In our sales efforts at MotaWord when we reach out to a potential client, especially when it comes to the healthcare industry, we frequently hear similar comments and they all revolve around a few questions and concerns. After all, translating medical records, marketing brochures, consent forms and such is not new - some hospitals inform us that they have been working with the same translation agency for decades not years or months. When you offer something new, that causes disruption in the industry through technology, it is only reasonable to assume that some people will always be concerned. Here, we attempt to collect most frequently talked about concerns and our responses to them from the MotaWord team.

We are all set!

• Most widely discussed topic 1 - we call them “We are all set” responses. We hear this all the time: we are all set since we...

  • have in-house interpreters who will translate our medical documents when they have time

  • have a contract through our system for x years and we are not looking to make any changes to our translation services at this time.

  • are currently pleased with the processes that we have in place for document translation, working with internal translators and a large agency when we need to farm things out

  • already have a translation process in place

  • are good

This raises our eyebrows involuntarily, as we know that the following happens without an exception: 

Our existing clients reduce the cost of translations, speed up not only the translation delivery times, but also getting a simple instant quotation, as well as making sure that you are getting the highest translation quality possible. Yes, it is all possible with our Artificial Intelligence (AI) supported human translation platform as we cut out the most inefficient and expensive processes out of the whole picture and automated with the cutting edge technologies, which in turn provide the fastest, highest quality results without breaking the bank. 

Understanding the role of Technology and Human in Translation business...

• Most widely discussed topic 2 - We call them the “medical translation expertise and technology”  responses. We hear this time and time again. The concern probably stems from extensive use of cutting edge technologies like AI, Machine Learning (ML) etc. Once we speak about these technologies, sometimes people easily assume that we translate their work with Machine Translation (MT). After giving the reader a couple of examples below we will provide our responses to these questions..

  • If you are an AI and ML supported platform, then you must be using MT 

  • We don’t think MT should be used in medical translation

  • Since you have almost 19,000 translators, we worry that people who do not necessarily have medical expertise may be translating our documents.

  • If you use AI for managing our projects, how can we be certain that the most qualified translators will be assigned to our projects? 

  • I need to contact a real person not a machine 

While we think that all of the concerns listed above are valid and will probably take a page or two to explain our platform in detail, we will for now just scratch the surface and provide a general answer. First of all, we do not utilize machine translation, period! All of the translation work coming to our platform is translated by multiple, flesh-and-bone, strictly vetted translators and proofreaders. Also, utilizing technologies such as AI and ML do not necessitate the need to use MT at all. We use these technologies to be more efficient so we can share the efficiency gain with our clients. Yes, we do have a large number of translators and proofreaders and it would be nearly impossible to manage them with human project managers (or one would need an army of project managers). For that we utilize these technologies so by the time you upload your document, our AI supported (Project Advanced Manager - Pam) will run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to scan and count the words in your document, provide you with an instant quotation, invite all medically trained/certified translators and proofreaders to work collaboratively on your document, and check the health and the quality of your translation orders. Pam, does more than that of course, however, we have many Community Managers who work with Pam to ensure the highest quality translations possible. 

In normal times, “go out to play” would be one of the most regularly used expressions by parents. Not so today. As many of us are forced to shelter in place and limit social interaction, kids and grownups alike are finding gaming a welcoming distraction and a way to stay engaged with friends.

In April, the World Health Organization and eighteen leading game companies started the Play Apart Together campaign to support online gaming as a way to keep people inside during the pandemic. Besides promoting gaming, the campaign also highlights the importance of proper safety measures, such as social distancing and frequent hand washing. In addition to the original organizations, which include Activision Blizzard, the Amazon Appstore, Big Fish Games, Dirtybit, Glu Mobile, Jam City, Kabam, Maysalward, Playtika, Pocket Gems, Riot Games, SciPlay, Snap Games, Twitch, Unity, Wooga, YouTube Gaming, and Zynga, another 40 gaming companies have joined the campaign. Many more are unofficially participating by giving out free games and using their platforms to share messages about the virus and promote the recommended safety protocols.

While the current circumstances have given it a boost, the gaming industry has been a significant source of revenue for a number of years. In 2019, the global gaming market was estimated to generate over $150 bn in revenue, with a 9.6% annual rate of growth. This is a market of significant size, and it is distributed throughout the world.  

In 2018, the largest countries in the gaming market were China, the United States, Japan, Korea, and Germany. That’s five major languages right there! In addition to the Asian gaming languages,  English has dominated as the lingua franca of the gaming market in many parts of the world. Yet the localization of content is worthwhile in order to attract new users in areas where English is not the native and/or commonly used language.  Under the current circumstances of increased interest in gaming, this is a very timely decision for a gaming company.

More than 15 major languages are used in the top 20 gaming countries. Apart from Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, that list includes Spanish, German, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Russian, just to name a few. Depending on the resources of the game developer or publisher, and analysis of the game marketplace, game localization can happen at a variety of levels. 

The first level is no gaming localization at all. A game may be available in a market but only in the original language. The second level is box and documentation localization. In that case, the box and documentation (or manual) would be translated, but not the game itself. This level might be chosen if the game itself has little text or a very simple storyline, as the early arcade games, or if the gamers in the geographical target area tend to be more or less fluent in the original language. An example of this would be the Nordic countries where English-language games are rarely localized. 

The game could also be partially localized. In this case, the game text is translated but voiceover files aren't. Compared to full localization, this approach cuts the technical, labor, and time-related costs of recording the dialogue in multiple languages. However, it still makes the game comprehensible in another language. Voiceover dialogue that doesn't appear on the screen may be subtitled. The fourth level of localization is full localization. In that case, all parts and all support materials will be translated, including voiceover, game text, graphics, and manuals.

Moreover, a game publisher would need to consider whether to translate any legal documents relating to the game and its content. Another concern is whether the marketing materials should be translated or the web page localized. 

It is important to have a trusted partner in the localization process. Especially now, when the demand for new games and versions or updates has increased. A quick and reliable localization partner can make all the difference in rolling a new game out to the market. 

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To learn more about how MotaWord can help you serve a growing multilingual gaming market with fast and accurate localizations without breaking the bank, check us out at www.motaword.com, email us at info@motaword.com, or contact us through our 24/7 live chat.

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About MotaWord

MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock, and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

We have our proofreader sessions where we answer questions from our proofreaders. This time around, we have invited one of our proofreaders to answer some questions about becoming a translator at MotaWord.

Andrea has been a member of our community and actively working with us since 2017. She has translated tens of thousands of words and proofread many projects, including large projects from our clients such as Iron Mountain, InSight, etc. She lives in Argentina and works as a full-time translator/proofreader on our platform. Her answer can give some insight about becoming a translator at MotaWord.

What is your main area of expertise?

Translation and proofreading.

How did you get into translating/proofreading?

I have a college degree in translation, first in English and then in Italian. I graduated from English studies about 25 years ago.

What is best about translating on MotaWord?

The translation editor is very user friendly. Even if you are not used to working on online platforms, it is very easy to use. The directions are very clear about what you need to do or what you should not do.

MotaWord's support is always available whenever I have a problem. Whenever I contact the MotaWord team, I’ve always received help almost instantly, which is very good when working on a translation project.

Payments are very clear and made very fast. It is something the translators should not worry about, also very important because sometimes when you work with translation agencies, you have to do a lot of procedures and paperwork to get paid. You have to submit invoices and constantly check whether the invoice is in process or in place etc. These are the things you have to invest a lot of time in. Instead, in MotaWord, you don’t have to invest a single second in that area. Because every word you translate is automatically counted on the translator dashboard. So it is very easy to check, you just go there and you see which work you have done, if it is paid, not paid, or scheduled to be paid. That is very important for translators because typically we devote our time to translating. It is very uncomfortable to spend time checking payments and invoices.

What do you think about working collaboratively on MotaWord?

In the beginning, it was different since you can see other translators translating things in a different way than you are. You basically learn from others, almost like a training. Also, the other way around, sometimes you see things are not good enough but you always have a chance to write your notes in the comment section. With this process, you provide feedback to other translators and it improves the results dramatically.

How big of help is our translation memory to you?

Translation memory is a great tool for me and all other translators, I think. You have to be very careful about the context of the document being translated. The same exact translation memory may not fit in the context all the time. So I use them if I see them fit. As soon as I do another version of the same translation, my version appears in the translation memory. As I continue with my translation, if I have to use that word or that phrase again, I just look for it in the translation memory. I click on it and it is copied to the translation immediately.

What are some common mistakes you see as a proofreader?

They are usually about terminology (I mark it as “consistency” after I edit it). When the translators are working on projects, sometimes they don’t check the glossary list for the words they don’t know. You may see a word is translated in different ways by different translators. This affects the consistency throughout the text and puts an unnecessary burden on the proofreader. Here, glossaries help me as a proofreader.

Would you recommend becoming a translator at MotaWord to others?

Yes, I encourage becoming a translator and working to get to being promoted as a proofreader at MotaWord to others. The team is very friendly and always willing to help translators in their assignments. The editor's page is very user-friendly compared to other online platforms. You can easily understand how it works and starts working immediately.

Thank you Andrea for answering our questions and being a part of our community. For more information on becoming a translator at MotaWord, click here.

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To learn more about how we can help you reach out to your audience with accurately translated messages fast and without breaking the bank, check us out at www.motaword.com, email us at info@motaword.com, or contact us through our 24/7 live chat.

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About MotaWord

MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock, and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

During the past decade, communication channels have multiplied and information has been disseminated through a distributed system that includes various social media applications and web-based tools. Traditional channels with rigorously fact-checked information are a dwindling minority compared to the avalanche of rumors, opinions, and factoids bouncing around cyberspace. Fast and accurate translation service can help fight this "infodemic".

With the democratization of information, two types of false information have become prominent. One of them is started and spread with sinister intentions and the other, while spread with good intentions, is potentially no less harmful. And like for any crowd-sourced material, when Pandora's box has been opened it is impossible to pinpoint the source or curb the spread of harmful news.  

The first one, disinformation, is material that is intentionally false. Whereas the second one, misinformation, is unintentionally false communication. Still, it may lead to just as much harm and confusion as disinformation and it is often even harder to curb as the agents are not aware of spreading false information. 

So, what does misinformation, disinformation, and confusion have to do with translations? Everything, one might answer. Communication is only as effective as how well it is understood by the intended recipient, and not all audiences share the same language (or any other source language of the information in question). 

Today, it’s hard to consider any communications-related issue without a reference to the current pandemic. And a serious concern is that while COVID-19 is spreading around the globe, at its heels there’s a wave of misinformation so severe that a representative of the World Health Organization has been quoted saying: “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic.”

Fake news, be it due to misinformation or disinformation, can be just as dangerous as the virus itself: shooting some Lysol in your veins, anyone? Or treating yourself with the antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine?  And the speed and ease of spreading rumors and false facts are mind-boggling. 

Fast and accurate translation of fact-checked information in a language and format people can understand is an absolute necessity to counter misinformation and to stop or at least slow the infodemic. Moreover, having access to fast and accurate translations around the clock at a price that is not a hindrance to keeping your audiences properly informed is a service we’re happy to offer at MotaWord. 

Accurate translation removes one source of misinformation – misunderstanding the message in a language that is not completely understood or listened to. An often-repeated quote attributed to Nelson Mandela is “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

A fast and accurate translation service will allow you to speak to a man in his language and send a message to his heart!

Case in point is a global client of ours, Avis Verifies that relies on the fast and accurate translation service provided by MotaWord. You can read more about what we do for them at the link.

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To learn more about how we can help you reach out to your audience with fast and accurate translations, without breaking the bank, check us out at www.motaword.com, email us at info@motaword.com, or contact us through our 24/7 live chat.

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About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock, and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

 

Get it translated before docking in the next port

In addition to the human devastation of the ongoing pandemic, many negative byproducts are emerging. The invention of a new word, “covidiot” doesn’t quite balance the scales on the challenges the human race has to face due to COVID-19, both personally and professionally. For global trade, it is an unprecedented effort to adapt to something this big and disruptive by finding new routes and tools. Moreover, the adaptation has to happen simultaneously while dealing with daily business.

If your business forms one of the links in the global supply chain, then you find yourself facing exactly this problem. The global health crisis did not magically prevent us from needing goods and services or parts and components, many of which are produced by international suppliers, and hence our need for the continuation of global trade. 

Just like us humans, countries are not self-sufficient. On the contrary, the interaction between one another is needed, preferably in a form we call trade. Yet, the backbone of global trade, the maritime logistics industry, is dealing with multiple problems due to COVID-19, including delays.

Maritime logistics and laws have always been a complex subject - a machine if you will, whose parts are being kept in sync through intricate sets of rules. In our interconnected world, we have not paid attention to how fragile this system is. The first response of some countries has been naval lockdowns or movement restrictions. Some manufacturers and/or retailers have not been able to deliver or pick up their cargo or containers. Those who have been able to do so, perform with delays due to reduced workforce in the docks around the world. A very time-sensitive industry is now being tested by its biggest nemesis - time itself.

Do not let translation be another delaying factor…

MotaWord has always been there to provide our fast and accurate translation services to the maritime industry, and COVID-19 can not stop us from doing that. As a platform model, our operations continue unhindered while we recognize and deeply sympathize with the industries that are affected more by the pandemic. We know that the maritime industry faces multiple additional challenges at docks and ports, with customs and permits, and we would hate to see timely access to documents in the needed language becoming one of them. With our expert linguists in the maritime industry, engineering, and maritime laws, MotaWord keeps on providing the fastest professional translation known globally.

Whether it is custom declarations or technical manuals, specifications, marketing texts, analyses and reports concerning export and/or imports… We are here to translate them for you, 24/7. Landing bills, ISO, ATA, CE documents, TÜV certificates, consignment notes? All the same. You can obtain an instant translation quote by clicking this link, and order your translation right away. We will get it translated before your ship docks in the next port.

We had previously touched upon "how MotaWord's fast and accurate translations will help in fighting the current infodemic". Make sure to read that article also...

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About MotaWord
MotaWord provides fast and accurate translations globally, on-demand. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

By March 13, 2020, it had become clear in New York, and much earlier in many other parts of the world, that going to the office or school, attending a choral practice or yoga class was no longer a safe thing to do in person. For businesses, this meant having their employees work remotely from the safety of their homes, and moving their communications and teamwork to online platforms.

For colleagues to work on projects together, or for companies to stay in touch with their clients, not to mention for millions and millions of schoolchildren to have access to continuing their education, much wider adoption of virtual solutions and video platforms ensued.  Within a week, it felt like the whole world had migrated to Zoom Businesses conducted meetings in Zoom, people checked in with their loved ones, exercise group members cheered each other up, and many schools conducted remote learning sessions on the platform. And the inevitable problems ensued…

In the middle of eight-year-olds’ geography lesson there was suddenly a video of an explicit adult encounter. A large group of consultants got an additional square on their screens with an obscured face shouting out obscenities. This list could go on for much longer.

While slow in their reaction at first, and amazingly not expecting this kind of zoombombing - a new term coined for the phenomenon - the company has since improved their security measures, and the numerous users have also learned to implement those tools to ensure the security and privacy of their online interactions. These are the growing pains that many companies, organizations or private people were facing, as remote working was not a normal state of affairs for most of them.

For us, at MotaWord the term “remote working” always meant “working” even in the Pre COVID-19 days, though. So, our way of life has a new name now due to this pandemic; looks like we have years of “social distancing” or “self-isolation” behind us. While the labels may sound dismal, virtually nothing has changed or needed to be revamped in the way we do our business. Not only our external team of over 19,000 freelancers around the world but also our core team have always been working from wherever they decide to turn on their computers. And this remote working experience, far from being isolating, brought our global team together to collaborate in projects, allowed for strategy meetings with participants in multiple time zones, built a strong sense of belonging  - and created a nice tradition of intercontinental e-coffee breaks.

As a platform, MotaWord never sleeps. Hence, we never had any other choice but to implement a distributed workforce model. We have clients from all corners of the world and team members to care for our clients in real-time. We have translators who incessantly answer those clients' needs, and who get the support of our core team around the clock. A team tied to a brick and mortar office wouldn’t cut it. Our remote working model is a significant factor in our ability to revolutionize the centuries-old translation industry. And more importantly, we wouldn’t and couldn’t call ourselves a technology company, if we were using only conventional solutions.

Not to categorize them as unconventional, after all, video calls were widely used before the pandemic, but this is why we had to turn to virtual meeting tools from the very first day. And we love it. We love being able to team up with our colleagues and communicate with our clients whether we’re calling in from Izmir, Paris, or New York. Moreover, our internal meetings are entire via video conferencing from the company-wide meeting on Mondays to smaller groups throughout the week. Our tool of choice is Google Hangouts, yet we are always ready to be present on any platform that our translators or clients use. Thanks to our ability to use these tools, remote working never meant being away from our responsibilities but, on the contrary, provided us with a tool to be present whenever needed.

We understand that for many companies and individuals, working remotely is a new development, and we’re happy to share our experience in the area. Some of the applications below have free options up to a number of users or frequency of usage, for example. Depending on your needs, one of them may suit you better for communicating with your colleagues than the others (the one that’s already localized into your native language, most likely). In addition, depending on the software ecosystem of your business, some of these applications can be easily opt-in with the system.

• Google Hangouts Meeting - One of the best features of Google Hangouts Meeting is its deep integration with other Google applications. If you operate in the Google world, this will make your life very simple by linking your calendar directly to the meeting link, and allowing for access to documents in Google Drive and Apps and sharing them in chat, without leaving your call.

• Cisco Webex - Cisco Webex provides a virtual whiteboard—with chat and videos on the side. Everyone in the call can type, draw, add shapes, and highlight or annotate anything on the screen, for an easy way to brainstorm ideas.

• GoToMeeting - GoToMeeting is packed with professional features, including call recording, dial-in numbers, and it lets up to 6 people on the call to have their video streamed in HD. Attendees can join from their browsers, and while sharing their screen, they can use drawing tools to point out the issues discussed.

• Skype - Skype for Business is part of Microsoft’s 365 suite offering and provides an IP PBX for online messaging and web conferencing. It includes features such as live streaming, dialing into conference calls, and the ability to make, receive and transfer calls via computer or mobile device.

Whichever application you choose, security must be the number one priority. Do not forget that you are sharing your screen and your room via your camera. And security aside, this means that it’s a good idea to remove dirty dishes from the table behind you or lock the door to prevent your darling toddler from appearing in an important client meeting. Not to mention that it’s advisable to wear pants, especially if there's a chance you may need to chase the said toddler out of your room!

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About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Lower your translation cost without sacrificing quality - meet MotaWord’s smart translation discounts

As we all know, technology, when used right can help make human process better, by eliminating repetitive actions, ensuring that analysis on a large body of data is done in a snap and most importantly by aiding those working focus only on value added actions.

Here at MotaWord, we strive to be the fastest and the most affordable translation platform for businesses of any size, while maintaining the highest quality standard. To achieve this, we utilize, along with our native-speaking professional translators, YOUR translation memories so that you can consistently get the best quality and save on your translation costs.

How can we help you reduce translation costs? We developed four different features to maximize the savings on your translation needs.

1) Translate once, use forever, never pay again

Imagine this scenario: You recently updated some parts of your previously translated document and you only need to translate recently added strings. With MotaWord’s smart discounts, all you need to do is visit this link to get a new quote, upload your document and we will automatically deduct the cost of previously translated strings from your quote.

2) Lots of duplicate strings in your document? We got you covered.

MotaWord’s smart discounts will ensure that you will never be charged for the duplicate strings in your document. At the quote stage we analyse your documents and ensure that repetitive content is never charged twice.

3) Prospective Translation Memory - A First In The Industry

Let’s say you are trying to get a quote for a document and you already have a similar document that is currently being translated in the platform. Our first in the industry smart discount system will match the strings in your current document with the strings in the documents that are actively being translated into the platform and give you a discount for all the matches it can find. That means you will be getting discounts for the strings that might not even be translated yet. How cool is that?

4) Only need some parts to be translated? No problem at all.

There will be times where you don’t need your document to be translated fully. If that is the case, all you need to do is to highlight unwanted strings and MotaWord’s smart discounts will ignore highlighted texts in your quote. Don’t forget: feel free to pick any color to highlight your text, you always have the option to include or exclude highlighted texts in your quote.

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To learn more about how you can save more with MotaWord, check out our blog, feel free to email us at info@motaword.com or contact us through our 24/7 live chat. See you in future projects!

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About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Life Sciences Translation Services

As many medical companies and research institutions extend their work overseas, linguistic barriers quickly become an issue. MotaWord is here to provide localization in Life Sciences with its Artificial Intelligence (AI) supported translation platform to ensure your company communicates your idea and work in over 92 languages.

Our platform has extensive experience providing translation services in Life Sciences in the following verticals:

Healthcare

Being understood accurately is important when the health of an individual is on the line. With its broad experience with medical reports and other patient information requiring specific medical knowledge, MotaWord eliminates the language barrier through its platform for individuals seeking to get medical care and medical institutions communicating with their patients. Hospitals, for example, can integrate MotaWord into their existing systems to seamlessly handle non-English inquiries from their international patients, translate their existing medical records, and transfer translated documents directly to hospitals. To read more click here…

Medical Devices

With the growth of the medical devices industry, medical device manufacturers depend on accurate and quick localization to be able to fully access the global market. MotaWord recognizes the importance and sensitivity of these translations and makes sure its clients receive the highest quality translations. We assure your medical device is used safely with the help of accurately translated technical manuals, compliance documents, software application interfaces, package inserts, labels, user guides, and other documentation translations.

Pharmaceutical

Whether you are a pharmaceutical company looking to extend your sales internationally or you want to bring a new drug to the market and in need of high quality and accurate translation services to extend the reach of your treatment across national frontiers, MotaWord is here to take the charge.

We are well aware that accurate pharmaceutical translation services will directly affect patients’ lives and localization is required in most stages including production, clinical trial research, marketing, and regulatory submission. We have professional expert medical translators who are supported with our language translation technologies to deliver the most accurate pharmaceutical translations in a timely manner.

Contract Research Organizations (CRO)

With the development of new drugs, medical device products, and biotechnologies, the translation needs related to clinical trials also increase immensely. This is why life sciences companies turn to CROs to advance their processes and to implement their studies to the most applicable markets globally. MotaWord has an expert translation team who will help you achieve the best results. Our platform also comes with technologies that allow you to customize the service in ways that will meet all your specialized needs.

MotaWord, your partner in Life Sciences Translation Services

In the Life Sciences industry, it is crucial to be accurate, efficient and fast while being in regulatory compliance - language discrepancies must never become an issue. We can help you carry your products and knowledge to wherever you want to. Among its 19,000 human translators, MotaWord has someone who speaks your language!

Learn more about MotaWord translating for Patients and Healthcare Professionals. To get a free instant quote, click here.

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About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Social distancing and containment measures all around the world have brought us to this unique situation where we have to work remotely, often from our homes (or from our vacation properties - if this is you, stop sharing your pics from the beach on social media please).
Luckily, we have laptops, mobile devices, remote servers, and other tools to make working from home possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, a global event that will most certainly change the way we do our jobs.

According to a survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), 76% of companies have announced flexible working arrangements since the beginning of the pandemic. BCG and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, cites that an estimated 300 million office workers worldwide could do their jobs from home, 30 million of them live in the United States. 

Some say the current state of remote working reflects the Future of Work. We say it is already here, and at MotaWord, we are lucky to be ready for this big change, having pioneered this type of work for the last 7 years for the translation industry and thousands of translators globally. 

Remote work is in MotaWord’s DNA

Working remotely with access to a cloud-based platform and everything at our fingertips, providing us with the ability to work anywhere and at any time... is not news to MotaWord. 

MotaWord, by design, is accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, not only for its team but also for its translators and for its clients, thanks to cloud computing. 

18,000+ professional translators have access to MotaWord’s online translation editor through their browser. They don’t need to download any software to work on, and provide translation service on, MotaWord’s cloud-based platform. 

