Hello fellow translators! In our line of work, it is sometimes challenging to keep up with the latest resources, tools and tips. To help you out, I have compiled a list of my top websites that every translator should know about.

So, without further ado, here we go:

Communities and news

ProZ.com

The great and once-almighty ProZ is still one of the most popular websites for translators. Although the website design and mechanics might seem a bit outdated in 2022, it is still a great platform to find new clients, collaborate with other translators and stay up-to-date with industry news.

LinkedIn

This might sound like a broad one, but LinkedIn is a great platform for translators. Not only can you use it to find new clients and collaborators, but you can also join one of the many translator groups on LinkedIn and learn from your peers.

It’s also a great place to build your brand, especially if you’re willing to invest time and effort into sharing your knowledge and expertise.

Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders is a non-profit organization that provides translation and interpretation services to humanitarian organizations around the world. If you’re looking for a way to use your language skills for good, Translators цithout Borders is worth checking out.

Slator

Slator is the go-to website for industry news, analysis and insights. If you want to stay on top of the latest trends and developments in the translation industry, Slator is the place to be.

Multilingual

Established in 1987, Multilingual is one of the oldest and most respected periodicals in the language industry. It covers a wide range of topics, from business and technology to linguistics and translation studies.

Dictionaries & language resources

The Free Dictionary, Wiktionary, WordReference

The Free Dictionary, Wiktionary and WordReference are all great dictionaries for English speakers. With definitions, synonyms, example sentences and more for millions of words and phrases, these dictionaries are essential for any translator working with English. Granted, one should always be careful when using online dictionaries, as they are not always 100% accurate, but that doesn’t make them any less useful.

Linguee, Glosbe, Reverso Context

Linguee is a dictionary and translation memory tool that uses real-life examples of translated texts to help you understand the meaning of words and phrases. It’s an invaluable resource when working with technical or legal texts, as you can quickly check how a certain term or phrase has been translated in the past.

Glosbe and Reverso Context offer similar services to Linguee. The choice will ultimately come down to personal preference and your specific language pairs, but all three are options worth considering.

Thesaurus.com

The devil is in the details, as they say. And when it comes to language, the devil is definitely in synonyms. Thesaurus.com is a great tool for finding just the right word when you’re stuck. Just type in a word, and Thesaurus will show you a list of synonyms, each with its own “popularity meter,” example sentences and more.

Microsoft Language Portal

If you’re working with IT or software localization, you know how ambiguous and confusing some of the terms can be. Microsoft Language Portal is a great place to start your search. It’s packed with resources for translators working with Microsoft products, including glossaries, style guides and localization tips.

European Union Terminology Portal

If you’re working with EU-related content, or any social/political content for that matter, getting the terminology right is essential. The EU Terminology Portal allows you to search for EU-specific terminology in all 24 official languages of the European Union.

“define” operator in Google

This one is a bit of a wildcard, but it’s too good not to include. Google’s “define” operator allows you to quickly look up definitions of words and phrases right from the Google search bar.

Just type “define” followed by the word or phrase you want to look up, and Google will show you a definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary — one of the most respected dictionaries in the world. It will also include etymology, usage over time, and other relevant information that will help you understand the term better.

Google Ngram viewer

Speaking of usage over time, the Google Ngram viewer is a great tool for seeing how often certain words and phrases have been used in published books over the past few centuries.

Just type in a word or phrase, select the language, and choose the period you’re interested in, and the Ngram viewer will show you a graph of how often that term has been used during that time.

Tech

DeepL

Love it or hate it, it’s impossible to imagine today’s translation industry without machine translation. DeepL is perhaps the most impressive MT tool there is, having repeatedly outrun the more popular alternatives in numerous translation quality evaluations.

The best part is that DeepL allows you to edit the machine-translated text and have the engine learn from your changes. In a way, it’s “augmented translation,” where you have much more control over the output than with regular MT.

Smartcat

Smartcat is a cloud-based translation management system that offers a complete workflow solution for translators, agencies and enterprises. It’s packed with features that make it easy to manage your projects, collaborate with others, and automate repetitive tasks.

As a translator, you will especially enjoy that Smartcat is free to use for personal use. Moreover, its marketplace allows freelancers to find new clients and projects, and get paid directly through the platform.

Wordfast Anywhere

Wordfast Anywhere is a free, cloud-based translation tool that offers many of the features you would expect from a paid CAT tool, such as translation memory and terminology management.

It’s not as feature-rich as some of the paid CAT tools out there, but it’s a great option for those who are just getting started in the industry and don’t want to invest in a full-fledged CAT tool just yet.

Organization & productivity

Protemos

Love it or hate it, invoicing and project management are integral parts of any freelance translator’s business. Protemos is a cloud-based translation management system that offers basic invoicing and project management features. It’s a great tool for those who want to keep their business organized and streamlined, and it offers a free plan for personal use.

Smallpdf

Although not directly related to translation, PDFs are an integral part of the translation industry. Smallpdf is a free online tool that allows you to do various small tasks with PDFs. This includes converting them to other formats, merging multiple PDFs into one, adding digital signatures, and more.

Toggl

Time is money, as they say. Toggl is a simple time-tracking tool that allows you to track how much time you spend on each project. This is a great way to see where you’re spending too much time and where you can optimize your workflow.

Into23

This list wouldn’t be complete without a ~self-plug~ mention of our website. Although we are just starting our blog, we are already working on some great content that we think you will find useful.

We’ll be covering a wide range of topics, from language learning and translation technology to business tips and advice for freelance translators. So if you’re looking for some fresh perspectives on the translation industry, be our guest!

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Phew, that was a lot! I hope it was worth it, though, and that you found at least a few new websites that you can add to your bookmarks.

Do you have any other websites that you think should be on this list? Let me know in the comments!

I would like to thank Eli Knutsen, Ditte Gry, Faustina Dongu, Lydia Yang, Kees Kranendonk, and Philipp Wacha for their input on this blog post.

