The Global Market

The global market is gradually shifting its axis from developed countries like U.S.A., Europe
to countries in Asia and Africa. The trend is very pronounced in industries like medical and
pharmaceuticals where the focus is rapidly moving to Asia and experts believe that the latter
would become the largest market for medicines in the near future. MNCs are increasingly
inclined to set up more research and development facilities and conduct more clinical trials in
certain Asia countries according to a survey by PwC. Africa is a sleeping giant at present and
business growth is expected come in fast pace in future.

Good Times Ahead

The above trend forebodes well for translators as both the continents have myriad of languages
in use. The demand will not be just translation with English as source or target language but
also other combinations like Spanish/Chinese, German/Korean, and French/Korean, Italian/
Hindi etc. as well.

Similarly the opportunities in Africa are huge. Although there are hundreds of local languages
spoken in Africa, they are still not very well developed. Business is predominantly conducted in
English, French, Portuguese and Arabic at present. Hence in the immediate future translation in
these language pairs viz. English/French, French/Arabic etc are expected to be in demand. Over
a period of time translation from / into the other African languages will also be required.

More Businesses Going For Translation Services

According to a Commonsense Advisory survey on global translation companies, the top
25 companies are reporting solid growth in revenues through localization, translation,
internationalization business. Each year they are reporting higher revenues than previous year
as well as the list is becoming more global. The top 25 list includes language service providers
from diverse range of countries like U.S., UK, Switzerland, China, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

This growth augurs well for the future of both in house translators as well as freelancers.

Some of the reasons for this globalization trend include decoupling of the world economy
from the U.S. economy. As the global GDP share shifts from US and other European to
lesser known countries like Brazil, China, India, Russia, Korea etc. there is bound to be more
business interaction by these countries with the rest of the world. This will fuel more and more
translation services from and into the languages spoken in these emerging economies.

More Reasons Why Translation Is Essential

Another reason is multiculturalism which results in companies and governments striving to
meet the needs of diverse population at home and abroad. It attracts lot of public funds as
well as marketing dollars. Thus globalization forebodes well for translators and interpreters as
discussed in another blog and they can look ahead with optimism.

In-house translator or outsource translator?

Hiring an in-house translator does have its good points. You will talk to the translator face-to-face.
The translator can learn very well how your business is run, and might even be able to suggest ways to
improve the “original” English versions of your content. (Of course, an outsourced partner whom you
repeatedly work with might be able to do something similar.)

Then again, in-office professional translation can place a greater burden on the employer. Firstly,
you may have to help maintain the translator’s equipment. An outsourced professional translator, on
the other hand, is not “your” employee. If he/she experiences technical difficulties, he/she will take
responsibility for them—and for delivering their work on time, despite the problem.

You will also be able to pay an outsourced translator according to the amount of work you need done.
An in-office translator, on the other hand, is likely to want a regular wage or salary. Otherwise, why
come to the office regularly at all? Even if you have come to a satisfying, work-based agreement as to
fee, you will still have to go to the cost and effort of actually making space for the person in your office.
This will be a major concern for businesses that only want a few things translated, or have very small
premises.

Last but not least, there is also the issue of time. There are some things, like the translation of
correspondence with major foreign partners or customers, which need to be translated right away. It is
true that an in-house translator can be made to take care of the work quickly, since he/she is standing by
throughout the day. However, something similar can also be said for an outsourced translation service.
Translation services can put you in contact with people who can translate a single page of your
text within an hour from receiving it.

Ultimately, outsourced translation offers many of the same benefits as in-office service, with much more
convenience. Contact us so we can assist you to take your business global.

Translation services form part and parcel of a bustling niche market in the world of e-commerce
and international communications. Oftentimes the message that is being promoted is
misinterpreted by the recipient. This presents a myriad of challenges for both the sender and the
receiver. Foremost among a translator’s tasks is the accurate processing of information from
one language to another.

In this vein it is imperative that not only the words, phrases, idioms, parables and essence
are understood correctly, but also their context. Indeed it is entirely possible that the correct
meaning is totally mistaken by dint of nothing else other than the context. Context is best
defined as the set of circumstances and facts related to a particular event or predicament. With
regards to translation services, context must be related to the written word and the type of
translation service being requested.

How to Provide the Context to your Translator?

For every piece of prose which is need of translation, a specific context is required. For the
purposes of correct translation, it is imperative that the needs of the issuing authority be met
in every conceivable way. That’s why an e-commerce website detailing how best to go about
purchasing a product or service is understood on the receiving end to mean the same thing as
on the sending end. It would be an absolute travesty if the words were mistaken and somehow
lost all meaning in translation. Simple examples best illustrate the importance of context within
the same language (note that the problem is exponentially compounded when incorrectly
understood contextual errors are translated): Homonyms such as no and know, their and there,
to and too, here and hear, neigh and nay create complications for content creators. Should
these incorrectly compiled concepts be translated, the entire message will have been lost.

Problems Associated with Contextual Errors in Translation

The problem with taking a piece of text from a website and inserting it into Google Translate
or any other free text translation service is that words are translated but their meaning will
be irretrievably lost. Users thus run the risk of relaying incorrect information. This is not
only detrimental to a productive business model, or presentation or research effort, but it
delegitimizes the entire effort. If the meaning of the data is lost, the message is lost and sales/
revenue or reach will be hamstrung. The goal therefore is to clearly understand what it is that
the sender intends for the receiver to understand.

Enter the Translator

Then it is the job of the translator to put the sender’s message into context and to provide
a clear and concise translation with the right message. This is a professional service
and one which should be taken seriously. Issues which can emerge include: inadequate
contextual analysis, interference, lack of textual coherence, false calques, transcoding and
hypertranslation. There are also multiple other errors to guard against and these include
ambiguity, syntax errors, repetition of words, phrases and ideas, cumbersome construction
of content and inappropriate content. Together, these issues create a systematic check and
control mechanism against which a professional translation service can manage projects and
ensure that senders and receivers are indeed on the same page.

1. CONDENSE AND CLARIFY

Many businesses ignore the value of pre-editing materials for translation, but this step can
reduce costs by 25% and more while ensuring a higher-quality final product. How? By reducing
sentences such as “The objective of this chapter is to explain the use of macros in word
processing software.” to “Chapter Objective: Explain word processing macros.” It’s easy to see
how this saves money, cutting 11 words down to 6 for a cost reduction of almost 50%, but it’s
also important to see how this makes the sentence clearer, easier to translate, and easier for
the end user to understand. Consider hiring a translator or specialized translation editor to
eliminate redundancies, standardize style, or even vet entire sections that aren’t relevant to the
target reader.

2. BANISH JARGON

Many translators comment that industry-specific jargon is one of the biggest barriers to
producing a quality translation. Particularly when no glossary is provided. What’s more, we use our own jargon so much that we don’t even recognize it as such. To a translator, “I’ll deliver the target” connotes the transfer of a

translated file, while to a hunting goods supplier, it means something very different. A Google
search for “industry jargon” reveals 307,000 sites, many of them dedicated to jargon-busting,
and full of examples of how jargon leads us astray. When I first encountered the term “belly
lift” on an aeronautics jargon site, I thought “yoga posture or plastic surgery procedure?” while
the correct definition is the cargo capacity of a passenger airliner. To ensure a quality end
product, ask an industry “outsider” to review your documents for problematic jargon.