MotaWord’s clients can upload projects 24/7 thanks to our instant translation quotes and have access, through their browser and/or MotaWord’s mobile app, to a client dashboard storing everything related to all their translation projects - project files, source and translated documents, glossaries, translation memories, style guides, and invoices. MotaWord also offers great tools, which make it easier to work from home: Integration with Google Drive for G-Suite users, a ready-to-use translation API, and many others. No need to be in your office to manage your translations with MotaWord. 

Stay at home (and don’t touch your old school dictionary or your face).

PS: This article is about working from home for those of us whose jobs allow for remote work. We would like to send our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all those who work in hospitals, supermarkets, warehouses, and other essential businesses; who are themselves exposed to a high risk of contracting COVID-19, to ensure we have access to essential care, supplies, and services. 

© written at home

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About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 19 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Summary: Increase your market share by translating your content into the most popular online languages.

Have you heard of FAANG-BAT? No? That acronym stands for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. We don’t need to tell you that these are major global businesses today. The only reason they can be global is that they speak to each market in its own language and understand how each market is different.

They are localized. 

That is, they can be read in all the major languages where eCommerce is being conducted. A quick look at Alibaba.com is a clear illustration of this fact. You’ll see, in the top-right corner, that you can view this website in 18 languages. Translating your site into multiple languages lets you reach more people who can buy your product or more people who can use your service, than if you stay within your home market. This is especially true if you are not US-based. In an earlier time, those of us living and doing business in the US had the luxury of thinking only in terms of the US market. That is no longer the case. 

Let’s take a quick look at internet users by language. See what InternetWorldStats reports as of April 30, 2019. I guarantee the numbers are only greater now, nearly a year later.

According to a report from  Harvard Business Review: 

• 72.1% of consumers visit websites in their native language either all or most of the time

• 72.4% of consumers are more likely to buy a product when they learn about it in their own language

• 56.2% of consumers say that getting information in their own language is more important than price. 

Think about that last one a moment. This same report tells us that almost 42% of Europeans tell us that they never purchase products or services in another language. Imagine what that percentage must be for the Chinese language market.

Let’s look at an example: In the Netherlands, 90% of the population speaks English. So why bother translating your content into Dutch? The arguments above still apply. 

And with 

• 98% of Dutch households having broadband access 

• 76% of Dutch people 15 and older shopping online 

• A GDP of $933 Billion (USD)

you’ll agree that you want Dutch consumers on your website.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS YOUR BOTTOM LINE

You can see why we urge you to localize your site. You don’t want to miss out on business that could be yours if you’ll only speak to those prospective customers in their own language.

Where do you start?

You can start first by addressing people's most urgent needs when you Translate Your Knowledge Base.

We’ve written extensively about this topic and you’ll find these articles among the most useful.

• Should I Translate My Blog

• Why Is MotaWord Your Next Marketing Partner?

• Website Localization - More Than Translation

• The Case for Localization

• It Pays to Localize Your Mobile Game

Lastly, watch this video for more insights on localization.

Quick Tip: Localization 101 (Route 85)

Now go to MotaWord.com and paste the text from your home page into our pricing page. You’ll get an instant quote for your translation in just about any language pair you can think of. See how fast and affordable it is to speak to your next customer base.

About MotaWord

MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 18 thousand professional translators. MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Summary: Palindromes are firmly wedded to their source languages and cannot be translated.

In days and days of searching language and translation websites and blogs, I don’t find a single case where a palindrome in one language can be translated directly into a palindrome in another language. Even in cases where you have cognates those will not read the same in both directions for both languages. 

Translation is impossible. We’ll surrender to that fact and review some languages where people enjoy finding and playing with palindromes. There may be no English translation for a palindrome in French, German, Dutch, Italian, or Chinese but that’s what makes languages unique. Let’s celebrate that uniqueness and how palindromes blithely defy translation.

Here are some of my favorites, with commentary: 

English Palindromes

This one is clever for combining two well-known people from different era’s. And it’s a great one to visualize.

“Ed, I saw Harpo Marx ram Oprah W. aside.”

"Was it a cat I saw?" And was it a

"Senile feline"? 

"Do geese see God"?

That question then leads to the question, would a goose’s god have feathers and webbed feet?

German Palindromes

“Ein Esel lese nie”

This one translates as, ‘A donkey should never read’. Wise words indeed!

And in a related vein we have, 

“Reit’ nie tot ein Tier!” 

This translates as “Never ride an animal to death”. This seems like a decent thing to do, especially for donkeys, who are barred from reading.

And for those who like snarky remarks we have, 

“O Genie, der Herr ehre dein Ego!” 

The translation of that is, “O Genius, let the Lord praise your ego!” Ouch!

French Palindromes

“Engage le jeu que je le gagne“ 

The English translation of this is, “Kick off the game, so that I win it” We love a positive attitude!

Continuing  with our animal theme we have, 

“Élu par cette crapule“. 

The English translation is, “Elected by that toad.” If we kiss the toad, will it change into a prince? You go first.

Our next animal-themed palindrome is,

Eh, ça va la vache ? 

The translation for this is, “Hey, how is it, cow?” Who doesn’t like speaking with cows?

Italian Palindromes

And the final animal example is,

“I topi non avevano nipoti” 

We have the sad duty to tell you this translates as, “The mice had no grandsons". 

“Otto, l'ateo poeta, lottò” "

Otto, the atheist poet, fought" is how we translate the tale of this non-believer.

Chinese Palindromes

For those who know about languages that use word units, such as Chinese you won’t be surprised to learn about word-unit palindromes. That means that the series of units can be read in reverse and will be an intelligible sentence. 

Chinese palindromes can be more complex than those in Western languages in that some can be read forward, backward, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. This is the case with a poem by the poet Su Hui.  She lived from 365-427 C.E and the poem below, Star Gauge, is the only surviving example of her work. This palindromic poem is a grid of 29 x 29 characters that can be read in 2,848 different ways. It is truly a towering intellectual achievement and a rare thing of beauty.

You’ll enjoy reading more about this exceptional woman and the masterful poem she created in: Su Hui and the Star Gauge

And don't miss

More on Wordplay

English Translation: Eggcorns, Homophones and Mondegreens

Spanish Translation of Wordplay From English

Summary: W.S. Merwin, a well-known poet, in his 91 years produced an extensive range of poems, prose, plays, and translations.

“Modern poetry, for me, began not in English at all but in Spanish, in the poems of Lorca.”

-- W. S. Merwin

The Beginning

Born in New York City, William Stanley Merwin grew up across the Hudson River in Union City, New Jersey. In 1952, after graduating from Princeton University W.S. Merwin moved to Spain with his first wife, Dorothy Jeanne Ferry. While on the island of Majorca he met and collaborated on a play with Dido Milroy.  After splitting with Jeanne Ferry, he and Dido Milroy married and moved to London. He subsequently found work in Boston as the poet-in-residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts and as an editor for The Guardian. In 1968 he moved to New York City and, in the 1970s when he moved to Hawaii, ended up divorcing Dido Milroy. In 1983 he married his third wife, Paula Dunaway with whom he lived until his death on March 15, 2019.

But these are only the external events of Merwin's life and don’t show anything about the person and what he dedicated his life’s work to. 

His study and love of poetry began in earnest during his studies in Princeton. In his time in Europe he wrote plays and translated works of poetry and a Spanish novella. His collection of myth centered poetry, A Mask for Janus, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. 

On his return to the United States, he continued to write poetry and was among a group of poets who wrote about the Vietnam War. This was part of an evolution in his writing where he turned from addressing themes based on myths and legends to writing from a more personal perspective.

A Sampling of the Translations by W.S. Merwin

Spanish

The Poem of El Cid (Unknown)

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Pablo Neruda)

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes: His Fortunes and Adversities (Anonymous)

French 

Products of the Perfected Civilization, Selected Writings of Chamfort

The Song of Roland (attributed to Turoldus)

Robert the Devil (Anonymous)

Japanese

Sun at Midnight, poems by Musō Soseki

Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson

Italian

Purgatorio from The Divine Comedy of Dante

W.S. Merwin in numbers

8 Notable Awards: W.S. Merwin was celebrated with the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the PEN Translation Prize, and being named U.S. Poet Laureate among others.

30 The number of poetry collections he published over the course of 65 years.

21 The number of translated works he published. 

10 The number of languages he translated into English. He translated both literature and poetry from Spanish, French, Latin, Italian, Sanskrit, Yiddish, Middle English, Japanese and Quechua.

On March 15, 2019, W.S. Merwin passed away peacefully in his sleep in the aptly named town of Haiku, on the Island of Maui in Hawaii. His final home was on an 18-acre piece of land that he had transformed, or better yet, translated from a former pineapple plantation into the Merwin Conservancy. This conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of his hand-built, off-the-grid home and the rare palm trees that Merwin and his wife grew there. These palm trees are the most bio-diverse grouping of palm trees in the world.

You might call the changes to his land a translation from one true state to another. Both are nature but one involved the intervention of an aesthetic that favors biodiversity.

For someone who was arguable one of the most lauded translators of his generation, the following quote shows Merwin's humility and how much he respected the work of other poets.

“...there were degrees in the impossibility of translating poetry…”

W.S. Merwin

More on W.S. Merwin
The Mystery of Translation

W.S. Merwin: Online Resources

More in MotaWord's Famous Translators Series
The Self-translated Author: Samuel Beckett 
Global Shakespeare: Translating Iambic Pentameter 

W. S. Merwin, accomplished poet, and his exclusive full interview with 92nd Street Y

Valentine’s Day isn’t all roses for everyone. This year we present you with a linguistic bouquet. We offer translations of ‘I love you’ in seven languages and teach you phrases to break up with someone.

Remember, roses have thorns on the stems. Here's how you can come together or break up.

English 

    Coming: I love you.

    Breakup line: It’s not you. It’s me.

French Translation

    Coming: “Je t’aime”

    Breakup line: “Larguer querlqu'un” (refers to casting off the lines for a departing ship)

Italian Translation

    Coming: “Ti amo”

    Breakup line: “Dare il due di picche a qualcuno” (Giving someone the two of spades)

German Translation

    Coming:”Ich liebe dich”

    Breakup line: "Jemanden abschießen." (Firing someone off)

Spanish Translation

    Coming:”Te amo, te quiero”

    Breakup line: "Dar calabazas a alguien.” To give someone pumpkins. (vs. giving them love)

Turkish Translation

    Coming: “Seni seviyorum"

    Breakup line: “Sorun sende değil, bende.”(It’s not you. It’s me)

Polish Translation

    Coming: “kocham Cię”

    Breakup line: “"Zerwać z kimś." (Tearing with someone)

Don't forget, these are just some of the translations for 'I love you' and breakup phrases.  There are degrees and types of love and those nuances exist to a greater or lesser extent depending on the language. These are the tiles that make up the mosaic of human experience. Isn't it wonderful?

Dig deeper

How to Say I Love You in 100 of the World’s Most Spoken Languages

The breaking up clichés of 7 different languages, and what they mean

This Valentine’s Day we wish you all the best in love and life. Whether you are with the love of your life, in a beautiful relationship with an expiration date, or are quite happy, thank you very much, not being half of a pair, we wish you happiness and deep contentment.

And now a couple of videos related to our theme of translating I love you and breakup lines. We'll starting with a classic song on breaking up:

Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Official Audio) 

Let’s go out on a cheery note!

Summary: How can a business simply and safely manage translations at an enterprise-scale?

Over time, large companies can find themselves working with multiple translation vendors of varying quality and with no standardized process for managing projects. This is a nightmare if it’s your job to manage and track this translation work. And with multiple vendors you increase the likelihood that your content will end up somewhere, it shouldn’t be. That has legal implications.

MotaWord has you covered. 

Not only do we translate over 90 languages but our platform optimizes the process for both translators and clients. You get the highest quality translations that only humans can produce. We’re fast, affordable and you can see the process every step of the way.  

Getting Your Content on MotaWord

• GDrive
• Chrome Extension
• Grabber
• Images
• Drag ‘n Drop files
• File formats
• Type into MotaWord directly
• API 

Benefits of a MotaWord Corporate Account
A corporate account allows authorized people within your organization to order translation services 24/7 and to have your company billed monthly. And if your translation needs are ongoing, above a certain volume and predictable, a corporate account provides discounted rates in certain language pairs. You’ll be a hero when you save your company cold, hard cash. There is a minimum annual spend on Corporate Accounts. ($25K annual)

Managing User Permissions in Your Company - SAML
MotaWord makes authenticating your company’s users a snap. More than that, we make sure you control the process.

SAML is an open standard for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, in particular, between an identity provider and a service provider. Why should your company care? With our SAML integration, your users can easily log into MotaWord under your company account. There’s no need for a MotaWord password. You get peace of mind knowing you control who has permission to access MotaWord.

Security of Your Content

• All translation work is done on the MotaWord platform

• Your content is never emailed to a translator

• Translators cannot download your content

• Translators can work on only a limited number of text strings at one time

• Our system prevents screenshots

• See the status of every project, both in-process and completed

• HIPAA Compliant

Your client dashboard - Monitoring Your Translation Jobs
MotaWord lets you see your translation job as it’s being worked on and when it’s completed. And you can communicate directly with a translator while they’re working on your translation.

Table mode lets you see multiple translations of one translation project, all in one view.

You can also see one language pair at a time when a language job is ongoing or completed.

Try Motaword and you’ll experience the best tech-enabled human translations at enterprise scale. 

Simply. 

Safely. 

Transparency has never been this visible.

A Paradigm shift in International Client Communication and Medical Records Translation 

Current Practices:

You know the situation all too well – a patient has an illness and has exhausted all treatment options in their own country. Their doctors recommend that the patient seek treatment in the US healthcare system and your hospital has a wonderful reputation and track record for the appropriate treatment.

In the age of communication, the first thing a patient would do would be to go to their computer and start searching for the best treatment options in the US or better, go directly to your website because your hospital was referred to them. 

They would be searching for information regarding the possible treatment options but at the same time, your hospital also need information from the patient to determine eligibility for treatment.

You would need:

• patient intake forms, 

• insurance documents,

• financial documents, 

• passports,

• consent forms,

• And most importantly, existing medical records. 

Your website may provide language support, however, your hospital, like the majority in the US, might have a hard time exchanging information back and forth with the patient and when the time comes to do so, would ask the patient to translate the medical records to English.

Hence a painful journey begins for the patient… bogging down a person who is already not feeling well, or for their worried relatives who want to help with paperwork or translation chores. This is not the most humane or efficient way to begin the treatment process.

Problems with the Current Practices

Initial Inquiry: The patient doesn’t speak English at all or not well enough and they need to somehow get in touch with you. Sometimes it is a very difficult process even in the patient’s own language let alone in another language they may not have full command of. Do they just dial the hospital’s number and hope that you have an interpreter who speaks the patient’s language? How many interpreters would you need to keep on staff?

Accuracy: If you are in the medical field, you already know how important it is to translate your medical records accurately. A Google search quickly reveals how many people have died or undergone a wrong surgery due to translation mistakes. Or how many hospitals have been sued for hundreds of millions of dollars, again for operating on the wrong parts of the body, because of inaccurate translations.

Speed: (time is of the essence) The speed of the translation services, perhaps, is one of the most important parts of the treatment process. You don’t want your patients to sit around and wait for the translation agency to get back to them with a quote and how long it will take them to complete the translation. This process usually takes days if not weeks depending on the complexity of the medical records.

Cost: Most US hospitals would ask you to find translation services on your own – very few get involved with the translation process and only some provide a list of translation resources. The rest is up to the patient. Your patient then goes back to their computer and starts searching for translation options in their own country, potentially wasting their valuable time.

File Transfer: Now all the documents may be translated, and the patient has a bunch of paper and/or digital files in their hands. They are probably not tech wizards who know how to transfer all these files to your hospital. How do you send these files to the US hospital securely? Send a WhatsApp message, email attachment, take photos of these records? How about those complex file types in their original formats? How do you upload them? Most international patients end up using a combination of these methods and inevitably make things more complicated for your hospital staff. 

After the Treatment: Everything works fine in the US Hospital, your patient is well, and being discharged. But then they are handed a bunch of new medical records while treated in the US. The translation process starts again, this time back to the patient’s language for post-care. The patient’s doctors in their country will need them. It really is a painful process.

The future of Medical Translation Starts here with MotaWord

Communicating with your international patients in their native language and helping them get their medical records translated should not be all that difficult in this day and age, especially with MotaWord. Here is how it works:

Your potential patients visit your website: From the beginning, they will be able to view the content in their own language. We have over 17,000+ qualified translators around the world awaiting your translation work and we can handle translation in over 90 languages. Most hospitals can only process patient inquiries in a handful of languages. The patient inquires about your services in their language and your staff will see this translated into English within less than an hour. Your staff will write back, and your patient will get their messages back in their language, again also less than an hour – it is not magic, nor is it machine translation – it is our 17,000+ qualified translators around the globe working to help you and your patients.

When the patient needs to translate their existing medical records, all they need to do is to follow the instructions on your hospital’s web portal, and answer a few questions from your hospital’s website as shown below:

The patient copies/pastes or uploads the content, MotaWord detects the language, and the patient simply picks which languages they want their documents to be translated into. After entering an email address the patient is on their way! MotaWord’s translators will deliver the translated document back to the patient and to your staff in the original format in which it was uploaded. All the translation work is done on our secure MotaWord platform. No content is ever emailed to any translator and translations are performed by multiple translators through a process managed by Artificial Intelligence. 

This process is fast – you get an instant quote and estimated duration for delivery. You can rest assured that all translations delivered by MotaWord are as accurate as possible. Similarly, after the patient is discharged from your facility, you can have the patient go through this simple process to translate the medical records generated for them in your hospital.

In short, you remove the pain of the translation of medical records from the pre-arrival, in-hospital, and post-discharge process and keep a 24/7 communication channel open with your existing and potential international patients. With MotaWord, you will 

• Improve international patient satisfaction

• Increase the chance of treating more international patients who may not speak one of the major languages

• Save time and money for your hospital and patients

• Ensure the highest quality and accuracy 

Call us today to learn more about MotaWord and how we can help you with all your translation needs. 

Girk Cakmak

BD, Healthcare

(347) 884 1144

girk@motaword.com

Happy Birthday Australia! 

January 26th is Australia Day, celebrated to mark the arrival in 1788 of the first fleet of British ships. 

For many of us, this year has started with the devastating, continent-wide fire that is still blasting beautiful Australia, often (jokingly) referred to as the Land of Nope by the Internet. 

However, on the Internet, the general opinion towards Australian wildlife has settled around the idea that anything could kill you there. This faced a sudden test when the visuals depicting the damage started to fill our timelines and news feeds (and rightfully so). On the Internet, a place dominated by a generation that speaks meme fluently, the fire had hit home. Mainly thanks to this, the global help efforts were quickly organized for recovering the damage. Some, including us, would say that was what should be done since we were damaged as a whole planet. And some, again including us, would even say that it was not actually enough. 

To celebrate Australia's birthday, there is nothing better than helping her recover. 

For instance, Google and WWF each have recovery funds to help Australia. Don’t be shy. Visit their webpages!

Translating Tintin, the Beloved Comic, has involved translators in over one hundred languages over more than ninety years.

On January 10, 1929, the first Tintin comic was published. This January 10, 2020, is the ninety-first anniversary of the beloved comic book created by Belgian artist Hergé. 

Georges Remi, born in Brussels on May 22, 1907, and died on March 3, 1983, wrote Tintin under the pen name of Hergé. Over the course of 47 years, Hergé penned twenty-four Tintin comics including the final work, Tintin and Alph-Art, which was published posthumously in 1986. Hergé worked at Le Vingtième Siècle ("The Twentieth Century"), a Belgian newspaper in Brussels.

Translation Challenges

An article from the BBC’s website looked at how a publisher and the rights holder for the Tintin works chose a translator for the Hindi version of Tintin. They were looking for a literary translator who met these specific requirements:

• "The main criterion for selecting the translator was how passionate he was about Tintin. 

• “The second criterion was how good he was in Hindi.”

• “The third criterion was how willing the translator was to take inputs from the French Tintin comic books."

• "But the litmus test was how well a translator could translate [Captain Haddock's signature abuse] 'billions of blue blistering barnacles'!

Cultural Sensitivities

When Hergé first began writing Tintin Congo was a colony of Belgium. The attitudes toward Africa and Africans were that of a colonizing country and the people of the Belgian Congo were depicted in a paternalistic style. There has been some criticism that this was racist but at the time, there was no controversy and the book was popular.

In the 1980s, a lawsuit that sought to ban Tintin in the Congo was dismissed by a Belgian court. The judges ruled that this work reflected the colonial attitudes of the times but that Hergé was not racist.

Read about the lawsuit here

Parodies 

Such was the influence that the Tintin comics exerted on popular culture that artists and writers created many satirical versions of the comic. The literary critic Tom McCarthy identified these works as belonging to three categories: pornographic, political, and artistic. Some explicitly used the Tintin name while others created names that played off of the original. Nitnit, Timtim, or Quinquin were among that group. 

Translation Facts

Since these are comic books, for every new language, (that is, the target language) the translation must fit in the speech bubble of the character speaking. This is a practical matter that cannot be compromised. More broadly, this is the same requirement that must be considered when translating website content. This is where localization plays an essential role and the skill of the translator is required.

In translating Tintin into English, some of the characters were renamed to be more English-reader friendly.

Tintin (unchanged)

Dupont and Dupont became Thompson and Thompson.

Milou became Snowy

Professeur Tournesol became Professor Calculus

Captain Haddock (unchanged)

Bianca Castafiore (unchanged)

Tintin in Numbers

How many comic albums were written

The number of languages Tintin has been translated into

The number of copies of Tintin sold since 1929

Read More on Tintin:

Wikipedia

Michael Turner, Translator, and Publisher Who Brought Tintin To A British Audience

Tintin Essentials

More from MotaWord’s Blog

Read about translating a different kind of graphic novel, The Graphic Translation Of Persepolis

The Little Prince - Still Unique Through Translation

See all of our Famous Translator series

Summary: When translating English, you should ask, did the writer mean to say that? Eggcorns, homophones, and mondegreens are dangerous soundalikes.

The Problem
A phrase or word sounds close to the meaning that fits the context but something gives you pause. Trust your instinct, stop and research the word or phrase. It might be wrong and you’ll lose your chance to save the author from themself. Do you think it’s not your job to be an editor when you were hired as an English translator? Here’s another way to think about it. It is your job to faithfully render the intended meaning and you should determine that intention.

What are some language traps to be aware of when working on English translations? 
“He had a deep-seated problem”. More likely than not the writer meant ‘deep-seated’ and not ‘deep-seeded’. Both could work but ‘deep-seated’ is the original phrase. What to do? If the author is alive and available the safest thing to do is ask them. And be neutral in your question. You gain nothing by playing gotcha. The author may have been perfectly aware but chose their wording regardless. If you cannot consult with the author you have to decide what best serves the text.

This above category of mistake, where an existing phrase is replaced by a sound-alike and plausible phrase, is called an ‘eggcorn’  and was coined by the linguist, Geoffrey Pullum in 2003. 

Here are two other pairings that qualify as eggcorns: 

• old timers’ disease versus Alzheimer’s disease 

• baited breath versus bated breath. Bated, is a shortening of the word abated. That means holding one’s breath. 

• for all intensive purposes versus for all intents and purposes

Related Hazards
Eggcorns are similar to but different from homophones. Homophones are defined as words that have the same sound but are spelled differently. Examples are seed: cede, sore: soar, sew: sow and so on. (couldn’t resist) Most professional English translators won't mistake 'where' for 'wear' or 'there' for 'their' but your clients will be 'greatful' if you remember to spell it 'grateful'. A grammar checker won't always catch every mistake.

Mondegreens are yet another related category of misunderstood phrases. 

