Top 10 Countries and Languages that Matter Most
October 31, 2008 by Beverly Cornell
Filed under Translation
Based on a 2007 report by Common Sense Advisory the following countries and languages are important in today’s economy.
1. U.S.A/English
2. Japan/Japanese
3. Germany/German
4. China/China
5. United Kingdom/English
6. France/French
7. Italy/Italian
8. Canada/English and French
9. Spain/Spanish
10. Brazil/Portuguese
The full list includes the top 25 ranking.
When taking your products and services global think about these markets and translating into these languages to appeal to more customers.
Document Translation - Source Files
October 29, 2008 by Beverly Cornell
Filed under Technical Translation Services, Translation
The PDF format has been a great way to share files through email by making the documents much smaller. Many people request a price quote for translation and editing of a document by sending over PDFs.
It would be helpful to send the original document to your translator. This also alleviates the extra time and desktop publishing (DPT) work by the graphic design team to recreate the file to look like the original document.
To reduce costs for you and save time on your project, send the translation agency the original editable documents for translation.
10 Tips for Buying Translation Services
October 22, 2008 by Beverly Cornell
Filed under Translation, Translation Tools
For non-linguists or people not familiar with translation services buying foreign language translation services can be frustrating. There are a few things to think about before translating all your documents.
1. Decide which information really needs to be translated for your global employees, distributors and customers. Be sure to translate only the relevant information in your documentation so that you produce shorter text and minimize your translation costs and timing.
2. Use of pictures, charts, graphs and diagrams can help your communication be more straight forward and understood. This will aid in technical translations and trying to get just the right term in the foreign language as well as reduce the amount of words that need to be translated. Only use text when absolutely necessary.
3. Do not create materials without thinking of your global audience. Don’t use puns, and culturally specific terms in your English versions - these do NOT translate well and become very awkward when translated.
4. Calculate how much time you spent creating your English documents, this is a good idea for the how long the translation process will take.
5. Do you need a translator or a translation agency? An agency will help with the translator selection, project management, quality control, file conversations, standardized presentation of multiple projects. Thus a translation agency will be more costly than an individual translator.
6. Determine if you need a translation and if it will be used for reference (for-information)or if it needs to be rewritten/adapted (for-publication)to be used for sales. This will affect timing and costs for the project. In addition, share with the translation company who the audience will be for the translation and what output or medium will be used.
7. Resist the temptation to have your documents translated by an internal person who speaks the language in need. This is dangerous as speaking is NOT writing. Just because a person has oral fluency does not guarantee smooth, stylish writing.
8. Provide your final version - do not provide a draft and make changes along the way. This will cost you more and cause issues in fluidity of the translation.
9. Machine translation is perfect if you are pressed for time and want to get just the gist of the meaning of a document. However…do NOT use raw computer output for anything outbound.
10. Use local schools and universities with caution. These could work for inbound translations to get a general sense of the meaning but translating a foreign language is an art. Would you have your company’s business plan or financial documents done by a university business student?
Getting yourself up to speed on the subject of translations is not that difficult. We are here to help you feel more comfortable with the process. This can be a fun and very rewarding part of your job, let us help you look good.
Coca Cola Lost in Translation- Translation Mistake
October 18, 2008 by Beverly Cornell
Filed under Translation Mistakes
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth.”
When taking your product or service global be sure to not only translate the words but also their meaning in the local market - otherwise all the work you have done to enter the new market may be a disaster.
4 Foreign Language Translation Tips
October 16, 2008 by Beverly Cornell
Filed under Technical Translation Services, Translation, Translation Mistakes, Translators
When translating your website, marketing materials, documentation, owner’s manuals, user guides and instruction booklets it is important to keep the following items in mind.
1. Hire a professional subject-matter expert who is a native speaker of the language you need translation for. Your company’s international reputation and brand are in the hands of your translation team. A reputable translation agency will have the experience, software and team to handle your specific project.
2. Foreign language translation is not just typing your document into another language. Your entire document’s meaning can be mistranslated and could cause legal trouble and lose of sales. Experienced translators are intimately familiar with both the language and the subject matter - while non-native translators may miss a phrase or a word’s culture-specific meaning. This could change the entire meaning of the document. The art of translation should be left to the professionals.
3. Use a human translator. Instant computer translated documents can have humorous-yet disastrous results. If your original documents took you several days or weeks to prepare - be wary if your translation doesn’t take some time to translate as the same care should be implemented for your translated documents.
4. Do not be tempted to use cheap and fast translations that may actually be SPAM. These translations can mean huge problems later. There should be a balance between the price, the turn around time and the quality of the translation. Technical translations can be more time consuming. Be realistic with your deadlines.
