Category Archives: Translation

Top Language Choices for Technical Publications

It is a very well-known fact that English is not the most widely spoken language in the world. Although it is considered as a global language, not everyone can speak it. People from countries with the largest economies of the world, like China, Japan, Germany, France and Brazil, prefer to use their native language as opposed to English. So if you decide to sell your products in areas where English is not the main language, you should provide user/technical manuals in those local languages. Then, you may wonder about the number of languages you need the manual in if your product is offered globally.

Target Areas

The truth is that you will not need the manual in so many languages. Before you make your choice on the preferred languages, you must first consider which areas you are trying to target. For example, if you are targeting only a few countries for your business, then consider only those regions’ languages. But if you want to make your publications available on a global scale, here are some of the top language choices.

Chinese

China has emerged from a developing economy to become one of powerhouses in the modern world. Yet, the majority of the Chinese population is not familiar with English. That is because Chinese government promotes education in its national language rather than in English.
If you translate your technical publications into Chinese, you can actually reach the largest population on earth while in terms of economic opportunity you can reach approximately 6.1% on a global scale.

Japanese

Japan has always been a country that is known for its technological development, despite the fact that the country is often affected by natural disasters. By translating your technical publications into Japanese, you can reach out to around 4.5% of the online population. But the economic opportunities or business opportunities that you can generate by translating your technical publications into Japanese is a decent 10.5% owing to the Japanese economic strength.

German

Only 1.4% of world population speaks German, but the economic opportunities that you can generate using the internet by translating your technical publications into German are as significant as 8.4%. Also, Germans have a reputation of being tech savvy and have a very small tolerance level to technical mistakes. So, make sure that the German version of your technical publications is of very high standards.

French

The percentage of global population that exclusively speaks French is only 1.5%. But if you have the technical publications of your products translated into French, you can actually target 6.2% in terms of business opportunities.

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese is spoken by the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil. The country offers immediate attractions to new market entrants, such as a consistent and stable economy, built on the development model of a policy adopted by the Brazilian government in the last years. The adopted measures made provision for constant growth with generation of formal employment, better income distribution and ability to absorb external and internal shocks.
Therefore, the market for technical translations in Brazil has become highly specialized since the 90’s due to a scenario of growing number of imports, increasing demand for translation of technical publications, the privatization of large enterprises and globalization.

Spanish

Around 7% of the world population speaks Spanish. So, that is the third most sought after language for technical manual translation needs. However, the economic opportunities that you can generate by making your technical manual available in Spanish are a decent 7.8%. Also, there are a few variations of the Spanish language that you should consider while having your website translated into Spanish. It is recommended that you discuss about these variations with your translation company before actually going ahead with the job.

Always Localize!

You can look at this scenario in many different ways, but the percentage of target audience who knows English is rapidly decreasing by the day, due to the growing market size. So, it is always a good idea to have your technical publications translated into more than a couple of languages, especially if you are planning to market the product on a global scale. Terralíngua has the technical and scientific expertise to help you translate your publications into several languages.

Top Tips to Break the Language Barrier

Website availability in multiple languages is a trend popular with most website owners, especially if their target audience is spread globally. However, language translation is something that is not easy and people can easily recognize shoddily translated work. This might even irk some people. To prevent this from happening and to ensure that you break the language barrier, here are a few tips that might come in handy.

Be Careful with Puns and Conversational Expressions

When you translate a line word to word, you might not be very effective in communicating what you intended to. Machine translations carry out word to word translations and are not effective in more than 60% of the sentences. This is where a professional translator will be helpful. The translator will read the whole sentence, the paragraph also, if needed, and translate it in such a way to preserve the true meaning. By doing this, the translator will ensure that the message that you wished to convey is displayed, with very little room for misinterpretation. This problem usually arises with the usage of metaphors, puns, and conversational expressions.

Contraction and Expansion Factors

You may notice that the number of words used in a particular sentence in one language do not remain the same when it is translated into another language. . Due to varying sentence structures and word usage, there will usually be an increase or decrease in the word count. For example, a typical translation from English to Russian will increase the word count by roughly 30%. When you design a web page or a theme, you would have chosen the styling to suit a fixed number of words. If there are more words, you cannot accommodate them. Less number of words implies empty spaces in the web page which doesn’t look good. So, make sure you take this factor into account while getting your site translated.