• From the Christmas song, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

‘...all of the other reindeer’ becomes the mondegreen, ‘...Olive, the other reindeer’

• Another Christmas song, Silent Night

‘Round yon virgin…’ becomes the mondegreen ‘Round John Virgin’

Where to Find Help
The sites below will get you acquainted with the various ways we can mishear or misunderstand words and phrases. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading the examples you’ll find.

The Eggcorn Database 

Homophones - The internet's only complete homophone list     

Homonyms and Homophones: Avoid These Common Copywriting Mistakes

This light takes on eggcorns is guaranteed to make you smile.

Summary
Writers and translators make mistakes and we should guard against the variety of errors that we outline for English translations here. 

Now that you've sharpened your English translation skills we would love for you to consider joining us as a translator. Join a community of translators who help each other while simultaneously working on a translation.

Related Reading
Professional Translators Have the 'Write' Stuff
What is Translation Memory (TM)

Summary: Companies with global ambitions can localize their content in steps. Step one is to translate your knowledge base.

The Challenge
Your company’s English language website has clients or users in countries throughout the world. You know that fully localizing your site will make users comfortable and increases sales. In each market where you operate, your customers should identify your company as being native to their country. 

As you move towards that goal you can still set yourself above your competitors by meeting your users’ most pressing needs. Anticipate their questions and give them answers in their native language. Few US websites offer multilingual customer support in a language other than English. But identifying qualified bilingual customer support personnel is both difficult and expensive. How do you offer quality customer support in other languages? 

Where to begin
Determine what languages to translate. The most obvious way is when your customer support team is contacted in a different language. Track the frequency of those non-English contacts. If you are using help desk software, for each interaction you should tag that language. 

But you might have questions coming to you in English from international sources. That’s where you’ll need to do a bit more detective work. You’ll need to look at the source of your traffic to determine what country that traffic is coming from. In Google Analytics you can apply a filter to see this information.

Localizing, i.e. translating your customer support should be done in two stages: 

Active One-on-one interactions between users and your customer support team and
Passive Knowledge Base of instructional articles and your Frequently Asked Questions. (FAQs)

When you translate your knowledge base you are taking advantage of content that is basically static. This is a low-cost way to let users help themselves. Translating your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) provides the same benefits. Unless your services or products are changing rapidly, this content won’t need to be updated for months at a time.

Once this useful content has been translated you will need to equip your Customer Support team with translated email templates for common customer issues. Those translated customer support templates will point users to your newly translated knowledge Base articles or FAQs.

MotaWord makes it simple to translate your Knowledge Base with our APIs for WordPress and Drupal to name just a few. For more detailed or nuanced interactions, MotaWord can translate your email responses to convey that support is done natively. But you won’t need to incur the costs of hiring and training in multiple markets. Those costs can be considerable.

Conclusion
Meeting your customers’ needs, along with helping them understand and use your product, improves your customers’ experience. You may not ‘delight’ your customer. (the current buzzword in the user experience world) but making their life easier with better customer service is a great way to start.

Related Articles

Is All Translation Localization?
Socialpubli Uses Motaword To Localize Social Media Content
Help Desk Software Comparison

Summary: When do we need to translate a language? When one language develops a variety of accents, then dialects, then separate languages.

“Accent development is the first step in language change. Fifteen hundred years ago, languages like English, Dutch and Swedish were actually all dialects of the same language, but of course, then they diversified over time.” - University of Munichlinguist Jonathan Harrington

English, modern German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian all developed from a common Germanic language. But how does that process work? How do accents evolve to regional language differences, that then become dialects, that then become distinct languages that now need to be translated to be understood?

Recently, the University of Munich linguist Jonathan Harrington and his team published research on how accents form with this experiment. Members of the British Antarctic Survey team, who speak with a variety of English accents, spend winters isolated from other English speakers. The researchers provided them with recording equipment and they recorded a list of words prior to going to Antarctica. Then, four times during their stay, they re-recorded this same list of words. Analysis of the recordings showed that, over time, their accents had become more similar. And perhaps a more interesting aspect of this study was the fact that the researchers used a computational model that predicted “...quite well...” the phonetic changes that were then observed in the recordings. 

See the study, Phonetic change in an Antarctic winter

Listen to an interview with a linguist, Jonathan Harrington

Another different study yielded similar results. There was only one test subject, Elizabeth II, the Queen of England. The same researcher, Jonathan Harrington, along with, Sallyanne Palethorpe, and Catherine I. Watson, were granted access to thirty years of recordings of the Queen giving her annual Christmas messages. What changes over time could be found in her pronunciation? They found that her accent had changed to more closely match the accent known as Standard Southern-British. She sounded less posh as time went on.

The above examples are only snapshots in time, as compared to the time it takes for a separate language to evolve. While in extreme cases accents can be unintelligible to some of us, generally someone from the northern states of the US understands someone from the southern states. We don’t yet need to translate what we’re saying. 

But imagine a post-apocalyptic movie where there’s no internet, radio, or transportation among the various parts of the country. In one hundred years, maybe more, there would be very distinct differences in our languages, First, there would be differing accents. Next, there would be dialects that would still be mutually understandable. And finally, we would evolve to have different languages that would need to be translated.

The factors that cause languages to emerge include influences from exposure to other languages (n’est pas?), environment, and climate. This last one is getting attention from researchers at the University of New Mexico. They looked at 628 languages, worldwide, and matched the prevalence of vowels and consonants with the climatic and environmental conditions where each language was spoken. They found languages with similar acoustic properties had similarities. In heavily forested environments and in high-temperature environments, consonants tend to be distorted and difficult to hear. In those environments, languages tend to use fewer consonants. 

As technology continues to speed communications among countries we might expect languages to evolve more quickly than they have historically. Popular culture encourages linguistic cross-pollination. The US has been accused of having too much influence on other cultures but now we’re seeing more multi-directional influence from K-Pop (Korean music) to the films of Almodóvar (Spain), Guillermo del Toro (Mexico), and so many other countries producing great films. While we still need to translate these works they are leaving their mark on American English.

Ciao for now!

P.S. When it’s clear there are two distinct languages and you need to translate from one to the other, MotaWord is your best value in translation services. 

Read more: 

We Are Not Just a Website
What Is Translation Memory? (TM)

What are the prospects for professional growth and advancement in MotaWord? Knowing what locale the translation will be used in? How to get more work from MotaWord? How can translators see their ranking in Motaword? These questions are asked by MotaWord’s professional translators and answered in this video by MotaWord founder Evren Ay. You can follow through the provided script for quick answers or watch the video directly.

For more in-depth information about joining MotaWord's Business Development team, you can read “Call for Entrepreneurs / Business Developers, We’re hiring!” 

Here is the full script of the video:

And welcome again. Thanks, Marcos. Today we have questions from Berenice to start off; What are the prospects for professional growth and advancement?

Ok well if you are a translator, definitely becoming a proofreader. If you are a proofreader you should know that MotaWord first hires from our proofreader cohort. So please review the job postings on LinkedIn and MotaWord website. Also, business development is an important part of our growth. You can become part of the MotaWord Rockets - a commission-based sales opportunity or directly be involved in making MotaWord functional in the geography or in the cities and countries that you are located in. That's about it. 

Great. 

And Sandra asks "I think it's important to state clearly on the translation jobs if they are to be translated into Portuguese from Portugal or from Brazil."

All projects have that information in an invitation, style guide and even Translation Editor pages. You would see it on the top there. It shows if it's going from English into whatever or whatever into whatever. If you see someone not adhering to the required language while you are working on it - especially as a proofreader, please remember our “if you see something, say something” rule and just warn us.

Great and Susmita and Shahbaz both have similar questions. Susmita asks "Hello Oytun and Evren Greetings, as a Bengali Translator and proofreader I have noticed the workflow is not that much as I expected also after launching the MotaWord app I did not receive any job from MotaWord, even though I have installed the app in my mobile phone. Could you please check the matter."

It is true that we are - there are certain languages in which we are more active than others. Bengali and Farsi are not one of those languages, unfortunately. But they can be. If either of you is interested, and I think I said this during the meeting also help us get there by working with us and pinpointing, reaching out and onboarding clients that require those languages. MotaWord's sales experience and support can help and you could most probably get into a better career opportunity that would complement your skills as a translator. So if you want to talk about that, I'll put a link underneath but my email also is evren@motaword.com, just send me an email, we could start that discussion.

And finally, Effie asks "How can translators see their ranking in Motaword?"

If by ranking you mean individual grades the short answer is they cannot. Mostly because our rankings are algorithmic and a single score does not mean anything. We do however share how a translator performed with them after each project. They actually receive and are able to see edits to their contributions and can even comment on those, in turn, reviewing the proofreaders and how they have graded those translations. There is also, once a translator or a proofreader finishes a project, the next time they log in to our platform we let them know how their last project was received. Whether it was done well or whether it needed a little bit more work and again every individual edit that we ever do to a translation is shared with them.

Great and we'll take more questions next week. Great well, it's all for this week folks. See you next week, bye.

Summary: Ken Liu, a Chinese translator reveals the rich contemporary science-fiction scene in China while avoiding the ire of Chinese censors.

Chinese Translations Under Censorship

Literary works have always been subject to scrutiny by the ruling authorities. And those works that receive the most attention - almost always unwanted - are those that deal with societal or governmental issues. As a result, writers find ingenious, nuanced ways of treating subjects that could get them banned, imprisoned or worse. How do Chinese translators stay true to the intentions of the original while not creating political problems for the author and inviting censorship? The answer is, very carefully.

Ken Liu, is making a name for himself as an astute translator and curator of Chinese science fiction. Seven years ago, in 2012, he was contacted by a Chinese company with an offer to do an English language translation of a science-fiction novel titled, The Three-Body Problem. This was the first time he had been confronted with the task of translating a complex novel from Chinese into English. Immersing himself in the work, he came to the opinion that the novel would be better with major structural changes that would more clearly tell the story. Those changes to the novel meant highlighting the Cultural Revolution’s violence and oppression which ultimately leads to an interstellar clash. When Ken Liu proposed these changes, Cixin Liu, the author, immediately agreed, saying this was his original intention.

This is a perfect example of a paradoxical quote by author Jorge Luis Borges:

“The original is unfaithful to the translation.”

Removing a narrative from the present and placing it in a different time and place has always been a device used by authors to protect themselves from censorship. Shakespeare was working in Elizabethan England where, in 1559, the law of the land said that no play could be staged that touched on, “... either matter of religion or of the governance of the estate of the commonweal." And in 1606 a law was passed that mandated a fine of 10 pounds for performances that made fun of or spoke profanely of God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost or the Trinity. Learn more here Shakespeare and Censorship

Likewise, Verdi’s opera Un Ballo in Maschera, went through multiple revisions to satisfy the dictates of censors to not offend royalty.

Read more: 

Global Shakespeare: Translating Iambic Pentameter

High-quality Translation Philosophy With Jorge Luis Borges

Ken Liu is more than a Chinese translator. He is a novelist and short-story writer who actively seeks out thought-provoking Chinese writers who merit a wider readership. This curatorial act requires searching internet forums, social media sites, and the self-publishing platform Daoban. His friends in China send him science-fiction works that can only be found on apps inside China. And part of his job is to remain cognizant of the fact that some literary works can be politically sensitive. He views it as part of his job to navigate the perilous straits of topics that could threaten the social order.

Two years after first seeing The Three-Body Problem the book was published and has been widely acclaimed, the winner of the 2015 Hugo Award (in the science-fiction field) and, with the next two books of the trilogy, has gone on to sell nearly nine million copies.

In a recent feature in the New York Times Magazine, Ken Liu talks about the precarious task of translating politically sensitive works: “It’s a very tricky dance of trying to get the message that they’re trying to convey out, without painting the writers as dissidents,” He asks the authors how explicit he should be in his translation where the original may have had multiple possible meanings and ambiguity. His goal is not a sentence-by-sentence translation but one where he recreates the essential effect of the original while retaining the author’s voice.

Learn more about Ken Liu in this delightful interview where translation, writing, technology, blockchain, spending time with your children are all fair game to examine.

Summary: Translating content for the US market is just on way MotaWord helps Nordic companies succeed.

Nordic Innovation House is a worldwide network of business hubs in Silicon Valley, New York City, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The mission in each location is to create a ‘soft landing’ pad for Nordic companies solving problems on a global scale. That means offering those companies access to mentorship, service providers and advisors, all to accelerate growth in new markets. Their programs include basics in marketing, sales, and branding. And member companies can expect to attend events led by industry experts and workshops on the many facets of entering the US market.

In New York City since 2017, the Nordic Innovation House has been a distinct presence on the city’s tech scene. MotaWord, headquartered in NYC, has been a friend of the Nordics and even attended Slush in Helsinki through this friendship. In New York City, part of Nordic Innovation House's mandate is to help its members translate and adapt their content so that it feels local in the US market. This process of localization is where MotaWord can add tremendous value and help these Nordic companies success in the US.

Now MotaWord is thrilled to announce we’re strengthening our ties with the Nordic community by partnering with Nordic Innovation House to help their members translate their content for the US market. MotaWord will play an important role in the success of these growing companies not only by helping them to translate and localize their content in the US but also by supporting their expansion into international markets. We’ll also be cross-promoting each other on our websites and social media channels. For MotaWord, this will be easy since we’ve seen firsthand the value Nordic Innovation House provides to its members. 

At MotaWord, we’re excited by this recent deepening of relations and look forward to years of supporting the Nordic Innovation House and their member companies. Stronger international ties make the world a better place.

Learn more about:
MotaWord’s Clients
Your Marketing Partner for Localization

Image: The famous, Socialist Fraternal Kiss from 1979.  

Summary: When the Berlin wall fell, how much had the German language changed? Enough to need a German to German translation?

At the end of WW II, the German city of Berlin was separated by a wall into east and west sections. Broadly speaking, the East was influenced by Soviet Russian culture and the West was influenced by Western Europe and the US. This separation lasted for 40 years, until 1989, and during this time the German language began to evolve along different lines on either side of the wall. 

The net effect, according to some language authorities, was not dramatic. No one spoke of there being an East German or West German dialect. And the estimates are that there were between 800 and 3,000 German words that were completely different or used differently on either side of the Berlin wall. That represents between 1.8 and 3 percent of all German words.

How did the German language in East and West Germany change during the cold war?

We looked at another example in which a language splits into variants. And while these are not quite dialects, the changes are headed in that direction. See our blog, Korean Translation Is Hard. Ask Koreans. In the case of the Korean Language of North and South Korean, the isolation of North Korea from the rest of the world has created a much wider linguistic gap. North Korean defectors have a hard time with language - to say nothing of culture - when they arrive in South Korea. But back to the subject at hand - the German language.

Examples: 

Because there were different foods and consumer goods available on each side of the Berlin wall, terms that were unique to one side on the other were coined. 

In East Germany, there was a word, Muckefuck, that means a coffee substitute. This might have come from 1) a variant or crude version of ‘mocha faux’. or 2) ‘rotten wood’. Since coffee was (and still is) readily available in West Germany there was no need for this term. It’s safe to say this wasn’t a word indicating something delicious. Below you'll see other examples of words that differed.

East German	West German	English
Bemme	belegtes Brot	sandwich
Campingbeutel	Rucksack	backpack
Erdmöbel	Sarg	coffin
Feierabendheim	Seniorenheim	care home
Flebben	Fahrerlaubnis	driving license
Getränkestützpunkt	Getränkeladen	bottle shop
Grüne Minna	Polizeiauto	police car
Kombinat	Konzern	company
Niethosen	Jeans	jeans

Source: Central Berlin Blog

When regions aren’t separated with a hard barrier as they are in the case of North and South Korean and formerly in Berlin, there’s a tendency for regional differences to be erased either through travel, migratory patterns or by people using media in common, such as television, radio or media on the internet.

The regional differences erode over time until there is a new, homogenous version of the language. You see this is the major cities in the South in the US, where there is either no Southern accent or it is greatly diminished as compared to those towns in the South where families stay for generations. In those regions, people continue to speak with a stronger accent.

That’s the case with the German language in a now-united Germany. It's been almost 30 years since the Berlin wall came down. The differences that were arising have receded and are mostly discernible only in people who grew up during the time that the Berlin wall still divided the country. No German translation required.

The inspiration for this blog post was this podcast:

Podcast Allusionist 109 East-West (highly recommended for ‘word nerds’)

*Update* Germany's dialect iron curtain still divides the country, study finds

Best practices for dealing with other translators in a collaborative environment; more questions about the MotaWord translation app; information on the MotaWord translation platform development roadmap and focus. These questions are asked by MotaWord’s professional translators and answered in this video by MotaWord founder  Evren Ay. You can follow through the provided script for quick answers or watch the video directly.

For more in-depth information about MotaWord's professional translators this article is a must-read also: "Professional Translators have the ‘Write’ Stuff" 

Here is the full script of the video:

Hi Marcos, great to see you this week again.

Hey Evren. Let's see what questions we have. OK. Today we have  questions from Francesca and Agnieszka

Francesca asks, “when I did my proofreading translators were in the job, and they sent me many, often silly, questions. This makes it hard to concentrate and is not good in my opinion.”

Ok well, welcome to a collaborative translation platform. Things should happen perfectly, but things - as often as not, do not happen perfectly. Sometimes people have questions, sometimes those questions are asked after not having done the proper leg work. They don't check the project. They don't actually look at the style guide or, they actually do not really pay attention. And sometimes it is true that as proofreaders you bear the burden of having to answer questions. The way that collaboration works on MotaWord is - you know Francesa already - is, there is a comments section while you are working and it is very important for you to pay attention to what translators are doing during the project. But the comments also come to your inbox as an email. And those could be of course if you have message notifications that pop up both on email and on the comments section; those could be a little bit disturbing. I think we could do a better job there frankly. And since our last meeting, we have been thinking about it. And we are going to look at whether we could do a better job of getting those notifications to at least be one notification, rather than multiple notifications. So thank you for the idea. That is one of the reasons why we do these meetings in the first place.

And next, Agnieszka asks "hi guys is there any chance to make the Motaword translation app better? I have an Android device and it takes me forever to upload the content and then I still can't see the project."

Ok. This question was answered last week. In last week's video Oytun answered it. I wasn't here. And I am going to go with the same answer. But during the meeting actually I remember that the translation app in Agnieszka’s case didn't work because she had very low wireless connectivity. Now I have to be honest, to that we cannot really do anything, because the app needs to connect to our servers to constantly exchange data, get new data and read and write into the database of the translation management system that you are working on. But even without that, even without the wireless issue - yes - we are constantly working on making the app better. In fact, the second version of the app is really ready to be rolled out, probably this week, if not next and we are really focusing on doing most of our translation functions through the app rather than taking our translators to their desktops. Throughout our existence as MotaWord, our clients have preferred sending us shortly, but really quick turnaround and high quality requiring translation jobs and we realize that those can be better done on the app rather than taking our translators up to their desktop work environments to translate something.

And finally, and you may have partially answered this last question. It came up in a conversation with Francesca and Agnieszka "what are the plan's steps to enhance and upgrade the platform and make it more user-friendly?"

Definitely when it comes to the translators, just like I said 2 seconds ago, making sure that the mobile technologies we use are up to par or even better than what else is out there. Because I really don't think there are many other mobile-oriented or focused collaborative translation platforms out there. That is number 1. Number 2 is, of course, listening to our translators and proofreaders and learning from their approaches to translation work, learning from what works best and learning from what really doesn't work and adjusting our work profile to that. We are all learning how things should happen and how they should not happen - I am not talking about bugs or edge-case scenarios where you get lots of tags in a translation project or you actually are having difficulties accessing translation jobs because they come at a time when you are not awake, etc. - those kinds of issues we really cannot do much about - but when it comes to your work area, when it comes to the translation or translating using an app or a mobile device like a tablet and your desktop and the integrations of those, we are definitely working on those issues full time. And we are getting better every week.

Great.

Thank you so much, Marcos, see you next week.

You speak two languages fluently. Does this mean you are ready to be a professional translator? What skills and experience do you need to earn money and make a career as a professional translator?

Creating quality translations requires more than spoken language skills in two languages. 

What does the US Department of State, Division of Language Services expect? To pass their LS Translation test they recommend you have active translation experience. Below are their recommendations:

• Five years of translation experience is the minimum to pass their position, even if you have academic training in translation.

• Work experience has been mentored or professionally reviewed. Without an independent set of eyes, it’s easy to fall into bad habits.

• For their exacting work, they want to see experience translating high-level correspondence, court records, laws, and other government-related writings.

• Know in what direction you are best equipped to translate. They recommend that the target language be your native language.

• Keep informed of foreign affairs terminology in both the source and target languages you’ll be working in.

So while a US State Department Language Services contract is not a certification, credential or resumé line item, it is a strong indicator that you have achieved a legitimate standard in your translation career.

Read: Guidance On: Preparing For the LS Translation Test

The list of errors to guard against will give beginning translators - and perhaps all translators - a solid list of mistakes to watch out for in one’s translations. These include mistranslations, additions (if it’s not in the source, don’t include it), omissions, too literal, ambiguity, grammar, punctuation, spelling, terminology, sentence structure, plus many more. 

Another government standard is the Defense Language Proficiency Test, used by the Department of Defense.

MotaWord maintains rigorous standards and helps translators improve their skills and advance in the translation field. Our translators achieve their competence from academic programs, professional experience that spans years. And working on the MotaWord platform guarantees they get continuous feedback that enriches their skills and, when necessary, keeps them on their toes.

But this is the minimum and only a starting point for a MotaWord translator. We want them to become a part of a culture that values them, supports them and makes each of them a better translator. This allows MotaWord to leverage the collective knowledge of our translators and give our clients the very best translation quickly and at competitive prices.

MotaWord is always looking for qualified, professional translators to join our ranks so please consider applying to work with MotaWord. You can apply to translate on the MotaWord platform here. And one of the many ways we look to improve your work life is via our mobile app. Please read about it here: MotaWord’s Translation App Is Here.

And while our translators value how we help them improve professionally, our ongoing dialogue works to improve MotaWord too. We check in with translators and proofreaders to get your informed feedback on how we can improve our platform. Watch a recent session with Evren Ay, co-founder of MotaWord.

The world of mobile games is highly competitive. Getting noticed, getting downloads, and most importantly, getting people to pay for the full version of your game is difficult. So what can you do to improve the odds of making money from your game? 

Why localize your mobile game?

If you are reading a blog post on a translation site you probably know the answer, broadly speaking. And taking a closer look, we can point to a few compelling reasons to localize your mobile game. Bear in mind that localization means both translating and adapting to fit a different culture from the original version.

• Showing your game in the local language provides a better user experience at the App Store level as well as when playing. It is more inviting when you can offer your game in multiple languages. Don’t provide a reason for someone to click away from you.

• Your SEO results improve with keywords in multiple languages. (That means people find you more easily) 

• You’ll generate reviews from other countries and more of those reviews are likely to be positive. That adds yet more SEO value.

In sum, localizing has cumulative benefits. Positive ratings mean greater visibility = more downloads = more revenue. That’s a virtuous cycle worth creating.

What markets should I localize for?

80% of mobile game revenue will come (2018 est.) from the top 6 language markets. The chart below shows the top 10 markets in the world for mobile apps. 

Source: https://allcorrectgames.com/insights/mobile-game-market-index/

Consider market size and regulatory challenges that may exist. China and South Korea each have unique cultural characteristics that include censorship. But in viewing those challenges it’s good to remember that in 2018, in China, there were 459 million mobile gamers (Source: https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/third-chinas-population-plays-mobile-games/article/2163084) and Chinese gamers accounted for 25% of global revenue. The rewards of capturing a share of the Chinese market might justify the expense. 

Do your research on market size, costs of localizing, marketing and all the associated costs to determine which markets to localize for. This is no small task and is beyond the scope of this article. The quote below sums it up well.

In Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber gives a recipe for happiness:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result, misery.

More income than outgo is another way to put it.

You won’t want to miss this video on localization. It points out the specific needs that game localization has versus pure translation.

A word of advice - don’t over-value the number of downloads. Unless you are earning substantial money from advertising this is a vanity metric. It’s cold hard cash from purchases that define success.

