By the power of Twitter

Gone are the days when everything had to be in English. The powerful micro-blogging site, Twitter announced on Wednesday that it had added right-to-left languages namely, Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu to its Translation Center. These languages will be available on Twitter.com in Spring this year. With volunteers exceeding 400,000 around the world, Twitter’s translation center aids in making Twitter comprehensible to the masses.

With the addition of these 4 languages, the total number of available languages on Twitter equals 22.  Other foreign languages added by Twitter are Japanese, Spanish, French, Russian, Turkish, Dutch, Indonesian, Chinese, Hindi, Filipino and Malay amongst others.

What does this mean for businesses? Increased customer engagement in the following 3 ways:

1. Brand Monitoring: How is my brand perceived by customers in international markets with different languages
2. Product Promotions: Actively and easily promoting products or services to followers in globalized environments who understand languages other than English
3. Service Recovery: Improvement in customer experiences

Hence, once you have acquired the services of a professional translation agency and expanded your business internationally, the next step is to focus your efforts on social networking websites like Twitter, which offer localized incentives for your brands and help in acquiring and retaining customers easily.

Found this information useful? Then Tweet this blog right away !

New Year: New Opportunities - Website Translations

A recent survey revealed that only 18 percent of non-English speaking European customers are willing to avail services or buy products from a website which is not written in their mother tongue while 82 percent of the consumers do not want to visit a website containing information in English. This result signifies the importance of website translation in increasing
your revenues and sales.

European countries are potential markets where there is demand for numerous products. The number of consumers is huge and their requirement of products is versatile. If you can reach the customers of this market, you can double the size of your current business. But there is still one barrier left that you need to deal with. It’s the difference of language which should be considered and resolved first to enter the European market. At present, the easiest way to reach the end-users is developing a website containing information about who you are and what your products are. The work is not finished here; you need to translate your website in different languages depending on your targeted area. With the help of a professional translation agency you can easily accomplish this task.

When searching for a professional translation agency to provide you with website translation services, you should choose a company which offers you versatility. You need to attract the local audiences first since they remain your potential customers and for that you need to hire agencies offering website localization services. Factors such as Language, Images & symbols, colours and layouts, navigation and software localization remain key when translating websites for business purposes and will definitely give you a headstart if implemented at the right time. So give yourself a thumbsup and start year 2012 with a bang, don't wait for opportunities to knock, rather knock on them until you find your way through.

Happy New Year !!

Cross-cultural Marketing Blunders

If you’re thinking of expanding your business and tapping into International markets, it is important that you hire the services of a translation agency. There have been numerous instances of renowned brands investing huge sums of money globally, without realizing that the message being conveyed could be interpreted incorrectly or may be perceived wrongly in another country. Let’s take a look at the top 5 biggest cross-cultural marketing blunders by world famous brands:

Pepsi: The literal translation of Pepsi’s slogan “Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation” got interpreted as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors from the dead” in Taiwan.

Chevrolet: When the Chevy Nova car was launched in Latin America, Chevrolet experienced a massive drop in sales in that market. The word “no va” means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish, when clearly Chevrolet wanted Chevy Nova to “go” always.

Coors: When Coors entered the Spanish-language market with its “Turn it loose” slogan, little did they know that it would be translated as “Suffer from diarrhea”. A lesson well learnt.

KFC: Would you be put off if you found out KFC wanted you to eat your own fingers? Indeed, the KFC slogan “finger-lickin good” got interpreted as “eat your fingers off” in China.

Coca-Cola: When the Coke company launched Coca-Cola in China, the name was first rendered as Ke-Kou-Ke-La which meant “bite the wax tadpole”. It was after printing thousands of signs with the same name, that they realized their mistake. Coke had to research 40000 chinese characters and found the closest phonetic equivalent “Ke-Kou-ko-le” which translated as “happiness in the mouth”.

Hence, cracking an international market is the goal of many growing organisations. The objective is to get it right the first time and that can be easily achieved if a professional translation agency is taken on board. After all, who would want to waste money translating marketing material, websites or business documents poorly in such difficult times?

The continuing globalization of businesses is putting pressure on companies to release their documents, websites, and marketing texts in several languages. As a result, the demand for translation service providers is increasing, to translate business documents within a local setting and also to assess the message that companies want to convey to their target customers in international markets.