Translating marketing materials and legal documents has become indispensable for businesses to expand their business worldwide. However, translation can be a challenge and may cost more money and time if you’re unfamiliar with the process. Read on to understand how Into23 will provide multilingual legal and business translations that meet all regulations and guidelines.

Our Workflow: The Process We Follow

• Customer Consultation

With more than 20 years of experience, we know how important accuracy is in the translation process. Even a tiny mistake can change the meaning of a whole sentence and phrase, resulting in losing money, customers, and reputation. 

For eg. In legal translation, you don’t need a creative angle. Instead, you need an accurate and explicit reflection of the original document. This is why businesses must look for a legal translation company with knowledge of intricate details of the legal system to ensure that translation meets all the requirements. 

At Into23, we follow a multidisciplinary approach with the highest quality and reliability. We have a team of native translators and proofreaders who have a wealth of experience in translation.  

Our translation process starts with consulting clients to know their specific requirements and instructions. After which our team begins the translation process. In addition, we have developed our custom workflow for an accurate and fast translation process.

• Analysing Project

Analysing a project is one of the crucial steps in the translation process. Failing to analyse the project correctly can lead to many issues throughout the project life cycle. And this is true whether you are translating, managing, revising, or working on any other part of the process.  

Into23 analyses the client’s needs and scope to identify the project type and other aspects to translate the document without uncompromising quality.  

• Implementing Projects

After analysing the content and language requirements, our experts start translating the document. All the translations are executed by our native translators, who have expertise in the specified subject matter. Moreover, our translators use the latest and best translation software available to help ensure quality and consistency.

• Proofreading and Editing

This stage is a very crucial part of the translation process. It ensures that the translated document is 100% correct. Without it, grammatical and contextual errors could go unnoticed which can impact the meaning of the text. 

You’ll see many errors if relying solely on machine translation tools. That’s why we use native translators to maintain the accuracy and quality of the translated document.

Business Document Translation Services

• Flexibility

With a vast network of linguists, we strive to meet the requested deadlines while maintaining premium quality. We work with:

• Adobe FrameMaker translation
• Adobe InDesign translation
• XML translation
• Microsoft Word translation 
• Microsoft Excel translation
• Microsoft PowerPoint translation
• S1000D
• PDFs translation
• Articulate storyline documents
• Misc others

Our service is available 18 hours a day, 7-days a week. We respond to any request within one to two hours. 

• Professionalism and Expertise

We work exclusively with professional translators who specialise in different domains. For contracts, we use a legal translator to ensure translation accuracy. We have a regional selection process to choose the most competent and efficient translators. Our expert linguists will ensure that the translation meets the strictest quality criteria.

• Swift Response

Our customers rate us as one of the best translation companies online. Our highly dedicated and agile team will process your request or translation quote within 1 to 2 hours. Once you send the request, you will get immediate confirmation of receipt. Our team will analyse your requirements and send you the quote. As soon as we agree on the terms, our translators begin the translation process. 

• Certified Document Translation Services

We offer certified translation services for our legal customers that require a certification stating that the translation is a true and accurate translation of the source text without any additions, edits or omissions and that the translation was done by a qualified translator. A legal translation company cannot add/remove the text or interpret the meaning. The certification also acts as proof that a qualified translator performed the translation.

Rigorous Legal And Judicial Translation Services

• Expert Legal Translation

All our professionals are highly trained and experienced in dealing with the complexities of the translation process. We follow a rigorous inspection approach to ensure the correctness and accuracy of the translation.

• Multiple Languages Legal Translation

Legal translation requires professionals with an in-depth knowledge of legal jargon and fluency in source and target languages. Our linguists are underpinned by legal expertise and requirements. We will help you translate certificates, agreements, contracts, memorandums, and other legal documents into more than 100 languages.   

• Automation In Legal Translation

With the evolution in technology, Machine Translation (MT) has also become a good option for fast, secure, and flexible translation. MT will produce better output for some languages e.g. English to French, than others e.g. English to Korean or Japanese. It is important that you use custom MT engines that have terminology for the legal domain and not a generic MT engine like Google.

Machine Translation is a software-based automated translation process that is best suited for:

• Litigation documents
• eDiscovery and discovery materials
• Reference documents

This is why we use the combination of human touch and machine intelligence. We first use the machine learning tool, and to remove all the errors or potential ambiguities, our experts manually edit the whole document.

• Privacy Policy Translation

A privacy policy is a legal document outlining the personal data you collect from customers and how you use, store, and share it. It helps customers better understand what type of data your website collects when they visit it.

In many jurisdictions, having a privacy policy is critical. Privacy laws like PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) give consumers the right to know more about how their data is collected and handled. So, it is required that your translated document meet the various standards set by the legal authorities.

We have translators across the globe who know their country’s laws and requirements, helping you with hassle-free multilingual privacy policy translation.

• Terms-of-use Translation

With most websites being easily accessible worldwide, you need to translate its “Terms-of-use” because it also works as a legal agreement. We are one of the well-renowned translation companies online that offer multilingual translation so that your non-native customers can easily understand the terms for using the site.   

• Overseas Business Agreements 

As our world globalises, business translation becomes an increasing need. This helps businesses boost their client base and revenue.

Whether you want to translate financial documents, patents, operational documents, certificates, audit documents, or import/export contracts, a legal translation company can help you. 

However, translating business documents comes with many challenges, such as dealing with language barriers and legal systems. Our linguists specialise in translating overseas business agreements. We will help you convey the message to your global customers so you are speaking to them in their local language in a culturally-relevant way.

Why choose us?

We understand how crucial accuracy and quality are in the translation. We follow a well-designed process that combines AI technology and human intelligence for top-tier translation. We ensure that your business and legal translation reflect the same meaning as the original one and meet all the requirements. Our highly experienced team of linguists has years of expertise in dealing with the complexities of the translation process. We also provide certificates for the translation of legal documents. We offer website, eLearning, transcription, eCommerce, multilingual voice-over, marketing, crypto & blockchain translation, and localisation services.

