How to Spot a Great Transcreator
KFC put a lot of time and effort into making sure that their Chinese launch went off without a hitch. This meant spending countless hours on translation, product testing, and market research. But, all this footwork did nothing to stop them from horrifically mangling the Mandarin-version of their slogan. Instead of telling consumers that their […]
Getting the Terminology Right: When to Use a Linguist, Interpreter or Translator
Introduction There are just over 170,000 words and terminology in the English language according to the Oxford Dictionary. Some of these words are nearly identical. A single letter can change laughter to slaughter and mean to meant. There are also words that seem so similar in meaning that to include them all seems ridiculous. And, […]
Don’t Let Cultural Ignorance Ruin Your Perfectly Good Translation
You can see that cultural adaptation is critical when expanding your company internationally or even targeting audiences from a different culture within your country. Don’t limit your reach by limiting yourself to a strict, word-for-word, translation. Hire a professional translator to help.
How Technology Will Change Translation
This is a guest post by Alexander Zeller Online translation tools commenced with the easily accessible Google Translate, which has now been out on the internet for 10 years, but it seems it hasn’t had that much of an impact on the demand for human translators. Most people believed that once translation tools were developed that would be an […]
10 Tips for Working Efficiently and Productively With a Professional Translator
When you have a translation project and contact a professional translator, here are some tips to make the project run smoothly and efficiently for both of you. 1. Provide as much information as possible at first contact. This will help you receive a faster response from the translator. This includes the subject, language pair (obviously), target […]
Plain Language and Translation – Expert Guest Post
I have had the fortune of getting to know a plain language expert in Sweden, who is bilingual and also works with translation. I actually met her through Twitter, so never underestimate social media. Ingrid Herbert has a BA in Swedish Language Consultancy and works for Språkkonsulterna as a language consultant and translator. Her work […]
To My Favorite Client Among LSP’s
Dear Client, I just wanted to write you a short note to tell you that you are one of my favorite clients among Language Service Provider companies and here is why. 1. You always address me by my name when you contact me 2. You do not send mass emails and wait for the first […]
The Role of Translators in the Software Localization Process
In software localization projects, we translators are expected to have complete command of the tools required, know the market and a lot of products, assume our own position in the process, and understand the constraints involved in ever shorter production cycles. For this reason that most translators working in localization do so through intermediary translation […]
