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:
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 Although the website design and mechanics might seem a bit outdated in 2022, it is still a great platform to find new clients, collaborate with other translators and stay up-to-date with industry news.
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 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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
The stratospheric increase in distance learning and training over the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to continue, and that growth is fuelling the gamification of more and more education and training content. Read on to find out all about the gamification of e-learning content, including tips and insights on localising content.
Elearning gamification
As the name suggests, this approach entails applying gaming tactics and formats to e-learning activities. It helps make e-learning much more immersive, accessible and enjoyable. Gamification leverages humans’ needs for socialising, competition, status attainment, and self-expression. The growing popularity of augmented reality and virtual reality is also feeding into the gamification trend. A great example of a gamified learning platform is the language-learning app Duolingo, which uses rewards, levels and quizzes to make the experience much more engaging than reading a textbook.
Huge growth
A growing trend in an expanding market, gamified e-learning content is only going to become much more prevalent. In 2020, the global e-learning market’s revenue—covering corporate, academic and government content—was estimated to be US$250 billion. Buoyed by the rapid uptake of remote work and learning, that’s expected to reach US$1 trillion by 2027, according to a recent Global Market Insights report. That’s huge growth, and in the Asia Pacific that expansion is partly being driven by rising government investment, increased internet connectivity in developing markets, and the digitalisation transformation, including the adoption of cloud infrastructure.
Many companies are localising their gamified e-learning content, just as they do with their text and video e-learning content, so as to reach much wider audiences in a cost-efficient way.
What is localisation?
As well as being effective at increasing engagement, gamification also lends itself to localisation, which is the process whereby learning or training content is not just translated but comprehensively tailored for specific cultures and languages.
Localisation encompasses much more than translating content. It is proven to better engage learners and consumers alike. Therefore, an e-learning localisation service is usually preferable to an e-learning translation service.
Why localise e-learning content?
Localising your online training or e-learning content results in several benefits.
Inclusive learning culture
Creating a cohesive corporate culture is highly challenging, even within offices located in the same country, let alone in different markets spread across the world. Localising your training content is an effective way to engage workers across borders, and effectively create an environment in which all employees feel valued. For example, if KFC didn’t localise the training content produced in its Louisville, Kentucky, headquarters for its 8,100 outlets in China, there would not only be a lot of confusion, the workers wouldn’t feel as valued as if the content had not only been translated but specifically tailored to the cultural norms in Mainland China.
Enhances employee performance and boosts retention
Though English is de facto the language of business, most people that speak English outside the Anglophone world do so as a second language. This creates a barrier to engagement as people tend to learn best in their native tongue. As localised e-learning content is more engaging, it tends to be more effective, and employees that are invested in building their knowledge base and up-skilling are easier to retain.
It’s easier to implement
Self-directed e-learning is a smoother process when the instructions and content more generally are tailored to a specific environment. For example, there will be fewer misunderstandings and follow-up communications.
Analyse current and future needs
The information and insights derived from clearly setting out what your needs are now and what they will likely be later on will help guide the vendor selection process. For example, if a training program that mainly encompasses online text and multiple choice questions will be expanded to include video content, then you’ll need a partner that will be able to handle that too. For example, if video content will be an important component of gamified e-learning content, look for a media localisation agency that is adept at multimedia localisation services.
Create a localisation strategy
This forms a roadmap that determines what content will be localised, what languages and cultures it will cover, and when it will be rolled out. It covers the authoring tools that will be used, the vendor onboarding process, testing of localised content to check it is fit for purpose, down to the types of e-learning voice-over artists that will be used.
Devise a quality control process
Poorly localised gamified e-learning content can have the opposite effect of increasing engagement. In the most extreme case, an incorrectly localised piece of content could cause offence, especially when it comes to sensitive topics. To prevent this from happening, check your e-learning localisation partner has a thorough localisation testing regime in place. Not all localisation testing services are made equal, so make sure the process is watertight.
Elearning localisation tips
Focus on creating culturally neutral content
Localising gamified content that has a culturally specific format and lots of specific references, like an animated narrator that uses a long metaphor from the equestrian sport of rodeo, would be difficult to understand in a culture where the sport isn’t popular, such as in India. Therefore, producing original content in a culturally neutral format makes localisation easier.