We use a centralised translation ordering system to ensure that your multilingual document is translated consistently and can save up to 60% of your current translation spend. We also ensure that your brand guidelines are strictly followed across all content types and languages. 

Have a project on your mind?

Speak to our experts now! Or, you can share your link or upload your file to get a quick quote.

Lost in Translation

Have You Ever Realised What Could Happen if Your Brand Message is Delivered Incorrectly?

Or what if your clients perceive something else about your brand message while you want to convey something entirely different?

That could pose a pretty bad impression on your brand image; unfortunately, there are many instances in which such incidents have happened. It often occurs when companies globalise their brand through cross-cultural campaigns.

But how is that possible when your brand message is the same for a specific marketing campaign? Well, one of the major reasons could be a poor translation used in such campaigns that might miscommunicate the brand message. These “miscommunications” often happen due to a lack of cultural awareness and nuances when a brand literally translates the brand message from one language to another.

How Bad Could the Consequences Be?

The consequences could be really bad, believe us!

Let’s understand this through an example. Suppose you work for an organisation where you have a decent image, and everyone admires you. Now, consider you are transferred to a different team abroad where people are not fluent in English. To communicate with them, you used an ordinary word-to-word translator.

Unfortunately, one day, you wrote an email to your project head using that translator that turned out to be offensive in their regional language. What he understood of your message was entirely different from what you wanted to convey. However, due to a poor translation lacking cultural relevance and understanding, you were thrown out of the project at the same moment.

And that’s not it. Although you had a good image among the team you last worked with, the incident severely impacted that, too.

Well, you might have understood the message here. The same can happen with your brand image too. Remember, just because a marketing campaign poses a success story in one country does not necessarily mean it would also be a hit in the global markets. In fact, for the worse, such global campaigns can go far beyond offending the international markets.

Without the assistance of an experienced, culturally adaptive, and aware team that helps your business talk like a local, it would be challenging to recreate an authentic and resonating brand message in the global market.

Some Epic Fails in Global Branding: When the Catch-Phrases Caught Despair!

Electrolux

The Sweden home appliances company entered the US market to promote one of their vacuum cleaners with the tagline: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.“

Although the sentence was grammatically correct, it also had a double entendre, meaning Electrolux is good for nothing. Well, who will buy something that’s of no use at all?

Pepsi

One of the famous examples of the translation-gone-wrong category is Pepsi. When the company entered the Chinese market, the translation of its marketing campaign “Pepsi Brings You Back to Life.” went way more literal than expected.

In Chinese, the translated version of the tagline meant “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave.” It wasn’t only humoristic but left a bad impression on the nation whose people believe in ancestor worship as a part of their culture.

 ADD THE ACTUAL CHINESE TEXT

Perdue Chicken

American chicken company Perdue Chicken came up with a clever tagline, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” to enhance brand awareness. However, their branding strategy went wrong when they entered the Spanish market.

The translated version of this message ended up something like this, “It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate.” Well, neither the line made sense nor this marketing campaign in Spain!

ADD THE ACTUAL SPANISH TEXT

Coors

One of the oldest and most popular brewing companies in America, Coors has also been a victim of the wrong context and translation. Their advertising team introduced a campaign with the slogan “Turn It Loose!” in the Spanish market to appeal to the people having a good time while drinking their beverage.

However, the idea went entirely different as the meaning of this phrase as per direct translation in Spanish was “Suffer from Diarrhoea!” And obviously, nobody wants that, right?

ADD THE ACTUAL SPANISH TEXT

HSBC Bank

Like many other companies facing translation issues regarding brand messages, HSBC has also been there. Their tagline stateside was “Assume Nothing,” which was completely fine. However, it didn’t work out in the overseas market.

The resulting translation in many countries was “Do Nothing,” which was definitely not the message the company wanted to convey to its customers. Due to this translation error, HSBC had to spend around $10 million to fix it and come up with a new tagline.

Like these, many more popular brands have committed the same mistake in some way or another while translating brand messages into the global markets.

However, almost all of them have learned the same lesson: ‘Conquering new markets is accomplished by following the right marketing tactics, and right marketing means translating the ideas, not just the words!’

Reading until this point, you might understand how important a brand message is for a company. On top of that, you would probably be wondering how crucial it is to translate your brand message in a way so that its real essence is not lost.

Well, both of your considerations are correct, and that’s why it becomes essential to know about some factors that can make or break your brand image in the global markets while translating the brand message. Besides this, you must ensure that you are using the right resources and considering professional translation services that communicate with your customers in their native language.

Therefore to ensure business success and avoid pitfalls contact Into23 today and get a quote now!

For a long time, people have misinterpreted brand messages with branding. Well, the two are different concepts. While branding aims to impact perceptions about a brand that urges the audience to choose it over its competitors, a brand message catches the eye, penetrates the mind, and forms perceptions.

Forming and promoting a brand message is one of the crucial phases of a branding strategy. But why? Just because it helps the audience analyse and shape their perceptions about it? Well, on the one hand, yes! But other than that, it also portrays your brand’s overall image and story. It encompasses everything your brand is known for — your vision, mission, and values.

Imagine someone asking you, “What’s unique about your brand?” or “Why does your brand exist?” 

How you answer these questions will probably shed light on your brand message. It will help your clients understand what change you want to make in their lives.

Translating Your Brand Message: The Dos

Professional Translators Make a Difference

Content, in any form, has high visibility and impact on the audience. When content holds such significance, the best choice would be to leave it in the hands of professionals.

Talk Like a Local with Native Translators

Machine translation is good when you need to translate something in literal terms. However, they do not always work when you need to maintain a specific tone or adapt the content while keeping cultural relevance in mind.

Using translation services from professionals native to the market will help you translate your brand message without losing the actual meaning you want to convey. It ensures that the sectors you wish to target drive better results with your brand message. Also, these native translation experts can update you regarding the dynamics in the local market so that you can adapt your brand message accordingly.

Keep an Eye on the Visual Presentation

Presenting your brand message is one of the keys to successful market penetration. Therefore, it becomes crucial to consider your website’s localisation while translating your brand message. Apart from the text, ensure that you also take into account the font style, size, and colour of your brand message.

