context has yet to be executed more precisely than human translations.  Computers may be able to translate simple one-dimensional sentences but they will never be able to tackle the complexities within literature or technical texts.

4.  Having a professional translation is not imperative

It may be true that professional translators are not always necessary, however if the translation is to be accurate and professionally prepared and presented then an experienced translator is essential. Bad translations lead to many problems including people misunderstanding texts which ultimately reflect poorly on a company or organization. If you want your car fixed you take it to a mechanic, not a car salesman. He may know a bit about cars but not enough to address your car problems with the experience of a professional.

Your documentation has been established to help your products and services serve your customers more effectively.  Our clients spend a lot of time and resources developing their documentation.  Don’t cut corners on this step because your international reputation and customer relationships may be negatively affected.

Support The Auto Industry Initiative

We are so excited about the grassroots initiative our company started only 4 weeks to get help support the Automotive Industry.

Iterotext has served the auto industry and its suppliers for over 30 years and wanted to give back.

We are looking for suppliers to offer incentives beyond the vendor plans OEMs offer to encourage new American Made vehicle sales.

With more vehicle sales during this slow recession we hope to at least sustain the industry until the economy bounces back and people are better able to purchase vehicles on their own.

We would love your support.

Please visit www.SupportTheAutoIndustry.com for more information and to sign up your company’s incentives.

Expansion of Languages when you translate from English

Thinking about how your document will look in English is what most of our customers think about.  But there is more when you are translating your documents.  Specifically expansion and contraction of your text when translated.

For example, when translating into a romance language such as French or Spanish, text can expand as much as 20%. Other languages such as Dutch and German tend to use longer words than English and can expand as well. This can present formatting and desktop publishing challenges if not planned well. For example, a table in English that fits nicely on one page may spill over to the next page if translated into Korean.  I have provided approximate expansion or contraction rates below when translating from English into the following languages:

Language % Difference

Arabic                                         104

Chinese                                        61

Czech                                         117

Dutch                                         128

Finnish                                       103

French                                        111

German                                       108

Hindi                                            83

Hungarian                                   113

Italian                                         109

Japanese                                    115

Korean                                        123

Portuguese                                 110

Russian                                       115

Spanish                                       117

Swedish                                        95

Keep this in mind when formatting your English – don’t squeeze all of your text into a cramped space with tiny font as this will cause issues for your translation projects.

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