When you hire a translation agency to translate your business documents, you expect quality from them. In order to enable them to properly meet your preferences and to translate your material effectively and clearly, you need to provide them with a well-prepared document.

Communication is key

It is important that you provide the final document with necessary amendments to the translation agency. If you make any changes in the document after submission, the translation agency should be notified immediately so that all changes are fixed instantly. Communication is the key to getting things done in a perfect way. The more the translators are clear about your demands, the better they can serve you. Professional translators know how to do their job in an effective way; you just need to provide them with the required information.

Analyze your project better

In order to determine whether your assignment relates to technical, business, legal or any other field, primary research is required. You need to define your target audience as precisely as possible. The aim of your project and expected outcome ought to be explained clearly to the translators in order to get the best results from it.

Collaborate with the translation agency

Provide the agency with any additional documents which you deem useful. Any suggestions regarding the vocabulary choice and writing style will be helpful for the translators. You should give them an acceptable delivery date to ensure that translators can analyze and translate your documents properly. Don’t expect good quality work within a short time. Lastly, try to be available to the translator so that he can clear any confusion while working on your project. If you work in this way, you’ll surely receive high quality work from the translator.

Recession and its impact on the Translation Service Sector

The world at present is going through an economic and financial turmoil, not experienced ever since the Great Depression of the 1930s. While nearly all the sectors are experiencing the consequences, some suffer more seriously when compared to others, depending on a range of factors such as capital and consumers. The translation sector is certainly not an exception in this case. It is suffering from a decline in business like other sectors but on a positive front its fundamentals remain to be in a better position. There are a couple of good reasons for this.

Firstly, translation is actually a labour-based rather than a capital-based business. In order to keep basic processes going, translation agencies do not require much investment when compared to other businesses. They don’t need much assistance from banks and other financial service providers which means they don’t need to bear the additional costs of interests on bank loans. This provides them with a good ground over other business sectors to overcome such difficulties.

Secondly, translations are not luxury products. In most cases, translation services are business necessities that are vital for effective business communication. Though the western countries are suffering severely from the economic turmoil, there are some Asian countries which are booming with possibilities. A western manufacturer can export products to the Asian markets to increase sales. But he would definitely need assistance from a professional translation agency. In order to expand his business in the foreign market and stand amidst tough competition with local as well as other foreign brands already prevailing there, he needs to offer something different and make consumers understand the specialty of his products and services. This could easily only be achieved if a translation agency is hired to help him brand his products in the new market.

Reaching New Markets through Languages and Translation

In today’s world of open economy, researching on new markets and competitors whilst adapting to different business practices is the key to success of any business. If you confine your business in a particular area, there is a likelihood of losing your potentiality in your business sector. To communicate with the people in different regions of the world, it is important that you understand and use their language effectively. This is where professional translation services come in, assisting you with your translation needs for effective communication within your business fraternity. But many businesses take translation as a quick, easy and straightforward procedure. They don’t put much emphasis on it and hire an inexpensive translation agency to reduce the cost, without realizing that this could lead to poor results and an even greater investment in future. As a result, translation projects end up in prodigious failure and their invested money doesn’t bring any fruit to them.

Translation is a complex process and needs to be dealt with sensibly to get optimum business results. It is an art which requires utmost care. This can only be achieved by employing specialist translators only. Translation is not just replacing the original words of a document with corresponding foreign words, rather, a qualified and experienced translator transforms the document into something that touches the heart of the customers and clients giving them the feeling that the document has been written specially for them. This is more applicable for website translations and marketing translations. However, In the case of legal translations, the translation must read professionally taking into account local laws regarding the matter in question.

If you want to draw the attention of non-English speaking customers, you need to get the services of reliable and specialist translation service providers. Professional translation companies employ individual project managers in each project to ensure that your document gets the care it deserves. They will also guarantee the confidentiality of your documents, an important element often overlooked by many. Initially, the cost of hiring a translation company may seem higher; but the ROI and the long term benefits it would give would be much higher.  Hence, in order for a business to succeed in international markets, the right investment is required for effective business performances and results.

Global Village and Translation Services

The world is certainly becoming a global village. It does not really matter where you are in this world. If you would like expand the horizons of your business, you have to spread it around the world diminishing all the boundaries. Difference of language should not stop you from sharing your ideas and service with people of other regions. In order to help you in this undesirable situation translation services are there. They offer services like converting audio, video, manuscript and other documents from one language to another.

