Category: Translation Tips

It’s not often you probably really think about whether someone is lying or not but if you do think about it there are some cues that indicate somebody may be lying. Perhaps they start to speak quickly, or even stumble when speaking. Some people will even try to avoid making any eye contact. It seems that not all cultures use the same methods when lying.

Lying in English

For English speakers the tell-tale signs that show someone is lying are generally nervousness: a quiver in the voice, little eye contact and stuttering. However, there is still evidence to show that liars aren’t always nervous while nervous people are not always lying.

A United States study in 2003 examined the language of lying people and found that speech quality changes when English speakers lie such as the rise in the voice’s pitch.

Lying in another language but not English

When Chinese speakers of Mandarin told lies online, there was an increase in the use of 3rd person pronouns. Also, in the Netherlands, Dutch speakers’ pronoun use didn’t differ in either lies or truthful speech which is not the same as in English. With Italian speakers there is little difference in pitch when an Italian is telling the truth or lying. However, an Italian speaker speaks more slowly when he or she is lying, which is not the same with English speakers. This may be to do with the fact when speaking normally an Italian speaks faster than English so, when lying, the speech becomes slower.

Lying in a 2nd language

When a non native speaker of a language lies there is some indication that the skin temperature rises in response. This seems to be prevalent more so when someone lies in a language that isn’t their own but not after the translation of the foreign language.

Because there has been experimentation on how to detect whether someone is lying, it might be something you can’t conceal even if you think you are convincing. This means you should be very careful when lying as you don’t know who has the ability to detect those lies.

There is not complete equality between translation projects, as some are just a matter of translating straightforward documents, while others could be medical or legal documents which ultimately will affect the cost of translation services.

In general, there are 5 factors that play the most important roles in determining the cost of translation while influencing translation prices.

1. Language

Some languages typically cost more than many others to translate. For example, the cost of translation services for English to Japanese is considerably more expensive than English to Spanish. English generally plays the role as an intermediate language, between the less common translated languages, so this means adding an extra layer to the translation process which of course adds to the cost of translation of a complete project.
If someone is looking for a translator to translate between say Hindi and Icelandic most Language Service Providers (LSPs) would first try to locate a translator who is able to translate the Icelandic language into English. The second translator will be paid to translate from English into Hindi. This is one of the factors affecting cost of translation.

2. Deadline

Some translation projects may be considered very important with tight deadline dates set. LSPs take this into consideration when considering the cost of translation services. Some may even charge anything from 10% to 200% more for urgent translation projects.

3. Size

A translation project’s size clearly has an impact on the cost of translation. This is normally based on the word count of the project. For example, a small company memo being translated into another language will quite naturally have a far smaller number of words than a manual for a manufacturing company which needs to be translated into 3 languages.

4. Complexity of the document

Big projects with different sorts of translation requirements may require a whole team of translators depending on the nature of the work. Often a translation services will charge more for these sorts of projects. Say for example the translation has to be laid out on a specific company website which is already written in the company’s native language. Desktop publishing and website planning are additional services that will need to be used to complete the project well. This of course will add to translation prices.

5. Quality

Depending on where the translation will end up will influence quality control. Even though of course all translations should be high quality there are some like for the pharmaceutical industry that might require more than a second pair of eyes to ensure that a high quality translation has been completed. This ultimately is one of the factors affecting cost of translation.

Security for almost the whole history of the internet has been a hot topic. These days, whether you are involved in politics, in a business like a translation business, or you are concerned about your own computer or laptop, there have been more real security issues threatening our data that has ever been seen before.

Translation services may be a more likely target

All sorts of business and organizations, including multinational corporations throughout the world, use translation services to translate key documents that need to be circulated amongst people who don’t speak English. There are huge numbers of documents and files transiting the internet from one server to another every day. This is just the sort of place a commercial spy could hack and try to access financial details of these well-heeled clients who request translations.

There are 3 key areas that need to be considered

1. Data protection is an important concern so much so that the EU has implemented strict data protection laws such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from May 2018. This makes it an offense if a business fails to protect any EU citizens’ personal data and other information. It has to be stored, used and transmitted only under strict rules. For translation businesses that handle translations for private individuals, this means having suitable security measures in place to protect customers.

2. Cybercrime is on the rise and it doesn’t just affect governments and other well-known organizations but even SMEs which make up many translation businesses are facing problems with cybercriminals who are planting viruses, closing down websites, hacking into systems and even going as far as stealing data and asking for ransoms. This is now referred to as “cyberextortion.” This is certainly not the time to under-invest in following the correct IT security protocols.

3. Industrial espionage is on the increase as companies are increasingly paying individuals to steal information about competitors. This means stealing designs, plans, documents, and proposals. It’s not only about hacking servers and copying files but much more serious as sometimes undercover spies are planted into businesses so they can steal files. Employees are even being bribed to make copies of key information. Translators are quite obvious targets as often they don’t have the most sophisticated of security measures to protect their LSP clients. They commonly work at home with little or no security in place.
Maintaining a high level of security for both translators and clients is a high priority for all translation companies. One of the most important steps is to ensure translators know when something unusual is taking place on their computer so a security alert can be put in place.