3. SCREEN FOR SPORTS TERMS

Americans in particular have a fondness for using terms and examples from sports, often
our “homegrown” sports like football and baseball. However to most of the rest of the world,
superlatives like home run, pinch hit, touchdown, Hail Mary pass, or bottom of the ninth fall
flat. In addition, making use of sports-centric examples alienates the target audience and slows
translators down, resulting in delays and cost overruns. Recently I worked on a computer
manual translation where students in an HTML class were asked to create an ordered list of the

teams in the American League. This text, destined for Western Europe, required the translation
team to localize the exercise by asking students to alphabetize a list of Formula One drivers.
Better yet, screen these terms out of your text entirely.

4. ELIMINATE DUPLICATE TEXT

Many documents include redundant text, which, if not eliminated, results in paying for the
same translation twice, or even more. One of my recent projects included translating a
workbook, and the workbook’s answer key. The client simply noted the word count for each
document, not realizing that the entire text of the workbook was repeated in the answer key.
When I pointed this out, the client was happy to have saved several hundred dollars. While
every text contains some amount of necessary repetition, try to eliminate the unnecessary kind.
In cases where budgets are tight, consider referencing duplicate text, i.e. “see instructions on
pg. 42″ rather than having it re-translated.

5. MAKE A MULTILINGUAL GLOSSARY

Most businesses have specific terms that always need to be translated in the same way
throughout their literature, for example the name of a certain machine, process, department,
etc. While these terms often appear on a company’s multilingual website, “standardize the
terms with what’s on our site” is a tall order when the site runs into hundreds or thousands
of pages with terminology scattered throughout. Creating a multilingual glossary of crucial
terms avoids this problem; simply e-mail it to all of the translators on the project. This saves
the time needed to respond to translator e-mails when terminology is unclear, and results in a
standardized final product.

6. PROVIDE CONTEXT

Good translation depends on context, since words mean different things in different situations.
This is especially important in documents such as a spreadsheet of terms, where no context
is available. One of my regular clients is a software company doing market research abroad,
with the results coming to the translation team in spreadsheet form. The client always provides
the text of the survey questions so that translators know what the context of the responses is.
Recently I translated a survey where one of the responses was the word “Linus.” My immediate
thought was “like the Peanuts character?” However when I referenced the survey text and
saw that the question had to do with computer operating systems, I saw that this was a typo
of the “Linux” open source operating system. Providing context allows translators to be more
precise in their terminology. Consider providing either supporting documents, or a short
summary of what the text is used for.

7. GO METRIC

Whether used as a unit of measurement to give the dimensions of a product, or as a figure of
speech such as “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” realize that America is the

odd one out when it comes to metrics. Pre-convert all measurements, speeds, distances, etc.
into metric before sending the document to be translated.

8. COLLABORATE

Translation consumers can save time and money by paying attention to the human element of
the process along with the technical and linguistic sides. Benefit from your translation team’s
expertise by asking “What can we do to make this project a success?” rather than just sending
off the files and waiting for the result. Every agency and every translator can draw upon a
multitude of “do” and “don’t” examples from past clients, so take advantage of this advice and
use it to your benefit. Encourage translators to ask questions, and discuss how they should
be managed in order to get answers back quickly and accurately. One of my clients requests
that I type up questions and send them in batches (rather than one at a time) so that the
client can just paste in responses. This is fast, easy, and cheap. “Should euros be converted to
dollars?” “No,” etc. With pre-editing of documents for translation, these types of questions can
even be anticipated and answered in an advance instructions sheet for translators.

These tips will ensure that you get a quick and effective translation of your website to boost
your online presence and sale

Businesses all over the world have been going online and using the internet for their businesses. The internet is now being considered as a very crucial part of any business.  This is because it helps them generate bigger revenues, provides a good platform to publicize their products, and is the easiest way of communicating with customers and potential customers.  Various techniques in SEO have been used to help generate traffic to the business’s sites and to come up with potential leads. However, it should not stop there.

Every business dreams of one day dominating the global market. You should not limit yourself by applying your marketing strategies behind national borders. A lot of countries all over the world are slowly developing and are now using the internet as well. This fact presents an obvious opportunity to attract more and more leads to your website to convert into profit. However the majority of the world’s web users does not speak or read English.  This is where we need to apply advanced techniques to penetrate the global market.  This is where website translation services come in.

But what are website translation services, and why do we need it? Throughout this article, we will be discussing the various aspects of website translation services and how we could benefit from them. This article should help you become aware of the positive effects of getting these services so you can try it out for yourself and get a shot at penetrating the global market.

What is it?

People might think that it’s as easy as translating the website to a different language word for word. Unfortunately, it doesn’t just work that way. It’s very important to get your message across and it’s not really going to work if you just translate the words to a different language. You need to put in to consideration that a phrase in the English language translated word for word in another language might not really make sense. Using language translation programs might work for short sentences, but it would be impossible to get your message across if you try to translate your website’s whole content on to it. It’s not just plain language translation; it deals even more on localization. This is why there are professionals who offer website translation services.

In website translation services, professionals would work hard in translating and localizing your webpage to the language that you choose. Localization of your web content ensures that the message the original English content is trying to get across is being received as it is in a different language. This opens up more opportunity for your business as it gives your websites global traffic.  You not only have your local traffic as a pool for your conversion, you also have the whole world with it.

Why you need it?

Just as your local website needs Search Engine Optimization or SEO to help it get more hits and more traffic, you need to do this in a global setting as well. What you did to optimize your site in the English language should be done in other languages that you are targeting. This would be the best way for you to penetrate the global market and earn more profit. This is where website translation services come in handy. By accurately translating and localizing the keywords and the whole site content, you get to ensure that you are attracting the right audience to go look at your website.

Website translation services offer multilingual SEO as part of their service to ensure that your website is optimized and to get more traffic from different countries. This increases the pool in which you get your conversions from.

Benefits you can get

Website translation can be a pain if you do it yourself. It’s best to get a professional to ensure that your site is being optimized the right way. Using a language translation program is out of the question because as what was said; it won’t really get you a comprehensible translation of your content. If you are planning to penetrate the global market, you need to make sure that you can get your message through the language that they speak and understand.  If the people going to your website don’t read English, they won’t understand what your website offers. You need to ensure that your target markets fall on the right website that they can read and understand.

Getting website translation services can help you get that problem out of the way. The people offering website translation services will do all the translation and localization of your website and content for you. The only thing left for you to do is to upload it.

Some of those who offer website translation services also help you manage and maintain the translated and localized sites to ensure that everything goes smoothly as well.

Website translation is not as easy as you may think it is. There are a lot of factors to consider that might make or break your website. If you are planning on moving to the global market and expanding your profit, consider investing on a good website translation service to help you earn more profit in the global market.

Relying on online translation tools can be a risky business, especially if you expect too much from them. For the time being, translation is best left to experienced translators. Here’s why;

In 2003 the small German town of Homberg-an-der-Efze, north of Frankfurt, had to pulp an entire print run of its English-language tourism brochure – after officials used an internet translating tool to translate the German text.

