Category: General

The Cost of Localization is Cost Effective in the Long Run

Newbies in the international ecommerce industry may not fully appreciate the importance of localization. In fact, the term may be misunderstood and confused with translation. Most business that are involved in selling goods to an international market understand that they have little chance of actually connecting with much of the potential market unless their goods are advertised clearly in the languages preferred by their potential customers. What they may not appreciate fully is that translation must go beyond straightforward or literal conversion of marketing information from one language to another. It must be localized.

Many businesses planning their introduction to selling goods internationally are well aware that they have to budget for translation. The question is whether they have done sufficient cost benefit analysis of just what the commercial advantages of using a professional localization team to do their localization for business tasks for them. Admittedly, this is not easy to do with a new business, but evidence available from already well established e-commerce businesses is that the cost of professional localization for business is well worth it in the long run. Here’s why!

Why localization is worth spending money on

Localization is all about adapting a marketing message to a particular community or group of potential customers. It’s all about making the things you sell visible to people who use a distinct dialect or have a culture that is distinctly different from your own.

You know from general knowledge that not everyone at “home”, wherever that is thinks the same, speaks with the same accent or prefers the same things. It’s not just the social grouping, localization may include adapting marketing content so that it becomes attractive to particular age groups or genders as well as those who use certain idiomatic or colloquial language.

It may be better to think about this topic by speculating what could happen if:

  • translation is not done at all;
  • translation is done badly;
  • there is no localization.

If no translation is done, then your products are unlikely to be seen on the internet by anyone outside of a country where your own language is spoken or understood. In fact, it could be worse than that because so many countries these days are multicultural or multilingual as a direct result of immigration trends. Research convincingly shows that most people browse products they are interested in on websites that are in their preferred language.

If translation is done badly, it means that your sales pitch will appear amateurish at best and untrustworthy at worst. Your investment in promoting your products overseas will be wasted by not spending enough n professional translation services.

If no localization is done then you risk alienating potential customers. You could offend them, confuse them or just plain not amuse them. The result is the same as above: the investment you make will be wasted.

The lesson is to take localization seriously and use a professional translator with localization skills in the language or languages you choose to use.

The Sydney Film Festival 2017

Hot on the heels of the better known Cannes Film Festival is the Sydney (Australia) Film Festival. This is an annual event which takes place at a number of different venues in Sydney. This year, 2017, the festival takes place between the 7th and 18th of June.

The festival showcases many films which include documentaries, short films, family films, animations, feature films and retrospectives. There are a number of prizes available and a list of films that have been entered in the various categories can be viewed on the festival’s website.

Venues

2017 Sydney Film Festival venues include the Sydney Town Hall, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the State, the New South Wales Art Gallery, the Dendy Opera Quays and Event Cinemas. Most of these venues are in Sydney’s CBD.

Tickets

It would be physically impossible to see every one of the 288 films that will be shown this year, but you can certainly see a lot of them if you are addicted to films. The festival directors have made buying tickets easy and there are different types of tickets to suit anyone who either just wants to see one or two films or as many as possible.

Flexipasses are a great way to see lots of films and save on the individual single tickets. You can buy flexipasses for 10, 20 or 30 film sessions. If you are under 18 you can buy a youth pass, which makes it only $12 per film, but note that age restrictions may limit you to viewing only certain films. Adults pay $19.90 for single films and there are discounts for seniors and concession holders. If you want to see the full list of competition films, then this will cost you $169.

All prices are in Australian dollars. See the SFF website for details of where you can buy tickets. If you are in the CBD, this can be done in person at the Rocks by the harbourside.

Film Prizes

The Sydney Film Festival did not award prizes until 2007 when it got some money from the New South Wales state government and became officially an international competition. Some of the prizes up for grabs include the:

  • Sydney Film Prize;
  • Australian Documentary Prize;
  • Australian Best Live Action Short Film;
  • Best Director of an Australian Short Film;
  • Yoram Gross Animation Award;
  • Audience Awards for Best Fiction Feature and Best Documentary;
  • Peter Rasmussen Innovation Award;

The Sydney Film Festival is notable for its audience participation in helping to choose some of the competition level films as described above. You could be one of them!