If you are thinking of marketing your products online to a global market it’s not worth the effort unless you translate the information about your products into the language of your proposed market. There are two main things you need to get your e-commerce products globally mobile, one is the translation of products, and two is the localization of products. Before you can start with the localization which is getting both your website and your product to meet the global market you need to translate your product information first. This information can then be adapted to meet the requirements of localization.

Benefits of Translating your e-commerce Products

1. More Sales than Non-Translated Product

Before making a purchasing decision, 56 percent of potential e-commerce customers indicate that their first consideration is learning about the product in their own language. This is in fact more important than the price of the product. In the EU, when it comes to booking tours or hotels, 80 percent say that they must read the promotional material in their own language first before deciding to buy. This is the first reason for translating your website.

2.More Customer Loyalty through Translated Product

One of the things that ensure regular income for a business is customer loyalty. Once you have got a customer interested in your product because of your e-commerce product translation so they can understand it in their own language, they will go back to your site over and over again because they know what to expect. It’s loyalty that brings in consistent sales.

3.Better than your competitors

An e-commerce translation of your products puts you ahead of your competitors, which offers you a better chance of determining the price of your product. Your brand will begin to stand out in the international market if customers know your website is easy to understand and you are reliable. This information will likely be shared on social media sites so you can expect even better sales.

If you don’t translate your e-commerce products you can only expect to sell your products to those who understand the language of your website. Customers are savvy and won’t let go of money unless they are sure the product is what they really want. Appearance and language on your website that suits your intended customer put you ahead of the rest and grows your business’s revenue.

A microsite is a website that is smaller than a business’s main site but has links to it. Often a business will create a microsite when starting to promote a new product.

Creating a microsite in a foreign language

This is a particularly good idea if a business’s main site isn’t entirely appropriate for another country. Some of the useful content can be translated and transferred to the microsite while marketing material for the particular customer in another country will need to be adapted to suit the culture of the likely customer whether it’s B2B or B2C.

A Microsite for localizing your B2B website may be a good idea if:

• You are out to target and welcome new audiences.
• It offers good search engine optimization (SEO) prospects.
• It is a way to customize your product to a new B2B market.
• You are testing your product in new waters.

What you should include when localizing your B2B foreign language microsite

First of all check on the visitor numbers for your main site and those that attract the most hits should be transferred to your new microsite. Do some research on your B2B target audience and see what sort of content attracts them the most. Make sure what you choose is translated appropriately for a B2B audience. You must ensure that the links work back to your main website as the businesses accessing your profile will see where your business origins are.

The localization process for B2B

Once the microsite is ready to load localizing it appropriately means ensuring any images or videos are suitable for the intended audience and any voice-over translations have been completed. This includes everything from image choices to videos and PDF files. You will need to get your search or keywords optimized for SEO and this means getting an experienced translator to incorporate the keywords into your content pages.

This has to be done in such a way that the text flows smoothly and there is no inappropriate or poor language used that may distract the reader from your site. B2B localization is very important as this is a far more competitive world than B2C. You want to attract overseas businesses to buy your product in bulk and on-sell it to the final consumer. Packing a container load of your product into a container or two to send to an overseas business is far more lucrative than handling one good to one customer sales which is taken up much more time and involves a higher cost per product.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming important in relation to voice-to-text translation. So far, the aim is for AI and machine learning (ML) to achieve 99 percent accuracy when AI and ML are used in the coming years. It’s getting so sophisticated that when using ‘Smart Compose,’ where someone in Gmail writes a sentence and ‘the app is able to write the following sentence based on the context of the first sentence.

There are also some voice-recognition devices like ‘Dragon Dictate,’ which have been around for several years but haven’t been able to perfect their product. It’s expected that by adding both AI and ML these results are likely to be far better

Google understands how important speech-to-text is to people on a daily basis and an accurate voice-to-text experience is critical when trying to answer a message when driving a vehicle. It is an important method to use for responding to a text message or email on smart phones and wearables. It will also eventually become valuable when mixed reality glasses are being used.

At the moment Google Translate is by no means perfect, but it’s expected that an increase in the use of AI and ML will improve the results of Google Translate. If you are travelling to countries where you can’t speak the language there are a few handheld products that try to translate as you speak into the local language but they are at the moment still limited in their capacity to be exact in their output.

Google is looking at ways of making breakthroughs in this type of translation and it seems Android users are going to see some marked changes in the near future. Apple is currently engaged in AI and ML research around different features of voice and text translation so Apple may soon be rolling out some choices.

There is no doubt that AI and ML are expected to have a major impact on voice-to-text translation, most likely as part of UI in augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) or mixed reality glasses. This will all make translations far easier for world travellers.

Benefits of learning the Italian language:

Business and trade

The Italian economy, while not the largest in Europe (that distinction goes to Germany), is still very significant, making Italy an important trading partner. In 2017, for example, the U.S. alone exported around $18 billion worth of goods and imported $50 billion of goods from Italy. The U.S., of course, has a particularly large number of people who have Italian or part Italian ancestry, but this is also the case elsewhere in the world, such as Australia. The business ties with Italy alone make it imperative that importance is attached to learning the Italian language to aid communication with business partners.

