Resources / Blog

5 Steps to Ensure a Successful Translation

Jun 26, 2014

When you’re planning an entry into a new market, translating your documents may seem like the least of your concerns. Yet, a poorly translated project can harm your company’s perceived professionalism, negatively impact the message they are trying to get across and handicap an otherwise brilliant new market strategy.

Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure your translation process runs smoothly.

1.       Provide Enough Time

Time is everything, and whether you are tackling document translation, patent translation, medical translation, or website localization, it is important to give yourself enough time to perfect it. You want to make sure that the translator or translation company has enough time to thoroughly research the subject matter, prepare the translation, and revise and proofread until the final draft is perfect.

The Project Manager at Morningside, says that “Collaboration is key, the more time you have with your translator the more likely you’ll be on the same page. Effective teamwork and communication is one of the keys to localization and translation success.”

Tip: If you know that you will need a translation done and you want to reach out to a professional translation company, speak with them as early as possible so that they can build a custom workflow for your project and find the ideal translator for your project.

2.       Create a translation glossary and style guide.

A translation glossary and style guide are helpful cheat sheets for linguists to better understand your company.  A translation glossary includes the companies “lingo”, words that should stay consistent throughout, and words that should not be translated such as product names. A style guide describes how a company should be presented visually and textually and the overall style and tone of the company. In short, it identifies those branding elements that must remain, no matter the locale. Providing both a translation glossary and style guide to linguists can help ensure consistency. Without this, words and phrases can be translated in multiple ways across different languages meaning more time spent revising translations to create consistency. A Glossary and style guide can not only help with consistency, but it can also reduce the length of time it takes to complete each document translation and cut costs.

3.       Don’t use Multiple Linguists

You might think that using many linguists for large projects will speed up the process, but it could have a negative impact on the overall quality and cohesion of the project. Why is that? The more linguists involved, the more prone you’ll be to inconsistencies in the translation. Beyond the specific style and tone of each linguist, many words have multiple translations that could fit in a given language and consistency is key when delivering a message and building a brand. This is especially true if you want to keep with a specific and notable brand image or content style used in the past. The same also applies to your proofreader – give one person enough time as opposed to forcing the issue with multiple people.

The caveat to this idea is getting a fresh set of eyes on a longer project. Once you’ve completed a translation, give one person with fresh eyes the chance to look it over and check for mistakes.

4.       Provide as much detail as possible.

The more information you can provide to your translator or translation company, the better. Besides including more details in the translation, it gives the translation service a more accurate ability to choose a translator that has the expertise in that specific field.

5.       Translation memory tools.

Translation memory tools are able to store segments, such as sentences, titles, headings, and phrases and create a database for future projects. This helps save time and money for any updates that need to be done to a project, or for translating any new content. It enforces consistency throughout all versions of any projects and also cuts time because the linguists don’t have to spend time re-translating the same thing time and time again. Morningside Translations currently works with both MemoQ and SDL Trados Studio which has helped reduce client costs tremendously.

A high-quality translation is a key part of bringing your product or service to a new market, and a poorly executed translation can cost you business. By following the above tips, you can improve the quality of your translation, lower costs  and help make your entry into new markets an easier process.

Resources / Blog

Helping Your Localized Website Translate

Mar 27, 2014

Website translation is extremely important for companies who wish to reach foreign markets and expand national trade. Translation can easily be done by copying and pasting your website into a free literal translation service online, but will it accurately explain your company? Beyond the obvious risk of grammatical errors impacting your perceived professionalism, neglecting the importance of cultural cues can be the difference between a website that succeeds and one that just doesn’t translate.

Enter website localization.

Website localization takes the translation process a step further by accounting for the particularities of a given target market. There are professional website translation and interpretation services who understand the importance of these nuances when relating to international customers, and they can do wonders for companies looking to expand globally. However, whether you choose to do it yourself, or you want to better interact with an outsourced provider, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Pick The Right Language:

Research shows that 52.4% of Foreign Market Consumers won’t buy from websites not in their language[1] and 72.1% of international customers spend most of the time on sites in their own language[2]. The good news is that 90% of online business is done in only 13 languages. The bad news is that if you choose the wrong one, you’re chances of penetrating that market are significantly reduced.

