Meet Our Team: Monica Valentini

June 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

“What I love most about translating is that it involves a research process which delves into language, style, culture, history and emotions in order to achieve the best possible outcome. It may sound banal, but translation is really an art and it is just exactly what I wanted to do.”

Location: Cagliari, Italy
Languages: Italian, English
Education: M.A. English and Literature, University of Cagliari; Postgraduate master’s degree in Tourism Management and Economics at the International Center of Studies on the Tourist Economy (CISET), University of Venice 
Years of Experience: 23
Specialty: Travel, tourism, marketing, fashion, sports, e-commerce and business
Biggest project: Ongoing translation and editing project for a world-leading sports apparel and equipment e-commerce website

Filed Under: translating, translation

Business Best Practices for In-Country Review Ensure Your Message Isn’t Lost in Translation

May 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

How should you approach an in-country review process and what best practices can you learn from large, multi-national companies that will save your business time and money?

In-country review is a process utilized by some businesses to validate and verify final translations files before production. Translated material is sent to an individual in the target country to review linguistic and formatting issues associated with a translation project. Although the process can create an additional quality control step, there are best practices and tradeoffs to consider if you are including it in your translation process.

  • Complete all content edits to your document prior to sending it to your translation agency. Over time, we’ve seen numerous smaller companies rewrite entire portions of texts after they were translated. Edits made to a translated text will cost a business an average $4.00 per word. Edits cost most businesses an average $0.90 per word if they are corrected before being sent to translation. The key insight here is to ensure the text being submitted to your translation agency is accurate first in order to save your company money.
  • Choose your in-country reviewer carefully. It’s important the in-country reviewer speaks both English and the translated language fluently. Some businesses will pick a sales or marketing employee to moonlight as in-country reviewer and this choice can be problematic – particularly if the in-market reviewer disagrees with the corporate value proposition, the positioning or the original meaning of the translated texts. This situation can result in a break down in the process where your translation agency is stuck in the middle of a corporate/field disagreement, a delayed translation output and unnecessary added costs. There is a big difference between changing a story versus changing a word. This point cannot be emphasized enough: choose your reviewer extremely carefully.
  • Be clear and specific as to what you expect from your in-country reviewer. Provide clear instructions as to what part of the translation you expect the reviewer to verify. It can add costs and a delay to a translation project when you only need one page of a 20-page document reviewed by the in-country reviewer but do not provide this particular instruction.
  • Facilitate a kick-off conversation between your in-country reviewer and your translation agency before the process begins. This is a big step that can save your company time and money and ensure expectations are clear before beginning about how edits are to be notated by the in-country reviewer.
  • Most translation agencies prefer edits from an in-country reviewer in two formats: Word and Excel. If the reviewer is making edits to a Word document, the reviewer should turn on the track changes function AND indicate why the change is being made. The second part of this step is very important to ensuring that your company’s originally intended message is not radically changed by a field employee. If the reviewer is making edits in Excel, the original text should be listed in Column A, the translated text should be listed in Column B, the reviewer’s suggested change should be marked in Column C with the reason why in Column D. Both these formats save your company time and money and help create a translation memory for future projects,enabling your message to be more consistent.

 

Filed Under: business, business advice, in-country review

Meet Our Team: Abigail Thompson

April 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Abigail Thompson
Executive Assistant
“I love working on different projects everyday. I am blessed to be able to meet so many people and learn about a plethora of different cultures. It makes work exciting.”

Location: Louisville, KY, USA
Education: B.A. Psychology
University of Louisville
Pursuing Masters of Education
Specialty: Customer service and project management

Filed Under: In Every Language

Requesting a Translation Quote for a PowerPoint Presentation

April 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What information do you need to obtain a PowerPoint translation quote and how can you take steps to save your company both time and money?

A translated PowerPoint presentation can be used for a variety of global communication purposes: proposals, knowledge transfer or progress reports.