According to one report, the brochure was “rendered meaningless” by the online tool. Tourists were promised “casual value”, the literal translation of the German word for “leisure potential”, at venues such as the “free bath” – better known as an “open-air swimming pool”.

Martin Wagner, mayor of Homberg-an-der-Efze, admits that the town made a “blunder”. As a result of officials trying to save money by getting the internet to do a translator’s job, a total of 7500 brochures had to be binned.

This story highlights some of the pitfalls of translating online. Even today, such disaster stories exist for businesses that tried to short-cut their international communications. There are many instant translation tools on the web – but they are best used for individual words and short phrases, rather than for brochures, books or anything complex, that should always be reviewed by an industry experienced translator.

Confused

For example, one of the joys of the web is that it grants you access to an array of foreign news sources. Yet if you were to use a translation tool to try to make sense of such reports, you end up with a rather skewed and surreal view of the world.

A report in the French daily Le Monde dealt with Tony Blair’s determination to remain as British prime minister, despite the post-Iraq and Hutton controversies. When the French text was run through an online instant translation service, it ended up more confusing than convincing.

“With listening to it”, Le Monde reportedly reported, “in the event of victory Tony Blair intends to remain with the capacity until the term of the legislature….” The German newspaper Die Zeit recently ran a piece on America’s efforts to sell the “Roadmap to Peace” to Israelis and Palestinians.

According to another translation tool, Die Zeit’s report said: “The US-government makes bent previously a large around Israel and the occupied zones, although both Powell and Rumsfeld in that sewed East delayed have itself.” That sounds more like Double Dutch than English.

‘Deprived visit!’

ABC, one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reported on Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar’s meeting with Tony Blair at Chequers. The text of the report, when put through the works, reveals that:
“The official description of the encounter is ‘deprived visit’, but Spanish governmental sources confirmed that the main boarded subjects were the process of European integration and, like no, the every day more delicate situation in Iraq and Near East.”

Why the mistakes?

Why is foreign text “rendered meaningless” in this way, when passed through an online translation tool? According to Sabine Reul, who runs the Frankfurt-based translation company Textburo Reul, translation tools have limited uses – and problems arise when web users expect too much from them. “A translation tool works for some things,” says Reul. “Say a British company wants to order a box of screws from a German supplier. A sentence like ‘We need one box of a certain type of screw’ is something that a machine could translate reasonably accurately – though primitively.”

Yet when it comes to translating blocks of text – words and sentences that convey thoughts and sentiments – online tools are bound to fail, she adds. “Beyond simple sentences, the online process simply doesn’t work because machines don’t understand grammar and semantics, never mind idiom and style.”

“Language is not a system of signs in the mechanical sense of the word”, says Reul. “It is a living medium that is used to convey thought. And that is where machines fail. Human input is indispensable as long as computers cannot think.”

Reul and other translators look forward to the day when clever computers might help to ease their workload – but that time has not arrived yet.

“It would be nice if computers could do the job. And certainly the quest for machine translation has prompted a lot of linguistic research that may prove valuable in unforeseen ways. But experience to date confirms that even the most subtle computer program doesn’t think – and you need to be able to think in order to translate.”

Online translation; simply don’t do it with important business documents. Leave it to the professionals.

Until the dawn of ‘human intelligence’ computers, online translation tools are best reserved for words, basic sentences and useful holiday phrases. For tourism brochures, newspaper reports and the rest, you will have to rely on old-fashioned “experienced translator’ such as the services we provide at New Frontier Digital. We know translation, give us a call or email today.

Once keyword research in the foreign language being targeted is complete, the next most important task, when it comes to building a successful multilingual website, is on-page optimisation.

Now, just place your search terms in all the right places.  Of course, it is not quite that simple, as each search engine places different weight on search terms being place in certain locations and at certain volumes . In other words, it’s invaluable to know how the target search engine spiders a page and where to place the keywords so your foreign language pages are positioned for ranking high in your target keyword.

Now it’s time to identify some keyword challenges found in SEO campaign creation:

German Conglomerates

For instance, German nouns like to merge into incredible conglomerates.  An example of where I ran into this was at this Netzwerk überwachung site. Two major search terms are Netzwerküberwachung and Netzwerk überwachung.  The first, conglomerate word is actually correct, but people search in unusual ways, and the search engines don’t generally recognize partial words. In English, a reference to “website monitoring service” would count as a reference for the search term “website monitoring”.  But the German equivalent, Überwachungsservice für Webseiten, would read literally in English as “monitoring service for websites”.

In other words, you might have to make the German SEO professional dance some fancy language steps to deliver a readable message that does not interfere with your search terms.

The Use Of Accents

Multilingual SEO also brings to light the question of accents.  Use them only if the keyword research reveals their use.  One well-respected SEO consultant questioned the use of accents when it turned out that more people searched for Montreal than Montréal.  Don’t you believe it for a second.  There simply were more English speaking people searching without the accent, so leave the accents off your English site but keep them on your French, German, Italian or other versions of your sites if your aim is to be truly localised.

There is one exception to the accents rule: There is a certain market in English that refuses to capitalize words or use punctuation.  The equivalent market in Spanish speaking markets exists as well as in Germany where they are unlikely to use an umlaut – you might have to optimise both with and without the accent. Again, if targeting local consumers always include the accents otherwise refer to your keyword research and cross check the level of backlink competition to gauge which is keyword is best to target.

File Names

What about file names.  Many companies keep the same filenames when they create a translated site. So

1) http://www.example.com/en/Products/AudioVisual.asp becomes;

2) http://www.example.com/de/Products/AudioVisual.asp

…a challenge to a non-English speaking German, but more importantly, of no help to German SEO effects.  On the other hand, keeping the same file name helps the webmaster keep track of what all those otherwise “unintelligible” filenames, without resorting to a wall covered in file name translation tables.  This is not a simple decision to make, but in this case, it’s best to localise file extension names into German and if relevant, to include the target keyword(s) in the extension.

Sub-domain or Directory?

One question that often comes up is where to house the translated site on a separate site, in a sub-domain or in a directory on the English site.

The general consensus is that it is preferable to give it its own domain with the appropriate country extension as local search engines will give your locally hosted domain far more preference in competitive search markets. It is relatively simple to purchase a domain in .de (Germany) or .it (Italy), but which domain extension do you choose for Spanish?  Spain?  Mexico? Argentina? The USA?  And have you ever tried to apply for a .fr (France) domain? Not easy.

Second best is a sub-domain, which at least carries a semblance of being a separate site and allows some directories to consider it a home page for listing purposes (and you want those directory links). This strategy is can be considered appropriate when targeting less competitive keywords. International keywords research will quickly reveal which path is best to take.