Use the right tech
Check the compatibility of the authoring tools across the markets where the localisation will be deployed. For example, Articulate, ISpring Suite and Lessonist are popular in China, whereas Elucidat and Coassemble rank highly in Europe.
Also, the mobile device is an increasingly important access tool, especially in developing markets where mobile penetration outpaces computer adoption and the rollout of broadband internet. Therefore, checking that the localised content will be readily accessible via the preferred access methods in a particular market is the optimal approach.
Find the right partner
Localising e-learning content is a complex undertaking, one that’s best undertaken by a partner that’s highly experienced not only in the subject area but the markets, languages and cultures that the content will be tailored for.
Make room for expanded text
Mandarin is the most succinct written language, so creating the gamified e-learning original content in this language and then localising it for use in English in North America would require more text on the screen. Therefore, leave space to accommodate additional text when the content is first created.
Localising gamified e-learning content is a highly effective way of engaging learners when done right.
Contact into23 today and get your free quote for your business now!
In this series on why cultural localization is important for business, we’ll open with French and why a localized marketing strategy is needed based on where a language is spoken.
As the world becomes more and more interconnected through technology and travel, it is becoming essential for business platforms to diversify within the global market to stay relevant and competitive. This has increased demand for translation and localization services as it has become increasingly essential for international business on websites, eLearning platforms, and various eCommerce services.
Cultural localization is catering a product or platform for a specific market or region, which factors in the local language and its cultural diversities, beliefs, values, experiences, and social constructs. Why is this important? When culture is considered for localization strategies, people show more interest in the content or product. Further, cultural considerations create relatable products, increasing positive perceptions of the product and its sales.
To show you how important cultural localization is, here’s a look at the French language and how a one-size fits all approach doesn’t work for every region it’s spoken in.
There are approximately 80 million native French speakers worldwide, and it is the official language of 29 countries. French is highly regarded as one of the most important business languages as it is one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, and more. It’s also a language renowned for its history and culture; in fact, the word ‘culture’ is derived from French.
Geographical Distribution of French speakers in the world – Image by Carnetfrancaise
French originated in Gaul, now part of France and Belgium, after the Romans took over. The Germanic invasions also had a large influence on the language, and by the 9th century, French was well established as its own distinct language.
French flag – Photo by Cecile Hournau on Unsplash
While French variants in different countries are generally well understood by any French speaker, there are still many nuances depending on where it is spoken.
In 1534, Jacques Cartier left to find an expedition route to China and found himself in the new world, modern east coast Canada. As French settlers expanded in the area, the French language became the native language of its growing community.
Quebecois and French flag – Photo by Nicolas Raymond on Flickr
Canadians continued to speak French after Canada was ceded to the British in 1763. As Canadian French developed in isolation from the rest of Europe, it created its distinct cultural variant.
Due to its isolation from Europe, Canadian French has managed to retain French verbs, expressions, and accents that date back to 17th and 18th century France.
After France ceded Canada to Britain in 1763, the French-speaking community became more isolated, allowing certain phonetic sounds from the elite French-speaking classes to remain.
As the French-speaking parts of Canada are near the English-speaking parts of Canada and the United States, they adopt more words from the English language. Further, some words are even adopted from the indigenous population of Canada, such as carcajou (wolverine) and atoca (cranberry).
Canadian French uses more informal means of address. The informal tu (you) is used more often than the formal vous.
Catholicism is the most practised religion in the French-speaking regions of Canada, whereas France is more secular.
French is now the lingua franca of around 7.4 million Canadians, making up nearly 22% of the country’s population, as well as being one of the two official languages in the country. In the province of Quebec, 95% of the population uses French as their first or second language. Differences in slang, idioms, and religious beliefs are some of the biggest differences between these French variants. They are essential considerations when creating a localized strategy for your business.
Canada isn’t the only country deeply influenced by the French. After the colonization of Africa and even after the French withdrew from many of the African nations, the language stayed and is often spoken alongside many of the indigenous languages. 44% of French spoken today comes from sub-Saharan Africa, with estimates that by 2050, 85% of the continent will speak the language.
French is no longer just the language of France, and this evolution of the language is something to pay attention to when forming a good localization strategy.