Simply put, you might need to create different visualisations for different targeting languages in order to get the same result irrespective of the variety of audiences.

Transcreation Could Be Better Than Translation

When your brand message is in the form of a slogan or a tagline, the effective way is transcreating it rather than translating it. For this purpose, it is better to consult native translators who also deal in transcreation services.

While transcreating your brand message, you need to generate an entirely new set of words or phrases that offers the same meaning in the target language and creates the same impact on the target audience as the original version does on your fellow speakers.

Remember Your Target Audience, Like Always!

This is the most important thing to keep in mind. Whether you want to translate your brand message or any other marketing campaign, make sure you always consider your target audience, their cultural differences, and their needs.

Since the brand message highlights the story and values of your brand, you must translate it in a way that reflects your company’s values and vision while keeping local market specifications and culture in mind.

Translating Your Brand Message: The Don’ts

Don’t Go at It by Yourself!

Even if you have an advanced translation management system equipped at your place, it would not be a good option to translate your brand message alone. Undoubtedly, you could be pretty good at forming a business vision; translating it using the right context, terminology, and tone for global markets is entirely different.

Remember, your brand image is the most crucial thing that makes people aware of you, and the right brand image is formed when the correct and insightful message is delivered to your target audience. Ruining things at this stage can harm your brand image in the long run. Therefore, it’s better to rely on professionals for this task rather than going at it by yourself.

Using Machine Translation Won’t Be a Good Option

No matter how advanced machine translation tools have become, they are still ‘machines.’ And it is challenging for a machine to understand the idea, emotion, or vision behind a short brand message having multifold meanings.

Moreover, such tools can only translate your brand message word by word, which could be problematic in translating the message into different languages (which we have already observed in the earlier sections).

Forgetting to Proofread Might Create Havoc

Although you have hired professionals to translate your brand message, sharing it with your audience without proofreading can create trouble for your brand image. Even a single spelling mistake can change the meaning and context of your message. Therefore, ensure you double-check your brand message before releasing it to your target audience.

How Can Into23 Help You with Translating Your Brand Message?

Believe it or not, your brand lives in people’s minds, and to make sure the best possible chance to stay there, you must ensure that your brand message is effective enough.

At Into23, we not only focus on translating your brand message. Instead, we focus on the correct translation that aligns with the cultural aspects of your target audience. We not only help businesses with translations, but we also assist them in communicating with their customers in their local language and make the audience understand the brand’s relevance.

No matter what language your target market speaks, we ensure to deliver your brand message with your original idea in their native language keeping cultural relevance in mind.

If you are looking for reliable and proficient translation services to translate your brand message, do give us a chance. Contact us now to discuss your project!

Do you want to sell your products internationally and let your website do all the talking with your multilingual customers? Professional multilingual translation services can help you. They allow you to avoid language barriers and expand your business overseas. 

Language barriers are falling, driven by technological evolution. International translation companies can help you take advantage of global opportunities. A study shows that the global translation services market size is projected to reach $46.22 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 2.07% from 2021 to 2028. Businesses are going global, seeking out opportunities across our increasingly connected world.  

Translation plays an important role in bridging the cross-cultural language gap, allowing you to reach your international customers in their native voices. Localising your content allows marketers to better connect with their target customers, providing them with relevant information about your products and services. 

Why Invest In Translation Services?

Companies invest considerable time and money in developing content that resonates with their target audience as this is indispensable for generating more leads and higher ROI. To further increase leads and improve ROI, companies need to consider delivering this content in the native language of all their target customers. It has been proven that people are 75% more likely to buy when the information they are given is in their native language. 

Investing in translation is an effective method of increasing your engagement with your non-English speaking prospects. Translating and localising your marketing content gives you an edge in global engagement over your competitors.

Here are some of the benefits of translation:

• You can penetrate a wider market
• It can boost your branding, customer trust, and revenue
• Improves SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) / SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
• It will drive significant traffic to your website

Seamless Communication with Accurate Human Translations

• Context and Culture

Translation allows you to connect with a diverse multilingual international audience seamlessly. You’ll find numerous AI-based translating tools online. However, in most cases, these tools cannot understand the context of the message, resulting in the wrong translation, especially when it comes to the nuance of culture. You may be familiar with some words that mean different things in other countries. For example, “pissed” means angry in the US, whereas it means “under the influence of alcohol” in the UK. 

If you are thinking of localising your marketing materials, you should consider finding the best translation services company that combines human and A.I. intelligence to deliver cost-effective and streamlined translation solutions. 

• Accuracy and Efficiency

Human intervention in translation ensures accurate communication while maintaining the essence of the original message. A linguist fluent in the source and native to the target language can best translate the context, tone, intention, and concept. This enables them to emotionally align your content, which improves the chance of translating prospects into loyal clients. 

Enhanced and Professional Translations

There are various challenges in multilingual translation, such as understanding hidden meanings and nuances in a document. The task becomes more challenging when translating legal documents because they need extensive research and knowledge of unique terminologies and jargon. This is something that A.I.machine translation tools are incapable of. You need to consult with the best international translation companies to ensure your content meets all the necessary professional translation standards.

At Into23, we offer industry-leading on-demand multilingual translation services. We have advanced language translation technology to deliver translations into over 100 languages. 

• Unmatched Quality

We have a network of proficient multilingual translators and voice-over artists. We provide dependable quality assurance and certification for medical and legal translation. At Into23, all translations are done by target-language native translators to ensure consistency, accuracy and quality. Our linguists can also provide cultural advice based on your target markets.

• Value-Driven Translation Services

Our clients rank us as the best translation services company because of our multicultural, customer-focused translations, helping them achieve greater ROI.

• Accuracy and Speed

Our dedicated teams of translators have a wealth of experience and deliver high-quality translations irrespective of the size and language of your project. We strive to deliver accurate results within your deadline. 