Now the expansion strategy is laid out and the initial keyword research and competition research has revealed the keywords to target, it’s time to look at the second major step.  On-page optimisation:

An Example In German SEO

The following are details regarding the specific on-page tasks for German search engine optimisation:

>> Title Tag Optimisation – One of the most critical elements of German search engine optimisation is the development of unique and keyword centric title tags. The title tag of a page is HTML code that contains the text that appears in the upper left corner of your browser and the underlined hyper link in search engine descriptions. Title tags act like the title of a book and define the content on a specific web page. Aim at using only one keyword/keyphase in your title tag. There are a number of key concerns when dealing with these tags that can have an immediate and significant impact on the ranking of a web site.

>> Meta Tag Optimisation – While meta tags have lost much of their influence on rankings, the meta description is still important with smaller engines and in cases where there are heavy graphics on the site. Use your major keyword here and try to avoid repeating the same word twice. The search engines will spider list keyword list and identify a multitude of combinations for those keywords. Use single keywords separated by commas.

>> Meta Description - Review the English descriptions, translate if possible or develop more appropriate versions for the German (or other language market). Include the primary keyword for the page only once.

>> Content Optimisation – Currently the German search engines develop their own descriptions for the site in the results page by taking the sentence or sentences that surround the specific search phrase. Therefore it is very important to ensure the copy surrounding these key phrases on the site is written properly to provide the best description of your offer to searchers. Typically a keyword density of over 1% is considered excessive (including keywords allocated to meta data fields).

Once you have placed your keyword within the German page text and code, the third step is to embark on a off-page optimisation campaign:

Once keyword research has been performed, you have identified the best fit keyword to target. You have performed on-page optimisation and your multilingual website is now live. At this stage it would be recommended to start a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign to identify which keywords generate the most traffic/leads to your site. Once the results are in, re-optimising the website with those keywords that have generated the most traffic. As a PPC campaign can be quite costly and time consuming, it is recommended, however, some companies do perform to skip this and move straight into chasing organic listings.

Link Building

Internal linking using appropriate page keywords should already be in place but equally important are the backlinks pointing to the new multilingual pages. Focus link building efforts on the home page and preferential pages that either traditionally convert leads or those you intend to be high converting pages. Always target entities that will generate relevant links from high profile sites related to your industry, both in terms of topic discussed on the site backlinking to you and in terms of the related keywords (and of course – language) used on the site.  Be creative and look to have content published on some industry leading sites, blogs, news sites etc. But be aware that their are fewer avenues to build links in German, French, Dutch etc than in English.  Fortunately so, as link building is ongoing and costly. So most cases, you will  not need an aggressive link building campaign to get good French or Dutch search engine rankings.

Essentially, multilingual search engine optimization is about understanding how your site is perceived by the foreign search engine spiders and making the appropriate adjustments to the site and specific pages while you are translating your site. Once the above is completed, you will be well ahead of most local and international sites being ranked for keywords you’re targeting.

International keyword research and competition analysis reveals a detailed set of guidelines to follow in order to make your site a contender capable of competing with local search competition. If followed, as detailed above, to solidify top rankings, initiate an ongoing link building campaign in that language. Remember foreign language search engines are still somewhat uncharted compared to English search engines. Many opportunity awaits.

Thinking about expanding your business into Europe, Latin America, Asia or the rest of the world?  Get your site translated and optimised for the multilingual search engine listings with us today!

Machine Translation whether it is Google Translate or Yahoo Babel Fish seems to be catching up with the internets translation needs, or should we say- COPING with the translation needs resulting in hilarious mis-translations around the web.

The fact is, no machine translator has yet managed to, or will ever mage to, reach the level of expertise that can come form a human translator. The costs of the two options are as vast as the ocean.

For this reason, a new trend of mixing machine translation with human “proof- reading” has evolved. We hope to discuss this issue and see whether it’s good practice after all.

What’s Out there?

Google have been offering free web-based machine translation for a number of years, essentially the service is for people to translate small pieces of text so that they can quickly get a basic understanding of what is being said in another language. Free machine translation is nothing new. Before Google got in on the act, Babel Fish was one of the most popular.

However, there is a fundamental difference between the technology behind Google Translate and Babel Fish.

While Babel Fish uses a rule-based system, i.e. formulas that dictate how words in one language should be replaced by words from another language, Google uses a statistical system that harvests many millions of words from existing translated material and produces translation through a system of statistical analysis.

This is an interesting approach, even though it raises a few questions in terms of the intellectual property rights of the original translators and / or their clients, but then again the ‘public domain’ has a lot to answer for in this regard.

Those issues aside, is it any good? Should translators and agencies alike be shaking in their boots and reconsidering their career options?

We don’t think so. The idea of machines (or software) producing smooth, well written translation is still pure fantasy. Human translation is not under any serious threat until artificial intelligence becomes a part of our everyday lives. When machines become self-aware and can actually comprehend what it is they are being asked to translate (let’s face it, if a machine is self-aware, it is only polite to ask), only then there will be even an outside chance for some useable computer generated translation.

Blending

Anyone who has seen the eye-watering iPad destruction on the geek site Will it Blend? Will know how destructive blending something can be.

The concept of mixing or ‘blending’ machine and human translation, ostensibly to save on costs, is not a new one, but it hasn’t exactly taken off either. While the concept seems to make sense, the practice, for the most part, does not.

So why can’t you just ‘repair’ a machine translation?

We set out to discover if editing or ‘brushing up’ a machine translation could save any time at all (or money) and to find out if the results would be any good.

We chose a short, straight-forward English source text of a general-nature that included some technical terms. Specifically, an article on sports for youngsters with heart disease.

We pre-translated the text into German using Google. The results at first glace seemed promising. Single medical terms for instance were quite good, but then, any conscientious translator would double-check these terms so this is not such a great time-saver in reality.

Going through the Google-translated sentences, however, it quickly became clear that virtually none of the sentences made sense. In fact, in many cases they were quite unintelligible because the software is incapable of making logical connections between the individual words.

To cite just one example, a heading ‘Sport matters’ was rendered as ‘Sport affairs’ (in German) as Google hadn’t recognised that ‘matters’ was a verb. While it was possible to glean some of the meaning from the machine translation, there were no three words in a row that could be used in a professional context. The main reason being that machines consistently fail to correctly identify the word types (verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.).

Our translator found that the strange ‘German’ results were actually harder to work with, the frequent contextual errors caused confusion and when less incorrect parts did appear, the temptation was to work around them instead of revising the structure as a whole.

This tendency to work around the ‘less bad’ machine results had the inevitable effect of producing a translation that was mediocre at best. If our translator had worked from the English source text instead of a machine translation, the translation produced would have been more natural sounding and a lot easier to read.

Most worryingly, the amount of time and effort put into creating this mediocre blended translation was equal to if not greater than that of producing a translation in the normal way.

In short, we believe that attempting to blend machine translation with human translation to save money is a false economy. A lot of work can go into producing mediocre results. If less effort is put in, then the copy is basically unpublishable nonsense.

So what you save in translation costs, you will spend in endless editing and proofreading.

In conclusion we can safely say that machine translation, will NOT blend! But it will definitely shred…

Think

When considering translation of a website into another language, it is important to remember the differences that may exist in a particular language that is spoken in more than one country. For example, consider whether you are designing your web pages in Swedish for users living in Finland who count Swedish as their mother tongue, or people living in Sweden, or both.