Read how MotaWord can help with you localize your mobile game:

Why Should You Run Your Website Localization Project On MotaWord?

The Case For Localization

How is the MotaWord Translation App coming along? What are the criteria for sending translation project notifications? How about the Translation Memory and how can concordance search be used? These questions are asked by MotaWord translators and answered in this video by MotaWord's very own CTO, Oytun Tez. You can follow through the provided script for quick answers or watch the video directly.

For more in depth information about MotaWord's Translation Memory and how our clients use it this article is a must read also: "TRANSLATION MEMORY - IT'S WHAT FRIENDS USE FOR YOUR TRANSLATIONS"

Here is the full script of the video:

And today we have with us Oytun Tez, CTO of MotaWord and we will be asking him questions that we received recently from our proofreaders.

Federica and Henrique both asked "When will the app be effectively working on Android?" and "Will they be able to work from a tablet from the MotaWord app?"

Yes. The short answer is yes and soon. And a little longer answer is, first of all, you should be able to work on your tablets right now - we do support tablets, translating on your tablets. So go ahead and check the platform in your tablet browsers, you should be able to use that.
And regarding the mobile app. In the first version of the mobile app, we focused on getting the notifications to you very fast and allow you to be able to check the projects in your mobile app. So that was what we worked on. And in the second version, we are focusing on our client experience so that our clients can order projects on their mobile devices and we have a faster cycle of projects basically.

In the 3rd version, we are going back to the translators and now you will be able to - in the 3rd version - translate in your mobile phones so that's a whole different experience and there are lots of things to do but we are expecting to finalize it in about 3 months.

Great.

Michael asks, "What are the criteria for sending project notifications? Obviously there is some delay for certain projects. And sometimes I receive notifications twice or even three times for the same project."

Well, I like the question. Compiling a few questions together.

There are no general criteria for invitations. We invite everyone at the same time. However, as proofreaders we do invite you exclusively to take part in your previous clients' projects. So if your client comes back, we notify you first before inviting everyone else. So that is the only criteria or filtering we have during the invitation phase.

And the second part of the question was - the delays. That was actually one of the primary purposes of the mobile application. Because push notifications or mobile notifications are so much faster than email - email technology is a little old and they go through many layers of communication between the servers they are much slower. So we recommend all of our translators to install the application and use that as the primary communication method with MotaWord. And they can get notified of projects much faster through that.

Then why might a proofreader receive notification 2 or 3 times?

Oh yes. That is our IPM (Intelligent Project Manager) algorithm probably. Especially when a project gets stuck at let's say 80% progress, we do invite translators again. So that might be the case but usually, you may be invited once for a translation and then once for proofreading. So there may be such cases.

Great.

And finally as a follow-up question, Henrique was interested in understanding the concordance search and how to best use the translation memory in MotaWord.

Perfect.

Translation memory is actually one of the most important areas of MotaWord because it provides us with tools to create consistent translations. So we keep translation memory per client, that means whatever suggestion we show you during your translation, all of those suggestions they actually come from the client's own translation history. so you can search in the translation editor on the right side there is a suggestion search box where you can search through the translation memory as well as the glossary history of the client. So those are the very useful tools to create and keep consistency throughout multiple projects.

Thank you, Marcos.

Translation memory should be a standard part of your translator’s set of tools.

Do you do business internationally? Do you regularly use translators for your content? Are you familiar with the term, translation memory?

If not, then you need to check your wallet, the family jewels, and your fillings. You, my friend, might be getting robbed. 

What is a translation memory? (TM)

Translation memory is a database, or collection, of previously translated word segments. These can be complete sentences, paragraphs, or sentence-like units such as headings, titles or list elements. The translation memory maintains a record of each instance of a source language and its corresponding translation. These language pairs are called ‘translation units’. When a human translator uses translation memory she can be informed when a previously translated segment has been detected. 

When MotaWord’s system has a client where there is translation memory (we’d need to have done prior translations for you in order to generate this database) we can both speed the latest translation and, at the same time, possibly discount the price of this translation. That’s because we don’t charge twice to translate the same phrase or sentence.

If you use translators who don’t explicitly tell you that they use translation memory, they might be billing you multiple times for the same sentences or phrases. You don’t have to accept that anymore.

But that’s not as strange as you might think and it doesn’t mean your translators are bad people. In days of yore, when the scribe was taking dictation and re-inking their quill pen as you dropped your pearls of wisdom, every piece of content was unique. The bilingual scribes were translating each work as a stand-alone piece. There was no such thing as translation memory. 

And some translators or agencies still follow these practices. (maybe not the quill pen part) But why work with translators who don’t use a widely adopted translation tool? Don’t hire them. That would be akin to hiring a carpenter who doesn’t use power tools.

MotaWord’s loyal clients benefit from faster, more accurate and economical translations. The content of their translation memory is never shared or used for any other purpose and can be downloaded whenever they wish.

For more on Translation Memory (TM) and how MotaWord provides clients greater value, read What Is Translation Memory

And watch What is Translation Memory? - Translation 101

There's more to know about choosing a translation company. Read, Choosing a Translation Agency: What You Need To Know

Summary: In the future, there will be a place for both automated translation options and human translations.

What will the translation industry like in 5 years? In 20 years? Typically, the narrative is framed as a question of either:

1) Will machine translation evolve to be good enough to replace humans and thus kill the human translation industry? or

2) When will machines replace humans in the translation industry?

This is zero-sum thinking. That is, it assumes that there is a finite amount of translation work to be had and that the efficiencies of Neural Machine Translation (see, A Gentle Introduction to Machine Translations)  and AI will consume all the available work leaving an obsolete class of workers to find other kinds of work.

But another way of looking at developments in the translation industry was recently proposed by Kevin Quirk, president of the International Federation of Translators. On Saturday, November 9, he spoke at the Translators Association of China (TAC) and put forward the argument that machine translation would, “…open up the world to new cultures” This, in turn, would generate more work for human translators by enlarging the translation market. That’s a very different picture from the conventional wisdom on the future of the translation market.

It makes sense that as more businesses view the world as their market, there will be a growing need for those businesses to use translators. 

From the outset, CEOs and product managers will plan on rolling out their products and services to international markets. Each will need to be localized to speak to that particular market in language and visual content that looks sounds, and feels native to them.  How many people in the United States think of Spotify as a Swedish company? Not many would be my guess. And that speaks to how effectively Spotify has localized in the US market.

Kevin Quirk found an ally for this position in Wang Gangyi, executive president and secretary-general of the TAC. Gangyi believes translators will need to adapt to the advances in translation technology but not be, ‘... enslaved by technology.’ There will continue to be a place for automated translation as well as a quality translation done by humans. TAC is a strong advocate for the use of Translation Memory (TM) to assist human translation work. With sentences and phrases stored in memory, translators won’t have to translate material more than once and those savings in time and costs can be passed along to the client.

Read about TAC's position: Why We Invested in CAT: An Examination of the Business Benefits of Using CAT Tools For LSPs

Just as many people consider their phone an extension of their brain and body, translators won’t think twice about using technology to make their translations more accurate, faster and more affordable to provide.

The Translators Association of China (TAC), founded in 1982 is China’s only national association advocating for the translation and interpreting community. Their members are comprised of individuals, associations, institutions, and corporate members. They maintain quality standards for their members and foster understanding across the industry’s stakeholders.

Google has given us a glimpse of the future of machine translation with this delightful video:

Read more on machine translation from MotaWord:

Machine Translation Ready To Take Over The Worlds? Not Yet, Pinky!

High-Quality, Accurate Translations - Humans or Machines?

How do we spell check on MotaWord? What more can be done to unify the tone of voice in MotaWord projects? Can the "Review" page be printed? How can it be improved? These questions are answered in this video. You can follow through the provided script for quick answers or watch the video directly.

You can review the answers and also use the links in this article - ODE TO MY SPELLCHECKER (AND WHY TRANSLATION IS BETTER WHEN IT IS DONE BY PEOPLE) to learn how to turn on your spell check function in your browser. 

Here is the full script of the video:

0:07.9 What are we here to talk about today?

Well, we are here to gather a lot more content for you, but no, we are here to talk about the questions that our proofreaders asked in the last week's proofreader session. We basically started having these sessions where Oytun and I sit with our proofreaders and answer any of their questions. And there are some questions where they ask us "our favorite colors" but there are other questions where it is relevant to other proofreaders so we are here to answer those. And you have a list of the questions so feel free to ask those and I'll just answer them.

0:44.8 So we'll jump in, proofreader Cassio asks "How do you use spell check in MotaWord projects?"

Well, MotaWord is a translation system that uses the full power of your browser. That means that it also uses the spellchecker of your browser. Whatever browser you use, be it Chrome, Safari, Edge (used to be Microsoft Internet Explorer) now it is called Edge, MotaWord would basically use the spell check of your browser and I would wholeheartedly recommend that you actually allow your spell check - typos are a really serious mistake on our platform that we do not like seeing and I know for a fact that our clients do not like seeing. What we are going to do is, in this article, for example, we'll put a link on how to install the spell check on every major browser so that anybody who has a question like that can just click on the link, follow the prompts and ensure that their spell-check functions perfectly on their browser.

So spellcheck is available on MotaWord, it is through the browser and you can actually install it on your browser and use it.

2:02.5 Isabel asks, or maybe suggests, "It would be a great idea to make the tone of the translation visible at all times in the translation platform since this important information is usually lost in big style guides or does not appear there at all. Whenever this is not clear (sometimes text and context don’t help), proofreaders find both tones mixed and often spend more time than necessary amending something that could be prevented easily." What are your thoughts on that?

Consistency and the style of translation are really important and they change based on the needs of the client. So one of our clients which is Iron Mountain that is getting their HR or security documents translated through us has a different tone of voice that they need their translations in, as opposed to let's say a gaming company, like Electronic Arts that may need a more informal type of translation done. So, we rely on the style guides that we prepare with the client in order to respect that tone of voice, plus we rely on the glossaries.

3:16.5 Laura asks, "Is there a way to improve the 'Review' page, or to print it? It is sometimes hard to view the source document and the translated one and check that everything is OK. The characters are too small."

This sounds like a UI issue. It is, it is. I remember answering this question during the meeting and this is actually something that we answer on the intercom, when some proofreaders tell us they cannot see the review page.

Let me first answer the first part of this question. Number 1, there is absolutely no way to print the review page. We do not allow it for a very simple reason, it is our solemn promise to our clients that none of our translators or none of our contributors for anything - even our project managers, etc., they do not have a full copy of the documents to share, to do anything they want with... So printing is out of the question, copy/pasting is out of the question, those are things that we do not allow. But as far as getting the review page seen, in certain projects, it is not totally necessary. For example, if the document that we are translating, or the content that we are translating is an Excel file, the preview page or the review page would be really short, small and would be quite unnecessary because our translation editor would show those strings. If the document that we are translating is an Excel file, it is much preferable to use the Translation Management System of MotaWord, the Translation Editor to review the whole project over and over again because the Excel is not going to show you anything, it does not carry any stylistic information, etc. it basically would do a poorer job of showing you the content and yes it would be much smaller because we are trying to restrict ourselves to a single screen so just using the Translation Editor is a better idea. For CSV files, for XLIFF files, or for any kind of programmatic language files, the review page is actually not very useful. But if you are having a problem reviewing a Microsoft Word document or a Powerpoint document, yes then definitely, by all means just go to Intercom, let us know sometimes there are errors and we'd love to get those fixed but usually those are the type of errors we encounter less and less as our systems get more robust.

Great. 

Well, I guess that was all 3 questions, we look forward to having the meeting this week coming up with more questions and answering all of them. You can just leave a comment down at this blog or you could actually just ask us your questions anytime you want by either joining the meetings that we hold for proofreaders or by going over to www.motaword.com and asking your questions directly to one of our colleagues on our Intercom app. Thanks a lot. Bye.

Summary: Help your foreign-born employees navigate the visa process with certified translations.

There are simple things your company can do to better serve new hires who are getting their work visas. 

And often these things do not require any legal background or training. Here’s one that will deepen your relationship with your new employees by saving them time and effort.

Offer certified translations of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) documents.

Did you know that every year the USCIS naturalized between 650 and 750 thousand persons? It’s likely that the majority of those people needed to have documents from their native country translated and certified. Who helps them find these services?

Source: 2018 USCIS Statistical Annual Report

If you are assisting a potential new hire to navigate the visa process, you can reduce their anxiety by facilitating the certified translation of their documents. While this may seem like a simple task, you’ll find that clients are grateful that a trusted advisor is handling this. 

Read more here: Certified Translations For USCIS - Top 5 Things You Need To Know 

Documents in a foreign language will often need a certified translation in order to be legally admissible. These documents include birth certificates, marriage certificates, diplomas, transcripts, inoculation documents, divorce decrees, and death certificates. Take on this work for your new employee. The goodwill it engenders will be repaid many times over. 

And if your employee receives a USCIS Request for Evidence (RFE), producing that evidence in the right way, a certified translation, will make you seem like a superhero. Below are a couple of articles that will bring you up to speed on this topic.

Certified Translations for Request For Evidence

Certified Translations for Request For Evidence, More Support

The USCIS website states, “Any foreign language document must be accompanied by a full English translation that the translator has certified as complete and correct, and by the translator's certification that they are competent to translate the foreign language into English.” Certificate of Translation page on USCIS.

MotaWord can provide certified translations for use in immigration proceedings. And we do not add any additional charges beyond the cost of the translation. This is part of our core business.

Learn more on this topic:

Summary: Is all translation a form of localization? Localization, seen through the lens of literary translation.

In reading this piece on Quartz, The radical power of “Jane Eyre,” according to 57 translations from across the world I began to think in greater detail about the relationship between translation and localization. 

Often people talk about localizing a website or content of one kind or another as if it were a binary, an either-or, proposition. A choice between, we’ll translate the text into a general version of the language or we’ll tailor it to a particular region or dialect of a language, say French Canadian.

But the truth about localization is more nuanced than that. Localization takes place on a continuum and can begin with things as simple as - or not - the grammar or vocabulary that is intrinsic to the target language. In a work of fiction, relationships can be shown to change over time through the use of grammar alone. In French, German and Italian there is more than one word for ‘you’ - the French vous (formal) versus tu (familiar). The point in a book, play or movie when a character changes from one word to another conveys information in a way that is not available in English. This is a form of localization. It is language/culture-based and thus wedded to the locale of the target language. (in our example that’s French)

The article’s author poses the question as to whether the original work, Jane Eyre, implicitly has a point where the change from formal to familiar exists or whether a translator who does this change has taken creative liberties. That’s a question that probably has no answer. 

Likewise, vocabulary seldom has a one-to-one match. It is the translator’s job to recreate a work that evokes the same feelings in the target culture as are evoked in the original culture, that is, the original audience of readers. 

This is why localization of content should be understood as a mix of art and craft. There is no one solution since there is no one audience. When we see a popular movie we all love to argue about the particulars of the plot and how characters behaved. Those are the best movies. The ones that make us feels things strongly and are rich enough to contain ambiguity. 

Localization in particular and translation, in general, are ultimately re-creative arts. Just as the written music on the page is a guideline and starting point for a performance on a particular date and time, so too is the source document an instruction manual for a work that lives in another language and has a different audience.

And no, this isn’t a call for translators to go wild with their own interpretations of what the original text contains. We still have a professional and ethical obligation to render a translation that is factually accurate and matches the tone and intent of the source language.

Conclusion
So what’s the answer to the question, is all translation localization? The practical answer is no. There are real differences in the various dialects of German, in the way Spanish is spoken in Spain versus Mexico or in the many variants in Latin American. But the larger point is that there are gradations and nuances and that language is related to place or locale.

Read more on localization 

Website Localization - More Than Translation (from MotaWord)

Why Should You Run Your Website Localization Project on MotaWord? 

What is Content Localization? (from EContent)

This video from Google provides an overview of Expanding your site to more languages

Summary: A National Basketball Association (NBA) official offers an apology for comments on the unrest in Hong Kong. The English to Chinese translation differed from the original text.

When does translation cross the line from, ‘That’s one possible interpretation’ to, ‘No, that’s not what was said at all.”? In a recent dispute that played out on social media, an English to Chinese translation probably made things worse and did not lessen the ill will generated by a tweet supporting the Hong Kong protesters.

Who said what 
It began last week when the Houston Rockets general manager, Daryl Morey, in support of the Hong Kong protestors, tweeted an image that read, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong”. 

See: Rockets’ general manager’s Hong Kong comments anger China

For the last four months, protestors in Hong Kong have been demonstrating to maintain and strengthen individual rights laid out in the Basic Law, drafted to govern the people when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule. This effectively ended the 150-year British rule of Hong Kong while maintaining the British legal system.

NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass apologized for the statement made by Daryl Morey. He issued a statement in English.

"We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable. While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them. We have great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports and the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.”

Next 
The Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo’s English to Chinese translation was rendered as:

“We feel greatly disappointed at Houston Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey’s inappropriate speech, which is regrettable," the statement read. "Without a doubt, he has deeply offended many Chinese basketball fans. Morey has clarified that his stance on this issue does not represent either Houston Rockets or the NBA. From the NBA’s perspective, people can be interested in different subjects and freely share their opinions. We take respecting Chinese history and culture as a serious matter. We also hope that sports and the NBA, as a unified source of positive energy, can continue to build bridges between countries and bring people together. "

Read more: NBA statements on Hong Kong tweet different in English and Chinese

The issue
The first sentence of each version is quite different. The English version can be seen as a soft apology for the Rockets’ General Manager’s tweet, whereas the Chinese translation chastises the tweet as being, ‘inappropriate’. While there is always going to be some kind of latitude in a translation, this English to Chinese translation crossed a line by saying something not present in the original.

In subsequent statements, Mike Bass, NBA spokesperson, took issue with the English to Chinese translation which rendered the original as, “extremely disappointed,” ″inappropriate” or “severely hurt the feelings” of Chinese fans.

“There should be no discrepancy on the statement issued last night,” Bass said. “We have seen various interpretations of the translation of the Mandarin version, but our statement in English is the league’s official statement.”

At MotaWord, we hope you never have the need to question the accuracy of our work. But opinions differ. We’re human - most of us anyway - and we sometimes make mistakes. Here’s our guide on how to give feedback. Giving Feedback On A MotaWord Translation

And, of course, we’d like you to know how we provide you with dependably accurate translations Ensuring Accurate Translations With MotaWord

Are you a professional translator? Work for MotaWord!

Summary: For quality French to English translations, cultural knowledge is key.

All translations require knowledge of the native culture. Why? There’s often more to meaning than what is said.

 A word to the wise - when translating any language, the task is not to simply decode the individual words or even individual sentences. You must be steeped in the culture to understand how to approach transferring meaning from one language to another.

 Let's look at this through the lens of a French to English translation and how the French are said to respond with a ‘no’ to many requests. How much resolve is behind that 'no'? Understanding this gives one context in a conversation. In a post #metoo world in the United States, many of us are accustomed to being absolutists. No means no. But viewed as a French to English translation challenge, things are not so simple. Take a minute to read this article from the BBC last month, Why the French love to say no

 Based on the quotes from various people in this BBC article it seems that saying no is often a default position in French culture. Without this crucial cultural knowledge, attempting to translate basic interactions in France might lead to misinterpretation. Is cultural knowledge like this a requirement for all French to English translations? Of course not but without it, there’s a danger that nuance will be lost.

 This goes to the question of high-context versus low-context cultures. The degree to which cultural knowledge matters varies across countries and cultures. High-context cultures, such as France, Japan and Russia, are those where one has to read between the lines. Meaning is not always overtly expressed but must be inferred by context, tone of voice, body language, setting, and situation. Some of this will be lost in written language but one’s cultural knowledge can still be useful there too. By contrast, a low-context culture, e.g. the US and Australia is one where people are more plain-spoken and direct.

 Why might a French to English translation require more context and nuance than a low-context country? An excellent book on French culture puts it well,

 "... speaking French grammatically is not the same as “talking French” culturally."

 From, The Bonjour Effect, The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed, By Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau

And while there's always the danger of stereotyping people and ignoring individual differences, there are things that are common to cultures that do shape them in ways that can be generalized. The French education system is common to all people in France and in some French territories as well. When venturing a French to English translation being informed about these traditions will make you a better translator.

To help you on your journey to cultural mastery we (not so seriously) offer this charming video

How To Become a Parisian In One Hour?

 

Related articles:

SocialPubli Uses MotaWord to Localize Social Media Content

Website Localization - More Than Translation

MotaWord’s translators represent over 80 languages, working around the globe in 154 countries. Each translator has a story of how they acquired advanced language skills and each reflects the variety of global cultures that make our world so rich. I recently connected with MotaWord translators, Shawn Hoffman and Michael Woolgar to learn how each came to master Spanish to English translations. 

Growing up, what languages were spoken at home?

SH: In my home, only English was spoken at home.

MW: English. Later, as an adult, we spoke both English and Spanish when I married in Bolivia and was bringing up our family. We now speak mostly in Spanish with my current wife, but often communicate in English or French as well.

How did you bring your Spanish to English translation skills up to this professional level?

MW: I worked in French for about five years in Québec and had to develop a working knowledge of that language. Then I came to Latin America where I have lived for more than 40 years. I learned Spanish here by working and living in the language. Getting married here and raising a bilingual family was also very important. Learning to translate was another exercise in perseverance to learn the ability to translate into correct “easy English” and to avoid literal translations that sound so forced and unnatural.

SH: I learned a lot of Spanish throughout high school and college, but it wasn't until I actually lived in Spain for a few years and completed a master's degree in translation that I really felt I was prepared to begin translating at a professional level. More than anything, it was eye-opening. Specifically, I learned how much of my own native language that I was unfamiliar with and that being bilingual is absolutely not the same thing as being a good translator. There were so many aspects of translation that I was unfamiliar with, including transcreation, cultural mediation, and some of the legal aspects that can come into play that really made the experience much more useful than simply developing communication skills in another language. 

Most often, what language pairs do you work in and in which direction? 

SH: I work almost exclusively between English and Spanish with some very rare instances of Portuguese. The majority of my work is done from Spanish into English - that is, my learned language into my native language. Generally speaking, I would encourage all professional translation to be done into one's own native language. No matter how good a speaker of another language may be, it is, frankly, impossible to achieve the same level of proficiency as a native. In the worst case, one should always have work done into a non-native language revised by a linguist who is native – not just somebody who speaks the language but a linguist familiar with translation, grammar, language use, etc.

MW: Spanish to English and French to English. I often write in Spanish myself for business purposes, at a very proficient level, but it is still not good enough for professional translation purposes.

What kind of Spanish do you work in? Spain Spanish? Latin American? And how strict is that separation?

SH: I am confident working from a variety of Spanish dialects into English, though sometimes I must refer to natives from a specific country or region to aid with certain words. I am confident translating into Castilian Spanish from Spain, though, as mentioned above, would also encourage this work to be done or reviewed by a native from the region. The difference in regional dialects within one country can be immense. The differences between countries are even more evident. There are countless examples (and some very funny videos) comparing the differences of expressions in various Spanish-speaking countries that shed light on just how different the varieties of languages can be. Aside from language, cultural appropriateness can play a large role. In the end, a professional translator who is properly trained should be able to confidently navigate these differences. However, when it comes to legal or very specific texts, it may be incredibly difficult to carry out certain translations without a thorough understanding of the system from which the text has been produced.

MW: I work with a lot of Spanish national service providers as well as some in Latin America. There are some differences but they don’t cause a lot of problems. You must be attuned to different local expressions that you might have to investigate

What do you most enjoy about Spanish to English translation?

SH: One aspect that I really enjoy is the variety. I do freelance work, which sometimes includes texts covering a wide range of topics, registers, and audiences. That variety keeps it interesting. The ability to work remotely is also a huge benefit! Depending on your client base, you may also be able to set your own schedule to a certain degree.

MW: The challenge to find the appropriate terms in English to reflect the original text and to express the translation in “easy-flow” and correct English.