An Extensive Service Range

• Translation & Localisation

Translation refers to translating the content from the source language to the target language(s). Localisation refers to all the other activities involved in having content ready for a particular market. For example, this can include recreating graphics with text, generating the translated index for a document, ensuring the right fonts are used for a language, ensuring double-byte languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese) or bidirectional languages (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu) are displaying correctly, ensuring there is no truncation on the UI for translated languages. 

• E-learning Translation

With the surge of Covid-19, learning and working remotely became the new normal. According to a survey, the eLearning market is projected to be worth $325 Billion in 2025. As the world opens up, hybrid working is becoming the new normal. Companies are also contending with the Great Resignation. Employee experience management has become a critical business priority to help companies retain their workforce. E-learning platforms are great options to keep your employees engaged and provide personalised development and training needs. All global companies have a multilingual workforce. Providing this e-learning content to your employees in their native language is important for keeping your worldwide employees happy.

We offer end-to-end eLearning translation, from on-screen text translation to audio script translation and multilingual voice-over recording. We have specially designed filters for working with XLIFF files exported from Articulate Rise content and Articulate Storyline. 

• Marketing Translation

Marketing translation involves translating marketing material so it is culturally relevant to your target audience. The process of marketing translation requires properly adapting the language and style to the local culture, focusing on the accurate delivery of the message but being creative with how it is translated. Moreover, the translator should be a copyeditor who understands how products and services are successfully marketed in their target language.

Marketing content is the most high-impact content you produce. So, it is important to select the best translation services company for better outcomes. 

We have a team of creative translators who offer more than translations and ensure your content is relevant and localized. They are familiar with the marketing language essential for engaging the target audience and will produce a creative translation that will catch your customers’ attention. We offer:

• Marketing message and campaign translation
• Advertising transcreation
• Product description translation
• Website and other marketing collateral translation

Our agile and robust translation technology allows us to automate the project management, distribute it to our translators and return it to you quickly. 

• Legal Translations

Accuracy is the most important aspect of legal document translation. An accurate, clear reflection of the original legal document is crucial. However, the process of legal translation can be challenging because legal terms and systems differ greatly from country to country. The translated document must contain correct terminology. It must be a complete and accurate representation of the original, it should not contain any additions or deletions. Failing to do so can result in loss of money and clients. 

We offer a rapid turnaround and high-quality legal translation services. We have a team of translators who specialise in the legal field. Moreover, we follow strict NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) guidelines to secure your important data.

• Website Translation

Your website is your face to the world. It is the primary channel through which people learn about your business, your products and your services. Making your website available in all the languages of your target prospects will maximise your opportunity of winning new customers in those languages. Website translation involves adapting the web content to these languages and ensuring it conforms to cultural and social norms for these languages. It is also important to ensure your website is correctly adapted to offer currencies and shopping cart options that are relevant in different languages. This allows you to interact with your clients in their native language, which ultimately helps you engage them better.

Into23.com offers multilingual translation management solutions to ensure that your translated content remains in sync with the source language. Whether you are using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Tridion, Adobe Experience Manager, or any other CMS (Content Management System), we are here to help you with your online content translation.  

• eCommerce Translation

Language can be a barrier to expanding your eCommerce business internationally, but it is also a doorway to new opportunities. Translating your product description, labels, and other marketing materials into different languages will help you boost your sales. A survey of over 3,000 global consumers shows that 75% of customers prefer to buy products displayed in their native language. 

Our multilingual translators will ensure the translation of your product descriptions is accurate and SEO-friendly so that you can rank high on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). We also can translate your user reviews as this helps as social proof to allow you to drive more leads. For this user-generated content, we use a combination of machine translation and quick human editing to keep the cost down.

• Business Translation

Our business translation is a full end-to-end offering for all business content. This can be eCommerce, eLearning, legal documents, financial documents, HR documents, investor relations material, sales promotional material or any other content a business produces.  

We offer: 

• One centralised point for all translation needs in a business
• A customised portal where you can upload and request new translations
• For procurement, full visibility of all translations done across the business, including any discounts and other savings. 

We can remove the pain and complexity of translation across all your business functions. We will ensure that you speak with one voice across all languages. 

• Multilingual Voice-Over

Companies today use video and audio to communicate with clients, partners, audiences and employees. This can be through marketing videos, how-to or explainer videos or as part of their eLearning content. As with text, to give your users a great experience, these audio and video content should be available in their preferred language. 

We have a team of professional multilingual voice-over artists who work from their home recording studio This allows us to offer a flexible and affordable price suitable for 95% of most business audio and video needs For high-end advertising videos, we advise contacting professional advertising agencies who can provide TV-ready video. 

Our process starts with the original language script. We translate it into all the target languages. Once the translated script is ready, we will engage our foreign language voice-over talent to record the different language versions.

• Transcription Services

Our transcription services cover a wide variety of use cases. For legal companies, we transcribe audio files, most legal cases require transcription of any audio submitted as evidence. If this audio is in another language than the language of the court, we also offer a translation service for the transcribed audio. In other cases, a business may have some audio or video content that they want to translate or add subtitles to, the original script may no longer be available. We can transcribe this audio, with or without timestamps. 

For corporate events, we offer transcription services (often coupled with the translation of the transcribed script) for keynotes, these are usually then used to add subtitles (including multilingual subtitles). Our mission is to provide our clients with the best quality transcription services at affordable prices.

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Speak to our experts now! Or, you can share your link or upload your file to get a quick quote.

The process of translation may seem like a mere exchange of words and phrases from one language to another but as any quality freelance translator will tell you, there is a lot more to it than that. A good translator will use a variety of translation techniques and methods depending on the language it’s being translated into and the target market it’s aiming to reach.

Translation’s beginnings

In history, the translation of writing goes back as far as the Mesopotamian era and is believed to have started with the epic Sumerian poem, The Gilgamesh, which was translated into a variety of Asian languages around the second millennium BC. The need for translation began to increase with the development of religious texts and theories. The word translation is derived from a Latin term that means “to bring or carry across”. The word metaphrasis in Ancient Greek, which means “to speak across” created the word metaphrase which was the first term for a “word-to-word” translation. As translation and translation studies became more common, defined techniques and methods took form. 