Today, every company has websites. It is extremely important part of an effective business strategy. To communicate with the people of other tongues, website translation is another important step in spreading your business. In order to do that you need to find a professional translation company with previous experience of this kind of job. Including a blog in the company website is very beneficial for your business. It really makes your website more interactive. You can learn what customers want, what they are thinking about your service. Customer opinions will help you in making new strategies and improving your service. To reach mass people you should make the blog available in multiple languages. Hiring a translation agency that may translate your website into other languages will take you much closer towards your success.

Previously translation services were provided at personal levels through interpreters. But it has gone through drastic changes. Nowadays, there are plenty of translation services all around the world that hire highly trained native speakers to translate your documents into the languages of your potential customers. It is really crucial that you understand the culture and heritage of your customers to create business strategies referring to the region you are targeting. It will lead you towards a strong bond with your customers which is the key to success of your company.

Chinese Wunder Kids

In the UK, Chinese children significantly outperform their peers. Following statistics, they make up only 0.4 per cent of the secondary school, but more than 25 per cent of them are on the gifted and talented register. This can compare with 15 per cent of white children and 15.9 per cent of mixed-race children.

Many teachers say that their parents expect nothing less and their children thrive under the pressure. Chinese parents are extremely driven and most of all, they want their children to succeed.

Although Chinese parents are typically very interested in their children’s education, their approach seems to be significantly different from that of the British pushy parent familiar to many teachers. British parents who want their children to succeed are more likely to blame the school or teacher rather than their child.

The best example of the Chinese child’s potential is Sonia, who is studying at the private Preparatory School. She was challenged to learn one of the Ugandan languages known as Lugandan in less than a month. She had previously learned both Kazakh and Portuguese for the first rounds of the contest. Apart from that she speaks French, German`and Spanish with varying fluency.

Talking Kitchen

A Newcastle University has created a device that delivers cooking instructions in French to help language learning. The talking kitchen follows a user's actions with motion sensor and communicates in a similar way to satellite navigation systems. It’s designed for schools, universities and homes; it should be available by the end of 2012.

By international standards, the UK is low down on the league table when it comes to learning languages - a problem that inevitably has an economic impact. Following the creators, an overriding objective is to reverse the trend by making language learning more enjoyable.

They believe that simultaneously developing skills in a country's language and its cuisine will be also more effective, and by linking it to learning another life skill, more educational too.

Talking kitchen is fitted with a computer which allows users to choose the French recipes they want to follow. There are digital sensors built into utensils, containers and other equipment that communicate with the computer to make sure the correct instructions will be given at the right time. An instruction or piece of information can be repeated, or translated into English on the user’s request.

Isn’t great? Cooking sophisticated meal and chatting with your oven, fridge or microwave in French at the same time?

“Is That a Fish in Your Ear?”

This is David Bellos new book and it will be of particular interest to people who love languages, history and culture. It is not just a book about translation; it is about human experiences and communication. According to Bellos, we can learn about ourselves by inquiring into the ways we deal with the languages other people speak. He takes us to a journey from the days when the Greeks simply ignored other languages and the Romans forced all subject peoples to learn Latin.

After all, maybe our way of dealing with foreign languages has not experienced any changes. The acceptance of English as a global lingua has lead to the situation where attendees to international conferences and events are expected to communicate in English. We can also see that English native speakers, when travelling, expect people from around the world to speak their language.

The book is not just about literary translation; it is about all sorts of translation, and the unrecognised importance of the craft, from reading the instructions on an IKEA flat-pack to the gathering of world news, the translation of jokes, the difficulties and political pressures of simultaneous interpretation—and a whole lot more.

This is not a book about translation but an original cultural history. It starts with apparently simple questions. What is translation? What do translators do? What does this ability tell us about human societies? How do the facts of translation relate to language in general?

Translation is relatively new discipline. For many centuries, even millennia, the world existed without translation. The people of different nations simply learned enough of the neighbour land language to communicate adequately. Marco Polo used a mixture of languages to describe his travels, probably without realising that many of them were “foreign”.

With the invention of the printing press the nature of words began to acquire a settled meaning. Nevertheless, Mr Bellos says, the concept of a word itself is almost impossible to define.

