Financial translations shouldn’t be taxing...

13:10 Tuesday 24 January 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

With the looming deadline for submitting tax returns on everyone’s mind I thought for today’s blog we would look at the area of translating financial documents and share with you our tips for a successful financial translation project.
Anyone who is currently in the process of submitting their tax return and is not an accounting genius knows that financial paperwork can get complicated (ever get the feeling the HMRC’s current strap line seems to be missing a bit of the end...read more

How does Santa cover the world in one night?

Question: You have millions of gifts to distribute, a very limited timeframe, over 24,000 miles to traverse, and 195 countries to visit – how do you fit it all in?
Answer: You outsource your labour and localise your service.
And so with a need to reach an ever more connected audience spread through a very diverse world - that’s what Father Christmas (Santa Claus to our American colleagues) has been doing for many, many years.
These localised versions that make up the Christmas multicultural delivery network vary from nigh on carbon copies (complete with beard and bulbous toy laden sacks) to different genders and even different life forms. Here is our guide to the world’s best ...read more

Measuring translation quality

For this post I want clarify why I think typesetting should be done by someone who can read the language they are setting rather than someone who can’t. This may sound like a very obvious statement but in my experience there are some LSPs and many clients who use typesetters who can only read their mother tongue (English) and although they might be highly skilled at working with text in design packages they cannot actually follow what they are setting. For me this can equate to additional checks (costs)....read more

10 Tips for project managers working with non-native speakers

For this post I want clarify why I think typesetting should be done by someone who can read the language they are setting rather than someone who can’t. This may sound like a very obvious statement but in my experience there are some LSPs and many clients who use typesetters who can only read their mother tongue (English) and although they might be highly skilled at working with text in design packages they cannot actually follow what they are setting. For me this can equate to additional checks (costs)....read more

The very short and simple guide to Unicode & UTF-8

For this post I want clarify why I think typesetting should be done by someone who can read the language they are setting rather than someone who can’t. This may sound like a very obvious statement but in my experience there are some LSPs and many clients who use typesetters who can only read their mother tongue (English) and although they might be highly skilled at working with text in design packages they cannot actually follow what they are setting. For me this can equate to additional checks (costs)....read more

Why I think you should use a mother tongue to typeset your documents

For this post I want clarify why I think typesetting should be done by someone who can read the language they are setting rather than someone who can’t. This may sound like a very obvious statement but in my experience there are some LSPs and many clients who use typesetters who can only read their mother tongue (English) and although they might be highly skilled at working with text in design packages they cannot actually follow what they are setting. For me this can equate to additional checks (costs)....read more

Tips for Document Translation - sending and receiving

For today’s blog entry I want to share some simple basic tips that will help new clients get a better understanding of what is required the first time they send files for translation.
First off let me start by confirming that this blog post does not call for a degree in quantum physics. What will be discussed is not rocket science. Some of you may think that this is far too much of a simplistic topic for a blog post and you can’t go too far wrong just by bunging the....read more

365(ish) days and counting

Picture the scene readers: London, England 365(ish) days from now, huge crowds gather in the capital all vying for their chance to see the world’s elite athletes and sports people compete in the ‘Games of the XXX Summer Olympiad’ (some may even have got tickets). Many have travelled thousands of miles and have paid large sums of money to be there. People from all walks of life and cultures, all communicating in different languages, have come together in one big melting pot that will be East London (and other selected venues across the UK), all with....read more

Why bother with translation?

For this post I wanted to share a response to a question I was recently asked whilst attending a fFriend’s wedding and explaining what I do for a living. After answering the obligatory questions about how long I’ve been doing this and who I do it for and why, etc., they asked “why do companies bother with translation, surely English is pretty much universal?”
Although to some this question (and the answer) may seem pretty obvious it is one that I have been asked before. Although my reply was pretty short – “Typically it helps gain a greater engagement with a potential target market and customers are more likely to ....read more