Translation methods and techniques

J.P. Vinay and J.Darbelnet were pioneers of translation studies as they created and published formalised translation procedures in 1958 with their book titled, Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation. It was one of the first times translation methods had been categorised and since it has become the basis of technique for modern multilingual translation services. 

Vinay and Darbelnet’s methods and techniques

While a translation method can be applied to an entire translated text, translation techniques and types of translation vary based on what elements will be translated. Vinay and Darbelnet detailed seven different techniques within two methods of translation.

Direct or literal translation method

This method is used when similar concepts and structures of the source language can be used in the translated language. Languages need to be similar in a variety of ways for these techniques to work as these types of translation techniques are not able to capture a lot of nuances found in language.

Borrowing technique – is a technique that involves borrowing a word from one language and using it in another. So the translator will make the conscious choice to retain a word while translating the rest of the sentence. You’ll often see this with English as the English language tends to borrow many words from other languages. While not explicitly a translation technique it is common with globally familiar words. 

Borrowing examples: sombrero, café, kimono, hamburger, kimchi

Calque technique – Many words don’t translate well into other languages, the calque technique is used by translators in this instance. A translator will coin and come up with a new word or term in the translated language. 

Calque examples: gratte-ciel in French is a calque of ‘skyscraper’.  An ‘Adam’s apple’ is calque of the French phase pomme d’Adam. Beer garden is a calque of the German biergarten. 

Literal translation technique – This technique is the most straightforward in that each word is translated directly. This is generally ineffective for languages that are not closely related and is generally only used with select legal or corporate translation.

Indirect or Oblique translation method

This method is most often used when languages and cultures are substantially different, such as English to Chinese translation. This method will usually change the structural or conceptual elements of the text to preserve its meaning.

Transposition – This technique involves a shift from one grammatical structure to another, usually with languages that have different grammar structures. 

Transposition example: Rendering a French noun with an English verb, Je l’ai vu avant la rentrée can be directly translated to English as  “I saw her before school started”, this changes the noun la rentrée into a verb.

Modulation – The modulation technique is extremely common in marketing when localizing into a new market. Modulation changes and adjusts the original text completely but it preserves the same meaning and patterns so that it is recognisable in target translated language. 

Modulation examples: Lebensgefahr in German means danger to life, whereas in English we would say “danger of death”. A literal translation of this phrase from English to German would sound odd and confusing to a German person. Another example is how French speakers refer to the top floor of a building as dernier étage which translates as “last stage” in English. A literal translation of this phrase from French to English would baffle many prospective English apartment buyers and renters.

Equivalence/reformulation  – Similar to modulation and also an essential technique for any localization strategy, this technique preserves the meaning of an expression or proverb by using something equivalent in the translated language. 

Equivalence/reformulation examples: The English phrase “It’s pouring,” which refers to a downpour of rain doesn’t translate into German but the meaning can be altered to give the same effect, es regnet in Strömen (It rains in streams).

Adaptive – This technique is a sort of cultural substitution or equivalent in that one cultural element is replaced with one that will be better suited and understood in the language and region it’s being translated to. 

Adaptive examples: Baseball or NFL football in the US 🡪Football in England

Choosing the best translation technique 

Out of these basic and common techniques, how do you know what translation tools, translation techniques or methods are the best for your business or localization strategy? Every business, strategy and approach is different so the best way to get a return on your investment is to use certified translation services. Quality translators will assess your documents, software, website, eLearning platform or eCommerce software to ensure that your business successfully reaches your target market and audience. 

Into23 offers high quality translation services in any language your business needs. Contact us today for a free quote so we can help your business enter new global markets and enterprises.

Important things to consider if you’re localizing your business in Chinese

Chinese is one of the most important business languages. It is second only to English in terms of being the most spoken, so here are a few important things to know while creating your localization strategy.

With a large population and a growing number of middle-class consumers, the Chinese market has been a new hotspot for businesses. The Chinese market can be a successful market for your business if it’s done right. It’s easier than ever to crack this market with the growth of technology, online shopping, eCommerce translation services, and eLearning platforms. However, there are some major points to consider if you want to localize for a Chinese area or region, as there are many pitfalls when localizing to Chinese.

History of the Chinese language and its different types

Chinese is an old and diverse language. In mainland China alone, around 70 million people belong to 55 different minority groups, each with their dialect and some that don’t even have a distinguishable written form. However, with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Mandarin was chosen as the official language of the country. Today, more than 70% of the Chinese population speaks Mandarin. 

Written Chinese

Written Traditional Chinese is around 6000 years old and is the oldest written language in the world. Cantonese speakers generally still use these characters, as do Mandarin speakers in Taiwan. Mandarin speakers in China use Simplified Chinese characters. Simplified characters have been around significantly less than their traditional counterpart as they were formalized at the beginning of the People’s Republic of China. The People’s Republic of China was formed in 1949, and at the time, the majority of Chinese could not read or write. To improve literacy, Mao Zedong initiated a new system of Simplified Chinese, simplifying around 2000 Chinese characters by reducing the number of strokes used for each character. Simplified Chinese was first used in 1956. 

While there are various spoken dialects of Chinese, these are the two major forms of writing. This is handy as even if the spoken dialect is different, Chinese can generally communicate through writing. 

Different dialects

Seven major dialects are used in China and its Special Administrative Regions (SARs). To reach the Chinese market with your business, you need to know where your target market is and what Chinese form is used there.

Dialect	Region Spoken
Mandarin (Putonghua)	Most of mainland China, Taiwan, Macau
Cantonese/Yue	Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou (Canton), and Wuzhou.
Min	Fujian province and parts of Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Taiwan
Wu	Zhejiang province, Shanghai, southern Jiangsu province, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces.
Xiang	Most of the Hunan province, the counties of Quanzhou, Guanyang, Ziyuan, and Xing’an, northeastern Guangxi province.
Gan	Jiangxi province
Hakka	Northeastern Guangdong, adjoining regions of Fujian, Jiangxi, Southern Hunan, and the older generations of Hong Kongers in the New Territories. In Taiwan, Hakka is spoken by some in the Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli parts of the country.