While the same rules generally apply for PowerPoint translations as any other translation project, here are three key questions to answer before requesting a quote for a translated PowerPoint presentation:

  • Do the presenter’s comments need to be translated or just the slides? Answering this question will ensure the translation meets your expectations.
  • Does the translated PowerPoint need to be localized? Images, colors, numbers and symbols that are culturally accepted in the United States may offend your target audience. Yellow as an example, represents courage in Japan, mourning in Egypt and hope in the West. We offer localization solutions to help you ensure your intended message reaches your audience in a culturally appropriate way.
  • Do words located within an image or a photograph need to be translated? If the words do need to be translated, please include the original art for the image to avoid additional costs for recreating it.

It’s essential to send us the correct file format to avoid incurring additional file conversion costs. Please send an editable copy of the PowerPoint presentation as a PPT file. PDF or PPS format files can require conversion and add additional costs to the project.

How do you ensure your PowerPoint presentation reaches your target audience effectively? In Every Language offers professional translation and localization solutions to help you grow your business. Request a quote or learn more at www.ineverylanguage.com.

Filed Under: translation

Meet our Team: Cindy Rice

March 22, 2012 By 1 Comment

Cindy Rice
“I couldn’t have asked for a better career! I love the variety of projects and creativity of my work.”

Location: Hattingen, Germany
M.A. Translation
6 years experience
Monterey Institute of International Studies Professional Certification
Languages: English, French, German
Specialties: Audio Translation, Marketing, Advertising, Creative Texts
Biggest project: Three-year subtitling project of sports programming

Filed Under: Uncategorized

What is Localization?

March 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What is localization?

Consider the following mistakes of these multi-national corporations:

  • Coors “Turn it loose,” marketing campaign was literally translated into Spanish, changing the meaning to “Suffer from diarrhea.”
  • Parker introduced a fine writing pen in Mexico with ads that were intended to read, “it won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” The ads weren’t localized properly, so the intended message read, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”
  • Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” campaign was translated into Chinese as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
  • Nike launched its stylized “Air” logo in Arabic countries and consumers interpreted the logo to mean “Allah.” Nike apologized and had to pull the shoes from distribution.

These examples are all localization errors that could have been avoided and that ended up costing these companies money.

Localization is a professional service that adapts a product or content to a specific target market.

Localization is essential when business goals demand that communication come across to the target audience effectively.  While an important part, professional translation is just one component of the localization process.

Professional localization includes:

  • Converting local currencies or units of measurement
  • Using correct formats for dates, addresses and phone numbers
  • Adhering with local cultural norms
  • Modifying layout to fit the translated text
  • Adapting graphics or text to ensure cultural sensitivity

Globalization is creating new opportunities for your business to export products and services. Localization helps your business save money and make money by ensuring the right message reaches your target audience in a culturally sensitive way.

Localization is a step beyond translation and you should keep this in mind as you request a quote. It’s important to understand the difference so you will receive the correct service to meet your business goals.

 

Filed Under: localization

Meet Our Team: Jill Sommer

February 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

“I love the fact that every day brings a new job and an opportunity to learn something new.”

Hometown: Cleveland, OH
M.A. Translation
Kent State University
16 years experience
Languages: German and English

Professional memberships: American Translators Association, Certified by the Department of Justice
Specialties: Medical and IT
Biggest project: An interactive computer game for children featuring various science-related narratives

Jill is the former president of the Northeast Ohio Translators Association and sits on the business practices committee for the American Translators Association. She writes a popular translation blog called Musings from an Overworked Translator.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Requesting a Translation Quote for your Website

February 16, 2012 By 2 Comments

Requesting a translation quote for your website
What information do you need to obtain a website quote and how can you take steps to save your company both valuable time and money?

More and more U.S. companies are discovering the opportunity and importance of a credible website presence in the native languages of their target markets.  There are now more than 2 billion Internet users globally and only 18% are native English speakers.

As globalization creates more markets for competition, companies are moving quickly to translate and localize their English website to attract new customers.  The U.S. Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 provides grant funding to encourage small business exporting and some states cover the cost of website translation. Grants are administered differently in each state. To learn more, click here.