His work is an exploration of the effects of language and translation. His examples are drawn from a wide array of sources: Albanian, ancient Hebrew, film dubbing and graphic novels, legal documents (huge amounts of translation required) and the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Mr Bellos also shows that the world is very eager to familiarise itself with English, both as a vehicular language and as a literary language. Of all the translations of books done in a year, 75% are from English.

This is a book for anyone interested in words, language and cultural anthropology.

Lingua Franca

Lingua franca (or working language, bridge language, vehicular language) is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.

Linguas franca have been seen all over the world throughout history – vulgar Latin around the Mediterranean in the Ancient World, Swahili in East Africa, Hausa in West Africa and Plains Sign Language (not to be confused with American Sign Language) used by the aboriginal peoples of North America.

The original Lingua Franca was a mixed language composed mostly of Italian with a broad vocabulary drawn from Turkish, French, Greek, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. It was in use throughout the eastern Mediterranean as the language of commerce and diplomacy in and around the Renaissance era. At that time, Italian speakers dominated seaborne commerce in the port cities of the Ottoman Empire. Franca was the Italian word for Frankish. Its usage in the term lingua franca originated from its meaning in Arabic and Greek, dating from before the Crusades and during the Middle Ages, whereby all Western Europeans were called "Franks".

It was seemingly in use since the Middle Ages and surviving until the nineteenth century, when it disappeared with hardly a trace, probably under the onslaught of the triumphant French language.
The language was never written. No poetry, no folktales, no translation of the Bible, just a way to sell the merchandise what you had to offer, or haggle for a better price on its purchase.  Lingua Franca seemed to be lost forever, since it died before the advent of the tape recorder or of anthropologists anxious to record a moribund form of human speech.

English as a Lingua Franca

English has unmistakably achieved global status as the world's lingua franca. It is the most successful language in the history of the world. It is spoken on every continent, is learnt as a second language by schoolchildren and it’s dominating in science, global business and popular culture.
The predominance of English has been criticised in particular by French-speaking groups. French was a prestige lingua franca for centuries. Although it is now declining in this role, the French government and French elites have mounted a campaign to promote and defend French in international settings.

The Future of English

English is expanding as a lingua-franca but not as a mother tongue. More than 1 billion people speak English worldwide but only about 330m of them as a first language, and this population is not spreading. The future of English is in the hands of countries outside the core Anglophone group. Will they always learn English?

Chinese is often mentioned as the most likely rival of English for global lingua franca status. Some linguists say that in the future English will be the lingua franca of the West, and Mandarin is going to be the lingua franca of the East.
But many experts don’t believe that Mandarin will topple English even as the region's lingua franca. When considering any sector, political, economic, cultural or linguistic, English still appears to score very much higher than Mandarin. The complexity of the written language is a big obstacle. Of course the situation would be a little different if China chooses to give up its character writing.

There is also a theory saying that English will fade as a lingua-franca, but not because some other language will take its place. No pretender is pan-regional enough, and only Africa’s linguistic situation may be sufficiently fluid to have its future choices influenced by outsiders. English will have no successor because none will be needed. It is technology that will fill the need. This argument relies on huge advances in computer translation and speech recognition.

So may be future generations will come to see English as something like calligraphy or Latin; prestigious and traditional, but increasingly dispensable.

The Mystery of Euskara

The Basque language (Euskara) is spoken by an estimated 1,000,000 people living in the Basque Country of north-central Spain and southwestern France. About 200,000 Basques live in other parts of the world. Little is known of its origins but it is likely that Euskara is the only remnant of the languages spoken in Western Europe before the arrival of the Indo-European languages to the area. Basque is a language genetically isolated as it has no known linguistic relatives. Its grammar is markedly distinct from that of all other western European languages.

Before the Roman times there is not a single written word which can be safely regarded as being of Basque origin. Throughout history, the Basque language has taken up words not only from Latin, Castilian and French, but also from Celtic and Arabic. On the other hand some words in Castilian, French and English come from the Basque language. The Basque alphabet is identical to the English and the language has no standard phonology.

The first serious linguistic work on the Basque language was carried out by the German linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt. He held the view that Basque was a continuation of the ancient Iberian language. His linguistic approach, however, is considered somewhat backwards by modern researchers.