Blunders in cultural localization can ruin any localization strategy. For example, if you were promoting an eCommerce business that sells items for children, the word gosses in France is a playful word for child; however, in Canadian French, the word means testicles! This would be a serious, albeit hilarious, mistake in any marketing strategy. The same goes if you wanted to reach the market in France but used informal tones or Canadian idioms and slang in your approach; it would make your strategy appear tone-deaf and make your product less attractive to the local market in France. While these may appear as subtleties, it’s this type of attention to culture that can make or break a localization strategy.
Related: The Top 10 Translation Blunders in Advertising
Hire marketing, translation and localization specialists to create a localization strategy that ensures quality translation that involves the appropriate cultural research needed to create a successful marketing strategy.
Consider idioms, jokes, and sayings specific to the region’s language.
Consider the context of the culture when selecting images for products for an eCommerce platform or eLearning course.
Cultural localization and creating a good localization strategy may feel overwhelming if you’re looking to enter a new global market, but it doesn’t have to be!
Into23 specialises in translation and localization in all major global languages offering global language solutions for your business. All we need is a website or file to get you started with a free quote. Contact us today for all your global quality translation needs.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
With a vast network of linguists, we strive to meet the requested deadlines while maintaining premium quality. We work with:
Our service is available 18 hours a day, 7-days a week. We respond to any request within one to two hours.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our clients rank us as the best translation services company because of our multicultural, customer-focused translations, helping them achieve greater ROI.
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.
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.
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 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:
Our agile and robust translation technology allows us to automate the project management, distribute it to our translators and return it to you quickly.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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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The total number of companies dealing in the global market in 2020 was around 213.65 million. With the rise in demand for digital platforms and the internet, businesses can go beyond the countries within their marketing spend.
Nowadays, even a small company in a quaint city can provide its products or services to customers worldwide. But business expansion comes with its fair share of challenges and complications in ensuring localization.
India can be used as a classic example of investing in localization. If you want to connect to a diverse audience in India as an American company, then translation and localization remain crucial to your strategy. It is estimated that 90% of Indians prefer to consume information in their native language.
But this is not just the case with India. In a survey, experts evaluated 29 countries based on their consumption of information in their native language. They discovered that 76% of online customers prefer to buy from a brand with products that present information in their native language.
This is indicative of the crucial role translation and localization play in ensuring success globally. Apart from content, businesses often use translation services for legal, scientific, and financial purposes.
Here is a look into the different types of business translation organizations currently use to go beyond the language barrier.
Business translation is the translation of information and official documentation that a company distributes. These documents can include emails, training materials, e-learning courses, website content, memoranda, etc. All the translated documents can affect the brand identity; therefore, the translation must be 100% accurate.
In most cases, businesses don’t have linguistic experts in their organization, and therefore, they usually utilise business translation services. These third-party experts provide complete translation services.
A professional translator will be well-versed in both languages to avoid misinterpretations and localize content to remain faithful to the brand identity. In most cases, word-to-word translation rarely works since the terminology may differ in the native language. That is why it is necessary to work with a company that exclusively offers business translation services. A business translation company may offer a wide array of localization services including financial, legal, and even medical documents.
Although there are many kinds of business translations because a business can deal with a wide array of documents and content, we have discussed the four main types of business translations that firms of all sizes and types use.
There are two ways to define the term technical here;
The expert dealing with technical translation must fathom the required formatting. In some cases, even the images in the documents need to be changed so that everything becomes. Be sure to choose a company that specializes in technical translation.
It is one of the most common types of translation services companies use. More than 71% of all small businesses have a website! Almost 49% of all businesses use some sort of digital marketing strategy. Therefore, we can understand the significance of websites and marketing.
Website localization deals with the translation of website copy, videos, and documents on the website. In the process of website localization even currencies, layouts, and address formats are changed to make them relevant to the local audience.
In most cases, you need to consider the languages you wish your website to convert into and then translate only those web pages used by the native audience. But instead of relying on an automated translation system that will not be accurate, you should use the services provided by business translation companies.
Similarly, marketing localization deals with translating all the content used for marketing purposes, from the voice used in the videos to the content used in the ad campaigns. In most marketing localizations, the company decides to hone into a specific area, and then they market the product using.