Turning the Tide: Focus on Women in Translation

It has been noted already that when it comes to translated literature, there is a preponderance of male writers getting their work published, even if what they have written has been translated by women translators. Now, a small number of publishing companies are keen to turn the tide and promote women in translation.

Les Fugitives is a new and independent publisher that is going to concentrate on publishing women in translation. The company had an unusual beginning. The translator who is now running the company decided to go into publishing when a title the translator was working on lost its original publisher. The translator decided to go ahead and publish the title anyway. The idea of publishing translated work by women alone won the translator cum publisher a grant from the French government.

Calisi Press is another up and coming publishing company focusing on women in translation. It was set up by another woman translator, Franca Simpson. Simpson had attended a session on women in translation at the British Library where the whole question of why so many female writers seemed to be overlooked when it came to publishing in another language was addressed.

Simpson says that Calisi Press doesn’t just want to publish literature by women because they are women but because they are stories that are beautifully written by women as well as being mostly about women. Calisi is not necessarily targeting women readers when they publish their books. Simpson launched the first book off Calisi’s press by Italian author Donatella Di Pietrantonio. The title was “My Mother is a River”.

Another publisher that professes to not have a policy on promoting women in translation nevertheless seems to have reached a much better gender balance. This is Pushkin Press, which doesn’t necessarily concentrate on translated texts but does publish quite a few. The most successful book the publisher has had so far this year is by Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, entitled “One Night”. The book was translated by woman translator Sondra Silverston. Pushkin’s managing director, Adam Freudenheim, said that the published list was about 50 / 50 women and men and thought that was a good thing, but emphasised that the publishing company focused on good books by good writers and did not have any particular policy on women writers or their translated texts.

Finally, more on the good news front, there is Europa Editions UK. The company’s director, Daniela Petracco, like Pushkin Press, said that they are looking primarily for good books that will sell, but they are well attuned to women writers. She acknowledged that very few women in translation ever see their translated work published. Europa has just published the final translated instalment of the Naples inspired series by Elena Ferrante.

Brief Guide to Melbourne Over Easter

If you are thinking about visiting Australia around Easter, consider Melbourne. It will be packed full of things to do and see and many restaurants, shops and other services will stay open over the long weekend between the 14th and 17th April.

As Melbourne is a Mecca for foreign visitors of all kinds and Easter is a great time for visitors to visit Australia’s most multicultural of cities, it’s also a time when translation services in Melbourne find a lot of demand for their translation skills.

Public holidays often come as a surprise when you are visiting somewhere you are not familiar with. Even in Australia itself there are individual state and territory holidays which you may not be aware of when visiting interstate. If you are not particularly religious, then the actual dates of the Easter long weekend can be confusing as they are determined by a complicated formula that is determined partly by religion and partly by astronomy. Sometimes it’s as early as mid March and sometimes, like this year it’s as late as mid April.

One thing about Easter in Melbourne is that the only services that will be closed will be government offices and many businesses as Good Friday and Easter Monday are official public holidays across Australia. If you need a bank or a post office, for instance, get to one of them before Friday as they will be closed over the Easter period. If you need a particular business service, such as document translation services, use them before Easter or wait until after everything gets back to normal as they will be closed as well.

Restaurants, cafes, pubs, nightclubs and other places of entertainment will all be open over Easter. Shopping centres are mostly closed on Good Friday, open on Saturday, closed n Easter Sunday and may have limited hours on Easter Monday. Many big supermarket chains like Coles and Woolworths will be open every day but may have more limited hours than usual.

There are always a number of events in Melbourne that only take place over Easter. Some of these, of course, relate to Christian Easter ceremonies and traditions and each church will have its own Easter programme. There are also other, non religious activities happening in different parts of the city. Any information centre will have details if you are in Australia already or go to the City of Melbourne website. Some examples of what’s on offer include:

  • The Melbourne Easter Show is a fun filled family activity at the Lawson Poole Reserve in Cranbourne. It runs throughout the long weekend break from 9 am right through to 10 pm. There are Easter egg hunts, loads of entertainment and sideshows to entertain everyone and it’s free.

