Perception of Colour and Culture

13:01 Friday 11 May 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

I have recently finished reading a fascinating book by Guy Deutscher called ‘Through the Language Glass’. In it he looks at how different cultures (ancient and modern) have used language to describe colour. It studies how the theory of culture and colour has evolved over the years and draws parallels with culture colour perceptions and the theory of how your mother tongue can affect the way you think.
In every culture colour is important. Colour is all around us all of the time and has a huge influence on both our mood and how we think about things. ...read more

How to (accidentally) curse in other languages

17:00 Friday 27 April 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

Around 50% of all communication, if not more, is non-verbal. Body language, gestures and the tone of our voice can communicate almost as much as the actual words we say. When travelling or working overseas, many of us rely far more on gestures and body language to get our message across when words fail us. For language translation purposes, gestures or body language in adverts or in brochures must be carefully evaluated to ensure they don’t mean the ...read more

Designing a Multilingual Website

11:30 Monday 9 April 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

English may well be one of the most widely spoken languages in the world but it is short-sighted for companies operating in different markets across the world not to translate their web pages into local languages. Even for companies operating in the domestic market, they may attract more customers if they offer the chance to browse their website in a variety of international languages. However, there are several considerations when translating...read more

Difficult languages & language difficulty

18:45 Tuesday 20 March 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

It’s often said that today’s marketplace is now a global marketplace, and more companies than ever are doing business across the globe. Although English may be the international language of commerce and finance, there will come a time where every company involved in exporting or importing will have to translate some of their documentation into or out of English. Not all languages are equal, and some throw up far more issues than others. This post focuses on some of the issues presented by some languages and also which languages are the most difficult to manage....read more

Who needs Proofreading?

11:00 Thursday 16 February 2012 | Posted by: TomWC

This article has been inspired by a recent conversation I had with my wife where we were talking about ‘additional services’ you often get offered at point of purchase. We had recently hired a car and whilst collecting the vehicle we were asked if we wanted ‘extra’ insurance to protect the excess we would be responsible for. This ‘extra’ insurance was not mentioned any time before and it was only as I had my credit card out ready to pay that this service was offered. Slightly miffed at seeing ...read more

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