Cindy King's International Business Blog » translation software

Over The Counter Translation Perfection Not Here Yet

Cindy King — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:00:34 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about how it is almost time for the general public to question their beliefs that all translation software should be avoided like the plague.

I warned readers not to continue to base their opinions of translation software on old versions.

Even though translation software is still not perfect, people with real translation needs are using what they have today to gain a competitive advantage.

Over The Counter Translation Perfection Not Here Yet

Now, let me say once again, very clearly: free translation software are still NOT perfect.

Translation software still have quality issues. But it is often good enough for resourceful professionals to use to gain a competitive advantage.

Professional Translators Use Software

First of all, did you know that…

The primary professionals concerned, translators, often use software to help them get their job done faster. This not only helps them get their job done faster, it also helps them to give competitive rates.

Of course, professional translators always read through their work and add a human touch. But this is a common practice in many countries.

How You Write

Let’s face it, most readers here want an easy translation solution. They simply want to press a button and have a perfect translation appear.

Now what if you were to question your original content.

People with exposure to foreign languages will evaluate translation software differently. They can see where the original content was not written in a “translation friendly” way.

You see, the free translation software available today actually does a fairly good job of translating the facts. It has two major downfalls:

It cannot translate the nuances, and emotional or indirect messages. This is why it is never a good solution of sales materials.
It still gets stuck in areas where there is a certain communication flavor or quirky syntax.

This is why it is a great international market research tool. You can quickly get the essence out of the translations, but you will still need to do classic market research to dig deep enough.

Now I am going somewhere with this…

Writing For Translation Software

You see there are professionals with sufficient language experience who can predict where the software will have a hard time translating their texts. And they have created methods of writing that make it very easy to translate with the translation software. In very simple terms, they avoid writing the original text with any cultural or language quirkiness.

Yes, quirkiness is the best word I can find to describe it so all of my readers can understand. These people do use a more precise vocabulary, but you need to study languages to follow them.

And if you want to see what I mean, simply do some international online research using translation tools on a subject you are familiar with.

The areas of the text that are obvious mistakes to you are what I am referring to. And while you are there noticing the obvious mistakes, have a look at everything the translation software got right.

Now some readers here are not familiar with translation. If this is your case, and you are a stickler for perfection, you have to know something. The software may not have used the exact words you would use if you were to write the same text. But give the same big chunk of text to a dozen qualified translators and you will probably get a dozen different variations.

Bending Your Communication To Fit An International Market

Now, aligning your writing to fit with translation software may seem like you are giving up on some marketing power.

The question is, how are you communicating with your international markets?

Next week I will write about how International English is evolving to fit the web communication platform.

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Translation Software – It Is Time To Question Old Truths

Cindy King — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:00:31 +0000

Translation Tools

Recently I had yet another request about whether businesses can use free translation software tools. This last inquiry came from an American without any foreign language exposure.

She had always been told to avoid translation software like the plague. And her question was, should she look into translation software despite this.

It Is Time To Question Old Truths

Now this is a very interesting detail:

Translation software = the plague

A couple of clicks research and I found another detail.

This reader is also obviously old enough to have at least 15 years professional experience behind her.

Now you may wonder why I note this.

Expectations Too High At The Start

The thing is, when translation software first came out it was far from perfect. Much worse than a Micro Soft new product release. It was hard for most people to imagine actually using it.

The general public quickly labeled translation software as not being worth while. And this was the right thing to do…then.

The problem is that things have changed.

Drive For Progress

While these same people held on tightly to their first judgments, the translation software environment moved further ahead.

Oh, translation software is still far from perfect.

I have written other articles on how you can use them, so I will not go into that today. Have a look at the articles listed below.

Here is the key point…

While the general public abandoned the idea of translation software, there was a significant number of companies that needed this to work. It was vital for them.

You see…

They have massive quantities of information to translate into a large number of languages. Traditional translation costs were prohibitive. And even if they did allocate a sufficient amount of money to this budget, there were still stumped with the manpower requirements. It would take years and years to complete. Business could not wait.

Now you have to realize that this was not just for a couple of books, and not just sales materials. We are talking about very large information libraries. Most companies do not have the same problem.

Luckily, these companies are big enough to have the budget to invest in developing and improving translation software. It also made great business sense. So that is what they did.

That was a few years ago. And is still going on.

Further Along The Road To Perfection

The result for us, is that the translation software available today is much, much better than the first software that influenced the general public’s negative opinion.