Any advice for beginning translators?

SH: Actually train to be a translator if you are considering doing a translation. Knowledge of a second language is certainly important, but it is far from adequate training when it comes to translation. Join associations, get training, learn which resources can be trusted, and do not be afraid to reach out to the translation community when you don't understand a certain term of text – chances are somebody else has seen it before – never guess!

MW: Persevere, avoid literal translations, make your translations flow easily and naturally in the target language, take care with correct grammar and punctuation, be consistent, get lots of online dictionaries, thesaurus, and subject-specific references and use them often. Finally, if you don’t understand something in the text -> ASK, some of the terminologies can be complicated and confusing, especially if you are not familiar with the subject. Don’t take on subjects that you don’t understand – medical documents, for instance. Make sure that you can deliver your translation on time and properly reviewed it for errors. Take time out every 30 - 60 minutes to give your mind a break so that you can maintain your concentration when you return. Enjoy your work, because if you don’t you will make a mess of it.

What's the most unusual Spanish to English translation job you've done?

SH: Coincidentally, the most unusual job may be one from MotaWord itself. It was a survey that had been sent out to adolescent girls in a few different Latin American countries to get feedback on tampons and other aspects of female hygiene devices. Both the questions and the answers were interesting, to say the least.

MW: I don’t know about “unusual”, but some of the most impacting subjects involved the horror stories of refugees from Central America escaping crime and terrorism in their home countries.

Related Readings

Compare 16 Masters Programs in Translation
Regional Differences in Spanish

Enjoy watching one woman’s experience studying translation at the Masters Program at Leiden University

Summary: Translation Memory (TM) saves modern translation platforms time and money by reusing material previously translated.

In the days before we had computers to assist us, translation work was a one-off, hand-crafted affair. (Bespoke, if you want to use the latest jargon) A translator did their work and that work had no relation to any work done after that, even when covering similar topics. But with the development of computers and specialized databases, Translation Memory Systems were developed.

Wikipedia defines Translation Memory as:
...a database that stores "segments", which can be sentences, paragraphs or sentence-like units (headings, titles or elements in a list) that have previously been translated, in order to aid human translators. The translation memory stores the source text and its corresponding translation in language pairs called “translation units”. Individual words are handled by terminology bases and are not within the domain of TM.

How do people use Translation Memory Systems?

The software segments the source text, i.e. the original text, into components and searches the Translation Memory for matches between segments in the source text and segments that have previously been translated. These ‘source-target’ pairs are what is stored in the database. When a match is found it is presented to the translator as a translation candidate. The translator can then, accept it, replace it with a new translation, or change it to match the source. In the last two options, the altered or new translation goes into the database.

This process lets translators easily reuse prior work done by anyone contributing to the database, that is, the Translation Memory. As a result, you have greater consistency, speed, and savings.

It won’t surprise you to learn that governments generate a great deal of translation work. The NEC TM project uses government-funded translation work to supply a database open to participating European countries. Why have these Europen countries joined forces on this project? Each is pooling their national bilingual assets as open-source data to be used to train machine learning. This allows the member countries to access a larger data set and make their spending on translations to be more effective.

How MotaWord’s Translation Memory Helps Our Clients

When a MotaWord client uploads a text to be translated, segments of that text are stored in MotaWord’s Translation Memory. Over time, as more and more translations contribute to the Translation Memory, translations become more efficient, consistent and cheaper because we don’t charge for any text that was previously translated.

• Clients can download their translation data.

• MotaWord does not charge for creating a Translation Memory for clients.

• MotaWord does not share a client’s Translation Memory

MotaWord’s clients appreciate that we don’t charge them for duplicate translations and can often turn around jobs more quickly.

Learn more

Wikipedia: Translation Memory

Why the EU and Companies Are Using Translation Memory in Boosting Productivity

About the NEC TM project

Summary: Google warns, Machine Translation is not ready to replace human translators in reviewing applications for refugee status

Refugees seeking asylum in the United States are a vulnerable population. Often with limited or no financial resources, language barriers, the threat of violence if returned to their native country, they rely on the competence and goodwill of the U.S. to assess the merits of their appeal for asylum in this country.

As part of the vetting process, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has produced an internal instructional document that directs officers to use Google Translate look at the social media posts of immigrants seeking entry into the United States. This became public knowledge as a result of a public records request from the International Refugee Assistance Project and ProPublica. 

See: Google Says Google Translate Can’t Replace Human Translators. Immigration Officials Have Used It to Vet Refugees.

This manual addressed procedures to be used for follow-on cases. These are cases where the applicant’s spouse or parent has already been granted refugee status. In 2017, 3% of refugees admitted to the U.S. did so under this follow-on process.

With the stakes as high as they are in immigration cases when news of this practice became public Google and language experts advised that machine translation services, including those of Google, Bing, and Yahoo should not be used to replace human translators. Machine translations are not equal to the challenge of discerning nuance or recognizing slang. 

ProPublica’s tests of translating social media posts using Google Translate’s machine translation system resulted in wildly inaccurate translations. This could have severe consequences for people seeking asylum in the U.S. And just as a matter of fairness when an applicant is rejected for admission to the United States, they are not often given the reason. In any subsequent decision review, they might not know that a mistranslated social media text was responsible for their rejection.

Douglas Hofstadter, a widely published expert in artificial intelligence and professor of cognitive sciences at Indiana University at Bloomington, faults machine translation as not understanding text as humans do. Instead, he stated, these programs use “decoding” or “text substitution” often with the resulting glaring errors.

Human translators are still the only way to be assured you will get an accurate translation. 

MotaWord uses technology to support the work of human translators with a platform that allows multiple translators to work on a document simultaneously, access a client’s style guide or glossary and reuse translations previously done for that client. This not only speeds up the translation process but also saves the client money. And our platform also helps our clients more easily submit work via our Language Translation API. Here’s a more complete list of time-saving features from MotaWord.

Conclusion
The USCIS requires certified translations of official documents, such as birth certificates, marriage licenses, college transcripts, and other government or institution-issued documents. Without certification from a human translator, these documents won’t be accepted. In the case of refugees applying for entry into the United States, the same rigorous and justifiable standard should be applied to vetting social media posts. For more on this topic read: Certified Translations For USCIS - Top 5 Things You Need To Know

Learn more about the topic of human vs. machine translation:

High-Quality, Accurate Translations - Humans or Machines?

The State of Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

Summary: To find a good translator you must recognize that translating is complex. You can choose from, good, fast, cheap. But only two.

What is a good translation?
Before we get to how to find a good translator we should probably talk about constitutes a good translation. We can probably all agree that it is not a word-for-word exchange from the source language to the target language. It has to convey the meaning and reproduce the tone of the original in a way that sounds natural to the target audience. The minimum requirements are accuracy, good grammar, correct spelling, and ease of understanding. Exceptions to these rules exist in the case of translating slang or other non-standard language but we’ll touch on that later.

Types of translations
The variety of translation types is infinite and is as broad and deep as all of the human knowledge. In spite of that grandiose thought, we can point to a few typical areas of translations types. Business, marketing, legal, medical, financial, literary are some common ones.

What is a good translator?
A good translator is someone with a strong command of both the target and source languages and someone who understands both cultures. As I noted earlier, a good translation is not the act of decoding individual words or even individual phrases. It happens in a cultural context

In a recent NewYork Times article on translating the lyrics (or libretto) of the opera Porgy and Bess, the translators had many requirements that defined what a successful translation should be. For starters, the source language is idiomatic English referred to as “Negro dialect”. One of the problems with this dialect is that it was written by two white men, Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, and its legitimacy has been questioned. But the task of translating this, or any other dialect in a theatrical work or elsewhere, remains the same.  There’s the need to remain faithful to the original work by recreating the feel, having a comparable use of slang, and of idioms. In the case of song lyrics, judgment calls have to be made as to when to try to keep lyric rhyming and countless other decisions including the technical requirements of the singers. Add to that the fact that the Met Opera screens (on the backs of the seats) can display only 72 characters at a time. If you’ve gotten this far in thinking about the process of translation you’ll find these articles fascinating:

'Porgy and Bess' can offend. Now Try Translating It Into Spanish
5 Ways To Translate A Song Without Knowing Language

Of course, not all translations have this many elements to balance but each type of translation can have its own domain-specific terms or buzzwords. For example, we might need to recreate hiring a ‘coding nina’ to build a website that ‘captures mindshare’ that at the ‘end of the day ramps up sales’. A good translator will handle this gracefully into the target language.

How to find a good translator

• Use a translator who is a native speaker of the target language. That person will provide you with a translation that will sound natural to other native speakers. They are your audience.

• Look for a translator with a reputable client list. This list should not only contain known brands but also have some clients who are relevant to your needs. If you need a legal document or marketing document translated then that the translator or translation company should be able to demonstrate they have done that type of translation work.

• Look for qualifications. While a degree in translating is not a guarantee of quality it is one indicator that should be considered. On the other hand, a non-degreed translator with 20 years of experience and an excellent client list might end up being a better bet. 

A final thought
It is one of life’s immutable rules that you can get only two of these three things at once: fast, good, and cheap.
You get what you pay for.

Related Readings

Choosing A Translation Agency - What You Need To Know

Spanish Translation of Wordplay From English

Watch this humorous take on translating lyrics

Summary: MotaWord’s Language Translation App provides its translators and clients with faster access to information and tools.

As MotaWord continues the rollout of our Mobile Translation App, we’re taking the time to document the thoughts and processes that went into making the app. Who we mean to serve, what features to include at the outset and what additional features to add. We checked in with Evren Ay, CEO and Founder of MotaWork to get his thoughts on the new language translation app.

Question: How do you decide what users want in a mobile language translation app? How will it actually look and behave?

Evren Ay: We decide on what we can realistically do with the translation app, within a certain amount of time. You can do anything you want but it's going to take a long time. 

So we say this thing is for the first iteration of the app. And we decided that the most important thing that we had to do was let our vendors, our translators, know as fast as possible when there was a project to be worked on. Because the problem with email is this; in email, there is sequencing. There's the list of people to be emailed, and the people at the bottom of that list get the email later than the people at the top of that. Now when you're emailing 16,000 people that makes a difference. There's actually a delay between when people get it. 

So we said, the apps don't suffer from that. So let's first do our app in a way that our vendors can see their settings, change their settings, get faster, project notifications, check up on those projects on their app directly without having to go to their laptop or desktop, etc. And then they can decide whether it's worth it for them to go and start working on the project. Yes or no. So that was the first thing. 

And then on the next iteration of the translation app, a translator will see, for example, a job of English into Arabic. The translator can go see the source documents, a record showing how much is translated, the rate per word to the proofreader, etc. In the next iteration of our thing, they will be able to work on the job. 

So from here, especially for shorter projects, this is going to be useful. They will be able to click on a button to work on this project. And they will be able to work directly on this from the mobile translation app. But we decided to start our app with the order's adoption. 

The other good thing about apps is you get to renew them. You get to add new functionality and people get notified of that new functionality. So that's why they're actually even better than websites. And also, we asked people, what kind of stuff they wanted from the app. 

So thirty-six, people downloaded the app and did some sort of testing. And we are listening to the additional functionality that they asked for. One of those suggestions we actually decided to incorporate into this version of the app. [Showing mobile translation app interface] So here, for example, you can see there's the total number of words translated and total earnings. And one translator suggested something along the lines of wanting to see the total amount of unpaid work. So first we can see total earnings. Then second, I think they're going to be able to swipe to the left to go from seeing total earnings to the amount remaining to be paid out. So that is the kind of feedback we are looking for. We don't think of everything ourselves, either. Right? 

There are going to be edge cases, and they're going to be things that you just didn't think of exactly. But currently, it is actually a way for us to show translators how many projects we invite them to, and even better, to get them invited to projects through the app. 

And what happens is, whenever there's a project, even my watch rings and it tells me that there's a project on MotaWord. And I get to know about it at the same time as everyone. This was our number one priority. 

The number two thing is going to be for the vendors, our translators, to be able to work directly on the app. And the clients' version is coming out now. In the client version, they will be able to see the status of their projects, to see a list of all the projects that they actually ordered with us, past as well as current. So this is the client app.

We’re happy with the initial responses to our early users and know both our translators and clients will be even happier as will add additional features. Download the iPhone version from the App Store. Let us know what you think.

Related articles:

MotaWord’s Language Translation API

MotaWord Grabber (Chrome extension)
MotaWord - Wordbee API Integration

Summary: MotaWord’s translation app better meets the needs of translators and translation clients. MotaWord’s team talks process.

So, just like an old-time Hollywood musical where Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney say, “Let’s put on a show!” someone at each business will eventually say, “We need to build an app!”. 

OK… that may be true but in MotaWord’s case, we took a hard look at the value we could create and who would benefit from a language translation app. Recently, we asked the MotaWord team to comment on how to think about these questions. What value can we create that justifies the time and expense needed to build the MotaWord translation app? Below are excerpts of an ongoing conversation we’re having.

Why build a Mobile Language Translation App?

Evren Ay, Founder: Gone are the days when you report to an office and sit at a desk from 9 to 5. In the gig economy, of which MotaWord is also a part, making use of and monetizing your free time is important. As we always say at MotaWord, we are a multi-sided platform that develops better technologies for not only our clients but also for our translators. The MotaWord Mobile app allows them to work from anywhere without being tied to their laptops or desktops. 

Kerem Onen, Global Sales Manager: Being able to catch up with the speed of MotaWord is an ongoing issue for most of the translators. The ones that are not in front of their computer complain about projects being translated too fast, of not being able to participate in enough projects. The app will help them have access to projects faster. 

Also, vendors (translators) having access to our blog articles are very important. People read articles on their mobile devices while commuting, waiting for an appointment, etc. Making them accessible from the app is an important way to have more readers. 

For clients, MotaWord is underlining its disruptive and tech-savvy nature by creating an app for its clients. Now they can follow the progression of their projects and access their accounts anytime. Also, having a MotaWord app on their mobile is a great asset when it comes to retention and loyalty. 

Priya Ajit, Director of Business Development: While the corporates and the translators contribute to our business growth, we should not forget about the individual customers, who are also significant contributors. Through a mobile application, we can offer an even better and seamless experience to them by giving them the flexibility to upload their projects simply via taking pictures. Getting their translated documents delivered back, in the shortest turnaround time will further reinforce our advantage of being the fastest translation platform. 

Another key benefit is tracking translation projects. Giving timely information about the start of their project to an individual or a corporate customer gives them great confidence and assures them that our translators have already started working on their projects. It creates more trust in clients by keeping them updated throughout the time their project is being worked on.

Kaan Demirel, Senior Software Engineer: Speed is a priority for us in all parts of the system and we want our vendors, the translators, to get notified of new projects as fast as possible. The main reason that this app makes the process faster and more visible is the fact that people unlock their phones for no reason almost 100 times a day and see notifications. So, that’s how vendors will benefit from the app. They’ll see a translation job notification sooner. For clients, the app provides a quicker way to track the progress of their projects.

Recap 

The MotaWord team looked at the needs of their translators and clients and then built them a translation app. This app gives them a faster way to submit translation jobs (clients), get notification of jobs (translators), quickly begin work on a translation project (translators and clients), track progress (clients), as well as other features that make the translation process more efficient and effective.

Download it now and you’ll see what a better translation experience can look like.

Other ways MotaWords Speeds Your Translation Needs

MotaWords’s Language Translation API

MotaWord Grabber (Chrome extension)

MotaWord - Wordbee API Integration

Summary: Learning Spanish can be easier if you listen to Spanish translations of well-known stories in audiobook format. We have the best Spanish audiobook list for you.

Sometimes you just want someone to tell you a story. You don’t want to read. You don’t want to watch a video. Audio content, whether it’s a podcast or in an audiobook, is a different experience from text or video content. And if you are learning a language, then audiobooks are a great way to practice and learn that language.

What's more, when working on your Spanish, listening to Spanish translations of well-known books can be easier than listening to unfamiliar stories or topics. So let’s look at what’s available. I’m a big fan of ‘free’ so we’ll start there on our tour of audiobooks in Spanish translation. You can hear a variety of Spanish spoken by Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Spanish (Castillian) voice actors. This is invaluable since there are often significant differences in pronunciation among countries.

As you study and practice Spanish it’s a good idea to remember that there is no one version, nor one correct dialect of Spanish. Your language learning will benefit from exposing yourself to the Spanish of Spain, Mexico, Latin America, Puerto Rico and Cuba for the greatest language versatility. We touch on these variants in our blog:

Spanish Translation For Your Website: Which Spanish?

Here's a great place to start in your search for good (and free!) audiobooks in Spanish: 25 best [free!] audiobooks for learning Spanish

Next up, we look at commercial Spanish language audiobooks you can find. You can do a limited amount of listening for free if you cancel your membership before the 30-day trial is up.

Librivox.org (Books in the public domain, read in multiple languages)

Another source of free audiobooks is Librivox, the platform that provides audio versions of books that are no longer copyrighted in the U.S. Their catalog of 488 books (and counting) includes the works of Mark Twain, William Defoe, Edgar Allen Poe and other well-known English language authors in Spanish translation.

All of these examples of English works in Spanish translation are being done to a high standard of quality. Ah, would that this was always the case. Read about these ‘missteps’, ‘faux pas’ or in this case ‘pasos en falso’ committed by some of our politicians:

MotaWord Blog Post: Spanish Language Translations Not Right on the Left

11 Spanish Audiobooks to Get Your Kids Reading (free with 30-day trial)

This list of Spanish translations has some titles you’re likely to know and includes:

Coco is based on the Disney Pixar movie and tells the story of Miguel and his adventures in the underworld. (Listen to a sample)

El Principito (The Little Prince) Is a classic children’s book, published in 1943. Ten years later the first Spanish translation of this book came out and interestingly, in Argentina, a gender-neutral version was published. (Listen to a sample)

Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal (Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone) With the huge popularity of this series it’s safe to say you, your children, or all of you will love this Spanish translation of this book. Did you see how the title references the Philosopher's Stone and not the Sorcerer’s Stone? The American title was ...Sorcerer’s Stone. (Listen to a sample) With a running time of 22 hours, 17 minutes, if you do half an hour at bedtime it will take you almost 2 months to complete. This is something your kids will never forget. (Listen to a sample)

La Odisea Contada A Los Niños (The Odessey, Told to Children) This epic Greek poem receives a Spanish translation for children that lasts 2 hours, 22 minutes and makes a wonderful introduction to the story of Ulysses, King of the Greek state of Ithaca. (Listen to a sample)

Finally, if you’d like to read along with the audio you can watch this video:

There are certainly other sources of both free and paid audiobooks in Spanish translations but this is a good start.

Learn about the origin of International Translation Day on September 30

But first...

If you read blogs about the translation world then I imagine that that, like me, you are a word nerd. So let's digress for a minute to look at the language that goes into crafting a resolution. Here's the United Nations resolution declaring September 30 Internal Translation Day. It's worth reading.

The structure, broadly speaking goes something like this:

The United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution on such and such a date.
The topic in this case: The role of professional translation in connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding, and development

And here's the fun part.

What follows next is a long list of statements, with an introductory word or phrase, supporting the idea that translations matter greatly in the world. (of course, I agree.) Each of these introductory phrases is essentially a synonym for the same thing. Here's a sample:

Recalling...
Recalling also...
Recalling further...
Recognizing that...
Acknowledging the role of...
Mindful of...
Noting that...

This list goes on for quite a bit more. It's fun to look at this from a language or rhetorical perspective.

Now, back to International Translation Day.

St. Jerome is the patron saint of translators. Seen from a Western perspective, one can see why. Also known as Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, St. Jerome was born (estimated) in 342 and died on September 30th in 420. He was a Catholic priest, theologian, historian, and translator who lived in what is now known as Croatia. His deep knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew lead him to do translations of the Bible from the original Hebrew into Latin as well as write commentaries on the Gospels. 

The first organization to declare September 30th as International Translation Day was the International Federation of Translators. This was in 1953. It then took over fifty years for wider acceptance of this date that highlights the important work of translators.

In 2017 the United Nations adopted a resolution to acknowledge the important role that translators play in “connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding, and development”. And because St. Jerome is the patron saint of translators, September 30th was selected as International Translation Day.

The U.N. celebrates other languages as well:

• 21 February - International Mother Language Day

• 20 March - French Language Day at the UN

• 20 April - Chinese Language Day at the UN

• 23 April - English Language Day at the UN 

• 23 April - Spanish Language Day at the UN 

• 6 June - Russian Language Day at the UN 

• 18 December - Arabic Language Day at the UN 

• 2008 - International Year of Languages

• 2019 - International Year of Indigenous Languages (A/RES/71/178)
  

Watch this video to learn more about the role of multilingualism at the United Nations

MotaWord would like to join the rest of the international translation community in celebrating International Translation Day and all the translators around the world. By translating literary, scientific, professional, and human to human communications, we each play a small part in creating a more positive atmosphere for international discourse. Through their work, the world is a better place.

Related Reading
A Rebel Translator in a Biblical Era: St. Jerome
Thoughts on Translation - Jacques Derrida

About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 15 thousand professional translators MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Summary: Translating wordplay or puns is often challenging and sometimes futile. We explore this topic from the perspective of English to Spanish translations.

I have a confession to make. I’m not proud of it. It’s something that runs in my family. I’m a punster. No, I can’t even say that I’m a recovering punster since I feel regret only on some rare occasions when it gets out of control.

Whether doing a Spanish translation of a source text in English or the reverse, translating wordplay from one language to another is fiendishly difficult.

We’ll look at this topic through the example of the language pair of English (source) and Spanish (target) - i.e. creating a Spanish translation from an English language text.

Below is an extreme example of a challenging source, the semi-nonsensical poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice In Wonderland. Carroll’s wordplay included making up words that were a mix of two words, also known as a portmanteau. Common examples in English are ‘brunch’ (breakfast + lunch) or ‘smog’ (smoke + fog). In the first line of the poem below, the word, ‘slithy’ is a mix of ‘lithe’ and ‘slimy’. The challenge of going from the English to a Spanish translation is to try to retain both the meaning and the style of wordplay of the original. That’s a tall order. 

If your understanding of Spanish is up for it, you’ll see that the translator throws up his hands and makes things up. And that’s not a criticism. In this type of work, there is often no right Spanish translation. The only option available is to try to recreate qualities of the original, to evoke those things that the original evokes.

English	Spanish
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"	Era la asarvesperia y los flexilimosos toves giroscopiaban taledrando en el vade; debilmiseros estaban los borogoves; bramatchisilban los verdilechos parde. ¡Cuidado con el Jabberwocky, hijo mío! ¡Cuídate de las mandíbulas que muerden. de las garras que apresan! Cuídate del pájaro Rapiña y del altanero Halcón.

This video, Oh Fortua, Misheard Lyrics, (from Carmina Burana) is a delightful example of throwing meaning to the winds making things up.

Sometimes a translator will get lucky and the wordplay or pun with have a corresponding example in the target language. Again, using the language pair of English as the source and the Spanish translation the target, we have this example from  article Translating Puns in Harry Potter

In the English version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a classmate of Harry's, Lavender Brown, says she has found Uranus in her horoscope, to which Ron Weasley asks: "Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?" (p. 201), evoking the usual pun in English amongst children. An identical or similar pun does exist in some languages, and not surprisingly, languages that share their history with English more readily reproduce the pun.

In Spanish, the translator gives us: "Puedo echarle yo también un vistazo a tu Ur-ano, Lavender? - preguntó Ron con sorna. The word "ano" of course means "anus"; with the "Ur" separated to preserve the pun. By itself "ur" has no particular meaning in Spanish, so the hyphen plays an important part in recreating the wordplay

And just in case you’re inclined to believe that translating humor always ends in triumph, read our final anecdote.

In reading about the challenges of translating wordplay one of the favorite anecdotes I encountered was the story of former President, Jimmy Carter, who joked in the process of giving a speech. When translated to Japanese, the audience laughed much more than he expected them to. When he asked the translator how he had translated his joke, this is the reply he got:

 “I told the audience, ‘President Carter told a funny story; everyone must laugh.’ 