 

  • The Weribee Family Picnic and Cadbury Easter Egg Hunt are on Good Friday at Weribee Mansion in the Park. It’s the largest egg hunt in the country and raises funds for the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

 

Is Australia a dangerous country?

If you have been offered a job and qualify to work in Australia, you have been offered permanent residency on the basis of your skills, or you have a large sum of money and are thinking of migrating to Australia in the business category, you will be choosing to live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. This is not just based on the high income that Australians of working age earn, but on the wealth of natural resources that Australia has become famous for.

Of course, there is more to life than just money. With current medical advancements and the high standard and quality of health care accorded to all that reside in the country if you intend to bring children with you and they were born between 2013 and 2015, a boy can expect to live to more than 80 years and a girl to almost 85 years. Those are statistics to be reckoned with, when compared to other similar nations.

Of course no one lives forever. 50% of Australians will have succumbed to cancer by the time they are the ripe old age of 85 years but the leading cause of death still lies with coronary heart disease. In many cases, this is preventable if you eat a healthy fruit and vegetable rich diet of which there is no shortage in the country. If you avoid a diet high in saturated fats you could outlive the prospect of dying from heart disease.

There are plenty of opportunities to take part in sporting activities, whether organised or self-made. New South Wales alone is home to a large variety of bushwalking trails and, of late, disused railways have been converted to off road bike trails.

You may worry if you go for a swim in the sea that you may get stung and lose your life to a box jellyfish encounter or a man eating shark. You don’t need to concern yourself about that as the authorities are almost always in the know if there is anything dangerous lurking in the waters. You will be warned promptly and that goes for the presence of dangerous sharks too. In fact, many of the swimming areas either have shark nets to keep sharks out or beach side swimming pools have been constructed for bathers to use in harmony with nature.

Snakes might be a worry to some would be migrants. There is not much you can do about that, except keep your eyes skinned when in the countryside and make sure you don’t walk into dense bush or through long grass.

You have probably heard Australia described as the land of flooding rains, fires and droughts. That is to a certain extent true, but the government is well aware and keeps the public fully warned. It ensures water restrictions are put in place when necessary; cyclone warnings are issued well in advance and fire bans are enforced well before dangerous fire levels exist.

One important thing about migrating to Australia is that all official documents such as birth and marriage certificates must be translated into English if your mother tongue and your documents are in another language. It is compulsory to use an accredited and approved NAATI translator to do the work.

Engineer Credentials for Australia

There are many good, highly qualified engineers of all types around the world and some of them may be thinking about a move to Australia, where there is a constant demand for them. Whether you are thinking about a short term work contract or migrating permanently to Australia, there are a number of hurdles that you have to negotiate before either being accepted by a suitable employer or by immigration authorities.

One of the biggest hurdles is getting your engineering credentials approved by Engineers Australia. The recognition process depends partly on the classification of your engineering qualifications and where they were obtained. The added hurdle for some engineers will be the question of the language their qualification documents are written in. If they are not in English, then they must be translated by accredited professional translations services.

Once your engineering credentials have been approved, employment contracts can proceed and immigration applications can be processed.

Engineers Australia recognises three main categories of engineer. These are:

  • professional engineers
  • engineering technologists and
  • engineering associates

There are three international accreditation agreements that cover these categories if you do not have a qualification obtained in Australia. The agreements are between Australia and certain other countries.

The Washington Accord is an agreement that recognises the qualifications for professional engineer as being equivalent. There are thirteen other countries apart from Australia where this agreement is recognised. If your qualifications meet the standards f the Washington Accord you complete a specific application form, pay a fee and submit it to Engineers Australia with certified copies of your qualifications.

The Sydney Accord and the Dublin Accord exist to cover mutual recognition for engineering technology and engineering associate qualifications respectively. These two agreements cover a much more limited number of countries than the Washington Accord.

If your qualifications are not covered by the Washington, Sydney or Dublin Accords, then you will have to apply for recognition by submitting a Competency Demonstration Report (CDR), which is a more complicated process and costs more, too.