Related: What’s the Difference Between Mandarin and Cantonese?

Important considerations regarding the different dialect types

• Cantonese is the main dialect spoken in Hong Kong. Traditional Chinese characters are used for writing. While many Hong Kongers can speak Mandarin and use Simplified Chinese characters, if you are localizing for this region, you should consider using Cantonese and Traditional Chinese characters.
• In Taiwan, they speak Mandarin and write with Traditional Chinese characters. Both Taiwan and mainland China use Mandarin, but they have developed different terminology and writing styles.  

All of this variation within the Chinese language necessitates using the best Chinese translation services company to guarantee that sufficient research is done to develop a translation and localization plan that matches your strategy for entering this lucrative market.

Things to consider when creating a localization strategy for Chinese 

Know the culture, know your audience, and identify your primary dialect and region

Like any good localization strategy, you need to know your target audience, its culture, its language, and the things your target market values. You’ll need to consider how your brand voice and whether this will resonate with a Chinese audience. Can you directly translate your brand content, or will you need to consider a more creative translation, a transcreation, to convey your brand voice? As China is diverse, with differences across the regions, high-quality translation services can help you achieve your marketing strategy.  An experienced translation agency can help you avoid cultural mishaps and translation errors.

Learn from past successes and failures 

Learn from the companies who have attempted and accessed the market already. Localizing in China is challenging, and even some of the biggest names have failed after not performing thorough market research. Learning from what has worked with brands that are similar to yours can help narrow your research and expedite your localization strategy.

Related: The Top 10 Translation Blunders in Advertising 

Use local social media and eCommerce platforms

Mainland China uses various social media and eCommerce platforms that are not used or are less popular in other countries. Baidu is the search engine used by most people, with platforms such as WeChat for social media and eCommerce payments. Other social media platforms include Qzone, Renren and P1. In Hong Kong, western social media platforms are popular, and a variety of eCommerce platforms, from the Octopus card to PayMe, are used to pay for products online. 

Use expert multilingual translation services

It should be apparent by now the importance of localization and translation services when expanding your business globally, especially into Chinese markets. Navigating any new market is challenging, so take the guesswork out of your localization strategy and get the assistance of translation and localization experts. 

Into23 is a translation agency in Hong Kong offering localization and translation services. We are experts in Asian languages. Reach out to Into23 today to discuss your business localization strategy to set yourself up for success in the Chinese markets.

Your brief guide to mobile app translation

Working on a mobile app and want to have it translated? Here’s what you need to know to get started. 

Did you know that 84% of the world’s population owns a smartphone? Smartphones have transformed our lives, and a large part of that has come down to mobile apps that have been created to make our lives and customer and business interactions easier, more efficient, and more convenient. If you’ve got an app that you want to take global or reach a new target audience in a different language, mobile app translation or app localization is a feature and service you should look into. Don’t know where to start? Here are some tips to get started in translating your mobile app. 

Why app translation is important

Cartoon app store UIs – Photo by 200degrees on Pixabay – Caption –“Mobile applications are now a part of our daily lives. Apps are more likely to be used if they are in the native language of the user.”

Apps are used for just about everything now, with the average smartphone user using around 10 apps per day and around 30 apps per month. If you do business in any other language other than English, getting your app translated is an effective way to increase your business within a set market. A study by Distimo in 2012 found that translated apps saw a 128% increase in app downloads and a 26% increase in paid subscriptions for those apps that had them. Now, these stats from 2012, imagine how much more these numbers would be in 2022. 

While mobile app translation may sound as simple as translating content from one language to another, there is much more to consider. 

Can I just Google Translate my app?

You could, but there are many good reasons why you shouldn’t. While machine translation in and of itself isn’t a bad thing, it’s missing an essential part of any quality translation, which is the proofreading and copy editing that comes from a human translator. Machine translations cannot consider cultural nuances and can still make obvious grammatical errors that can ruin any good mobile application. 

Related: Why Google Translate Isn’t Effective Enough for Business

Application localization

Mobile app translation is a necessary part of entering a new language market. However, translation in and of itself is very limiting. This is where mobile app localization steps in. Localization transforms and translates your product so it carries the same meaning and tone in the language it’s being translated into. It considers the cultural, geographical region, beliefs, local regulatory standards, and values of the target area in the translation process. It’s an adaptive review of your product to make sure that every aspect of the platform is suited to its new region. 

Here are a few areas that are often included in app localization,

• User interface and general design
• The tone of content and general appearance
• Customer support base and contacts
• Multimedia translation and localization, including images, audio, fonts etc.

Tips for simplifying the translation process

The first step in translating any app is to know your target markets thoroughly. This includes knowing your target users and their behaviour, along with proper market research. It will also require a substantial amount of project management and setting clear goals and outcomes of what you expect from the translation of your app. Here are some tips and suggestions to get you started on your software translation.

Separate translatable resources

Resources such as text, images, audio etc, that have executable code should be outsourced. This makes it so that content can be changed efficiently without having to change the base executable code of the app.

Keywords and SEO

Just like with websites, keywords and SEO are important for apps too. When you’re localizing, you need to consider your keywords, too and determine what words will work best in the regions you’re looking to enter. This localization of keywords will give you better rankings in app stores. So be sure to perform local word searches and know who your competitors are, along with what words, tone, and strategies they’ve used. 

Related: Why website translation and multilingual SEO optimisation are important for your online business

Text expansion and/or contraction

Depending on what language you’re translating into, text expansion and contraction are necessary for apps since they’re often used on small-screened devices. For example, English to Mandarin Chinese contracts by up to 20-50%, while the opposite occurs from English to German, with the text expanding anywhere from 10-30%. Not taking these factors into account when translating your app can result in serious user interface issues.

