The translation and localization industry’s growth continues its climb well in 2014, staying ahead of the global economic growth forecasts at a rate of 5%. Much of this development can be attributed to the need for businesses to engage emerging local markets. Here at Morningside, we find these trends corroborated by the evolving nature of project requests.

Increasingly the BRIC countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, and China, are asserting themselves as pivotal players in today’s global economy. This geographic shift in economic activity has led to heavier involvement in international legal disputes and, consequently, a larger need for the translation industry. Matters relating to the FCPA, or Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, have increasingly called upon LSPs for translations of documents from newspaper articles to email exchanges. Intellectual Property matters in particular have felt the effects of this power shift. Brazil, Russia, Japan and China have become standard foreign filing destinations. Additionally, Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, and Ukraine are experiencing surges in patent prosecution.

Continuing beyond the BRIC, countries such as South Korea and Indonesia are beginning to challenge traditional leaders in manufacturing such as Japan and Germany. Increases in global competition have spilled over into the courtrooms, driving demands for legal translations and interpretations up.

Southeast Asia is more commonly featured as the backdrop to medical and pharmaceutical industry expansion. As more clinical trials are conducted abroad, the need for accurate, technical translations rises with it. Just last month, Morningside participated in the 2014 Drug Information Association (DIA) Conference in San Diego in response to our increased involvement in medical translations for clinical trials and regulatory work.

Domestically, the Department of Justice has pursued many White Collar and Antitrust cases which can involve multiple languages—most commonly Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Antitrust cases in particular are responsible for a large portion of the rising demand for qualified interpreters.

Morningside continues to stay abreast of these global activities by engaging new verticals and expanding language coverage to match shifting trends. We have increased our presence in the medical field and continue to expand our partnerships in the legal industry. Furthermore, in response to shifting language trends, Morningside has increased coverage of language combinations such as Indonesian and Japanese in order to meet evolving needs.

With the growth of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and life sciences industries, multinational corporations require translation services and localization services of scientific data, surveys, clinical research, lab notes, ingredients, packaging, and other related material. These technical and medical translations are needed in order to provide life-changing products to patients and consumers around the world. Accurate and precise translations are incredibly crucial as the products produced by these industries directly affect the lives and well-beings of the worldwide human population. One inaccurate translation could be the meaning between life and death.

The most effective way to ensure precise document translation is through performing back translations. This process first includes the initial translation from English into the target language by one linguist, and editing of the translation by an equally qualified second linguist. The target translation is then translated back into English by a separate translator independent of the project and with no prior knowledge to make sure that the original English has been properly translated into the foreign language.

The back translation can never be exactly like the original English text. The back translation can only give a fair idea of the content of the text and make sure that the correct meaning is conveyed. For example, in a medical survey, expressions such as, “to feel blue, to feel sad, to feel down, to be in low spirits, etc.” have more or less the same meaning, and the back translator may only use one of these.

Back translations are an extremely useful tool in ensuring that the proper meaning of the text has been conveyed. It also adds an additional level of quality check to a document translation.

The translation of consumer products labeling and instructions is no simple task. For pharmaceuticals and other medical translations, an incorrect or unclear translation can have serious repercussions. Cultural sensitivity is also paramount: words and phrases that are catchy in English can fall flat or even offend your target audience.

One thing you should certainly not do is use machine or Internet translations. These translations are not nearly accurate enough. For example, the washing instructions on a child’s sweater in Germany were translated as “washing from the left side,” which obviously makes no sense. What the label was trying to say is “wash inside out.” This error was due to a literal translation of the German instructions, and a literal translation is rarely an accurate one.

Here is another example of a faulty translation, though this one was apparently the result of human error. You would probably think twice about purchasing the Tehao Rechargeable Shaver (made in China) that included these instructions in English: “Smuggle the razor blade (reference value around 400 g) on your muscle vertically, then drag your skin and shave back slowly. Too much strength on muscle may cause quick wear and tear, poor shaving feeling and outer razor blade’s tear.” This is probably not the work of a professional translator.

One way to avoid obvious translation errors that are laughable as well as those that can offend is to use a translation company that relies on translators in the target country, or who are at the very least native speakers of the target language and familiar with cultural sensitivities and proper idiom. Trying to save money by relying on machine translations or a translation service that offers rock-bottom prices (and inevitably quality as well) could end up making your product the butt of jokes.