The Basque language is an inflected language whose origin is still somewhat puzzling. The fact that it is not an Indo-European language, and shows no resemblance to languages in neighbouring countries, has inspired many scholars to search for its possible relatives elsewhere. Owing to some similarities with the Georgian language, some linguists think it could be related to languages from the Caucasus. Others relate the language to non-Arabic languages from the north of Africa. One of the most likely hypotheses argues that the Basque language developed "in situ", in the land of the primitive Basques. That theory is supported by the discovery of some Basque-type skulls in Neolithic sites, which ruled out the thesis of immigration from other areas.

However, all hypotheses on the origin of Basque are controversial, and the suggested evidence is not generally accepted by most linguists.

Great Britain and Foreign Languages

Languages are increasingly important at a time when the job market is becoming more international, and are needed to ensure the UK can trade and compete with other nations.

Following the British Academy, UK businesses will be "severely hampered" because language skills are falling behind those in other countries. The fall was particularly marked in French and German – traditionally the two most popular languages in UK schools – with both being named among the fastest declining subjects at GCSE level.

Businesses bringing investment to Britain, particularly those from     Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands, have complained to the  Foreign Office about having to recruit engineers from their home countries or elsewhere.

They expected people in technical or management jobs to have a good grasp of the parent company’s home language, but that was missing among British applicants.

There is also a risk of losing influence in Europe as poor foreign language skills among the British workforce are leaving the UK under-represented in European Union institutions. The European Parliament has warned of a "serious problem" as only 5% of the jobs in the European Parliament and Commission are taken by British workers - although the UK contains 12% of the EU's population.

An international study shows that schoolchildren are less likely to learn multiple languages than in almost any other EU member state. In the last decade, the UK plunged from mid-table to joint-bottom of major rankings listing the number of languages learned in each country.

According to the figures, the average pupil across Europe learns 1.4 languages.  In 2002, the UK was roughly in line with the continental average.  But when the study was carried out again in 2009, the UK slumped to the foot of the table. It was joint bottom with Hungary and Ireland as figures showed the average dropped to 1.0.
By comparison, pupils in Luxembourg, Finland and Iceland learn more than two languages, on average, while other leading EU nations such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain also outrank the UK. Luxembourg came top of the 2009 table with a ranking of 2.5 per cent.

They are calls on universities to encourage youngsters both at school and in higher education to study languages. But the government's decision to make languages optional at GCSE in England makes the problem worse. Failure to act will have a “detrimental impact” on the UK’s prosperity, well-being, security and competitiveness.

Rugby World Cup 2011; From New Zealand to the World

The Rugby World Cup 2011 just started. During this six-week event, 20 teams will play and fight to become the World Champions. This is the seventh Rugby World Cup and the second held in New Zealand that also organized the inaugural tournament in 1987; the last time the All Blacks won the title. 24 years have passed since then and New Zealanders believe they can win the tournament this time and get a much needed morale boost, after the Pike River mining accident and last year's earthquake in Christchurch.

Language Translation in India; a Sunrise Industry

There has not been a recession for the translation industry in India where the sector is seeing a steady rise in demand as the country is regarded as a great consumer base.

Medical translation is currently a blooming business in India thanks to another lucrative business: medical tourism. This is a growing industry that brings around $ 2 billion per year to the local economy. The most popular treatments sought in India by medical tourists are alternative medicine, bone-marrow transplant, cardiac bypass, eye surgery and hip replacement. In the last couple of years, we have seen medical tourists travelling to India from all corners of the world. Patients from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and others countries travel to India bringing with them new languages and cultural requirements that lead to an increasing demand for medical translators and interpreters.

Dead Languages of the World

A language is called a dead language when it is no longer spoken by people as their main language. In contrast to extinct languages that cease to have any speakers, dead languages may continue to be used in legal, scientific and religious fields. Besides Latin, Sanskrit, Biblical Hebrew, Coptic, Avestan and Old Church Slavonic among others are dead languages which are largely used for religious functions.

Cumbrian Court Interpreters Protest at New Plans

Interpreters in Cumbria will travel to Manchester next week to take part in a protest over plans to contract with one supplier to provide language services at courts and tribunals.

After a 12-month procurement process Applied Language Solutions (ALS), a Manchester based translation agency was selected for the contract to provide legal interpreting services. The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) wants to streamline the system of sourcing and booking an interpreter, saving money and staff time. ALS says the centralisation of bookings makes it possible to “efficiently and  fairly distribute the work available for each language in a given region.”