App store optimization

If you’re looking for an additional reason to localize your mobile app, both Google Play and the iOS AppStore can detect if you’ve localized, which can increase your app’s ranking. Further, by optimizing your app for the app stores, you’re increasing your chances of your app being successful. For example, when people are looking for an app, the first thing they see is the app name, meaning it’s important to have an app name that is descriptive and attractive. Both app stores also allow for a short description following the name, so use this to increase your ranking in app store results.

Quality assurance testing is a must

Having a linguistic QA specialist do proper QA testing on your app after the localization process is essential for a seamless app launch. QA testing ensures that your app works on all devices and platforms and that the translation work you’ve put into your app is flawless. QA testing ensures a better ROI, especially since users are less likely to use and engage with a glitchy or buggy app.

Work with an app localization service

If this guide has shown you anything, it’s that there are a lot of considerations, extensive planning and research that are needed to go into a successfully translated mobile app. To get the best out of your mobile app investment, it’s important to work with a language translation technology company that can take you through the translation process.

Into23 offers multilingual translation services for mobile app localization, software localization services, website localization and more. With international experience and a specialization in Asian languages, Into23 can help you mitigate risks and increase your ROI when entering the global market on any translation project. Contact us today to find out how we can meet your translation and localisation requirements.

Languages of the future & tips for business translation

If you speak English, Spanish or Mandarin, you’ve got much of the business world covered. However, demographics are changing fast, and so too are the number of people speaking the world’s myriad languages. This has far-reaching consequences for businesses and their business translation requirements, notably in terms of what products and services they offer, how these are marketed and also about the workforce’s language skills. 

Situation today

According to the World Economic Forum, one in three of us today speaks one of just three languages as our mother tongue. These languages are Chinese, Spanish and English. Combined, some 2 billion speak them. They’re followed in order by Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Portuguese and Russian. Fluency in these languages is vital for engaging in business with a huge proportion of the world’s population. 

Today, English is used as a lingua franca in international translation companies, primarily due to colonial expansion. Indeed, it’s an official language in 67 countries. Not only that, it’s the most popular second language in the world. In international translation companies, having a workforce with English-language skills is vital. But English’s dominance is waning. Therefore, businesses must address their future language needs and train and hire accordingly.  

Though predictions vary depending on the topic, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries feature prominently in lists of the most spoken languages of the future. The Washington Post reports that “Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Indonesian will dominate much of the business world by 2050, followed by Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Russian.”

Languages of the future

Spanish

One big change already underway is the transition of the US from a predominantly English-speaking country to a mixed Spanish- and English-speaking one. Therefore, Spanish will increasingly be a requirement for business in the country. In the US, some 13% of the population speaks Spanish at home. However, as the Spanish-speaking population is growing faster than the English-speaking one, it’s predicted that by 2050, one in three US citizens will speak Spanish. Spanish is far ahead of the 3rd most-used language in the US. As this trend progresses, governments, businesses and healthcare systems are trying to include Spanish in their daily communication. Talking to your customers in Spanish will become a critical success factor for business in the United States. 

Not only are the numbers of speakers of each language important for businesses, but the economic importance of these speakers is also a consideration. The growth of China and India’s economies over the past two decades has been phenomenal. Citizens in these countries are far wealthier than ten years ago, consuming more products and services than ever before.

Mandarin

China is the world’s second-largest economy and is set to overtake the US soon as the biggest. Because of the rising affluence of its population, it’s become an increasingly important market for all sorts of international companies, such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and KFC, among many others.

Today some 1.117 billion people speak Chinese, including the different variants. But as the market is becoming more and more important for international business, and as Chinese firms like Tencent, Alibaba, ICBC, and China Mobile make progress into other markets, the language will rise in importance.  For example, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises massive infrastructure construction in numerous countries across the world, has seen the rise of Mandarin learning in places like Africa, where China is growing in prominence. China is funding huge infrastructure investments such as dams, railways, ports and telecommunications projects in these countries. 

The Financial Times estimates that between 2000 and 2014, Chinese investment in Africa went from 2% of the US level to 55%. Furthermore, McKinsey estimates that, at the current pace, China will surpass US levels of investment within a decade. Given these profound changes, it’s easy to see why the Chinese language is growing increasingly important. 

Even though it is one of the most spoken languages, the spread of Chinese worldwide is somewhat limited. “Chinese is only rarely used in sciences and difficult to read and write,” says German linguist Ulrich Ammon, drawing on his multi-year analysis of languages. This could be set to change.

Arabic 

Another case in point is Arabic. It’s the official language of 22 countries that comprise the Arab League, and it covers more than 300 million speakers worldwide. The population in the Middle East is expected to double to over 1 billion by 2100. Indeed The British Council ranks Arabic as the second-most important language in terms of international trade and business for Britons to learn. 

However, one point to note is that most younger citizens in Gulf Arab states use English more than Arabic daily. This is a testament to the complexity of forecasting what languages will be on the rise. 

Business translation tips for the future

Given the linguistic developments already underway, it’s essential that businesses not only calibrate their current operational strategies to align with these changes but also plan for the future trajectory of the world’s most important languages. There are several effective steps to take that will future-proof any company in terms of language.

Perhaps the most important is to partner with the best translation services company, so not only are today’s language needs to be met, but you’ll be well-positioned to navigate the impending linguistic changes outlined above. 

The second step is to focus staff training and hiring on the languages spoken in your target markets, but also with an eye on the trajectory of the development of various languages. For example, if your firm is eyeing expansion in Asia, Mandarin would be a safe bet.

If your firm is targetting the world’s most dynamic markets, such as China, India and Indonesia, your localization and translation services partner must be familiar with the languages spoken there. Before embarking on wholesale change, in terms of hiring or finding translation agencies online, it’s best to conduct thorough research and seek the advice of independent experts. They’ll help you to determine whether you would be better off with multilingual voice-over services, whether multilingual translation services options are best or, indeed, what professional localization and translation services would be suitable.

To explore solutions for your language needs, both for today and the future, get in touch with Into23 today.