As has already been mentioned, if your qualifications are not in English you will need to use professional translation services approved by Engineers Australia to translate them into English. As you will also need to use immigration translation services to translate any other documents into English it may make sense to use the same agency for all of them.

Bad Valentine’s Day Mistakes in Translation

Valentine’s Day is just one of those days in the year that exerts remarkable pressure on people particularly those who are seeking out love which is often for the 1st time. Those who see Valentine’s Day as an important event try hard to rehearse the best phrases to use when talking with their new partner. Sometimes, words don’t flow as easily as they should to be effective and there are many people who end up with just the wrong words which could cause offense.

One such phrase found on a Valentine’s Day card was:

“I love you okay? I expect you forever. Please call me your telephone.”

This card could certainly have done with an accurate translation from a NAATI translator to have any true effect.

This sign couldn’t be much further from being romantic: “Love me: Don’t terrify me.”

Another sign says:  “Would you mind. Love enjoy. Going with you.” This sounds as clumsy as the last one and doesn’t look quite so sincere as one might expect from a Valentine’s Day card!

Another card said

“Honey. Well you go with me.”

This looks like a misspelling of the word ‘well’ but the recipient might not be too sure.

This phrase below was found on a balloon and said

“Happy Valentine’s Day. When you are delighted I will be a good friend continuing love of you.”

This is certainly quite confusing and would not convince anyone. It needs a helpful hand from a professional translator so that it is written in good English.

Valentine’s Day pressures can affect almost anyone, but even if a mistake has been made in a translation there is always someone out there who has probably made a worse one than you, especially if it has been translated from one language to another.

If this is the year when you are going to include capturing the international market in your company’s marketing campaign through using Valentine’s Day, then you should pay extra attention to ensuring that any Valentine’s Day material you want translated into another language you use a competent NAATI translator who will ensure the translated material is appropriate for use in Valentine’s Day messages.  There is nothing worse than making mistakes in messages that are meant to convey love!

Is Your App Christmas Ready?

If you are an app developer or someone who is selling your products through an app that you have released or is already available you should make sure that it is up to the challenge of meeting the heavy demands of the pre-Christmas season. This time of the year and often the immediate week or so afterward is usually one of the busiest times of the year for sales for any retail business. In fact, for some businesses, it’s a make-or-break period.

Getting your app ready means making sure it is also app-optimized, app localised, and available to more than those who speak the same language as you. Do you know a good app translator? If you don’t and want to reach more than the limited market who is comfortable with just your language it may be time to get looking.

Apps are out for just about everything these days and they are part of Christmas gift-giving. Can’t think of what you can get for your nephew or niece who is going to turn up for a Christmas get-together. Give them an app! When that happens all over the Christmas-celebrating world (2.5 billion people worldwide) that means a tremendous opportunity for your business. As long as people around the world can understand the app that relates to your business, of course.

Getting your app translated by a professional translator means more than just literal translation from one language into another. You will want to be a bit more creative and sensitive to other cultures and their geography than that. If you are an app creator in the U.S., for instance, but wish to sell your app in India or Malaysia (yes there are many people in those two countries that celebrate Christmas, even if they are not necessarily Christians), there may be a value in stressing a tropical theme. Christmas in Kuala Lumpur or Kerala can be a sweaty business, but consumers will switch on to anything that they relate to best and that might not be snowmen and reindeer!

Similarly, many people around the world relate more to the Christian, religious message of Christmas, so an irreverent, secular-seeming Christmas app might not go down too well in places like Greece, Italy, or Spain.

Here are some more ideas to get your app “Christmas Ready”

  • Analyze your competitors and their offers

As a smart app developer and entrepreneur, you will be aware of your competitors. Do you know what they are intending to do with their app marketing for the Christmas period? If you don’t then it’s high time you did a bit of snooping. You don’t want to come out with a new version of your own app which is too similar to a competitor’s app. 

  • Add seasonal keywords, Christmas deals, and sales

By adding seasonal keywords and Christmas and New Year-oriented deals in your festive season app, you are more likely to grab the attention of gift buyers. Apps are a popular present at Christmas, but a new app or an updated app with a Christmas message has a competitive edge over one that doesn’t mention Christmas at all.