People Differ

People living in another country may not be familiar with your society and systems. This fact is particularly relevant when dealing with abstracts in study descriptions, as some terms related to health care, taxation, educational systems, etc. may not be understandable to users from other countries, even if they speak the language. It may be better to globalise some terms instead of merely translating the abstract as it is. The procedures for ordering data may also be different for researchers working in your country and for researchers working in another country. Ordering information should clearly reflect this.

The Important Role Of Translators.

The people who are paying most detailed attention to the content of a multilingual website are the translators. Therefore, if translation is contracted out, the translators should be well-informed as to the goals and target audience for the site. This will make it easier for them to decide when the content needs to be adapted to fulfil the goals. Even if the person doing the translation is a staff member, process writing and teamwork is always useful. We suggest pre-writing, consultations with other staff members to discuss the result followed by revision, user tests, and further revision. Many heads are better than one.

Easy navigation

Clarity of navigation is a must, whatever the language. It is a well-known fact that Internet users are impatient. It has been said that;

“if a man from Mars doesn’t figure out your navigation in four seconds, your web page sucks” (Flanders).

Even though somewhat provocatively expressed, these are wise words and well worth keeping in mind!

Two main pitfalls

Two main pitfalls in navigation are making the navigation meet the needs of the organisation rather than those of the user and assuming that users know more of the organisation and its services than they in fact do. If the website does not provide one specific link to the data catalogue, but has several links to different types of surveys (for example, different survey series), it may confuse users. They will have to go to the page of each different type of survey and try to figure out how they are categorized and what the content is. Navigation problems like these are easily revealed by a simple user test. Again, some kind of declaration of content will be beneficial.

Solution

Regarding links between language versions, frequently used practices are the best. We recommend putting language links where users expect to find them and always in the same place on every page. If the language links are flag-based, adding or replacing these with text (English, español, deutsch) is strongly recommended. People do not remember flags, and, in the case where one language is spoken in several countries – which flag would you choose?

When providing links from one language version to another, the optimal solution is to provide a direct link to the corresponding page in another language. However, this is often difficult or impossible since the content of different language versions differ. It also means more work. Linking to the home page in the other language is the most common solution, which again stresses the importance of a clear and understandable navigation design. Users will be keen to get back to “that one important” page instead having to test their search skills trying to figure out where they might find it. This task is made easier if bread crumbs are used on each page and, if possible, each language version should be given similar structure.

Web design

We recommend that plenty of time be dedicated to discussing web design. Concentrate on achieving your desired goals. Web design should be based on the goals and target audience chosen for each language version. What functionalities might target users expect?

Internet Users Are Impatient

In all web design it is important to remember that Internet users are likely to be impatient. Avoid splashes and unnecessary animation, especially on the index page of your website. Has anyone ever seen an animation that they would like to see again, again and again? It is advisable to think twice before choosing to rely solely on for example Flash techniques or additional plug-ins. Difficult or non-conventional navigation (which means that users get lost and frequently have to return to the main page) combined with time-consuming animation on the main page usually results in very frustrated users. This type of design does not work for information-rich websites where it is crucial to be able to find a particular piece of information without too much effort. This is why popular web services like Google rely on a simple and fast-loading front page.

Templates

Applying some kind of a template system reduces the burden of running websites in multiple languages. When changes are needed in navigation or in other fairly constant elements of the site, templates make life much easier. Fonts, colours, titles, navigation links and so forth are controlled by one style sheet and one design template, meaning that only one alteration per language is sufficient. Using templates also tends to have the effect of pushing the web design toward an easily-maintained form, which is good for everyone.

It is a good practise to put navigational elements (search interface, database field names, etc.) into language packs, and to keep them as separate as possible from the text content of the site. This is preferable to coding these elements into the source code directly. With language packs, it is easier to translate functionalities like navigation, search interface etc., and to make changes in all language versions simultaneously or even to add completely new language versions.

Check and Monitor Your Website Constantly

When a website is up and running it should not be left on its own. Checking the log files periodically gives valuable information on where users are coming from, how long they spend on the site, if there are pages that are more popular than others, and which pages (if any) tend to drive people away to information sources outside your site. Analysing search logs helps to find out how and what people are searching for, and whether they are looking for information that does not exist on your site, or whether they are looking for existing information but in a wrong place. Log file information can be used to improve your web service.

In Conclusion

The main point of our discussion is that multilingual websites should be designed as if they were separate websites developed in separate languages, rather than multiple translations of a single language site. What we are talking about here is creating new websites in other languages. What the content and actual technical solutions are depend very much on the goals set for each site. Decide on your goals, be clear about what services you are providing, and never lose your users to difficult navigation.

There is always room for improvement!

The internet continues to grow and has become the default point of call for businesses and individuals searching for goods, services or information. For businesses wishing to get that competitive advantage, a multilingual website now presents one of the most high impact means of expanding a client base and securing greater sales volumes.

The multilingual website will continue to become a necessity for businesses and organisations as the process of internationalization unfolds.

Here are 10 good reasons why you need a multilingual website today rather than later:

Shift Away from English Internet Users

The internet began as an English speaker’s invention and as a result was dominated by English speaking users and sites. However, times are changing. With the growing numbers of people buying PC’s and internet access available from Nigeria to New Zealand, English speakers will soon be in the minority when it comes to internet use.

Results of research carried out by Nielsen-Netratings in March 2005 described foreign internet markets as “low hanging fruit,” i.e. if you have the will and foresight there are massive revenues to be found for relatively little effort. The results showed that internet use in the traditional strong holds of the USA, Germany, the UK and Sweden is flat lining. On the other hand countries such as France, Hong Kong, Italy and Japan are seeing substantial growth in internet usage.

The easiest opportunities are in countries where internet usage patterns and user/site relationships are less established. Acquiring users in markets that are currently in their growth stages will lead to a loyal user base that will pay dividends for internet companies in the future.

Cost Effective Marketing Tool

Having the ability to communicate to a whole new international audience in their own language will undoubtedly yield results not only in a financial sense but also in terms of marketing and creating awareness of your brand, service or product.

A multilingual website in the grand scheme of things is probably one of the most cost effective ways of marketing your company, capturing new users, building relationships with new clients and giving your brand an international outlook.

New Customers

Ultimately what a multilingual website brings you are new customers. By having your site accessible to potentially thousands of people you are showcasing your company across the globe. For non-English speaking users looking for your product or service, you automatically capture their attention.

Sales

With every language added to a website there is the potential for an increase of between 100% in sales. Even if a multilingual website is translated into a few of the major world languages, i.e. Spanish, French, German and Italian there is potentially a 400% increase in sales. There are few other ways to get such an increase for such little investment.

Customer-Centric

A multilingual website demonstrates you are thinking about the customer. That little extra effort shows you have thought and cared enough about them to offer the website in their language. As with anything in business, if the customer thinks you care, they will want to do business with you.

Trust

For many cultures there is an issue of trust when it comes to buying over the internet, especially if they feel it is in a language they are not fully proficient in. Offering them a language alternative allows the customers to feel secure in the fact they know what they are buying, how and who from.