While the same rules generally apply for website translations as any other translation project, here are six key questions you need to answer before requesting a quote for a translated website:

  • Who is your target audience?
  • What languages and dialects need to be translated?
  • When does the translated website need to launch? Is the launch date and time simultaneous with the English site or a different date and time?
  • What specific parts of your website need to be translated? Does the entire site or a subset require translation or are there specific pages or components that do not require translation)?
  • Does the site need to be localized? In other words, do the images, colors, numbers and symbols need to be adapted for cultural acceptance by your target audience? Each target market is different. As an example, different colors have different meaning in different cultures.
  • Who will provide us your web information and in what format?

Here are five key insights we’ve learned translating websites for clients that can save you time, money and ensure quality:

  • It’s essential you work with a skilled web developer experienced at creating translated websites and who’s familiar with HTML/XML. Occasionally, the developer who created your English site may lack this experience. This gap can dramatically increase your costs and delay speed to market. It’s important your web developer is accessible during the translation process.
  • Navigation is a critical component of a global site. Best practice is to have a global homepage that links to country specific sites. An example of this best practice is www.ikea.com. Flags are a culturally insensitive way for users to access a translated site (e.g. Taiwan’s flag is likely to offend Chinese users) and are highly discouraged.
  • We utilize Tag Editor, an industry leading technology platform, to ensure the highest quality and accuracy of your translation. Our approach saves you money because it simplifies the process for your developer to insert the translated text into your website. As an example, if you supply us with an Excel file with the code and the English text in Column A, we will return the file to your developer with the translated text in Column B. The developer can then simply cut and paste the translated text into the site.
  • Some places have specific laws governing websites and electronic privacy (e.g. in some countries, it’s illegal to embed cookies into your website).
  • Finally, be sure your translation partner is experienced with search engine optimization as this can significantly impact the public search quality of your site.

Your direct contact at In Every Language is an experienced, skilled project manager, who will oversee the work from start to finish, and ensure your satisfaction.  To request a translation quote, please click here or learn more at www.ineverylanguage.com.

Filed Under: localization, translation, website

Meet Our Team: Maristela Spiegel

January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Project Manager
Louisville, KY

“I am passionate about languages and cultures.”

Hometown: Campinas, Brazil
Bachelor’s Degree in Law
Universidade Paulista
4 years experience
Languages: Brazilian Portuguese, English, Spanish
Specialties: Customer Service
Prior work: Customer Service for IBM Brasil

Passion for the work: “It’s a true privilege to work with so many talented and culturally-driven professionals, while providing our clients a world class service. Literally!”

 

Filed Under: In Every Language

To Google or Not to Google?

January 19, 2012 By 1 Comment

To Google or Not to Google?

That is the question for this newsletter. Given the growing popularity and accessibility of free machine translations tools such as Google Translate, we felt it important to share some key insights and tips about this service for you to keep in mind if you consider the use of this tool for your translation needs. While we support machine technology advancements in the translation industry, we also want to educate you about best practices.

  • Google Translate keeps what you input into the site.  So you wouldn’t want to utilize the service for anything that you don’t want competitors or the general public to access as it’s retained on servers to assist with future translations and can potentially be accessed by others. Confidential or proprietary communications –such as contracts, client communications or personal health information — should not be run through the tool.
  • Google Translate is not a reliable tool for important business communications.  While Google works to improve its database, errors persist. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to Google Translate errors. Google Inc. does not use Google Translate for its own important corporate translation needs and makes a point to rely upon professional translators.
  • Google Translate is a good resource for discrete business use.  The tool can be helpful if you receive a customer email in a foreign language that you feel is not confidential communication. It can give you a general sense of what the subject of the email is and whether or not you should invest in a professional translation. It can also be used to translate stand-alone words or phrases.

What do you do in a pinch?  If you require a real-time, on-demand solution, In Every Language offers a just-in-time, proprietary translation solution that blends advanced machine technology and professional translation to enable speed and high-quality.

For more information or to request a quote, click here.

Filed Under: google, translation
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