  • Customize the app for the festive season

Customizing an existing app for the festive season basically means creating a modified version of an existing mobile app with Christmas and New Year themes. This is the easiest and least time-consuming way of re-marketing an app that has already been on sale. Remember, apps are hot items for gifts at Christmas, and often people who buy them as gifts don’t always know much about them. It’s the Christmas app ‘gift wrapping’ that can help sell your apps to these potential customers.

  • Make sure you submit your Christmas app & updates in time.

Ideally, you should be thinking about how to modify your apps or develop shovel-ready Christmas ones well before people start thinking about Christmas gift purchasing. It can take time to do the research and modify or update apps. 

  • Invest in app localisation

As with any other translation, there are good translators and bad translators, and if you want your app to succeed and send business your way it pays to find a professional app translator who has the ability to think about the market it is intended to reach and twist the app’s message and instructions to suit.

Localisation is an extension of translation in which the translator has additional skills which ensure that the language used in translation fits the intended audience. The localisation expert has an in-depth understanding of the cultural nuances and preferences of the target app market.

How Manufacturers Can Benefit From Professional Translation

Manufacturers tend to slip below the radar when it comes to translation. The focus tends to rest on the marketing of manufactured products after they have been manufactured and distributed to retailers. It stands to reason that many manufactured products need a certain amount of information so that consumers and end-users can assemble them and operate them and if this is not in the language where the product is for sale then it can cause all sorts of problems.

The case for professional translation of licenses, warranties, technical documents, instruction manuals and workshop manuals is strong. These documents tend to bypass the packaging and yet are needed if consumers are going to get the most out of the things they buy.

The need for professional translation by manufacturers is easily observed when products of Chinese origin are bought. A lot of well-known manufacturers these days outsource the manufacturing to China, Vietnam, the Philippines or India. Multi-language manuals are often produced along with these products and are translated quite professionally into several common languages. However, there are also many products that are manufactured in the same countries that are not well-known brands. The manuals for these products have also been translated into several different languages, but usually, they have not been translated professionally. The results are often incomprehensible. These products are often a lot cheaper than the branded products but the advantage of cheapness is offset by the poorly translated instructions and product support.

The lesson for manufacturers who want to maintain market share is to make sure that they don’t compromise on their translation costs. Professional document translation of the sorts of technical documents that usually accompany manufactured products is preferably done by people who understand the nature of the products they are describing. Technical language is almost as demanding for many manufactured products as it is for legal documents. Unprofessional technical translation or worse, non-human computer-aided translation is going to mystify consumes at best and at worst, put them in danger if they do not how to set up or use a product safely.

Automotive Translations Needed for Global Customers

There are many different brands of automotives available throughout the world. To be the most competitive on the global market, a professional translator is needed to translate important information about the vehicles into many different languages. There are more and more professional translation businesses who are teaching their translators key automotive language used by the big companies. When they are asked to provide a translation in even the least used languages they are ready with the best automotive translators in the business.

Marketing and localisation are the key to an increase in sales

If an automotive company wants to be better than its competitors, marketing to an international audience is compulsory. This can include standard marketing techniques like billboard advertising, websites and posters. The important thing though is to get the information translated into all the world’s languages to allow for the greatest exposure to a global audience.

Manuals need accurate translating

With every auto there is always a user’s manual. This needs to be translated into the languages of the countries which are likely to buy the vehicles. Most autos come with warranties so these need a professional translation too. No car salesperson wants to be confronted by a buyer who can’t understand the warranty rules for an auto they have just bought because it’s not written in a commonly used language.

Voice automotive commands

Many cars these days use controls that use voice as commands. These need a professional translation so that the user fully understands the instructions. There is nothing worse for a driver who makes a mistake because he or she could not understand the voice command because it was not in the right language. Most sensible automotive companies should ensure that the technology used for voice commands are translated into the languages of their consumers. It should be easy for the user to set the right language too.

Customer service is crucial for overseas customers

Many companies these days are not necessarily based in a country that speaks English or another major language. This means when a customer requires support because something doesn’t work there needs to be good professional translators nearby to do any necessary translations.