Culturally Sensitive

A multilingual website, if designed properly, overcomes potential cultural barriers through allowing access in a native language. This automatically puts the user in a ‘cultural comfort zone’ due to their being able to navigate, understand and interact with the website.

Beat Competitors

To get the competitive advantage in today’s environment you need to think outside the box. Many businesses try to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Look at your competitors – if they have multilingual websites then why don’t you? If they don’t, then why not lead the marketplace and establish your company or brand abroad before they do.

Shows International Nature

Image is everything. A multilingual website demonstrates you think, work and deal internationally.

Search Engines

Search engines lead people to your site. In countries such as China, Japan and France, Google, Yahoo and MSN are not the default search engines. Home grown search engines are emerging and they are proving successful because they work in native languages and are focused on the habits and needs of their users. Such search engines are a key to tapping those markets and unless they have access to a particular language through your multilingual website then you will not be found.

In addition, many of the key search engines, especially Google, are developing the capacity to run searches in foreign languages. Having pages of your site available in those languages ensures maximum potential for your site being picked up in searches.

Conclusion

Business continually sees shifts and changes. At present the multilingual website is still in its early stages, with mostly large multinational companies using them to secure an international foothold. However, the trickle down effect will naturally occur and the multilingual website will become part and parcel of an internet presence. Whether people chose to invest now or later is the only choice they have.

Building it

When building websites in multiple languages, you are faced with a variety of challenges. Translation is an important part of the process, though not the only one. Some of the things to consider are discussed below.

Inputting translated text

Adding text to a website in an unfamiliar language can be tricky. One solution is to include notes and labels which tell you which part of the text is which and where is belongs on your website. If you do this, you should explain the purpose of such notes to your translators. Unfortunately not all translators will follow the instructions: some will translate the notes and labels, others will leave them out of their translations. Even with such labelling, some web developers and editors will still not be confident about adding the translated texts to websites, particularly texts written in different writing systems.

Another solution is for the translators to enter the translated text into your website. This can work if you have a content management system for your website, though there may be problems text formatting, links and coding. If your translators have some knowledge of such things as HTML and CSS, such problems can be minimised or eliminated.

Alternatively you could employ web developers who are familiar with the languages into which you are translating your website, or send them on training courses to learn those languages.

Fitting the text into your web pages

Text in some languages takes up more space than others. For example German and Russian text usually takes up more space than English, but texts in Chinese and Korean take up less space. Certain sections of websites, particularly menus, often have a fixed width. Sometimes you have to use alternative, shorter translations to fit the available space.

Here is an illustration of the amount of space taken up by different languages. The same text, font face and font size is used for all the languages. This image also illustrates the font size problem – the Chinese and Japanese text is quite difficult to read at this size, but the other languages are perfectly legible.

In some languages, such as Thai and Lao, there are no spaces between words. When building websites in such languages, it really helps if you can read the text in order to add line breaks in appropriate places, otherwise it will overflow the edges of your pages.

Page layout

If you translate your website into languages that are written from right to left, such as Arabic, Persian or Urdu, the page layout should be flipped over so that it’s a mirror image of the pages in left-to-right languages. Some images may need altering and adjustments to the style sheets and some page elements will also be needed.

Font sizes

Some languages, such as Chinese, Korean and Arabic, are difficult to read at font sizes that are perfectly legible for languages like English, French and Russian. Using separate style sheets is a solution to this problem. Another solution is to avoid specifying font sizes at all, though designers don’t tend to be very keen on this as it messes up their design.

Linking to and between translations

On bilingual websites linking between languages is straightforward. On multilingual websites though, it can be more challenging.

There are a number of ways to link to and between the translated parts of a website. A popular method is to list all the translations available on your homepage, though it’s better to link to the translation on every page of your site as not all visitors will enter your site through the homepage.

Some people list the languages using either their native names or their names in the original language of the website. Others use flags and/or the names of countries. The latter two methods are misleading if your translations are not country-specific. For example, if you use a French flag to link to your French translation, French speakers from other countries may feel ignored and/or offended. However, if your French translation is aimed at people from France, using a French flag for the link is appropriate. Flags are country-specific, languages are not.

Maintaining your website

Websites tend to be changed regularly. Keeping all the translations of your site up-to-date is a real challenge. Some changes will be large; others will involve just a few words here and there. Sending such changes to your translators whenever they occur may be inconvenient for both you and the translators. Some large organisations employ in-house translators. Another solution is to save up the bits of text that need translating and send them to your translators once a month. The best solution would be to employ web editors who speak each of the languages into which you’ve translated your website. This could also be an opportunity for translators to branch out in a different direction.

Localising your website

Translation is not the only aspect of localisation. Other things that need to be considered include formality of language, currencies, weights and measures, public holidays, cultural sensitivities, gender roles and geographic examples.

The original text of your website might be written in informal language, but this could be inappropriate in some of your translations, or vice versa. It’s a good idea to explain to your translators the kind of audience your website is aimed at so that they can adjust the register of their translations appropriately.

Handling enquiries from your website

Once you’ve translated your website, people will start contacting you in foreign languages. This is one aspect that many people seem to overlook. Answering such enquiries in the appropriate language is important. There are various ways you could do this, including employing people who speak the languages; having the enquiries translated, writing replies, then having the replies translated, or using automatic translation software.

If you are not receiving many enquiries, you could have them translated by your translators, write replies, then have the replies translated. With automatic translation software you can get a translation of the enquiries, then either reply in your language, or translate your replies, though the translation produced by such programs tends to be quite poor. The ideal solution is to employ people with both language and sales skills, or to train people with the relevant languages in sales.

This guide should convince you of the benefits of having a multilingual website and the making of it when you reach your decision to go multilingual

Most businesses have potential to reach buyers within foreign markets, provided they get the professional localization assistance from local marketers. You will be able to gain a local reputation that could be just as big as or possibly bigger than your local market. It boils down to selection, feasibility, research and planned implementation. The importance of professional localization of your business, software, web site, etc., can not be expressed enough. Simple translation is no where near adequate if you desire a respectable image for your business or product.

Localization is the modification of a business, product, content, or such so that it satisfies both the language and cultural differences of the targeted market.

A product or service you provide that does not adhere to the definition above is not going to give your business a suitable reputation. This is why you must take the following important steps to ensure you are catering fully and properly for your target market.

1. Do Not Make False Assumptions

Many people make false assumptions with regard to localization that can lead to dire consequences. Here are a few;

“It’s only translation, it should be easy.”

Surprisingly, many companies without localization knowledge will assume that their website can simply be translated into foreign languages. Unfortunately, website localization requires much more than just translating the text. Text is only a part of user experience; date/time, input/output, images, colours, layout, fonts, validation and functionality makes the experience complete. You can have an excellent translation, but if the site is not localized properly customer satisfaction will suffer.

“Our distributors in the respective countries will take care of the local websites.”

Leaving the responsibility of developing your website to your distributors is risky. It may result in an inconsistent brand image which will lead to customer confusion.

“Our Chinese employee can translate the website.”

Being able to write, doesn’t make a writer. Being a native speaker doesn’t make a translator. Professional translators have years of experience in translation and often obtain higher education in linguistics. Bilingual and in country employees are great resources for reviewing translated content and providing insider feedback to linguists, but shouldn’t be considered for providing content translations.