Some things are lost in translation.

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Where will the next generation of translators come from? In Europe, this translation contest for secondary school students suggests the pipeline is strong.

The yearly Juvenes Translatores contest supports and celebrates language learning and translating. Many of the participating students go on to study for careers in interpreting and translating. And all come away with a deeper appreciation for the skill and dedication required to be a good translator.

Applications are now open for the Juvenes Translatores 2019 translation contest for secondary school students in the European Union. The competition will take place from 10am to noon, Central European Times on 21, November 2019. The final date to apply is October 20th, 2019.

“The European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation (DG Translation) runs Juvenes Translatores 2019, an online translation contest for secondary schools in the European Union.”

Not all schools that apply will be selected to participate in this translation contest. If your school is selected, it can, in turn, chose 2 - 5 participants to take part in the competition.

If you are familiar with this competition you should note, the competition has moved online. No more pencils and paper. Once the applying schools have been selected then each of those schools selects 2 - 5 students to compete. 

What languages 
Participants can choose to translate from any official EU language into any other official EU language. The official EU languages are: Bulgarian (BG), Croatian (HR), Czech (CS), Danish (DA), Dutch (NL), English (EN), Estonian (ET), Finnish (FI), French (FR), German (DE), Greek (EL), Hungarian (HU), Irish (GA), Italian (IT), Latvian (LV), Lithuanian (LT), Maltese (MT), Polish (PL), Portuguese (PT), Romanian (RO), Slovak (SK), Slovenian (SL), Spanish (ES) and Swedish (SV).

During the competition, no digital translation tools may be used but paper dictionaries, either monolingual or bilingual, may be used.

Each submitted translation will be reviewed by a panel of professional translators and revisors from DG Translators. A jury will select the best translation from each EU country and special mention will be awarded to up to 10% of the most excellent translations.

The criteria used to judge translations are:

• accuracy of translation  

• ability to write correctly (grammar and choice of expressions)  

• ability to write fluently, and  

• the creativity of translation solutions

The awards ceremony will take place in Brussels in the Spring of 2020.

View a brief overview of the competition process:

MotaWord is delighted to hear this translation contest is extremely popular. We applaud the students and teachers involved in connecting the peoples of the world through translating. We like to think we’re a part of that good work and if you make the leap into professional translating, join some of the best translators on the planet on the MotaWord platform. Check back in with us as we plan to list all translation contests and other opportunities for the translation community.

For more information and for your school to apply go here.

About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock, and over 17 thousand professional translators, MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Summary: For SocialPubli, MotaWord is the perfect translation platform to translate and localize content for social media.

Recently, MotaWord content creator Marcos Dinnerstein interviewed Ismael El-Qudsi, the founder of SocialPubli. SocialPubli is a platform for advertising agencies and others to find micro-influencers to promote their products and services. Learn what micro-influencers are and how using them can be a powerful tool in your marketing efforts. And learn how MotaWord addressed a specific need for SocialPubli in translating and localizing social media content. Below are excerpts of a longer podcast interview that can be heard here.

Marcos Dinnerstein (MD)

What translation needs and challenges has SocialPubli faced?

Ismael El-Qudsi (IEQ)

We were facing a problem in the past, before finding out about MotaWord, which was posting content in many languages. Imagine you should be posting in Italian, Spanish, English, German, French - it was impossible to manage that. So we used to have six to eight people inside the office both creating content and posting that content. We ended up posting only in English and Spanish because with those 2 languages, more or less, you can still reach large audiences. But now we are using MotaWord to translate some text, some tweets, for instance. I love the system. It’s so fast you can translate a tweet in a single minute. And it’s not a Google translator thing. It’s real people, which is exactly the same as SocialPubli, real people promoting brands. MotaWord is real people helping translate your things. 

Especially for social media - you need to be posting every day. You can’t wait two days going back and forth with the translator, which we were facing in the last few years. I really like the fact that I can put a post on MotaWord and in twenty minutes I get that same post in 5 different languages.  I think it’s incredible! I’m doing kind of the same thing with micro-influencers but I never realized it was so simple, easy and reliable in the end. If you don’t like the content (i.e. the translation) you can tell the people at MotaWord, right away what the problem is and they will fix it.  So it’s super fast, with a very responsive team and not only is the translating very important but sometimes international companies don’t realize the importance of localizing. 

MD

So, can you make that difference between translating and localizing understandable for our audience. 

IEQ

Imagine you are living in a country where 99% of the population is blonde, very tall, and super white. You are living in a small Nordic country and everyone has green eyes. Now imagine we take a picture from New York City, where there are a lot of different people: Indian, Black, Hispanic, a lot of different race and you take the same picture and publish it in this small Nordic country. For them, in this country, this is not real. It’s very weird. If 99% of the population of this country is tall and super white and yellow-haired and you look at that website (with the original picture). It’s super weird for you and isn’t trustable.

MD

So how does localizing fix that?

IEQ

Translating will be the first step in localizing. You have to translate the content into the right language or the right dialect. And then also adapt all the cultural nuances that we all have. So for instance, in Spanish speaking languages - the language that is spoken in Mexico has nothing to do with my country, with Spain. It’s totally different. It’s exactly the same with the US and the UK. The language, it is pretty much the same but there are some jargon and slang words that you should adapt. If not, it’s not going to be trustable in the other country. And it’s not only adapting the text but also the images, which sometimes we fail to do. For instance, if you are using a flag - maybe you take a picture in Italy and you can see an Italian flag at the end of that picture. If you put that same picture in Germany they will think, “Why is that guy wearing a T-shirt with an Italian flag?” So sometimes there are very small details that could make a difference. 

I forgot to mention that it is very useful when you are launching Google Adwords campaigns or FB campaigns in different countries, you need to adjust, like 200 characters into a different language. Sometimes you are missing those nuances because you are doing a literal translation. With MotaWord there are real people helping you to translate that. You put some briefing (to the translator) such as, “I want to reach youngsters or I want to reach all the people” whatever you are looking for - and they adapt the content to the right people so you can create an ad in 5 languages in the morning. That’s incredible, to be honest.

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Video

Summary: High-quality, accurate translations are still the domain of humans. Machine translations have to wait.

“Close enough for horseshoes or hand grenades.” For professional translations, you will never hear that sentence spoken. 

Until such time as Machine Translation (ML) can produce accurate, high-quality translations you still need a human doing professional quality translation work as an integral part of the translation workflow. That doesn’t mean translations should not have assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI) or ML. MotaWord has taken this approach by using technology to significantly enhance human translations. And it shows in the consistently high-quality translation we deliver to our clients, day in and day out.

For an in-depth examination of Machine Translation, you’ll like: The Limits of Machine Translation (note: advances in this field were achieved roughly five years later, with the advent of Neural Machine Translation)

Whether fair or not, people use how you speak, how you use language, as a proxy for judging your intelligence. Don’t let this common bias make you less effective in business or your social life.

An accurate translation requires not only the correct translation of individual words and phrases but also an understanding of the context of what is being translated. That could conceivably determine how a word or phrase is translated. In an earlier blog post, Machine Translation Ready to Take Over the World? Not Yet Pinky! we featured an example of translating a text about a music concert. In this context, a ‘metal fan’ is someone who likes that genre of rock music and is not a machine that blows cooling air. A human translator will have no problem understanding the context and will be able to produce an accurate translation. The machine translation might go with the cooling machine. Mistakes like this can make you look sloppy, foolish or worse.

In this case, you might say the machine translation blows - I’m sure you get my meaning of the word ‘blows’. 

The MotaWord platform is supported by AI and algorithmic tools that improve the quality and accuracy of our worldwide network of human translators. MotaWord provides our teams of translators with the best available tools for quality translations, including style guides, translation memory, or translation history. And of course, the platform itself is a collaborative work environment where translators can communicate with the client mid-project, help each other, learn from each other and grow professionally by honing the work on a translation project.

Additionally, clients can use MotaWords’s Language Translation API, our MotaWord Grabber (Chrome extension), and the recently released MotaWord’s Translation App.  (Our translation app not only helps our clients but also helps our translators do their jobs more effectively) Reducing the time it takes to complete routine tasks streamlines the translation process, reduces errors and that means a more accurate translation.

It is the human component that MotaWord is constantly optimizing, to support translating nuance, discerning context, and to match the tone of the target language with that of the source language.

For more on comparing machine versus human translation watch, Human Translation vs Machine Translation: Competition or Collaboration 

Give MotaWord a try. We’re confident you’ll be happy with the result.

Summary: Work smarter and faster with MotaWord’s translation app for professional translators and proofreaders. See the features.

We’re excited to announce our new translation app for professional translators and proofreaders working on the MotaWord platform. You can use it with either iPhone or Android smartphones and we think you’re going to love using it.

The first version of the MotaWord translation app features:

• Instant notification: When MotaWord receives a new translation project you’ll know immediately. No more late emails or emails stuck in spam folders. 

• Instant translation project review: No more delays before deciding whether to accept a project or not. (When we release Version 2 you’ll be able to start working on a translation project immediately on your smartphone)

• Update your profile: Including your email, address, and PayPal information. Access it through the Settings section.

• Freeze or Unfreeze your account: For those times when you don’t want translation project notifications. Don’t forget to unfreeze your account when you want to resume MotaWord translation app notifications.

• View your earnings and payment status: What is better than knowing on the go how much money you have made and when you'll get paid?

• View project invitation history and how many projects you joined: This one is a nice chart of how many projects we are receiving within a period and how many of them you are participating in.

• In-app live chat: Issues with a project? Questions that need immediate answer? Speak with the MotaWord team while on the go...

The MotaWord translation app can be downloaded from the Apple Store or Google Play.

Stay tuned, because we have many more features we’re excited to bring to you. As we roll out the first version, we’re eager for your feedback so please download and start using the app. We’re going to build the best translation app for our clients, professional translators and proofreaders and we depend on your informed feedback to make it happen. 

Please take a few moments to answer a few questions to give us your thoughts on our new translation app (link to our short survey here: With your help, we will build a translation tool that removes the obstacles that might exist among you, MotaWord and, most important, the client.

Download the App
Apple Store
Google Play

Related: 

MotaWord’s Language Translation API

Giving Feedback On A MotaWord Translation - For Clients

What Does It Mean To Be A Proofreader on MotaWord?

The importance of translation in the real-estate sector arises from the increasing demand by individuals and companies to manage and invest in properties across the globe. Translation facilitates access to the right information, to the potential customers in their local language along with a good SEO score of the property advertisement.

The real estate industry is highly competitive and ever-changing. A consultant’s role is important right from the initiation to the conclusion of a transaction. Various tasks such as property listings, attracting clients, negotiating the terms and conditions of sale, and drawing up contracts are an integral part of the transaction process consultants have to carry out. Communicating with the clients in a language they are most comfortable with, can work in their favor. In this sector, where a large variety of legal content and monetary amounts are involved, a professional translation service is highly recommended.

In Spain, for example, the most used language in the real estate sector is, as expected, English, followed by German and French. Other languages such as Russian, Chinese or Arabic are also important in the Spanish property market.

In the United States, roughly 60 million people don’t speak English at home. That’s roughly one in five Americans who are more comfortable conversing, reading, and writing in another language. If you work in real estate, that’s one in five sales you might be missing out on. 

Here are few examples of content which should be translated to reach the target market:

• Property Description – The right description in the local language is important to communicate clearly. We strictly advise a professional translation agency, for the translation of property walkthrough videos, and e-brochures, to communicate correctly and concisely. The use of machine translated language in this situation can cause fatal mistakes and confusion. 

• Legal documentation – All legal documents of the property or the transaction as always need to be translated by professionals. The right and seamless execution of the document develops trust and ensures that each party’s interest is covered and secured.

• Press releases – Press releases are an important way to communicate corporate events and property launches. It is a key part of the multilingual public relation strategy as it helps to reach a wider audience and leads to an increase in potential customers.

• Marketing content and promotional videos - The correct terminology and the right message to the target market is very important while preparing marketing content and promotional videos. 

• Website content – Converting visitors to loyal customers becomes easy with a multilingual website. It is one of the greatest marketing tools with a large section of global internet users who research properties online. 

• Building codes – The building codes for commercial and residential properties vary from city to city in the same country and hence the right explanation is important, as any miscommunication might result in a shift of buyer’s decision.

Maintaining the confidentiality of the document is an important aspect to be considered while choosing a translation agency. Motaword offers more features to ensure your security and confidentiality than most other translation services. At Motaword, we use an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate, closed servers, and our beloved vetted translator base sign non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements before they start their first project.

To add on, we do not use Dropbox, FTP tools, or any other channels for the exchange of documents and information. Everything is done through our protected platform to ensure complete privacy and safety of the documents. 

When adapting the content to each market, a translator must take great care with the terminology and should always keep in mind the target user, as it could be a client with a high purchasing power. 

Keep in mind, however, that in the case of clients with high purchasing power the translator should have a good knowledge of the peculiarities of the market regarding the sale of various asset classes and also know the best way to address this type of client.

Would you like to know how Motaword can assist you in your real estate transactions?

In our last piece on the topic of Certified Translation for Request for Evidence (RFE) we went over a number of vital topics.

What is a USCIS Request for Evidence (RFE)

Why might a USCIS officer send an RFE? 

• Missing documents for a marriage-based green card.

• Insufficient Income

• No proof that the applicant entered the country legally

• Uncertified translations of documents from non-English language sources

Now you find yourself in the position of having to respond to an RFE.

What to do if you receive a Request for Evidence

First thing, read the complete RFE from start to finish. You are likely to receive this only one time, so it is crucial to quickly understand what’s required. Be sure that any additional proof being request was not included in your original application. People make mistakes. If that’s the case you’ll need to send duplicates in your response. Note which documents are duplicates of documents originally submitted.

Carefully note the deadline for the receipt of the requested documentation.

In your reply to the RFE, you need to include the original RFE notice (make a copy for your records) and be sure to include ALL requested documents in your packet of documents. They probably won’t accept subsequent documents if you attempt to send them piecemeal. 

If you are asked for a translation of a bilingual document, and one of the languages is English, you should point out that fact.

Should you be unable to provide requested documentation, explain why that would be the case, submit evidence from the relevant records office for why the document cannot be obtained and submit an affidavit (sworn statement). An example: a relative who confirms the birth date or your spouse or your self.

When you have confirmed you have gathered all the requested documentation be sure to make copies of everything. Now you’ll want to send this package of documents using either registered mail, return receipt requested or another form of trackable services such as FedEx or UPS. Confirm your package arrived prior to the deadline and keep a printout of that proof with your copy of the documents provided.

Here’s a video with the background information you’ll find useful

And to help set your expectations for how long this process might take read the following from the USCIS website USCIS Estimated Processing Time:

Request for Evidence (RFE) – Our processing time goals and associated processing timelines guide our production management efforts. On an application or set of applications where a customer could receive interim benefits, our objective is to pre-screen the application within 30 days of filing to identify whether there is any missing initial evidence. That’s because we do not want to issue an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) or advance parole based on an incomplete application simply because we haven’t conducted this initial review.

You’ll also be interested in review this information: Tips for Filing | USCIS

And remember, MotaWord is here, 24/7 to provide you with fast, certified translations at a fair price.

Summary: What is a USCIS Request for Evidence (RFE) and why are certified translations of documents required?

This is the first in a 2 part article. Find the second one here: Certified Translations for Request for Evidence, More Support

Getting a visa in the U.S. is a stressful activity. And that stress level usually rises more when the USCIS requests missing or additional information in the form of a Request for Evidence (RFE).

What is a USCIS Request For Evidence (RFE)?

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website

USCIS issues are written notices in the form of a Request For Evidence (RFE) to request missing initial or additional evidence from applicants or petitioners who filed for immigration benefits.

- USCIS Policy Manual

How to avoid RFEs

The simple answer for how to avoid getting a Request for Evidence (RFE) is to take the time to thoroughly document your application in the first place.  But sometimes it cannot be avoided.

Why might a USCIS officer send an RFE? 

Missing documents for a marriage-based green card - Of course, you need to prove that your marriage is real and not entered into for the purposes of staying in the U.S. What might provide that proof? 

• A copy of your marriage certificate (with a certified translation, if the certificate is not in English)

• Documents showing your relationship, over time, are what provide evidence that your marriage is real. 

• Pictures of you and your spouse together over the years. 

• Documented evidence that you are living together. Examples are documents that show you and your spouse have the same address: driver's license; utility bill that has both names on it; or phone bills.

• Proof that your finances are combined. Examples would be joint bank accounts, credit card statements, joint insurance policies, titles to property held jointly or loans where both spouses are liable for repayments.

Insufficient income from the sponsoring spouse - it might be the income is sufficient but that the documentation was seen as inadequate to support that claim.

No proof that the applicant entered the country legally - generally this means a copy of your stamped passport or a copy of your I-94 travel history. This is the form for tracking arrivals and departures, used by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) You’ll either have a paper copy of this, if you arrived before April of 2013 or if you arrived after that, you can download the I-94 here. If neither of those options works, you can request a replacement I-94 using Form I-102. (so many forms!)

Uncertified translations of documents from non-English language sources - It’s important to know that any translated documents you provide have to be certified translations. A certified translation is one where the translator certifies in writing that the translation is has been accurately translated. A certified translation has to include the translator’s name, address, date and must be signed by that translator. 

Staying perfectly on topic, be sure to read how MotaWord will certify any translations we do for you at no additional cost. And don't miss, Certified Translations for USCIS - Top 5 Things You Need to Know

In our next installment, we’ll review what to do if you should receive a Request for Evidence (RFE). Here is the link to that article

And remember, MotaWord is here, 24/7 to provide you with fast, certified translations at a fair price.

Summary: My English language blog post is performing well. Should I translate my blog into other languages? 

Congratulations! You’ve been creating content that fills the needs of your audience and generates meaningful traffic for your site. Now you think it’s worth exploring whether you can build on this by translating your blog posts into other languages. What do you need to consider?

SEO Value
Expanding your audience by reusing your content in multiple languages creates more pages on your site and offers you more pages from which to have internal links. All this builds greater SEO value. And the cost is only what you might pay in translation labor or fees.

But you should know that even a well-performing blog will not necessarily perform comparably in the short term in the translated version. SEO and organic search can be long tail and your expectations should be adjusted accordingly. It could take anywhere between 18 months to 3 years before you see significant SEO results, so bear that in mind when deciding how best to allocate your time, effort, and money.

Establishing Trust For Your Brand

If your blog content is useful to English speakers it will likely be useful to speakers of different languages. Helping people by providing valuable content is a great way to build brand authority and trust. If you create useful content, your audience will be more likely to pay for your product or service. But do your research to verify if the potential market in that other language is worth the effort and expense of translating your blog

What languages should I pick?

• Are there non-English inbound search terms on your site that indicate interest from readers in that language? That’s one sign that you’ll be providing value to the readers of that language.

• Is there a target market you are trying to engage with this content? You need the translation to be localized for that market. What does that mean? Read one of our blog posts on localization and the importance of getting this right.

Website Localization - More Than Translation

How should I have the translation done?

• Google Translate - While year by year this service is improving, it still has a long way to go before it is worth trusting your brand’s reputation with it. I’ve read blog posts that suggest that translating blog posts that have a light or whimsical tone is a safe use case for Google Translate. Not true. Humor and tone are the first casualties of machine translation by Google or any other automated translation system.

• Machine Translation - Rember that rule for “Good, Cheap, Fast”. Most of the time you only get to pick two. MotaWord comes the closest to providing all three with our collaborative translation platform. Read our assessment on the current state of Machine Translation technology. Machine Translation Ready to Take Over the World? Not Yet, Pinky!
  

• Professional Translation Agency While this is more reliable than the above two options it takes more time and is significantly more expensive than the other options. Often there will be a minimum charge that makes short blog posts prohibitively expensive to translate.

• MotaWord has no minimum charges, is performed by vetted translators, a proofreader, all on a platformed optimized to produce the highest quality human translation work possible. And your job will be back in your hands faster than any single translator could ever do.

So, if you decide that translating your blog makes good business sense, make another smart move and choose MotaWord for your translation needs.

Summary: What is a Translation API and how can MotaWord’s human translation API save you time and money.

Let’s talk about APIs, what they do and why, in the first place, and why should anyone bother with using one. For MotaWord, we’ll make the case that our human translation API makes using our services faster and easier. And since time is money, you’ll save on both by using our API. Here’s a terrific article that takes you through this topic: What Is an API and Why Should I Use One? 

With MotaWord’s Human Translation API, getting your translation related information into and out of our system is fast and seamless. But maybe you're new to APIs, so we'll take a minute to describe just what they do.

What is an API? 

API is the abbreviation for Application Programming Interface. An API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. It’s the software ‘messenger’ that facilitates making a request of a provider application that can then deliver a response back to your application.

What are examples of APIs?

Travel booking aggregators such as Kayak, Hipmunk, Expedia are examples that many people are familiar with. Without APIs, these sites would not be able to request information from individual airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies. And, of course, you wouldn’t be able to do the actual booking of any reservation. The API is what allows your individual reservation information to be sent to a specific travel provider.

When APIs return data, it is usually in JSON or XML format. Your application will then display that data with formatting that is consistent with the look of the rest of your website.

And if you’re a more visual learner, you’ll appreciate this video:

MotaWord’s Human Translation API lets you access the best quality translations in over 90 languages, quickly and at great prices. Whether it’s a website, program or application our API can:

• Provide immediate quotes for translations of your content in more than 90 languages, submitted and then returned in a variety of file formats
• Accept a new translation job
• Upload your style guides, glossaries, or documents to give context to your job and assist in a consistent product
• Monitor the progress of the project in each language
• Grab activity feeds as they happen, and
• Deliver the completed, high-quality translations to where they are needed - with no human interaction

If you are a regular MotaWord customer or think you might become one, then it makes sense to consider using the MotaWord Human Translation API for all your translation work.

Learn more and get started using the MotaWord human translation API using the links below
Getting Started With MotaWord takes you through the particulars of getting set up with your MotaWord Translation API.
Translation API / Developer Portal Explains the basics of the MotaWord API and provides essential tools and documentation you’ll need to work seamlessly with MotaWord.

Summary: Will an English translation continue to be the standard used in software development? Not if the REACT community has its way.

Once again, we bravely wade into the murky waters of the dominance of English translations in software development.

In our prior examination in this blog post, English Translation: Required for Learning to Code? there was a general consensus, that having one language, English, as the common language for developers is the most effective way to learn and share knowledge about a coding language. When code, that is originally written in English, is translated to another language it ends up isolating the non-English developer from the larger community’s knowledge base. But that means we’re asking the vast majority of the world to learn English in order to reap the benefits of the community’s knowledge and support.

‘If you don’t speak English you can’t access the community knowledge’ according to MotaWord Senior Software Engineer, Kaan Demirel. Unless developers can access the knowledge of a larger community of software developers, they’ll be at a disadvantage by not being able to learn from those who are more skilled and experienced than they are.

Is there a way to translate the English repository of knowledge into the world’s languages?

What prompted a re-examination of this topic? A team member here at MotaWord brought this article to our attention:

Is React Translated Yet? (go ahead and read it so you can follow the rest of this discussion)

You can see there’s a strong movement to translate both React (the Javascript library) and its documentation into over 30 languages. So far work has been completed on Spanish, Japanese, and Brazilian Portuguese. What’s React?

According to Wikipedia:
“React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies. React can be used as a base in the development of single-page or mobile applications, as it is optimal for fetching rapidly changing data that needs to be recorded.”

In a presentation, Translating Code to Other (Human) Languages and Back Again, software developer, Aditya Mukerjee, showed an example of how the same javascript looks in two different languages, an English translation, and a Bengali translation.