Younger people are able to evaluate today’s translation software more accurately.

More experienced professionals who categorically refuse to look at translation software today will probably give up their competitive edge in the near future.

International business professionals with more flexible attitudes are already trying to take advantage of the speed and cost efficiency in international business.

When translation software improves just a notch or two further, it might be too late for the old badgers to catch up.

Tomorrow I will write about how people are already using the translation software available today.

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Translate Server Error

Cindy King — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:00:59 +0000

Translation Tools

There are many examples of translation and difficulties in cross-cultural communication in the press right now with the Olympics.

I found the photo below at http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/then-well-grab.html

This company sign is a fine example of why you have to be careful with online translation software.

The original Chinese characters ( 餐厅) should have translated into ‘Restaurant’.

The task of translating only two characters into one word does not seem the most difficult task for a software to do. This translation was obviously done using software, and very little human supervision, if any at all.

A simple cross reference of translating the results back into the original language would have highlighted the error.

This is a fine example of caution necessary when you use translation software to translate into a language that you do not speak.

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Translation Widgets – A Small Step Towards Website Globalization

Cindy King — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:45:49 +0000

Translation Tools

When marketing to an international audience online translation widgets come in handy.

On my personal blog here at cindyking.biz, I chose a WordPress template with the translation widgets integrated. But it is not really ideal.

Get International Clients Newsletter – Translation Tool Reviews

First, a few comments on what the big guys are doing.

My Get International Clients newsletter has been published weekly now for three months.

Every week I have a look at a website that has been voted as one of the top 20 best Global Websites by John Yunker. I only do a brief review and look at 3 different points:

My general first impressions
The choice in language and country navigation tools
The use of templates

There are often some interesting things to note just by looking at these three points. With regards to the choice in language and country navigation tools it is obvious there are a few different solutions available for global companies.

All of the big companies have fully localized and translated websites in a large number of locations.

But not all of their localized websites are translated.

Most of the top 20 Global Websites use some sort of world map in the navigation from one country to the next, and one language to the next.

The important thing is to write the language in the foreign language. This does give the website a better global flavor.

Get International Clients – Translation Widget

And now let’s look at companies at the other end of the scale.

What are the choices for small companies, with one website targeting the world?

On my other blog at Get International Clients I am using another option. An instant translation widget with 24 languages to choose from on all of my pages and articles.

My articles on Get International Clients are longer and more detailed. They are customized to provide real tips and how to instructions for small businesses who want to do something now to get more international clients.

So the articles are more detailed. And they are read all over the world.

I wanted to try an easy translation tool, strategically placed on all of the articles, covering as many languages as possible. And the whole idea behind the Get International Clients website is to provide useful tips and how-tos.

So this downloadable widget helps the Get International Clients readers by giving them a translation service and also provides them extra value.

The widget was made for my readers in China, and in any of the countries where Google Translate supports the language. They can download the Get International Clients Translation Widget, for free, and put it up on their website….it would be a useful service for my readers to offer all of their readers too.

You can read more about the Translation Widget in the Get International Clients Resource Guide.

Small Step Towards Globalization

Translation widgets come in a variety of different formats. Businesses just starting to expand internationally might consider putting up one of these free translation widgets.

They are not ideal tools for any marketing or sales materials. Only human translations can bring you sales results.

But they can be better than nothing in certain circumstances. International thought leadership does not always need 100% accurate translations online. In any event international thought leadership is subject to the many pitfalls in cross cultural communication, with or without translation.

Free translation widgets have one distinct advantage, they clearly identify your openness to the world.

Need a free translation widget to put on your website?

Download this Translation Widget on Get International Clients

Cindy King's International Business Blog » translation software

Over The Counter Translation Perfection Not Here Yet

Over The Counter Translation Perfection Not Here Yet

Professional Translators Use Software

How You Write

Writing For Translation Software

Bending Your Communication To Fit An International Market

More On Translation Tools

Translation Software – It Is Time To Question Old Truths

It Is Time To Question Old Truths

Expectations Too High At The Start

Drive For Progress

Further Along The Road To Perfection

More On Translation Tools

Translate Server Error

More On Translation Tools

Translation Widgets – A Small Step Towards Website Globalization

Get International Clients Newsletter – Translation Tool Reviews

Get International Clients – Translation Widget

Small Step Towards Globalization

More On Translation Tools