IT’S NOT AS EASY AS GOOGLING ‘TRANSLATION SERVICES’

Sep 12, 2014 | Blog, Translation

Translation Services Differ Company’s reputation and credibility: It is easy to google “translation services” or “document translation in Canada” but how can you really be sure you are working with an experienced and successful language services company? The first thing you can do is make sure to check the reviews of any company before you choose them. The last thing you want to do is book an interpreter for a huge presentation and then realize that the company has only received 3 reviews and they are all negative. Also, most reputable companies have a list of successful companies they have worked for before with testimonials. This is usually on the company website already, but can easily be provided by asking for references and testimonials. Any upstanding company will gladly oblige (like Lingo-Star). Does the company use native speakers: Upon a first glance, the pricing between different language service companies can vary greatly. However, what you need to be aware of before proceeding with a translation is that native speakers are the ones you want translating your documents. Just because somebody can speak Spanish, it doesn’t mean that they will be qualified to precisely translate your document unless they are native speakers. There are countless incidences where clients will opt for the cheaper more attractive route, only to be given a poor quality document that would be embarrassing to present in a meeting or on their website. We don’t want you to experience this so we highly suggest you switch to Lingo-Star and take advantage of the fact that every single one of our translators is an actual native speaker...

THE DANGERS OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE.

Sep 9, 2014 | Blog, SEO

Google translate. Why should I hire a translator when I can get Google Translate to do it for free? Sadly, this is not an uncommon question.  A few self-explanatory images available on the web would suffice to answer, but here is a more technical explanation of the dangers of using Google Translate. Google Translate is not 100% accurate. Google Translate will look for appropriate translations by searching for linguistic patterns within millions of documents already translated by human translators. However, if it has insufficient data, it can only guess based on what it does have, which can often be misleading or simply wrong. Google Translate produces unnatural translations. Even when it manages to produce grammatical sentences, they often are too literal and, as a consequence, sound awkward or funny to a native speaker of the target language. Google Translate doesn’t offer a quality check on its translations. As a result, users have no means to know whether the translation in the target language is good or not and they end up presenting weird translations to the public like the ones in the pictures above. These may manage to get a smile out of us, but the consequences of mistranslation can sometimes be quite serious. Let’s take the translation of food packaging as an example. If the translation of the ingredients on a package is not 100% accurate, it can cause severe problems for people with allergies or restrictive diets. In conclusion, language is just too complex for machines to understand all the grammar, context and nuances; Google Translate could never replace the work of a professional human translator.  ...

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF MACHINE TRANSLATION

Sep 5, 2014 | Blog, SEO

Machine translation. Machine translation (MT) is automatic translation through a software program without human assistance. It has recently been at the center of controversies regarding reliability and quality, but few people know that there are actually different types of machine translation: statistical, rule-based, and hybrid. Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) SMT uses statistical models derived from the analysis of bilingual text corpora, usually finding a correspondence between one word and another. This is, for example, what Google Translate does. SMT tools might help you to understand the basic meaning of a text, but they will not produce good quality translation. Rule-based Machine Translation (RBMT) RBMT, as indicated by its name, is based on grammar rules. The system generates sentences in a target language after analyzing grammatically both the source and the target languages involved. This is, for example, what Systran does. These software programs usually require tedious proofreading, and as they need a lot of lexicons, they only become efficient after long term use. Hybrid Machine Translation Hybrid MT is a mix of SMT and RBMT that also includes a translation memory and thus produces translations of a better quality. This tool can be used by translators to avoid translating the exact same sentence twice. However, linguists still doubt that this tool can help achieve higher quality translations or gain time because of the long editing part. This is why translation needs are still addressed by translators. If you need a translation, call LingoStar today or send us an email for a free quote! Here we have qualified translators from all over the world able to work on any kind...