English Translation

If you’d like to learn React, here’s a well-reviewed video to get you started, Learn React - React Crash Course 2019

The pioneering software developer, Grace Hopper, envisioned a world where software could be multilingual:

“I would have thought it would be useful to NATO because they had the common verbs for the things they were going to do. And the nouns, they’d just have to have a dictionary for things they were referring to for inventory control...They’d have common nouns throughout NATO, and they could make a dictionary of common verbs and translate the program. You could write one in English and you could translate it and it could go to [the other language]. No problem, you’d have communication. It would be a limited vocabulary.”

So as of now, English is the lingua franca of the software language and business world. But that could change to Chinese in the next 15 - 20 years if they can maintain their growth. So perhaps we should all work for a knowledge sharing solution that spans all languages?

On topic - read our blog post, The Most Popular Online Language

Update: World's First Classical Chinese Programming Language

If we can reach a place where a software language can be used in any language then we’ll be a step closer to greater mutual understanding. Not quite world peace yet but it’s movement in the right direction. 

For more on this topic see: Non-English-based programming languages (Wikipedia)

According to macrotrends.com, with an almost 50% year-over-year increase, Alibaba made $12.398B in the third quarter of 2018. We may never be able to see the Silk Road in its prime despite China’s efforts, but thanks to the internet Alibaba could definitely take its place if it hasn’t already.

Yet a success like that does not come without hard work. If you have used their service, you know that your order might arrive late -  for one, experienced this first hand - but their prices are great. And that’s not the only reason for their success. Alibaba has 17 localizations, including English and their website speaks to more than half of the world’s population in their native language. This is a pretty simple trick - but we know it works every time.

By the way - shout out to their localization partner for their good work. We don’t know who they are but we do know this industry. So we have to add, we are pretty sure that we can provide higher quality translation - not only faster but also cheaper.

But we are not only living in a post-Silk Road era as I mentioned earlier. There’s still is no trace either of the Tower of Babel nor the secret to omnilingualism. Thus MotaWord is the best partner for anyone who wants to reach a broader audience.

Let me walk you through why…

Our intention behind the design of our API was to allow people faster access to high-quality translation 24/7, in over 90 languages. Our global translator base removes the limits of circadian rhythm - basically, the business day never ends at MotaWord. We could receive your website translation project during the Australian business day, get it translated during the European business hours, get it proofread in the American business day and deliver it to you by the coming Australian business day.

That’s only one example. We are here to support every aspect of your marketing plan. Website localization? Send us your HTML files, and we will return it as such. You don’t need to explain to a developer which word goes where. Your online shop could be up and running in mere days, instead of it being a weeks-long localization project.

Press release for a new product? We could translate it for you faster than anybody else does.

Do you have an upcoming trade fair? We can work on your InDesign files and translate your banners, posters, and booklets. Your graphic designer won’t be drowned in an endless copy-paste process. The same goes for your product packages.

High quality translation has never been more achievable nor this affordable. MotaWord doesn’t have any minimum charge. If you have a three-word long text to translate, then you will only pay for those three words. Please keep in mind that, unlike our competitors, our translation/localization approach includes a mandatory proofreading step - a service provided by native speakers - and we don’t charge anything extra for that. You just need to determine your target markets and let us know which languages they speak.

The rest is on us. If you would like to start working with us as your marketing partner (we can even translate your market research), you could get your instant quote simply by clicking here.


 

About MotaWord
MotaWord is the world’s fastest professional translation platform. Through the use of cloud technologies, smart algorithms that manage projects around the clock and over 15 thousand professional translators MotaWord provides high-quality translations in any language 60% cheaper and 20 times faster than traditional translation agencies.

Summary: How and when should startups think about translation and localization? Answer: As early as possible and as a structural part of there company.

What is a startup?

One widely accepted definition of a startup is a company that has both the ambition and ability to build a high growth company by using technology. And here's what it is not - a new artisanal pizza shop. Although I love pizza, a pizzeria cannot scale.

What does a successful startup look like? It is one where the company thinks about scaling from the outset, where the structural elements of that company optimize for fast growth from the beginning. That requires planning and building to be global, knowing your content will be translated into multiple languages. It means understanding that localization means more than translating the words on your website and in your marketing materials. Localization transforms your content based on an understanding of the culture, practices, and the people in that local market

The better founders and startup teams think and build for global growth early on in their development. They think beyond their local market. In an interview for Starta Ventures last year I spoke with Eveline Buchatskiy, Managing Partner of One One Ventures in Boston. She paints a vivid picture of what startups will look like in the coming years. (she may be conservative in her time estimate)

Entrepreneurs in 5 to 10 years will think globally and may choose to be based in London because there you can easily find capital, have the R&D in Ukraine, which is just 3 hours away on a plane, and have the marketing and sales team in New York. That’s the kind of entrepreneur we’re going see in the future and that’s what I think is very exciting. - Eveline Buchatskiy

Get the full book, The Very Hungry VC: Trends and Opportunities

Video: Eveline Buchatskiy (EMBA'08D) on Investing in Immigrants

Now that we have defined a startup, let's think about how we should think about our presence across multiple markets. This is the localization part and naturally, that includes the translation part.

For every market where you do business, you need to look, sound, and behave as if you were native to that locale. You’ll see from the suggestions below that localizing - i.e. looking, sounding and being native to a market takes much more than a bilingual dictionary.

Build Your Online Reputation

• Establish trust. This is about showing the user that you are aware of and responsive to their needs and that you can meet those needs on their terms.

• Establish authority. Be the go-to source of information and advice on your company’s area of expertise. On social media, share good, relevant content and create useful content that helps others in your sphere. Give until it hurts. Then do it again next week. Consistency matters.

Share content for a wider audience

• Related to the prior suggestion, you can enlarge your audience by pulling in others who have related issues. Everyone who has a business cares about marketing, sales, product development, hiring and retaining the best talent and more. Add tags for topics that pull in people from beyond your core audience. Tag people (with larger followings than yours) if your content or resharing would interest that person.

Build Local Relationships

• Create locally relevant content (Read up on this topic here)

• Collaborate with local influencers and local sales experts

• For companies with a ‘bricks & mortar’ component - think Warby Parker -  embed a google map so users can find you. Have a ‘Call now’ button in Google My Business

• Wherever you have a physical presence, be active in that community. Sponsor events, local schools, universities to increase your brand recognition and reputation.

• Monitor and be active on social media to associate your brand with a geographic region and to be a positive contributor in that region.

• Look for, and ask for Customer Generated Content (CGC). Nothing is as powerful as an authentic testimonial from a customer. (see How to Attract Customers With Localized Content Marketing )

Adopt individualized marketing approaches - If your marketing strategy started in your home market, don't assume that the same strategy will work in a different country. A localization expert can guide you so you use the right channels, set the right tone and use language that is effective in producing the desired outcome. What works in one locale will not necessarily work in the specific locality you are entering. Optimize for the desired outcome and not to reproduce a previously effective strategy.

Keep your message updated - By working with a trusted translation company, you can economically maintain your site’s ever-changing content to keep your users engaged, improve your rankings with search engines, and continue to stay relevant in your field. Use MotaWord’s API to translate only those portions of your site that have changed. We’ll never charge you more than is absolutely necessary. When you have fresh, relevant content, that translates into (see what I did there?) improved SEO rankings. We talked about that in greater detail in another post in Website Localization - More Than Translation.

And for more on localization, you should read, Why You Should Run Your Website Localization Project on MotaWord

The best startups thinking globally. But even if you aren't a startup, you can think like one.

MotaWord is a global translation platform with over 16 thousand professionals and vetted translators working to deliver high-quality translations in 80+ languages. MotaWord serves clients in their native language and gives them instant quotes thanks to its localized website and translations are done 20x faster and 60% cheaper than agencies.

When people use the term, “literary canon”, they mean those books, plays, poems or other written works that are considered important or influential at a time and place in history. But the term, “is considered” is problematic. It hides behind anonymity. Who does the considering? Is this invisible group accountable for who and what is considered important or influential?

This is at the heart of any explicit or implicit selection process that creates the canon of any field.

Translating the female voice, a piece recently published on Varsity.co.uk cites the limited number of English translations of the works of popular female French writers from the late 1600s and early 1700s. These writers were part of a group that wrote about fairy tales. The writers were  Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont La Force, Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier, and Charles Perrault. This last name on the list is the only man among this group. In fact, it was Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy who coined the term “contes de fées” (fairy tales) that came to define a literary genre. Yet the name most associated with fairy tales is Charles Perrault. 

Who were these women and, 300 years later, why is it so difficult to find an English translation of their work? Let me focus on one of these women.

Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, born in either 1850 or 1851 and a member of the nobility, was given away in marriage at the age of 15. Her husband was accused of treasonous speech against the king, spent 3 years in the Bastille after which he convinced the court that it was his accusers who were treasonous. They were executed instead. It deserves mentioning that these accusers were said to be the lovers of his wife, Marie Catherine d’Aulnoy and her mother. Her mother fled to England and Mme d’Aulnoy escaped arrest by hiding in a church. Other intrigues ensued that make for salacious reading for those who love 300-year-old soap operas. But when the dust settled Mme d’Aulnoy retired from Paris social life and for the next twenty years pursued a life as a writer. She was widely published and so well regarded that she was elected to membership of the Paduan Accademia dei Ricovatri in Italy. Among these writings were two collections of fairy tales. The account in Wikipedia describes her fairy tales in this way, “... Much of her writing created a world of animal brides and grooms, where love and happiness came to heroines after surmounting great obstacles.”

If you search Amazon.com for Charles Perrault you’ll find 675 results. Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy yields 140 results. Charlotte-Rose de Caumont La Force returns 32 results. Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier 15 results. 

What’s the point here? Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcomes. Should there be an equal number of English translations for all works of French literature? Of course not. But in the case described here, there was a 3 to 1 ratio of women to men. Each of them was a successful writer. Yet the man has had significantly more English translations - and into other languages as well - than his female contemporaries. The net result amplifies itself over time. If there is an English translation of a literary work then it must have been worth translating. That, in turn, begets other English translations.

Again, why should we care if there are English translations of writers who wrote over 300 years ago? Because we perpetuate a false version of history if we don’t fairly represent their contributions to the literary activities of that time. That’s an injustice both to the women of that time and to everyone today. We all deserve the right to see an accurate representation of history. 

Publishers, translators, academicians should make a dedicated effort to more accurately represent the work that was done by everyone of that era. They should do this not to diminish the work of Charles Perrault or even to claim the superiority of his female contemporaries. But once again, there should be an honest account of historical events.  

You might also like:

The Professional Translation of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales

A Little History of the World

This is a tale of an author, whose work was so popular that his book was translated into 25 languages. But, believing that only he could do the English language version justice, reserved for himself, the right to translate it into English. That was not fated to be, as he died before completing the work. His granddaughter and another translator completed that work.

Summary: Website localization requires multiple elements for your company to effectively function in a different country. Understand the basics when your company enters new markets.

This post puts the role of language translation into a larger context of website localization. But first, we’ll review some of the language translation aspects of website localization.

Localization Style Guide This is the set of rules for translators that will determine how your company will look, sound and behave in a new market. These guidelines will enable the company’s content to conform with and natively reflect this new market.

What are some of the components of a localization style guide:

• A clearly defined writing style

• A defined set of personas being addressed. Besides language spoken, what is the range of education levels, beliefs (religious or other), value systems, cultural habits and traditions of the audience you are speaking to and with? (don’t forget customer service!)

• You’ll need to determine whether the goal is to faithfully recreate the content or creatively recreate the desired outcome of the source content

• Grammatical forms preferred (passive vs. active voice, imperative or infinitive)

• How to use acronyms and initializations (what’s the difference?)

• A complete translation glossary of products and services from source to the target language

• How will the target language content treat slogans? 

Goya Foods had a simple enough slogan, “Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno”. A direct translation, "If it's Goya, it has to be good" was not a problem. However… when Perdue Chicken entered the Spanish market they made this epically bad translation: "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken". This became, "It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”. That's food for thought, isn't it?

Read these relevant posts on Style Guides and on how to localize the content on your website:

What is a Style Guide

Why Should You Run Your Website Localization Project On Motaword?

What else should you consider when planning website localization? You should also look into the functionality of your website. We’ll touch on a few things to get you thinking and when ready, you should hire qualified people to implement this part of the website localization project. 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in the target language. How do users in this language search for your products or services? Have a local SEO expert in your corner to be sure your content can rank well in search engine results and be found by your potential customers.

Use Hreflnag tags, e.g. hreflang="en"(for English) and hreflang="es" (for Espaňol) so Google knows which page to list in a given country. Different versions of the same language, such as US, Australia or the UK should have tags that identify each of them as well. 

Page Load Speed Sites that load quickly rank higher in search results. A maximum of three seconds is what Google recommends. What affects load time? The size of image files, bloated CSS or HTML files, and too many ads are among the guilty parties. And if the internet is generally slow in the country, you should consider building a simplified version of your website. Google provides a useful tool with its PageSpeed Insights that offers concrete suggestions on how to improve the speed of your site.

Identify Local Sites for Backlinks The most effective website localization strategies will plan on building relationships with local websites for links back to your local site. The search engine algorithms are too sophisticated to do this quickly so don’t fall for claims that know how to ‘hack’ this. It won’t work. Produce high-quality content to build natural backlinks from relevant sites. Over time your Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) rankings will increase.

What URL Structure Will You Use There are three options possible. 

Option One: Create a completely new localized website such as mybusiness.de (Germany). Since this is a stand-alone site it won’t be able to take advantage of the value of the original site’s page rankings. (remember pages are ranked and not entire websites)

Option Two: Create a subdomain as part of your original website. The URL of our example would be de.mybusiness.com. This lets the search engines know the country that the page is intended for.

Option three: Create subfolders on your existing English language website for the localized pages. Example, mybusiness.com/de/home/. An advantage for this option would be you can build on any existing SEO work you’ve done and Google will evaluate your local pages using the ranking of the original site and associated backlinks.

Bear in mind that there is debate on which is the optimal SEO strategy and SEO is an ever-changing landscape. Consult with a trusted localization expert with a reputation for being up-to-date on the field.

More than one-third of the world’s sites are built on WordPress so you and your developer team might find this video useful in planning your website localization work.

WordPress Multilingual Class, #2: Website Localization and Internationalization

Summary: With 90% of people in the Netherlands speaking English, do you need a Dutch translation of your website? Yes And we’ll tell you why.

Congratulations! Your company is doing well in the US market and you are now looking at other markets to enter to expand your customer base and grow your revenue. Most global companies, on average, translate their content into 32 different languages. As you begin to globalize you’ll absolutely want to do a Dutch translation of your content. English to Dutch translations are among the most frequently ordered languages on the MotaWord platform. As I cite chapter, verse, and stats on the Netherlands, you’ll see why.

The Netherlands is not a large country in terms of landmass. For those in the US, think twice the size of New Jersy or one-sixteenth the size of Texas. But in spite of being a relatively small country, their GDP is $933 billion USD (est. 2019) and by 2023 is estimated to grow to $1.1 trillion dollars (Statistics Times). And with a population of 17 million people,  two million fewer than New York State, the Netherlands still manages to achieve a ranking as the 17th largest economy in the world and the 6th largest economy in Europe.

As they used to say in the Gold Rush, “There’s gold in them thar hills!” You most certainly need to have a Dutch translation of your online content if you hope to win a share of this market.
The Largest Companies In The Netherlands

What are the major companies in The Netherlands? Among them are names that many will recognize as being international companies and might surprise you for being Dutch in origin. They are:

• Royal Dutch Shell, the oil and gas energy company operating in 70 countries
• ING, the banking and finance company who have clients in over 40 countries and over 75,000 employees around the world
• Unilever the consumer goods company that has evolved into a company focused on higher-end personal care products. Their products are available in nearly 190 countries. (almost every country worldwide)
• Ahold Delhaize is a supermarket group that also has interests in health and beauty products and has approximately 6,500 stores in 11 countries
• Aegon is a multinational insurance, asset management, and pension company that employs over 31,000 people as is known in the US as Transamerica. They serve over 16 countries.
• Rabobank is unusual for being a cooperative of 129 separate entities doing sustainable banking and financial services with specialties in food and agricultural financing.
• Philips, originally a lighting company, in 2014 turned to focus on healthcare.
• GasTerra, as the name might imply, is a natural gas sector and is owned by Royal Dutch Shell (25%), ExxonMobil (25%), and the Dutch government (50%).
• SHV is a privately held holding company with diverse holdings in transport, retail, oil, food, and financial services
• Heineken, founded over 150 years ago, owns more than 165 breweries in over 70 countries. It is still majority-owned by the Heineken family

You’ve probably noticed in the above company descriptions that I included the number of countries each of them operates in. This is to stress that translating your company’s content into the language of a new market is the minimum requirement for entering that market. So it is with a Dutch translation.

What languages are spoken in The Netherlands? 

(Source: WorldAtlas.com)

When US citizens travel to The Netherlands they’ll discover there is very little need for a Dutch translation More than 90% of the population speak English. The next most widely spoken second languages are German (71%), French (29%) and Spanish (5%). If you are American and plan to travel there, you’ll have to work a bit to practice your Dutch.

So then, why do the Dutch prefer to read online content in Dutch? For the same reason you or I prefer to read content in our native language. Comfort. Especially if we are doing something as emotionally charged as making a purchase decision. It’s up to businesses to have a Dutch translation to ‘meet their customers where they live’. We discussed this in an earlier blog post you’ll appreciate:

Speak To Global Customers In Their Own Language

Online and Mobile Usage

(as of 2017 statistica.com)

As of 2017, an astonishing 98% of Dutch households had broadband internet access (2017 cbs.nl) In the graphic below you’ll see that this is a greater percentage of connectivity than any other nation in Europe.

Add to that the fact that 87% of all Dutch people (tied with Sweden) have mobile internet access and you’ll agree that the Netherlands is a prize market to be a part of. By comparison, 64% of people in the European Union have mobile internet access.

E-commerce

(Source: Eshopworld.com)

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development 76% of the Dutch population between 15 and older shop online. The combined home-based and mobile internet penetration represent a special opportunity to target a rich, dense market of consumers. What could a Dutch translation of your content open for you? Consider this: In 2018, the Netherlands was number one in the rankings of Business-to-consumer e-commerce markets. (UN Conference on Trade and Development)

You won’t be quizzed on any of the data cited here but by now you can see that having a Dutch translation of your content provides you a passport to a prosperous market and will be money well spent. 

After watching this video you’ll understand, on a visceral level, why you should do a Dutch translation of your content, even though more Dutch speak English.

Now try this - copy all the text from the home page of your website into a Word or Google document and check the word count. Now go to our pricing page and put that word count into the relevant field. Now you’ll see how simple and affordable this translating your content will be.

Summary: Machine translation quality is not near the equal of trained human translators. Here are areas where technology fails.

Recently I read an interesting article on Neural Machine Translation, Has AI surpassed humans at translation? Not even close!, that strongly argues that machine translation, or more strictly, Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is not nearly advanced enough to replace competent human translators. 

What’s the problem? 

On a daily basis, we read about the triumphs of IBM’s Watson, that Google Translate is heavily used for casual reading of foreign publications and auto-translation of websites, and Facebook offers instant translations of content and comment provided in other languages. We seem to be in a Golden Age of quality translation on demand. Is that the case?

The short answer: no.

When reviewing translation with a rigorous standard of what constitutes quality, we find there are consistent issues of gender bias, a lack of understanding context, nonsensical output and the larger issue of how to judge when a translation is accurate. So far, judging the quality of a translation remains very expensive because only a fully bilingual person is able to make this determination. 

There is a metric for machine translation. It’s called the BLEU score. That stands for bilingual evaluation understudy. 

The BLEU score

This is a scoring system that compares the machine translation against a set of known human translations of good quality. Quality is defined as “the closer a machine translation is to a professional human translation, the better it is”. Each sentence is graded individually for quality and then the average of all scores over the entire corpus, i.e. work being translated, is calculated. That average score is the score then used as the score for the work. 

Interestingly, there is no measurement of intelligibility or grammatically correctness. Neither is there any comparison among the sentences to determine if they are contextually correct. You can see how this measure of machine translation quality has severe limits.

Read a more detailed explanation here. 

Why Context Matters

In the article that prompted this blog, the author uses this example: An article about a music concert quotes someone saying, “I’m a huge metal fan”. When translated into French by machine translation it becomes, “Je suis un énorme ventilateur en métal” (“I’m a large ventilator made of metal.”) The difficult task of understanding context causes a failing grade. At some point, the technology will be able to detect indicators of context such as, ‘concert’, ‘event’, ‘music’, ‘festival’, ‘arena’, ‘theater’ or other words/phrases humans easily use to shape our sense of context. But today this ambiguity can elude the capabilities of Neural Machine Translation to determine the correct meaning of both ‘metal’ and ‘fan’

For more background on understanding the concepts of translation, machine translation, and neural machine translation you might watch this lecture from the Standford University School of Engineering.

Neural Machine Translation and Models with Attention

For more on the importance of understanding context, the difference between a globalized translation versus a localized translation you can read any of the following:

German Translation? Which German?

Spanish Translation For Your Website: Which Spanish?

French Translation? Which French?

Given the nascent state of translation technology, what should businesses do to get the most accurate, faithful translations quickly and at a fair price? MotaWord has an answer. Our AI-supported platform allows translators to work on a project simultaneously, without using human project managers.  Customers can upload style guides and glossaries to customize their translation. These resources are shared among all the translators working on the project to produce accurate translations in less time. And customers can watch, in real-time, as translators work on their projects.

Contact us to see we can meet all of your translation needs.

Summary: Korean translations can be tricky, with both meaning and style challenges. MotaWords translators give us an inside view of the challenges and rewards of Korean translations.

After studying English in universities, both Jasmine Kim and Yoon Seo brought their Korean translation skills to a professional level by reading English works extensively. For Jasmine, this led to work as a project manager at a translation agency, a job she held for five years.  Stanley Nam’s path was slightly less conventional. Let’s hear how each of them describes their journey.

Stanley Nam: I was lucky to serve as an Army Interpreter for my mandatory military service. As the Korean army frequently runs joint war games with the US, there is a high demand for middlemen who understand both two languages and the military settings in Korea. My primary job description included translating manuals to be used in the field, and promoting communication between the US and Korean personnel. Brevity and accuracy were vital in the two-year training, so after I finished the service I was confident in going into professional translation. From then on, I have worked for numerous clients both in Korea and Canada, where I am currently located. MotaWord is one of a kind as it let me freely work whenever I can and wherever I am. 

Jasmine Kim: As a person who enjoys challenging new things that are especially related to English, I love reading interesting content, particularly when it involves languages. I have studied English interpretation and translation at university and worked as a project manager at a translating agency for five years. These experiences brought me to this wonderful position of a freelance translator working new and interesting tasks every day!

Yoon Seo: I continue to study English and I read articles and columns to acquire the vocabulary and information on corresponding professions. This lets me translate works smoothly into Korean.

Most often, what languages pairs do you work in and in which direction?

Jasmine Kim: Generally I work in English to Korean translation or proofreading jobs, which I am familiar with, and this language pair and direction occupy most of my projects. I also handle Korean to English translation jobs when my schedule allows me. 

Stanley Nam: I mostly translate from English to Korean. Besides, there is also high demand among the Korean researchers who need their scholarly works to be translated into English, so I often translate articles in business (my major in college) to be made acceptable to international journals.

Yoon Seo: I work in English to Korean translations.

Describe a typical day working on a MotaWord translation job?

Yoon Seo: I'm holding onto my laptop because I have to compete with other translators to get a real-time translation.  When I don't have a laptop, I might miss a project.

OK, Yoon, we’re going to have to get more work for the Korean translators so you don’t have to worry about this.

Stanley Nam: MotaWord notifies me through e-mail when there is a project I can work on. When I am not on other projects, I can devote my whole working time to that project. Even while I am working on other projects, I can spare some time contributing to the MotaWord project as a side job. What I love about MotaWord projects is that I can be a part of many other competitive translators and do not need to work on my own. I can always learn from what others have translated, especially if there is already a Mandarin translation of the English phrase that I try to translate into Korean. This is very helpful as I speak Mandarin as well.