2. Don’t use machine translation

In recent years great progress has been made towards programmatically translating documents from language to language. That said, it is far from being an acceptable replacement for a fluent translator. The edge cases and “what ifs” on the technical/logical side of the translation are enough for me to say that, but when you start talking about potentially offensive translations this is a definite requirement. Just look at an example of an automated German to English translation. It’s readable but it’s far from polished – not something you want as a first impression to your site.

Machine translation tools such as Google Translate or Babylon may be useful for a personal blog, but not for a commercial website. Your website is the public image of your business; you want to make sure that its content is translated properly. Machine translation is far from being an acceptable replacement to human translation. Give machine translation a quick try and see it yourself:

The English sentence:

“The fastest way to find out how we can help you is to contact us for an evaluation of your needs and suggestions for next steps.”

Translated by Google Translate into Spanish as:

“La forma más rápida para averiguar cómo podemos ayudarle es contactar con nosotros para una evaluación de sus necesidades y sugerencias para los pasos siguientes. “

When you translate the sentence back to English with Google Translate it reads:

“The quickest way to find us out how we can help is how to contact us for an assessment of their needs and suggestions for next steps.”

Hope that clears the point.

3. Be culturally sensitive

If you’re not very familiar with your target culture ask for an opinion from someone who is (or hire a localizer who is). Seemingly innocent words, phrases, and images could be misunderstood by another culture. If you use terminology that is only understood in your region or culture, the best case you can hope for is that a visitor to your site just won’t understand and will ignore it, but it really reduces your credibility and the overall enjoyment of visiting your site.

4. Don’t use graphics as text

This is just a good idea in general, but it makes even more sense when localizing pages. Creating images is time consuming and has more potential for error. Using an appropriate encoding and employing CSS should get close to the same effect (with an extra point for accessibility). If you need to use an image, be prepared to accept localized strings and make the image yourself – localizers may not have the time, skills, or software they need to create the images.

5. Use The Correct Language on the Web

Right now, most of the pages on the Web are in English, but just because you’re writing your page in English in Australia, doesn’t mean that a Canadian would understand it or find it useful. Make sure that you avoid slang on your site, as that is the most non-translatable element of a page. When you list a price, indicate what currency you’re using. And when you list sizes or measurements, it helps if you list conversions, or link to a conversion Web site.

If you are going to translate your site, it works best if you hire a professional translator. While there are translation programs on the Web, many of them can result in very humorous results. If you can’t hire a translator, then consider not putting up the page in that language, your page will look more professional if the language it’s in is correct.

Avoid Generic terms such as:

• Foreign/domestic/local – what’s foreign to you may be local to your reader
• International – be careful here, you should use this term to define something that covers many or all nations, not just all but your own
• Regional designations – “east coast” means something completely different to someone in Moscow, Russia than to someone in Moscow, Idaho, US.
• Cities without indicating state and/or country – there is at least one London in the United States, as well as in England, and I live 20 minutes from Brisbane, but it’s not in Queensland, Australia.
• Slang and dialect – words that are not found in a good dictionary should be avoided, as they won’t be easily translatable.

6. Take Care When Using Special Characters and Computer Platforms

Most platforms will support displaying the special characters, but some of them are a bit more esoteric, and so not all machines will display them correctly. The characters that cause the most problems are Ÿ, ÿ, Ð, ð, ß, and þ. If you are translating into a language that uses these characters, make sure to test your pages on both Netscape and Internet Explorer, and on both Macintosh and Windows. This will help your readers to understand you better.

The above steps will ensure that you will have proper localization of your website in such a way that you will get the best of the market you target to. This will guarantee an increase of your profits in the rapidly globalizing internet.

The way in which we communicate online is changing. Not only is it internet the first port of call for people seeking information but it is no longer dominated by English speakers. Both transformations spell good news for those with an eye for international markets.

In the good old days when we looked for a company, a supplier, a shop or a product the Yellow Pages or our high street would have more than likely been the only way of getting results. Those within a certain sector or industry would have had personal contacts or trade groups that could have pointed them in the right direction. Today most people turn to search engines such as Google or Yahoo!, at least for some initial fact finding and if a website has done a good job and providing this information, a purchasing decision is made. But how do you stand out in the face of local competition? For example, if you want to buy in thousands of car flags for Euro 2008, simply punch in “England car flags supplier” are you are met with 904,000 results, that’s a lot of competing pages.

English speakers are dwarfed

Add to this the fact that people using the internet are no longer domestic, i.e. English speakers, and the potential of the internet for a company becomes massive. The growth and development of international trade and commerce now means people are seeking products, affiliations and clients from the four corners of the earth. Just as exporters in the UK may be seeking distributors in China, businesses in India may be seeking an exporter and partners in the UK. The key to success is being found.

What to do.

To be found, one needs to have a multilingual internet presence. The internet is simply no longer the preserve of English speakers. Major languages such as French, Arabic, Chinese and Spanish are now all contributing to the overall percentage of internet users. As more and more countries develop their internet infrastructures and more and more people can afford a PC, the number of internet users in foreign countries will increase at dramatic rates. Languages such as French and Spanish have been spread to Africa and Latin America by their colonial owners. Arabic is the language of the Arabs and Islam and is therefore read from Morocco to Malaysia. China now boasts and internet savvy population of 123 million, less than 10% of the population. Within 10 years the majority of internet users will not be native English speakers. A foreign language website is therefore crucial for those companies wanting to capitalise upon this vast and ever-growing foreign audience.

The benefits.

A foreign language or multilingual website offers forward looking companies with three main benefits.

1) You reach a new audience: Research shows that people prefer information in their own language, want information in their own language and are more likely to buy something if presented to them in their own language. By communicating to them through your website you tap a huge market and increase your reach.
2) You build credibility: If your company only has a site in English and your competitor in all major languages, which one will gain more credibility? Translation of your website demonstrates that you are a truly international player. In addition, it shows you understand, value, and have respect for that particular country or region.
3) You increase revenue: Billions of dollars, pounds and euros in potential revenue are lost each year due to lack of investment in website translation. Most internet users will naturally feel more comfortable and understand a company better if their information, products or services are presented in their native language.

So this all sounds rather easy doesn’t it? Simply run the site content’s through a free translation tool, whack it up using the same template as the English site and away we go. Unfortunately not. In fact if you did that you may very well lose business.

As with anything that crosses linguistic, national and cultural barriers things get ‘lost in translation’ and the website is no different. Many sites can get away with a simple translation, however many can’t. Why? Because their English website would be unsuitable for the target market. As a result many in the industry have moved away from the term “website translation” to “website localisation”.

Website localization is the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a new target audience. It is a multi-layered process needing both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge. If either is missing, the chances are that a localization project will encounter problems.

In the majority of cases it is the lack of linguistic and cultural input that lets a website localization project down. In order to give an insight into the impact culture and language has on website localization the following three areas shall be examined.

The top languages to localise your website.