THE KEYWORD CRAZE: TRANSLATION AND SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Aug 29, 2014 | Blog, Translation

Translation and Search Engine Optimization Nowadays the key to success for most companies is undoubtedly their visibility on the Internet market. When customers need a service or a product, they just type some words in a search engine and this will provide them with a list of pages relevant to their search. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) directly affects the visibility of a website by choosing the most effective keywords, so that it would appear at the top of the result list for its sector. Some tips to conduct a successful optimization include: – The choice of strings of two-three words instead of single words, as they are more specific and less competitive. Ideally you should try to think from the customer’s point of view and guess what strings they would use to search for your website; –  A good keyword density. The higher the keyword density is, the more relevant to the search a page is; –  The place of keywords. Keywords situated in URLs, file names, page titles and headings are easier to find than normal text, therefore they could significantly boost the page’s ranking if put in the right place. Last but not least: keyword localization. Localized strings help international users find your website; therefore their translation must be accurate. Simply using Google Translate is discouraged, what you need is a translation based on a specific context that can be adapted to a specific audience. Consequently, it is essential to give translators the means to understand the purpose of the keyword and the freedom to rephrase when necessary. This will make your business international and successful. Here...

ARE YOUR SAFETY POLICIES MULTILINGUAL?

Aug 26, 2014 | Blog

Are the Safety Policies Multilingual on Your Website? If they aren’t then they should be. The obligation to provide safety training in a worker’s native language is implied rather than expressly stated, at least in most jurisdictions. There shouldn’t even be the slightest doubt that employers do have an obligation to provide safety training in the language their workers speak and understand. There are a few steps that should be taken to ensure that your safety policies are understandable and absorbed by all employees. Step #1: Determine The Languages Used In The Workplace: You must determine the languages your workers understand. You must be diplomatic and address all of the languages, not just the dominant ones spoken by the majority of employees. Even if only one worker speaks a rare language, you must ensure that the worker gets specific safety training and materials in that language or else they likely won’t properly absorb the instructions and material. Step #2: Use Pictograms When Possible: Language barriers may be broken down with the utilization of pictures. For example, by using hazard symbols or pictures of hard hats in areas where they’re required you can instill in the employees what to do and what not to do in specific areas of the work place. Pictures with lines through them can also indicate things that are not allowed or should not be done (i.e. cross through a cigarette used as a signal for no-smoking). Step #3: Have Translators Provide Information: For information that can’t be provided with normal means like signs and symbols, such as the workers’ right to refuse dangerous work, you...

FACEBOOKING FOR GLOBAL BRAND RECOGNITION

Aug 22, 2014 | Blog

Global Brand Recognition Acquiring new customers with Facebook: You can drive prospects to your site by targeting your ads at your target market. By opting to reach out to people based on things like age, gender and demographics, or by targeting a custom audience, you can specify how and who Facebook targets with its advertisements. Ads can appear in the news feed on desktop and mobile apps, the logout screen and the right hand side with Facebook Exchange. They are very hard to miss and can be very eye catching. As a strategy involved with your marketing approach you can also use Facebook Exchange to capture in-market shoppers who have visited your website. Grow sales on desktop computers or mobile devices: It is very useful to merchandise your products in the news feed and right-hand side advertisements. You can link these directly to your product/service pages on your retail websites. Not only is this great from a sales perspective, but you can derive data from this and get detailed attribution numbers from who is clicking your advertisements on Facebook. This proves to be especially useful in creating future marketing campaigns, and figuring out a more specific demographic to target that should be focused on more intently. Build global brand loyalty: Using Facebook can foster very positive relationships with active customers and help solidify their loyalty towards your brand, thus retaining business and drawing in new business via recommendations from those customers to their friends. By publishing to your customers everyday with engaging content, word-of-mouth marketing and retention can be maintained and your brand will surely become more globally recognized. Here at...

DO YOUR WEBSITE’S IMAGES SPEAK A THOUSAND WORDS? (DO THEY SAY ENOUGH?)