Cultural and Legal Limitations

Make sure that you take into account the cultural bounds and the legal limitations of the region you are targeting. This is important because you must not post content that will hurt the sentiment of the locals. Similarly, if you post something that is against law, and even if you do it inadvertently, you will be in trouble. Not to mention the hit that your company’s reputation takes. So, try to be as passive as possible and stick to hard facts without being judgmental.

Beware of Machine Translated Text

Machine translations work only on the most basic sentences. If you type in a long complicated sentence, the machine will translate each word as it is. It might result in a sentence that means something different altogether. So, try to avoid machine translations as much as possible. Even if you have to go ahead with machine translations, make sure that you get the output reviewed by someone who is familiar with the language that it is translated into. Also, try to keep the English sentences short and very simple if you are using a machine translator. This will ensure that the translated text is accurate.

Choosing Translator Services Carefully

To avoid all the aforementioned problems, you must be very careful while picking translator services. There might be a number of them on offer but only a handful offer very high quality services. If it comes to budget, try to be a little flexible as translation is a onetime investment and you do not want to compromise on the quality. You can actually do a bit of research before hiring a translation service. Website translation is being considered by almost all companies in a bid to target a global audience. So, chances are that you could get some really good recommendations.

Benefits of Having a Website in Different Languages

Owing to the worldwide accessibility of the net and the web pages on it, business owners are choosing to make their websites available in a number of different languages. To do this, you need the help of a translation expert and you have to pay for the services. If you believe the localization of your website is an unnecessary investment, think again. The benefits of getting your website translated into different, leading local languages makes the investment totally worth it. Here are the top advantages of having your website translated.

Expanding Your Customer Base

English is the universal language and that the one language that you design your website in, by default. However, if you are of the understanding that English can be understood by most of the people in the world, you are wrong. English, although omnipresent, is not understood by many, some of them could be your potential customers. If you are seriously looking to expand your customer base and rope in business from countries around the world, you need to have the website in those local languages. For example, if you want to target German customers, make sure that you make your website available in German.

Engage Customers with Your Site

Imagine that your native language is English but you have learnt French or Spanish or any other foreign language. You might be able to understand it and even read and write the language fluently. But do you get the same feeling as you do when you read English? That is exactly how it feels for people from other countries when looking at your site in English. On the contrary, if it is available in native language, they feel at home when they are viewing your site. A recent survey showed that a potential consumer is more likely to go through the site if it is available in his/her native language rather than in English.

Clarity in Message

By using native languages in your website, you also avoid the confusion that is sometimes created by the usage of English. People who are not so familiar with English might misinterpret a sentence on your site and get the wrong message. This is very bad for business when you look at the bigger picture. So, it is a good idea to have your website available in local languages so that these misinterpretation issues are avoided.

Please visit our website to find out how Terralíngua can help you expand your website beyond the borders.

Search Engine Optimization Benefits of Website Translation

SEO One of the lesser known benefits of getting your website translated into local and regional languages is that you get it optimized for the search engines. You must be well aware of the fact that a website without SEO in today’s world is literally useless. So, when you get the content on your site translated, you must ensure that all the trouble you took to optimize your site is not wasted. Also, keep in mind that your site is reaching out to a global audience, and English is slowly fading out as the most widely used language in the world.

Business or Consumer Site

When your site and the services you are offering are solely for business, having a site in English only will not help. A recent survey conducted by a multinational company showed that although English is still the most widely used language in the business community, the number is reducing steadily. People prefer the local languages like Chinese, French, Spanish, etc., even in business dealings.

Coming to the consumers, it is very well known that people of many nationalities prefer their local language. In fact, recent surveys show that 58% of China’s educated population is not well versed with English. Brazil, for instance, is on the 67th English fluency ranking position in the business environment. Also, other countries like Spain, France, Mexico, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Indonesia, etc. are not far behind.

Implications of the Usage of Local Language to SEO

When people prefer using their local language, they will obviously use the local term for whatever they are searching for. A search engine spider does not understand the term it is searching. It just scours the World Wide Web for the term you specified and latches on to it using compare. In case your site is not optimized for those local terms, you might miss out on a lot of business.

Take the example of someone searching for web design services in Brazil. You must have the term ‘Website Design’ in Brazilian Portuguese in some part of your website for your listing to be shown up on the SERP. Similarly, the same technicality holds good for other languages also. That is the reason why most websites prefer to be presentable in a number of languages.