Food

Everyone knows about pizza and pasta and these are certainly important in their country of origin, too, but Italian food is more than just these two items. If you have become a fan of Italian cuisine, then this in itself is a reason for learning more of the language.

Architecture

Many visitors to Italy go there to see some of Italy’s outstanding architecture. Italian architects were instrumental in developing some of the world’s most recognized ancient styles such as Baroque, Neoclassical, Renaissance, and Roman. Even those with less appetite for architecture will still make sure they visit famous and iconic buildings like the Colosseum in Rome and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the town of the same name. Tourists may also enjoy seeing some of Italy’s many castles such as the Valle d’Acosta Fort Bard and the Verres Castle.

Art and music

Learning Italian helps if you love the opera. Most opera performances today are in Italian, especially some of the classics like ‘La Traviata’ and ‘Aida,’ which were created by Italians. Then there are the many art galleries with art by famous Italian painters and sculptures by Italian sculptors.

Fashion

Italy, of course, is well known for its fashion houses, like Armani, Benetton, Gucci, Prada, and Versace.

Italian is spoken in many countries

Italian is one of the world’s most important languages and its ties to Latin make it an important link to many other Latin languages like French, Spanish, Romanian and Portuguese. Even English has taken much of its vocabulary from Latin, making it as much a relative of Italian as other European languages, although admittedly it has also borrowed from Germanic languages, Celtic, and even Hindi and Arabic!

Italian today is spoken by more than 68 million people. Most live within the borders of Italy itself, with Switzerland being the country with the second-highest number of native Italian speakers.

If you have had a career in the military for any length of time and haven’t reached retirement, it can seem a shock to go back into civil society. When you are in the military, many things that are necessary elsewhere are taken care of for you. In fact, while you have had the opportunity to develop important skills, there are other skills that you need to learn when you leave. 

Many people who have had a military career meet partners while stationed overseas. That can mean that either the partner must apply for residency in your own home country eventually, or you apply to live and possibly work in your partner’s country.

Moving from one country to another, even when accompanied by a spouse, can seem effortless while still serving for your country in one of its armed forces. There is little need for visa applications. You may just need your passport while everything is taken care of. That may all change when you are no longer serving in your country’s armed forces.  Either you, or your partner, may need to have a whole stack of documents available to support a visa application when settling in one country or another.

The sorts of documents you may need to supply are:

● Birth certificates

● Marriage certificates

● Educational qualifications

● Trade or professional qualifications

● Transcript showing military career

● References or testimonials

● Health reports

● Criminal clearance checks

● Financial statements showing proof of assets

It is typical that if you, or your partner, are applying for a visa to a country where the language is different from your own you may have to provide translations of all essential documents. In some cases, you may need to have these translations certified by the translator to confirm their accuracy or have them notarized. Notarized translations are usually done by someone with the authority to perform the notarization. In most cases, your chosen translator will ensure that the translated documents are taken to the notary public or legal attorney to have them notarized on your behalf.

Leaving the military can seem quite a transition, especially when it comes to dealing with the paperwork you never imagined having to deal with before. Just take it step by step and make sure that all the documents you need are available and if necessary are translated by a reputable professional translator or translation service.

Global communication has never been more important than now and that means that translators are busy helping aid communication wherever there is a language barrier. If your business or organisation needs a lot of translation done for them, then you will want to be assured of the quality of the translation. Good translators and translation companies ensure they have effective translation quality assurance steps embedded in how they deal with translation requests. How can you be sure that a translator you approach does take quality assurance seriously?

Translation quality depends on a number of factors being present. The most important ones are described below.

1. Language fluency is essential

You should expect that the translator you have given your work to has the necessary fluency in your own language as well as the language you want your documents or material translated into. You don’t want someone who is able to translate English and Spanish as a language pair to tackle Portuguese unless they definitely state that they are proficient in that language as well. Language fluency does not include depending on computer tools like Google Translate, which is only suitable for amateur or non essential translation tasks.

2.  Subject matter knowledge may be needed

While some translators may profess to be ‘generalists’ many others will specialise in one type of translation task or another. It is important that for quality assurance purposes that the translator you use is familiar with the subject matter and terminology used in the document or text you want translating. There are specialised legal translators, medical translators, scientific translators, literary translators and marketing translators just to mention a few.

3. Check for national standards in translation quality.

Many countries have developed standards that govern translation quality. In the E.U., for example, EN 10538 is the standard used by the European Committee for Standardisation in Translation. Not all translators are capable of providing the assurance that meets this standard. In Australia, many translations must by law be performed by professional translators who have been accredited by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters (NAATI). These sorts of examples are ways in which the client seeking a translation can be more confident that its quality is what they expect to obtain.

4.  Quality assurance provided by internal editing and proofreading 

Good translators and translation agencies ensure that there is a system in place to check all translated documents. This may or may not mean that more than one person is involved in the translation as well as the all important editing and proofreading phases, but without the latter two steps, there is no guarantee that the translation performed is accurate or modified in such a way that it matches who the eventual readers are.