The top internet languages are;

1.    English

2.    Chinese

3.    Russian

4.    Spanish

5.    Arabic

6.    Japanese

7.    French

8.    German
 

English

A 2002 survey of 2,024 million Web pages determined that by far the most Web content was in English: 56.4%. A more recent study, which used Web searches in 75 different languages to sample the Web, determined that there were over 11.5 billion Web pages in the publicly indexable Web as of the end of January 2005. As of March 2009^[update], the indexable web contains at least 25.21 billion pages. On July 25, 2008, Google software engineers announced that Google Search had discovered one trillion unique URLs. As of May 2009^[update], over 109.5 million websites operated. Of these 74% were commercial or other sites operating in the .com generic top-level domain and were english. What these statistics show is that English is still the most important language in the web as it is universal.

Chinese

The Chinese population makes up 23% of the world population. It means that more than 2 billion people are speaking Mandarin. Since China is a very promising country for its economy power and Mandarin is an official language of the United Nations, a Mandarin speaking skill is surely a must-have in the future. Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, youll get a lot of users logged on to your website that speak only Chinese, this gives you access to nearly 1/5th of the worlds population, which includes people from China as well as other countries with a large number of Chinese population or the ones that speak Chinese.

You might not even need to advertise yourself as with your Chinese website translation you might show up on search engines like Baidu that are based in Chinese. A great benefit when such a thing happens is that youll automatically get access to the huge number of people who access this search engine for any relevant search that they want to carry out. Also you can make sure that the translation company has relevant keywords in Chinese included in the content so that you can have a translated website that is also SEO friendly. In this way just a translation service will also become a great marketing advent for you.

Once you have a website translated in Chinese you open up several markets for yourself in south east Asia. China is surely one market that opens up however alongside you will also be able to step in Hong Kong, Singapore and other neighboring small countries that have a decent amount of Chinese speaking population. The best part is that you do not have to spend money on individual nations to get local attention but a mere Chinese website translation can help you with all the above.

A key benefit is that you can get this service at quite an affordable rate. Most of the providers charge you per page or per 100 words. In this way you can decide the amount that you want to spend on such a service and as per that you can have a section of the website or the entire website translated in Chinese.

To be able to avail all the above mentioned benefits you have to hire a professional Chinese website translation service so that you can get what you deserve. Most of the free Chinese translation software are only good for individual users because they do not provide SEO friendly or professional content, they just translate stuff word by word and at times the sentences do not make any sense either. Make sure you have the best assistance so that you can get the best results. This you will get from New Frontier Digital!
 

Russian

Russian is the 8th largest language in the world and 6th in terms of speakers and the Russians have become very internet savvy people since the last decade. Moscow is the most expensive city in the world and has the most billionaires in the world, thanks to Russian oil and other factors. So even though development is uneven most Russian have a computer and the Russians are all over Europe buying Europe up. These people are not highly English literate as they love their language. Therefore translating your website into Russian will enable you to tap into this gold mine of internet users.

Spanish

Hispanics are becoming increasingly affluent: 64% percent are now firmly within the nation’s middle class and more than half are buying their first homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Hispanics are entering cyberspace at high speed with over 14 million U.S. Hispanics online. Yet the companies successfully targeting Hispanics online in the direct response arena are few and far between.

A marketplace of this size and yet marketers are failing to capitalize. One of the biggest errors is that many are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the Spanish language. There are many different variations of the Spanish language and you must first consider to whom you are marketing.

Efforts to tap into the Hispanic market shouldn’t end with translating marketing materials. The cultural piece of marketing is always what people miss to capture that market, you’re not just translating. You need to put some effort into learning the culture.

Therefore it is clear that proper translation into the spanish language which is increasing in popularity in Europe as well as the whole world will give no end of benefits to your website!

Arabic

Arabic is spoken in more than 20 countries, from Morocco to Egypt and throughout the Arabian Peninsula. It is the first language of over 186 million people, and at least another 35 million speak Arabic as a second language. As the language of Qur’ān, the holy book of Islam, it is thought as a first language in Muslim states throughout the world.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the official language throughout the Arab world, and in its written form it is relatively consistent across national boundaries. Of all the spoken dialects, Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood, due primarily to Egypt’s role as the major producer of movies and TV programs in the Arab world.

The Arab world is increasingly using the internet and these customers are the wealthiest in the word thanks to the Arabic oil industry. Therefore having an Arabic website to interest them will mean much more profit for anyone in the world.

Japanese

79.48 millions of Japanese use Internet and the Internet penetration rate in Japan is currently 62.3%.  This is an increase of 32 million of users and 25.2% penetration rate since Japan’s last survey in 2000.  The survey also confirms that by the end of 2004, 62% of Japanese used broadband technology; 20.4% used dial-up system; and 18.4% used the ISDN system.  

Japanese search for information in the following level of preference, internet, TV, magazine/books, and newspapers according.  The impact of internet in people’s life in Japan is great.  Japanese reported that the use of Internet decreased their time for reading books/ magazines, sleeping, watching TV, and personally seeing family members.  Yet, internet and phone communication with family members increased by the use of these new technologies.  Japanese said they now gather more information on the Internet and buy less books, magazines, video games, and music CDs.      

Online shopping is the most used communication tool in Japan with an increase of 89.1% in online shopping from PCs and 18.1% from mobiles.  The surveys also report that Japanese are very satisfied with their online shopping experience (74.6%). 

The figures are clear. Japan is the most tech savvy country in the world and also the most technologically advanced! The Japanese will like a website translated into their native language than one in English. Therefore Japanese is a top choice for website translation and localisation.

French

FRENCH people spend more time online than those in other European countries, a recent study has found.

The study by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) showed that on average French internet users spent 13 hours a week online. But nearly one-in-three said they spend more than 16 hours a week using the internet.

This compares with people in the UK and Spain who spend around 11 hours a week online, and an overall European average of 10 hours 15 minutes.

What is striking about this study is how quickly consumers are becoming such sophisticated internet users. This shows that if you offer content and services, the demand will be there from the French. This and the added fact that many people around the world use French as a second language is added reason to translate into French!

German

According to data by Initiative D21Berlin-based organization that promotes Internet usage and access, close to 70 percent of Germans now use the Internet, an increase of four percent from the previous year of 2009. This includes data gained from nearly 31,000 telephone interviews concludes that men are considerably more likely to be online than women. 76.1 percent of men use the Internet, while the figure is 62.4 percent for women.

It comes as no surprise to see that the figures reveal declining Internet use with increasing age. 94.5 percent of 14-29 year olds use the Internet, while 85 percent of 30-49 year old go online; that figure sinks to 44.9 percent for the 50-plus age category.

The top federal state in terms of Internet usage is Bremen, which improved upon its previous year’s placing, by leaping to the top of the standings from seventh place. 74.2 percent of people use the Internet there. They are followed by the federal state of Berlin which boasts 73.3 percent Internet usage. Baden-Württemberg comes in third at 72.6 percent.

The Germans are increasingly using the internet to gain products and services and they do not believe in websites that are offering services only in English. A German translated and localised website will boost their confidence and will get you more profits from Europe since many small countries use German as a native language.

These are the top 8 languages used by the globalising internet community and localizing your webpage accordingly will provide many banefits!.