Jasmine Kim: I try to wake up early because I find the morning hours to be the most productive. I am usually tied up with housework until I get a new job. When I get a notification mail regarding “New translation project” from MotaWord, I dash to my computer and enjoy translating.  

Any advice for beginning translators?

Stanley Nam: Try to learn from language pairs done by other translators. There are also bilingual newspapers that provide pairs of Korean and English sentences of the same meaning. See how the journalists wrote the same situation in the two languages. By learning, I do not mean blindly following previous examples. Be critical about them and think about how you can do better.

This is a good place to jump in to suggest you watch this thoughtful video on the Korean language.  This Korean language teacher thinks deeply about language learning in general. You'll enjoy this. 

Why is it so difficult to translate between English and Korean?

Jasmine Kim: One of my favorite maxims is "He who has dreamed for long resembles his dream" said by a French novelist, Andre Malraux. I am sure that it is definitely true since I have become the person I dreamed of a few years ago. I strongly believe whoever dreams will see the dream turn out to be real.

Yoon Seo: Get a good understanding of the style of the document and the subject area required.

The three of you have my respect and the respect of the MotaWord team. The more I learn about Korean translations and the richness of the Korean language the more impressed I become. In my research, I found  examples of that richness:

10 Fascinating Korean Words That Have No English Translation

And here’s a web page where you’ll read and hear, Korean Core 100 Word List

For more information on Korean translations you might also like:

Korean Translation is Hard. Ask Koreans.

Korean Translation, why?

Summary: Variants in a language can be big or small. Understanding the difference is crucial when considering an English translation of your content. Go local or global?

George Bernard Shaw, the English writer never said the following: “The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.” In his published works there’s no record that he ever said this but still, people give him credit for this quote.
Oscar Wilde, another Brit with a gift for a clever line, is attributed with, “We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

The larger point -  there can be confusion and misunderstanding within what is called one language. For some Americans traveling in England, an English translation might be necessary to understand what the locals are saying. 

Or when someone in Australia says the word, “barbie”, an American might think of the doll that can be dressed in an endless array of clothing styles. They’d be wrong. For Australians ‘barbie’ means barbequed meat. 

Here’s a fun post found on 20 Australian Words That Mean Something Totally Different in the U.S.
And an American or Australian might need an English translation of these 20 British Words That Mean Something Totally Different in the U.S. Among, “shag”, “rubber”, “hooker” and “pants” there are plenty of ways to have embarrassing misunderstandings with words we think we understand. 

What do all of these amusing examples mean for a business person looking to market internationally? That’s where things get serious. But the idea of needing an English translation for content in English is not far fetched. You cannot assume that common language in one country will be understood or have the same connotations in a different country.

To illustrate: You’ll enjoy this video that underscores how we often don’t understand each other, even when we speak a common language.
The beautiful ways different cultures sign emails, from the BBC’s website. (the British take on international affairs and culture is always a fun read) This piece highlights how our cultural differences in writing emails can have real repercussions in the business world. 

You could easily alienate a client or be misunderstood by a coworker. Being in the U.S. - New York City in specific - you wouldn't give a second thought to signing a letter, “Regards,”. But after reading this article you might realize that what some consider to be a pleasant tip-of-the-hat can be read as aloof and impolite in other English speaking locales. Since that would never be the intention, it is safer to sign off with “Best regards” or “Kind regards” or maybe even a “Warm regards”. 

In taking a company to market in other countries, understanding nuance in a language is critical. No one cares what you meant to say if your language is understood as saying something else. And that’s the risk one encounters when dealing with other cultures. Something said innocently can be taken badly.

MotaWord’s co-founder, Evren Ay, when writing about localizing your content put it best: Speak to Global Customers in Their Own Language. 

Imagine going to Amazon.com and trying to shop in a different language. Talk about a poor user experience! No sensible company does that in 2019. A company that’s serious about globalizing will, on average, translate their content into 32 different languages. That’s not merely considerate. It’s good business.

So here’s some advice on entering new markets. One, localize your content. Use an expert with knowledge of the local market, language, and customs for business communications. And second, go that next step by learning how to communicate one-on-one with your customers in that market. This is a must-have and not a nice-to-have. You’ll need to know how people communicate in writing to be effective with customer service and any in-country partners.

Have a nice day,
Regards,
Ciao for now,
Ta ta,

Where are we? Ah yes! In the U.S.A. No English translation is necessary.
Best regards,
Marcos

PS - At MotaWord we truly understand how to localize your content and would love to take that task off of your hands. See how affordable we can be.

Summary: Choosing a translation agency is an important decision. Learn best practices from a modern, cloud-based collaborative translation platform - MotaWord

How does a modern translation company use the latest software tools to augment trained translators? And what advantages does that give them over a traditional translation agency?

To start - when a traditional translation company puts up a website that does not make them modern, and certainly not digital. The actual quoting, translation, delivery and housekeeping functions are still typically done by a project manager and a single translator with no technology assisting that work.

MotaWord is natively digital. The MotaWord platform facilitates and improves the work of translators. Our translators work on a document simultaneously via a unique collaboration platform. Unlike a traditional translation agency, MotaWord’s translators can see each other’s work in real-time. They learn from and improve each other’s work while adding a layer of accountability to the process that does not exist with a single translator working on a document. And the MotaWord platform employs translation memory technology and our Translator Quality Score Algorithm for ever-improving work. Read more on how we constantly monitor the translation quality: Ensuring Accurate Translations With MotaWord

The demand for translations, both in personal and business life, is ever increasing as the economy continues to globalize. This massive growth in demand makes it impractical to do translations as we’ve done them for hundreds of years. But humans are still needed to produce accurate, reliable translations. In order to understand why the 46 billion dollar a year translation industry is still dominated by humans, it makes sense to look at the current state of "Machine Translations". Here is some background on computer translations.
Terms to understand

"Word-based” and "Phrase-based” translations were used in early translation software. The results were very rough translations, good only for getting a basic understanding of what the text was trying to convey. This type of machine translation is almost nearly abandoned as it does not yield reliable results. The next stage of machine translation was:

Machine or Neural Machine Translation (NMT) - this software enhanced translation performance by using neural networks to learn to translate entire sentences without breaking them down into smaller parts. This system then uses the prior text to create a context where further translations can be performed. While NMT is much better than the early machine translations, they are still not ready for prime time and might not be for some while yet.

Read more about Neural Machine Translation

And watch this video: Neural Machine Translation Tutorial - An introduction to Neural Machine Translation



Translation memory technology is a linguistic database that captures and saves repetitive phrases for future use. It enables translators to work faster and lower the cost of your translation projects by eliminating the need to translate repetitive phrases. It is important to note that this technology does not replace human translators; rather, it augments translators' skills to provide faster and more accurate translations. This is what MotaWord does. MotaWord’s platform equips translators with this transformative technology.

Read more on translation memory technology

Pricing Differences
Traditional Translation Agencies: Minimum prices are common for them. This makes small jobs too expensive to be practical. Prices begin at $29 and up. Many translation agencies charge different rates for translating different languages.

MotaWord: No minimum - Just $0.14 per word. No contracts. No commitment. Whatever the language pair.

File Types Are Accepted
Traditional translation agencies accept a limited range of file types and return the translation in a limited range of file types. 
MotaWord can ingest the major office suite files, rich text, plain text, as well as 25 machine-readable formats. Learn more here

Speed of Delivery
Traditional translation agencies: Minimum delivery time is 6 - 24 hours for the ‘top-rated companies’ based on our internal research. And that only after you pay a "rush fee" for the speedy service.

MotaWord’s platform is available 24/7. The moment your job comes in translators can begin to work on it. And you can see their work and offer guidance in real time. So whether it’s a single page or one hundred pages your job will be finished significantly faster than a traditional translation service. About 20 times faster.

When looking at translation services be sure your choice has the right people and the breadth of languages to handle both your current needs and long term needs. Then be sure your choice of a translation service uses the best technology to provide accurate, fast translations at a fair price. Your choice should be MotaWord.

Any questions about translations? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We stand ready to work with you.

Summary: Certified translations for USCIS are required for foreign language documents supporting citizenship or naturalization applications. What documents are required? What should you pay attention to?

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is that part of the federal government that has jurisdiction over citizenship and immigration issues.  

1. What is a certificate of translation?
A formal statement in which a translator shows that they have accurately translated a foreign-language document into English. Any foreign language document must be accompanied by a full English translation that the translator has certified as complete and correct, and by the translator's certification that they are competent to translate the foreign language into English.

2. Who needs this?
Anyone who is immigrating to the United States of America (USA) or applying for naturalization.

3. What documents need to be certified?
Any and all documents submitted to support an application or petition are required to also have an English translation. This translation must be accompanied by a certification from the translator that attests the translation is both complete, accurate and that the translator is competent. Examples include birth certificates, marriage certificates, college transcripts, and police records.

And it’s important to know what information the USCIS  requires in a document. In some cases where the original document is lengthy countries will issue an ‘extract’ version of the document. These ‘extract’ documents will be accepted only if they contain the required information and if they were produced by an authorized official. (the “keeper of record”)

4. Do all translators offer this service?
No, not all translation services provide this service. Be sure that this service is offered before you engage with any translation service. MotaWord will usually return your certified translation within hours of being submitted. Read more about MotaWord’s USCIS certified translations here. or watch our Video: MotaWord Certified Translation

5. When am I required to have certified translations?
There are several scenarios in which you’ll need your non-English documents to have certified translations. Those include:

• Legal proceedings such as trials or hearings
• Immigration applications
• College applications
• Corporate and Business documentation
  • Documents might include, financial reports, contracts, patent filings. Additionally, businesses hiring a new employee may require: medical records, bank statements, passports, and visas

Here is one of the main reasons why you should choose MotaWord to handle your certified translations for USCIS. The largest immigration platform in the United States does and we are proud of our work with them. You can read more about how MotaWord provides USCIS ready translation service to Envoy Global every day, saving time, money and hassle to their clients here: https://www.motaword.com/cases/certified-translations-envoy

Useful Resources

How do I apply for U.S. citizenship? (PDF)
USCIS Resources in Other Languages

Summary: For non-English speaking computer programming students, do the benefits of learning to code in an “English translation” outweigh learning in a foreign language?

Reading this article on Wired.com CODING IS FOR EVERYONE—AS LONG AS YOU SPEAK ENGLISH got me thinking about language learning and learning to be a software developer.

In software programming, there are keywords that are part of the vocabulary used to write a given software program. Most software languages originated in an English language speaking country. So to write code in that programming language, developers have had to learn the English-based vocabulary. Does this disadvantage non-English speakers learn to write code? And what advantages might there be in learning a programming language in what might be called, an English translation or version?

The challenge could be daunting. But many people believe that the benefits of a large community who share the same code and support resources far outweigh the negatives of learning to code in English-based or an English translation version.

And working with MotaWord's software developers, all of whom are not native English speakers, I have the perfect group to talk to about English translations, reading code, and writing code in English. I grabbed MotaWord's co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Oytun Tez for his perspective. Below is an interview, edited for length and clarity.

MD: Ok, thanks for agreeing to this interview. This is a series of questions about learning English and your journey as a programmer. How old were you when you learned to speak English?

OT: I probably started learning English and coding at the same time, which is around like 10 or 12 years old.

MD: Did you encounter English language keywords in those programming languages, separately from your conversational English?

OT: Definitely. I had two vocabularies. One is coding English vocabulary. And one is the social vocabulary. So for instance, I learned many keywords such as Declare, and Constant. Those things are coming from my coding vocabulary. Whereas I wasn't really exposed to those words in my social English. There's a big alignment there, they support each other.

MD: Would it have been easier to learn coding had it been in Turkish, your native language?

OT: I don't think so. I don't think it would have a huge contribution to that, really.
It may even be better to learn it in English as a second language because coding is a different mindset. You don't see that kind of mindset in real life. So it's okay to learn this vocabulary so that you have a more coherent understanding of that paradigm.

MD: ...because natural language, our conversational language is so nuanced. It has connotations. It doesn't have the strictness and formality of mathematical language. 

OT: Yeah, because you're learning that alien language in a very structured, very strict way as you said. I guess it lets you concentrate on just the content of the word instead of its relations with social life. Like when I see “Class”, which is a coding term. I don't immediately remember a classroom. Because I don't have that native connection. But now I have a very good understanding of “Class” in programming, unrelated to the social word “Class”.

MD: Would you guess that say, a Chinese or Korean person would find viewing an English translation or version to be a barrier when learning to code?

OT: I think the formal differences such as the shape of the expression -  you only see them in the first few experiences of learning how to code. So after a month, let's say, you're not really seeing those things. Because they're just shapes for you. And you have other meanings about those shapes in your mind. As long as you know how to type then it doesn't matter what they look like. They could just consider it the coding language. It doesn't really have to be in the Latin alphabet. It can be any language as long as I know which character is which meaning. 

MD: Right. So you have a visual association between those characters and the concepts that they represent. 

OT: Yeah. Now that you ask, I'm imagining a programming language with Chinese characters. Let's say they don't look as complicated as they do now to me. I guess I could have a similar experience. It will be alien until I learned the syntax and how to memorize those symbols. And then it's just using them.

MD: Right. Well, thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts on learning to code, English translations, and learning to
code as a non-native English speaker.

Supporting Oytun Tez’s view is a video: 



Speaking with another team member here at MotaWord, Priya Ajit, Director of Business Development, she had some additional thoughts:

In my opinion, I think it will be difficult to have a multilingual software language, as there will be very limited online resources & communities of developers. All the current software languages have existing vast online resources to help and guide programmers in case of any issue or to further enhance their knowledge. This might not be a possibility in case of a multilingual software language.

However, if this can be solved, then it would definitely increase the possibility for any person to become a programmer even if his/her knowledge of the English language is limited or none.

There are, in fact, are examples of programming languages that were both created and exits in non-English languages. These typically have their English translation versions too. You can read more here:
Non-English-based programming languages (Wikipedia)

And if you’re a foreign-born programmer considering working in the U.S. you’ll need certified translations of your important documents. Not to worry. Read an example here:
Get A Certified Translation From Spanish To English For USCIS

Summary: Should the German translation of your content be localized or globalized? With three forms of standard German, you will still need to know your audience.

German is the official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland.

German is spoken by 95 million native speakers around the world (Wikipedia)
Countries by percentage of German speakers:

  0-1% German-Speaking

  1-5% German-Speaking

  50%+ German-Speaking

(Source: Wikipedia)

Standard Forms of German (Source: Wikipedia) 

  

German Standard German - as the name would imply, this is the dialect spoken and written in Germany. This is the variety of German that is most frequently taught in schools internationally. There are regional differences to this variety of German language. 

Swiss Standard German is also called Swiss High German. This version is one of four official languages in Switzerland and is mostly used as a written, not speak the language. What is spoken in Switzerland is Swiss German. Swiss German is also referred to as Alemannic German. 

Are you confused enough yet? A German translation could be any one of the previously mentioned dialects. How then does one do a German translation of a video or audio recording? Amateurs should not try this at home. It can only end in tears for your company’s marketing department.  But wait! There’s one more type of standard German to be accountable for.

Austrian  Standard German, spoken in Austria, is considered the most prestigious form and is used in formal settings and in the media. For casual situations, Austrians will use Bavarian and Alemannic dialects. 

For a taste of the variety of dialects in Germany alone you’ll enjoy this:

Me speaking in 12 GERMAN DIALECTS!

Wrestling with this topic might seem daunting but it’s worth remembering that Germany alone is a prized market to be in. Read our blog on this topic. The Case For German Translation - you’ll see that the reward could be well worth the effort.

Let’s focus more on localizing and how a business should approach this task through the lens of Spanish translations. The principles are exactly the same regardless of the specific language.   

Read: Spanish Translation For Your Website: Which Spanish?

Now that I’ve scared you sufficiently with many of the larger linguistic landmines you should be aware of, it’s time to provide a guide for how to think about a German translation of your content.    

To globalize or to localize? 

   

That is the question!
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous mistranslations

I think you get where we’re going with this. For your business, your choice of a German translation can have significant consequences.   

What does it mean to globalize a German translation? The quick answer is Standard German but if you go to this Wikipedia link you’ll see it lists German Standard German, Austrian Standard German, and Swiss Standard German. So once again, it is better to do careful diligence and/or hire an expert to understand your target audience and what the best match will be for globalizing

If you have a clearly defined audience that speaks the same dialect then the choice is easy (easy is a relative term here). Localize for that audience’s variety of German. Again, it’s best to hire an expert company. We know that MotaWord has both the skilled translators and the experience needed to localize your content. That guarantees you’ll be completely satisfied with the result. And our platform generates a constantly updating glossary so that each successive localization takes advantage of our prior experience. 

Let us know if you have further questions and we’ll gladly address them. After all, you can reach us 24/7 just by visiting www.motaword.com.

As a companion piece to my earlier look at the German startup landscape, German Translation and Startup Ecosystem, I connected with Duc Tam Dam of the German Accelerator here in New York City. He was kind enough to field my questions on German startups. (needless to say, no German translation was required for this.) 

Thanks, Duc. Let’s get to it!

Marcos: Is the federal government actively supportive of German startups?
Duc: Yes it is, there are several programs as well as institutions to help and fund the startups.
Here are a few examples of them: 

• Berliner Startup Stipendium (scholarship for founders)
• Exist (more advanced scholarship)
• KMU-innovative (Initiated by the federal government for education for technological research)
• German Accelerator (supporting German startups to expand globally)

Marcos: Let me jump in here to note that the companies in your accelerator all have great websites in English. They know the value of a good English translation of their German content. (As I am sure they value a good German translation of services they receive from international companies). For your next batch of German startups, please pass along our info, such as this post, “The Best Translation Companies in New York City” 

Marcos: Are individual cities supportive?
Duc: Yes, nearly every big city supports founders and startups.

Marcos: If a given city is supportive, what programs or funding are provided to startups?

Duc: They provide help with investments, consulting, knowledge or seminars.
Go here to find examples of different services provided in Berlin.

Marcos: How does the startup environment in Germany compare with that in the US?

Duc: In general, there is less funding here in Germany compared to the US. Also in order to get funding the traction and the validation of the idea is crucial since investors are less risk-taking. Whereas in the US investors are also willing to invest in the vision of the startup.

Marcos: My understanding is that these are the main cities where there is startup activity: Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Karlsruhe. Which of these cities has the most activity.

Watch this video for a quick overview of Germany’s startup hubs: Meet the Startups in Germany: The Digital Hub Initiative

Marcos: Anything else noteworthy to know about German startups?

Duc: Berlin is among the top ten places in the world to found a startup when it comes to the ecosystem and has the second biggest ecosystem in Europe behind London. 

In case you want to know more about the German startups' scene, I highly recommend to have a look at the EY startup barometer (in German). It is an annual report of the startup scene with all recent trends and transfers in detail. (If you want that or any other document translated from German you now know to call on MotaWord)

For a better understanding of what’s going on with all German businesses read this article on our blog: The Case for German Translation

Summary: How must your company think about localizing your content in French? A French translation for Quebec differs from a French translation in Switzerland or France.

Where is French spoken? 

Source: Wikipedia

What are the challenges your company will face when trying to reach French-speaking audiences worldwide? What’s at stake here? It could go a couple of ways. You can effectively engage and sell to your new market or instead you could confuse and alienate this new market with an inappropriate French translation. You need to understand if there is a ‘Standard French’ that will be universally understood or if the market you are trying to reach requires a specific dialect. Put another way, you need to know how to navigate the linguistic and cultural waters and avoid the hidden reefs and shoals that can wreck your ship.

A brief humorous interlude on linguistic ambiguity from the classic, The Princess Bride.

 

To craft an effective French translation of your content you need to wrap your head around the concept of a ‘Standard French’ versus a French translation that has been localized for a specific country or region. For perspective on a standard or global French start with “Standard French”  on Wikipedia.

We make a case for targeting a specific language market here: Speak to Global Customers in Their Own Language. Now would be a good time to check that article out to see why we press this issue.

The French Language: By the Numbers

Source: diplomatie.gouv

• 300 million people worldwide speak French
• 5th most spoken language in the world after, Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, and Arabic
• 29 countries have French as the official language
• 2nd most used language, after English, in diplomacy
• 3rd most used language in business

How many dialects of French are there in the world? There are 29, including Belgian, Quebec, Swiss, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Haitian French to name a few.

Select E-commerce Markets in French Speaking Countries

Source: statistica.com

France

• Annual Revenue $50 billion (2019 est.)
• The e-commerce penetration rate of 77.4% (2019 est.)

Quebec

• Annual Revenue $9.1 billion (2018)
• E-commerce penetration rate 58% (2018)

While not specifically a French translation recommendation, generally there are a few things that will help you succeed when entering into a new market.

• Do your research and consult with experts to learn the buying habits of the new target market. 
• Make the new website appear to be native to that country. Did you know that 62% of Canadian e-commerce buyers prefer to buy from a ‘.ca’ address? Of course, that makes sense but as you plan your go to market strategy you might not remember it.

To continue with the Canadian example here’s a quick read on 3 website improvements that will help you sell to Canadians

Finally, you can read about Irena, one of MotaWord’s many professional translators doing French translation work. She does French translations into English and German with particular care. German Translator in Switzerland: A Translator Shares Their Life

And… for a free quote on your French translation or any of your translation needs, 24/7, click this link.

Summary: For French translations, how much influence should the Académie Française have in how foreign words are rendered in French?

A few weeks ago, March 3, 2019, there was an article in the New York Times, The guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked, Just Like Their Country. It piqued my interest since discussions of language usage are so often proxies for larger societal issues such as class and race. We won’t go down that road but it does make things… interesting, to say the least.

Rules, Rules, Rules: Descriptive vs. prescriptive
Does anyone else remember being taught in school that “like” should not be used as a comparative? We were told the correct word to use is “as”. That was prescriptive and few people were willing to abide by that rule. The cigarette brand, Winston, famously played on this rule with their long-running ad, 'Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should'. By contrast, the descriptive view is that if a majority of people use a word or phrase and it conveys meaning then it becomes an acceptable part of the language. 

The example that may irritate purists:
Less (sic) people avoid using ‘like’ than in bygone years. 
Would anyone like to go to the mat and wrestle me over using “fewer’ instead of ‘less’?
Read the fewer/less rules and pick a side.

For a more extended explanation of prescriptive versus descriptive grammar read, Linguistic prescription. In most countries, these kinds of discussions take place in academia, bookstores, and college coffee shops. But France has a tradition of being particular about how the French language is used. English incorporates vocabulary and grammar from multiple sources. 

Speaking of prescriptive, you’ll enjoy watching this classic scene from the movie, My Fair Lady, that deals with ‘proper’ English language usage.



History of the Académie française
In 1635 Cardinal Richelieu, a cleric and chief minister to King Louis XIII, founded the Académie française to protect and preserve the French language. The academy existed for 60 years before they published their first dictionary, the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française. Across three centuries and the publication of nine editions the academy is considered to be the definitive word on what is correct and pure French. They are famous for rejecting new terms from other languages, especially Anglicisms (English derived words). The Academy prefers a French translation over one originated in another language.

Examples of these French translations are:

• buzz – ramdam
• tuning – bolidage
• chat – éblabla

So who are these, ‘so-called’ immortals? They are the forty members of the academy who collectively make these judgments as to what is acceptable in the French language. They are typically esteemed members of academia, respected authors, retired government officials among other society notables. Each applies to be a member and if elected serves for life. It doesn’t mean they live forever so perhaps the name is a misnomer.

Can the Académie française stop the rise of Anglicisms in French?

How do French translators approach a French translation with regard to a descriptive or prescriptive orientation for proper usage? This often depends on who is the intended audience of a text. And that then determines whether to localize the French translation for a particular geographic region or attempt a more universally understood, globalized version of your French translation. 

We’ve written about the question of whether to localize or globalize and on different dialects in a given language. Here are two that are immediately relevant:

French Translation? Which French?

Spanish Translation For Your Website: Which Spanish?

Any questions translations? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We specialize in making you comfortable with our translation services.