Aug 19, 2014 | Blog

Although this is an appealing alternative to paying for a service to have access to stock photography websites, it is a bad idea that could lead to complications and have negative implications. Firstly, there are copyright laws for images on other websites. Not only is it stealing, but your company could receive a fine for using somebody else’s images. In addition, copying images from a website usually leads to poor quality images with low resolution. If you want your company to exude professionalism, then you must use images that are visually stimulating and nice to look at. Pixelated images can be very detrimental to your company’s overall image in the public eye. Finally, having a unique image can set your company apart from others. The last thing you want is a customer to do a google search by plugging in the URL of your image and finding out you stole it from another company. Have images that are relevant to your product/service: Although this is a given, there are many ways one can improve the focus or perspective of a picture to highlight what they want to advertise. First of all, zoom in on your product. If it is not somewhere where the eye is naturally drawn to (most attention grabbing portion of the picture) then you should be re-evaluating how you can re-take the photo so that it will centralize the attention of your audience on what you are trying to market. Also, light your product well. If you have an image on your website that is really dark with low contrast it is likely that your product...

LANGUAGE DILUTION

Aug 14, 2014 | Promotions, SEO

Language dilution. Language dilution can be defined by using a word with a strong meaning to express a much less strong idea. For example, one can use the word ‘literally’ even when something is not literally true, just to emphasize it. It happens because people use the words ‘awesome’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘amazing’ even when they do not really mean them. They do so because they want to make their statements as effective as possible without using too much effort. Doing so, people waste the meaning of words, which are one of our most precious resources. If you use ‘literally’ when you don’t mean ‘literally’, you are not only adding a useless word to your sentence, you are also devaluing the word, so that when it is to be used in its proper meaning, it no longer means anything. We only have one word for ‘literally’, and if ‘literally’ no longer means ‘literally’ then we’ve lost a word. On the other hand, words take on connotations with passing time and according to the social group using them. It has become acceptable to use the word ‘awesome’ to describe a cake, because everyone does it. In this case, ‘awesome’ does not mean ‘inspiring awe’ anymore. Language Dilution also makes people more creative when they do intend to say that something is awe inspiring, because we all know that nowadays, ‘awesome’ means ‘quite good’. If you need translation services without language dilution, call LingoStar today or send us an email for a free quote! Here we have qualified translators from all over the world able to work on any kind of...

WHY IS TRANSLATING TO AND FROM GERMAN SO HARD?

Aug 12, 2014 | Blog

Sometimes, one single word in German has the meaning of several words in English. For example, “bitte” means at once “pardon”, “please”, “go ahead”, “here you go”, “you’re welcome” and “not at all”. That is why, when translating, you have to be careful and figure out what is the appropriate meaning for each word in every sentence. This phenomenon can be explained by the German language only having 185,000 words whereas the English language has over 1,000,000,000 words. This represents 2,000 times as many words as the Chinese language has and 10,000 times as many words as the French language has. The German language uses so few words because words are made of several words put together. For example, “Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz” means “the law for the delegation of monitoring beef labeling”. Also, in German there are 6 types of definite articles you can use (“der”, “den”, “dem”, “des”, “die” and “das”) depending on the gender and number of the noun, whereas in English, there is only one: “the”. In addition, all of the nouns have a gender which must be learned separately by heart. This is a good overview of why Mark twain used to say: “A gifted person ought to learn English in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years”. Here at LingoStar, we can offer high quality translation from and into German. Call us today or email us for a free...

THE AMERICAN TRANSLATION MARKET

Aug 8, 2014 | Blog

How big is the American Translation market? Despite the current economic situation, the translation industry has done well over the past few years (annual growth rate has been greater than 2.5%). This can be explained by different factors. First, more and more immigrants come to the United States without necessarily being capable of speaking fluent English. Then, more and more American companies do business with overseas companies and consequently have to communicate regularly in several languages with customers, partners or employees located in other countries. Finally, a great deal of business is generated from the government and in particular, the military. Nowadays, the American translation market is the largest single market for translation services (Europe is the second) What is the value of the American Translation market? Today, more than 52,500 companies employing more than 74,600 people generate $5 billion a year. According to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics, the translation industry is expected to grow by 42% between 2010 and 2020 and reach $37 billion in 2018. If you need translation services from or to English, call LingoStar today or send us an email for a free quote! Here we have qualified translators from all over the world able to work on any kind of document....