Scientific and medical translation
This type of translation includes translating documents that have medical content linked to the patient, such as instructions, packaging, labels, product-related content, software, quality management certificates, and clinical trial paperwork. All these documents and content types need good translation services.
It is one of those translation services where accuracy is prioritized over everything else! Since it’s a matter of the health and safety of a patient, translators must have the requisite knowledge, and they must be in-country professionals as well.
Translation of medical documents is tricky since the need for general translation varies from country to country. Therefore, a linguistic expert with experience in the medical field can be your best bet!
The translator must follow a high level of quality control, and the company you are choosing for such a translation service must have the most updated tools and tried and tested processes in place.
It is one of the most complex translation services provided by an expert translation management firm. Legal translation services involve legal documents like agreements, birth certificates, marriage certificates, wills, memorandums, etc.
These documents contain very intricate details. An experienced translator providing legal translation services needs to fathom the underlying contexts of the different documents and that of both countries for which the document is intended. Everything needs to be kept in mind during legal translation, from the politico-legal aspect to the socio-cultural aspect.
Even after all this, the translator will have to translate the document so that local audiences can understand. That is why not all translation management companies provide legal translation services. Why? Because it requires a high level of linguistic expertise and experience in the legal field.
You should carefully choose a translation management company for legal translation services. Even a single mistake in the legal document can lead to challenging legal consequences!
Into23 is a one-stop shop for all your translation needs since we provide translation services for every field, every type of document, and every type of language you can think of. It doesn’t matter how diverse or specific your translation needs are; we can help you.
One of the best things about our translation services is that every translation service is fit-for-purpose. We don’t rely on a one-size-fits- approach. We always analyze the interests of the audience, the document, the website, or the content that needs to be translated. We evaluate our client’s target language and their specific needs. Only then will we move forward with our translation process.
We have incorporated technology in its best form in our process as it aids in getting your content to the translator as fast as possible. We use a perfect mix of human expertise since we know translation is a human process. Since humans are prone to errors, we achieve 100% accuracy by using automated translation QA checks.
So, the next time you need any translation service with 100% accuracy, timely delivery, and quality that surpasses your expectations, connect with Into23 and get the job done professionally.
Every successful business strives to achieve global excellence; however, while going global, they must engage as a local with their target audience. Their brand voice should resonate naturally with their target customers in their local language. To achieve this, brands need a localization strategy. At its core, localization is about translation but it is also more than just translation. Companies today are using video and audio content to engage with their prospects, customers, employees and partners. So, as well as translating their digital content, companies should also consider localizing their audio and video content using voiceovers for different languages.
Voice-over localization is a three-step process. First, you will need to translate the audio script into all your target languages. This should be done by professional translators, native speakers of the language they are translating into. The second step is to record the script in each of the target languages. The third step is to integrate the recorded scripts into each language version. You may also consider adding the translated script as subtitles for each of your languages. In some cases, there may be an additional initial step, if you don’t have a soft copy of the audio script, you will need to transcribe the audio first.
Today, voice-over work is in high demand for eLearning content. Traditionally, eLearning courses were long-form, most from 30 minutes to an hour. However, today, more and more eLearning courses are available in short, bite-sized chunks to allow learners to consume them at their own pace. The rise in demand for voice-over in the eLearning industry is evident in the growth of the demand for eLearning voice-over.
According to the latest statistics and trends, the eLearning market will grow exponentially. The total estimated worth of the industry was around US$ 315 billion in 2021. According to industry experts, we expect the industry to grow at a CAGR of 20% until 2028. That means that the total market size of the eLearning industry will be around US$ 1.35 Trillion markets by the end of 2028.
When it comes to simplifying learning, and increasing learner engagement, audio and video content play an important role in achieving both. The demand for voice-over services is also rising in the corporate sector. Many companies have adopted new working models like the hybrid working model (home working/office working). Offering online eLearning training content to their employees is great for increasing employee engagement. We expect eLearning training to continue to grow, leading to increased demand for localized voice-over services. Today, eLearning training is more efficient than classroom training as learners can learn at their preferred pace according to their schedule.
With the help of a voice-over artist, businesses can add a dialect and overtone to their content to which the local audience can connect. An expert voice-over artist can help companies understand the different approaches used in the local language and then incorporate them into their content.