Few business people would enter a new country without taking the time to research the potential benefits its market offered. You may look at the hold competitors have, the size of the addressable market, or the amount spent on similar products. But just as important as knowing whether there are people who could potentially buy your product, is knowing how best to sell it to them. The first step in this process is knowing which language that industry speaks. Research the country you’re entering and see what language dominates the sector you’re trying to enter. Many countries are filled with a multitude of spoken languages, but there are generally a select few used in the business world. Knowing these in advance will make sure your efforts to localize aren’t in vain.

Correct Keywords:

Incorporating the correct keywords on your website is critical for SEO and has a major impact on localization success. Keywords are highly determined by the culture and can vary greatly across regions.  For example, most Americans will type in “Vacation” when searching for a resort, but customers in the UK would use “Holiday”. Understanding these differences will help dictate what words should be present in your website’s content.

Keyword research can be a painstaking process, but you’ll have little hope of succeeding without investing in it. If you are going to outsource this type of project, make sure that your provider understands the importance of Keyword research and has the capabilities to properly maximize this critical component.

General Website Layout:

The colors, images, and graphic content can all play a big role in website localization and how it is perceived by that foreign market. Make sure the graphics you use are culturally relevant and that you don’t have any existing materials that may be insensitive or offensive. It’s important to remember that many symbols are used across cultures, but can have drastically different connotations.

Color is another important factor to consider because it can have different meanings or associations. For example, in China white is the color of death and mourning, whereas the same is symbolized by purple in Brazil. Yellow represents sadness in Greece, jealousy in France, but means sacred to the Hindus.

Also, it is important to consider the direction in which your audience reads, depending on their language–whether it be from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom–as this will most likely affect the positioning and layout of your website.

Website translation will be a critical component to your localization efforts, but in order to maximize this opportunity you must consider its full impact. If you hire an interpretation service, make sure they are aware of these issues. If you decide to handle it internally, considering these factors can be the difference between a major victory or a missed opportunity.


[1] http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/how-translation-can-boost-your-websites-bottom-line-0354704#!A6N1m

[2] http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/how-translation-can-boost-your-websites-bottom-line-0354704#!A6N1m

Resources / Blog

Which Languages Should You Translate Your Website Into?

Jan 06, 2014

When it comes to website translation, we often get asked which languages provide the greatest ROI for website localization.  High-quality translations don’t come cheap, and clients understandably want to reach the broadest relevant audience without spending an arm and a leg.

So how do you choose the best languages for your website localization project? It depends on where potential consumers for your product or service are located. If you are localizing a game app for the iPhone, then a list of top countries for game downloads and revenue includes China, Japan, Russia, France, and Germany. Translating your app into the respective languages for those countries is a good place to start. Of course other considerations familiar to your sales and marketing team will also factor into the decision. Your product may have already made significant inroads in several foreign markets. It makes sense to expand on that by translating your website into the relevant languages. If your Google Analytics indicate that a significant percentage of your visitors are coming from non-English speaking countries, then translating your website into their native tongues is a no-brainer. 72% of online consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their own language, so those foreign visits are likely to become longer and more frequent post-website translation.

But as a jumping off point, the top ten languages for Internet users (according to Internet World Stats) are as follows:

  1. English
  2. Chinese
  3. Spanish
  4. Japanese
  5. Portuguese
  6. German
  7. Arabic
  8. French
  9. Russian
  10. Korean

Website translation into the 9 languages on this list (assuming your content is currently in English) means that 82.2% of Internet users will be able to read your website. And given that online consumers are four times more likely to make a purchase on a website that speaks their language, localizing your website into some or all of these languages is a massive opportunity to increase both revenue and market share.