WEBSITE LOCALIZATION The Internet is widely considered to be the most revolutionary technology since the printing press. This era of electronic communication has opened up one of the fastest growing business areas: cross-cultural marketing. As we have discussed in previous posts, it is crucial to make sure your website is comprehensible to those in your target country in order for your company to succeed in both domestic and international markets. Thus, an important factor is translating it into the native languages of your target audiences. The Localization Process However, translation itself is only one part of a very complex concept called localization. To make the website appealing to your target cultures, we need to go beyond translation itself. Localization is a multi-layered process which requires both linguistic and cultural knowledge as well as programming skills. Linguistic and cultural knowledge encompasses language knowledge, expressions , cultural perceptions, senses of humor, and pop culture. In addition, there are numerous other factors to take into consideration when modifying the content of a website. These factors include date and time formats, currency formats, units of measure, paper sizes for print-outs, sound files, legal conventions, and many other details that a company has to adapt to the target culture. However, all of these factors are vital to connecting with your audience. Also important in website localization are design elements like images, symbols, and colours. For example, when adding pictures of personnel it is a good idea to tailor them in such a way that they will look appropriate for the target audience. Just like images, symbols can also result in misunderstandings because a particular...
Multilingual Website Translation Have you ever found a perfect website which contained the information or the product you have been looking for, but the website was in a language you can’t understand? So unfortunate! But here is some good news: multilingual website translation if a service offered by more and more companies. Nowadays most marketers have chosen to adapt the print and broadcasting media to language of their target audiences. However, this does not always happen with websites. More than 70% of Internet users speak languages other than English. Also, online shoppers prefer buying from sites that are in their native language. Nonetheless, translation of websites is not a common practice yet. Should translation of websites be a common practice? The answer is yes. Multilingual website translation will give your business the opportunity to communicate to a brand new international audience in their native language. This will result in creating awareness of your brand, service, or product, and ultimately, to financial success for your company. This is one of the most effective ways of drawing new clients’ attention, marketing your business and giving it international status. Website translation is not only important for the international market, but also the domestic one. Canada, for example, is a multicultural and multilingual country. According to the 2011 Census of Population, more than 200 languages were reported to be spoken as mother tongues by Canadian residents. Making your site multilingual demonstrates your companies’ respect and appreciation towards the entire population, regardless of language and cultural background. Furthermore, website translation removes boundaries and contributes to establishing a more inclusive business standard across the globe....
TRANSLATION MYTHS TRANSLATION MYTHS The world is full of preconceptions and the translation profession is not exempt from this inevitable fate. In fact, translators are always engaged in the never-ending battle of educating the customer. Today we want to try to debunk the most common translation myths. First and foremost we have: ‘Everyone who can speak two or more languages can be a translator’. If this was true, the world would be overflowing with translators. Luckily for the actual professionals, knowing two languages does not necessarily mean that a person can translate between those languages. There is so much more behind the mere knowledge of the language, despite the general skepticism of the public. The second fairly common misconception is that translating from one language to another is the same as translating in the reverse direction. In reality, translators should always translate into their own native language and not vice-versa, unless they are perfectly bilingual, which is rare. Third is the ‘translators can translate any subject matter’ belief. Unless they have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything due to extensive studies, translators tend to specialize in only a few key areas. In the same way that a cook or a painter probably wouldn’t be able to discuss the intricacies of engineering, a translator specialized in cuisine or art would unlikely be able to translate a technical engineering text. Another myth that is often the source of misunderstandings is the conviction that translators can deliver any translation within a very short turnaround time. Clients sending a translation request expecting the job done on the following day is a not unheard of. ...
SCIENTIFIC TEXTS Scientific texts are one of the most challenging materials when it comes to translation. A linguist has to consider a variety of aspects when dealing with them – the target text has to be more than just a literal translation. Besides the deep knowledge of specific terminology for particular scientific fields, this kind of translation involves quite a bit of localization: unless present in the source text, every ambiguity must be eliminated, measures correctly converted and comparisons often need to be adjusted. For instance, if a French text on glaciers compares the size of an ice field to the size of France, when translated into German, the comparison object may be changed to Germany to sound more familiar to the German audience. However, cross-cultural issues are by far not the only difficulty, nor the biggest difficulty in translating scientific sources. Modern sciences contain numerous fields and subfields; some of the studies deal with a range of highly specific material which may only be relevant for particular countries. For this reason many terms don’t have an existing equivalent in the target language. This is an especially problematic case for a translator, who then has to decide whether to leave the term in the source language and provide an explanation, or translate it and thus create a new scientific term in the target language. Both involve a high level of understanding the material. If the linguist chooses to translate the foreign term he/she has to be absolutely sure that he/she understood its meaning correctly and found a translation that conveys the sense of the word to 100% accuracy. To...
Medical Escort Interpreting Canada has 4.7 million residents who speak a language other than English or French at home. In a multilingual society misunderstandings regularly occur, and in many cases this is understandable and acceptable, but absolutely not in the case of medical care. Miscommunication between a doctor and patient can result in tragedy, that is why medical escort interpreting is a very important field which requires much accuracy and expertise. In January 1980, 18-year-old Willie Ramirez was rushed to a South Florida hospital in a comatose state. During the two days following his hospitalization he was treated for a drug overdose however the treatment showed no results. A routine neurological test ordered by doctors on the second day revealed an intracranial hemorrhage, the result of a burst artery which had been defective since birth – the true cause of the young man’s condition. Ramirez was then given emergency surgery to remove the blood clot. He survived the operation but was left quadriplegic, as the treatment came too late. At the heart of the misdiagnosis lay the language barrier – none of Ramirez’ Hispanic relatives spoke understandable English and the hospital was unable to provide an interpreter. The only clue to the young man’s condition was the Spanish word “intoxicado”, used by his girlfriend’s mother as she tried to convey the cause of Ramirez’ collapse to the paramedics. In Spanish, this word usually refers to food poisoning; the young man’s family believed he was sick because he had eaten an undercooked hamburger at a fast food restaurant earlier that day. Since the paramedics spoke no Spanish and no interpreter...
Editing, Proofreading, and Post-Insertion Review These three revision processes differ slightly from each other. Editing Editing involves reviewing the content, overall structure, clarity and style of a document. It is the first step following the translation. It consists of rewriting the translation while taking into account the meaning, tone and style of the original text, as well as keeping the target audience in mind during the rewriting process. The translation should read fluently and not sound like a translation. It is important that it sounds natural to a native speaker. The editing process is time-consuming, and can sometimes take as long as the actual process of translating. The editing must be done by a different translator than the one that has done the translation. This is because the second translator will be more objective during their editing process. Proofreading Proofreading goes hand in hand with the editing process. The proofreading process is about checking the punctuation, grammar and spelling of the document. It implies making smaller changes in the translation, for example, making sure that the tenses used are consistent, or that the formatting of the translated text matches the original. A spell check or grammar check function is used to catch any inconsistencies. Post-Insertion Review The post insertion review process involves reviewing the translation after the desktop publishing (DTP) process. In order to do this, the translator must compare the original source text, translation and design file with the translation inserted into a graphic format (i.e. brochure). The translator has to make sure that the translation has been copied to the right place on the page and that...