Standard dialects and visuals can allure more potential buyers and build a stronger connection with the audience, increasing revenue. So, let’s delve into voice-over translation and understand it better.
What are the benefits of voice-over translation?
Attract more local clients & sales
According to Harvard Business Review, 72.4% of customers say they are more likely to buy from a brand if the information regarding a product is in their native language. It shows that you can even boost your sales by using the power of voice-over translation; you can attract more local or native clients and boost your sales.
A local customer will be more interested in interacting with any kind of information if it is presented in their local language. Therefore, if you plan to target a foreign market with a different language, you must use voice-over experts to make this expansion successful.
Reach a broader audience base
If your target audience is not limited to a single language, try reaching out to them in a different language. Consider multilingual voice-over translation services to reap the maximum benefits. With this type of translation, you can reach a broader audience base. By promoting the video in your native language, you will no longer be confined to language barriers.
Types of voice-over translation
One of the most common voice-over translation services within video content is voice replacement. Engineers mute the original audio, and the voice-over artist replaces the verbal content with his voice in the native language.
One of the biggest challenges of this type of voice-over translation is matching the speed and delivery of the original voice. For example, there must be an emphasis on specific points in the original voice, some pauses, or breaks. It becomes difficult for the new speaker to match it accurately in such cases.
The other most common voice-over translation service within video content is the UN style. There are many videos where both the original voice and the audience’s native language need to be heard, like in the case of eLearning videos. The UN-style translation never replaces the original speaker as the native language is just spoken over.
The audience can easily hear the original voice for the first couple of seconds, followed by the native language voice. The sound of the native language usually surpasses the original speaker. It is helpful if you wish your audience to relate to the original voice.
This type of translation is ubiquitous in the eLearning realm. All the voices used in the translation are usually heard off-screen in this sector. The user can simply keep following the on-screen animations and texts.
Many international translation companies provide off-screen voice-over. You should go with this type of translation only when one doesn’t have to play the video. It is also the most straightforward type of translation since it requires only a single actor as the new language just needs to be synced.
Dubbing might be the most recognizable type of translation. If you want the video to look like it has been initially shot in the native language, then dubbing is the right option. By the look of things, dubbing makes the video look more pristine in terms of the native language.
For this, you have to choose from international translation companies as dubbing might be one of the most effective types of voice-over translations, but at the same time, it is challenging to implement.
Into23 voice-over translation process:
A standard voice-over translation process is not as simple as it sounds. Precise and accurate voice-over translation requires both detailing and the skill of a professional. During translation, accuracy is of utmost importance because even a single mistake can change the entire meaning of the video. The translation process begins with transcribing the original audio content of the video. There is no way one can translate the content without going through the script.
Into23’s voice-over services involve language script recording and translation of the script; we also record the translation in different versions. Professional translators conduct the translation process, and professional voice actors do the voice. Into23 works with voice actors that primarily use their home studio. How does that benefit our clients? It allows our team to offer services at economical prices, offering a price that is more competitive than high-end professional recording studios. We must clarify that we do not target voice-overs for the movie or TV industry as these do require these high-end recording studios.
Let’s understand the typical process of voice-over translation.
Firstly, we consider the type of voice our client is looking for, e.g., age group, accent, male or female. Our team offers 4 to 6 voice samples matching the profile; the client then chooses their preferred voice. Once the voice-over artist is shortlisted, we provide them with a brief. Our brief includes the following things:
The process:
The pricing model:
Our pricing model depends on the length of the script or the final audio length (in minutes). Voice-over actors charge per final audio minute. However, we estimate the final length after recording; we prefer to quote based on the script length in words.
· Up to 10 mins of audio is less than 1500 words.
· 30 mins of audio is a script between 3000 and 4500 words
· 1 hour of audio is a script between 7500 and 9000 words.
What’s new?
The future of voice-over translation will be a combination of AI and human voice recording. AI-generated voice recordings will allow a voice-over actor to produce a recording quickly, and then edit it to correct any mispronunciations or other errors in the generated audio file. Into23 is also planning to offer synthetic voice recording services by 2022. We shall collaborate with some of our voice actors to provide this as a service. It will result in faster turnarounds, guaranteed high-quality output, and lower costs. For more details regarding our voice-over translation services, contact our experts now!