Some Tips to Keep in Mind

If possible, conduct a SEO survey of the region to which you are catering to and use those keywords on that language in the content of your site. Also, make sure that the language is according to the SEO optimization rules. You might want to take the help of a SEO expert for this.

What to Look for in a Translation Company

Magnifying glass Since most websites are available for a global audience, its availability in different languages is very important. You might be surprised to know that people in some of the most developed nations, including China, are not well versed in English. To translate the content on your site, you have to hire the services of a translation company. Naturally, you look for the best translation company that suits your needs and budget requirements. This article will highlight some of the key characteristics that you have to look for in a translation company before hiring it.

Experience of Translators

Translation is a job that needs a lot of practice. There is no other way of mastering a language except using it in a way where you have to pay attention to grammar and other key aspects of the language. Naturally, more experienced the translator more will be his/her command over the language. Before hiring a translation company, ask for the experience of the translators that it has at its disposal. At Terralingua, for instance, all of the linguists are college graduates in Translation or Linguistics or have at least 3 years of experience in their main translation area. Furthermore, the Terralíngua linguists are all native speakers of the target language, ensuring that the translated text has the required natural fluency so that the final text does not sound like a literally translated text. For example, to translate into German, we only use translators whose native language is German and who live in Germany, and thus are culture sensitive to language nuances.

If after analyzing the company you realize that they have a good experience and they can show the relevant proof to back it up, you can go ahead and hire the company.

Quality of Work

If you are well versed with a language, say English, you might be aware of the fact that there are numerous ways of wording a sentence. All of them might be grammatically correct but only some of them will sound right. You would want your translation company also to use only high quality sentences while translating content on your site. There are number of ways you can gauge the quality of work of a translation company. Here are a few of those ways.

Translation Certificates

Reputed companies obtain certifications from certain internationally accredited boards just to show their clients that their translation is of the highest quality. To be certified, the companies need to have translators who have passed a basic level test and also have some minimum experience. If the company you chose has this certification, you can assume that its work will be of good quality.

Reputation

Like in any other field, good translation companies acquire a reputation for themselves over time. This is a result of their consistent delivery of quality work to clients from around the world. At Terralíngua we have 85% of our clients satisfied with our services. We are always concerned to meet our client’s needs and expectations. We are ISO 9001:2008 certified and SAP partners, which lends us worldwide credibility. If the translation company in your radar has a good reputation, you can assume that the services of this company are of good quality.

Other methods of gauging quality include quality assurance, accuracy, confidentiality, free revision services, among others.

Terralingua uses the LISA method to keep up with linguist quality standards. This method is based on the standards accepted by the localization industry. You can have more information about this methodology by accessing our webpage about the LISA quality assurance.

Website Translation Can Improve Your Profits

Websites have become the first point of contact between companies and their customers today. While having a website only in one language, usually English, is a great way to save on costs, it works only when all your customers are fluent in the language and can understand it well. But if your business caters to people across borders or to the local population, translating your website content is a good idea. Here are some of the benefits of website translation.

Translation improves accessibility of the website

Providing your website in more than one language, including English, makes it accessible to more number of people. For example, if your business caters to people in Spanish speaking regions, translating your website from English into Spanish is a good idea. The Spanish version of your website should target the large Spanish-speaking population, who may not be fluent in English or understand the language like you do. When translating content into a local language, the culture, the preferences and the currency used should also be kept in mind. For high quality, accurate translation of the content, the best thing to do is hire a translation agency for the job.

Opportunity to explore global markets

By translating your website into multiple languages, you are making it available to more number of people across the world. Studies have found that more than 70% of the people around world prefer to browse the web in their own language. To be able to reach out to 90% of the world’s website users, you should consider translating your website into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Russian, among others.

Strengthen your hold on local markets

You may have a good hold on the local markets in your region. But to improve your market share, and push it to a 100%, website localization is what you need. Offering your website in the local language gives you a better chance of penetrating deeper into the markets, as people respond better when you reach out to them in their own tongue.

Translation brings results, at minimal costs

Many business owners worry that the quality of their website’s content takes a hit when they translate it into other languages. But that need not be the case, especially when you hire a professional translation company for the job. Also, when compared to the kind of international revenue you can accrue through localization, the costs involved in translating your website will be really small.

To better understand the localization and translation services that Terralíngua can offer to your company, please visit our website.