Category Archives: Translation Services

2012 Top Translation Companies: Who Will They Be?

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Posted by Tomedes Translation Expert on January 11, 2012 – 3:57 pm
Filed under Corporate Translation, Resume Translation, Translation Companies, Translation News, Translation Services

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A Review of the Top Translation Companies, 2005-2011

In the middle of last year, I published a blog topic about the top translation companies of 2011. This information was based upon research by the Common Sense Advisory - which, if you work in the translation industry, you probably know that they release an annual report of the top translation companies. It started out as the top 20, then grew to 25, then 30, then 35 and most recently, they published a list of the top 50 translation companies.

 

They make a fair bit of money from releasing such reports, because it’s a pretty penny to purchase the entire 50+ page report, which contains these annual top translation company lists, as well as a breakdown of regional findings, methodologies, analytical comparisons, and so forth.

 

Well, this year I thought I would beat them to the punch, so to speak. No, I am not going to provide a list for the 2012 top translation companies. Even if I wanted to, I don’t have the resources, but more importantly, my job isn’t to do extensive industry research - I just blog about it.

 

However, I thought it would be an interesting task to compare the top 10 translation companies to the top overall growing industries for 2012. We may be able to make a few projections based upon these other facts.

 

Just to provide a starting point for comparison, the charts below give us an idea of how the top translation companies have shifted, dropped, risen and switched ranks throughout the past several years, with each annual top translation company   list. Figures are below for the past 6 years of ranked top translation companies, 1 - 10. 

sources: CommonSense Advisory

2005 - published in 2006 2006 - published in 2007
1. Lionbridge Technologies 1. L-3 Communications
2. Titan (L-3)Communications 2. Lionbridge Technologies
3. SDL International 3. SDL International
4. Transperfect/Translations 4. Language Line Holdings
5. RWS Group 5. Transperfect/Translations
6. SDI Media Group 6. SDI Media Group
7. Xerox Global Services 7. RWS Holdings Group
8. euroscript s.e.r.l. 8. Xerox Global Services
9. STAR AG 9. euroscript International S.A.
10. CLS Communications 10. Moravia Worldwide

 

 

2007 - published in 2008 2008 - published in 2009
1 L-3 Communications 1. Global Linguist Solutions LLC*
2 Lionbridge Technologies 2. Lionbridge
3. SDL International 3. L-3 Communications
4. Language Line Holdings 4. SDL International
5. STAR Group 5. Language Line Holdings
6. Transperfect/Translations 6. Transperfect/Translations.com
7. euroscript International 7. STAR Group
8. SDI Media Group 8. SDI Media Group
9. Xerox Global Services 9. Purple Communications, Inc.
10. RWS Group 10. euroscript International S.A.

 

 

2009 - published in 2010 2010 - published in 2011
1. HP ACG 1. Mission Essential Personnel
2. McNeil Technologies 2. HP ACG
3. Lionbridge Technologies 3. Global Linguist Solutions
4. Language Line Holdings 4. Lionbridge Technologies
5. SDL International 5. Transperfect/Translations.com
6. Transperfect Translations 6. SDL International
7. L-3 Linguist Operations & Technical Support 7. L-3 Linguist Operations & Tech Support
8. Manpower 8. STAR Group
9. SOS International Ltd 9 euroscript International S.A.
10. euroscript International S.A. 10. ManpowerGroup

 

 

2011 data to be released later this year …

 

 

Now, if we take a look at the industries that have the most growth, this is what we have:

 Top Growth Industries for 2012

source: IBISWorld.com

1. Environmental Consulting  
2. Real Estate Appraisal  
3. Ecommerce & Online Auctions  
4. Debt Collection Agencies  
5. Advertising Agencies  
6. Job training & career counseling  

 

Projection of Growth Industries in Relation to Translation and Localization

It would be fair to assume that translation companies and agencies that receive a lot of work from these types of industries, will also climb up the charts as far as the top translation companies of 2012 are concerned.  While one may not affect the other visibly for even most of the translation companies, if we take a look at what Google rankings suggest, some of the top ranking translation companies seem to already be on top of steering toward the top growth industries.

What Google Results Suggest About Translation Companies and the Top Growth Industries

A search for “ecommerce translation” (because ecommerce & online auctions are #3 above) produces results that rank the STAR Group as one of the top companies. This same thing is true for at least one translation query of the above industries, and at least one to several of the top 20 translation companies - which rank in top search results for those queries.  In addition to the STAR Group, CSOFT International, which holds spot 32 on the most recent top LSP list, also ranks on the first page of search results for “ecommerce localization.”  These companies obviously do their homework early, and consequently take immediate steps to ensure they rank well for top industry translation queries.

 

The Manpower Group is a huge corporation that consists of many different daughter companies, not only within translation and localization, but within, guess what? Job placement and employment. Coincidence? Perhaps, but the fact that a top 2012 industry is directly tied to a top translation company, certainly can’t harm its ROI figures.

 

It is probably also not coincidental that the amount of resume translation services has also risen for many translation companies, due to the rise of the job and career training industry. Recently, the Huffington Post published an article on this very trend in the translation industry, reporting that for some translation companies, resume translation projects have more than tripled. With job training and career counseling being one of the top 2012 industries, it is not surprising. Translation companies that currently rank high in Google search results for “resume translation,” may see a boost in sales in this area, if they haven’t already. Top search results for the query “career documents translation,” produce both Pacific Interpreters and Transperfect: two companies consistently ranking within the top 30 of annual top translation company lists. 

 

Real estate translation and real estate appraisal translation has certainly been high here at Tomedes. We recently published a recent translation article about providing real estate translation service for the city of Astana. Because of the current real estate market, foreign real estate sale and investment may be attracting investors and sellers who are not having luck on their home turf. However, for the city of Astana, real estate has done well recently, despite the economic status for most of the world. Either way, real estate translations are on the rise, and will probably continue to boost sales for 2012 top translation companies.

 

Debt collection is most likely going to be covered by legal translators, so this may be the one top 2012 industry that does not have as much impact - companies who specialize in legal translation service will perhaps see a slight increase in debt collection document translation. However, it is quite possible that telephone interpreting agencies receive a boost in revenue due to an increase in debt collection phone call translation services.

 

 What 2012 Holds for Translation Companies

While this is all pure speculation, and I am no translation industry research specialist, initial findings do support the idea that the top 2012 translation companies - or at least some of the them - have already begun to step up their visibility within the aforementioned industries. While it is unreasonable to make any specific predictions based upon fairly general information, it will not be surprising if one or two companies close on the heels of the previous year’s top translation companies, which also specialize in one or more of the above industries, finds its way into the top 50 translation companies of 2012 this time. That remains to be seen.

 

As an aside F.Y.I - Tomedes Translation Company ranks 3rd on Google for “environmental translation.”.. let’s see if our ranking for that query produces a rise in environmental document translations for the upcoming next year.

A Business Epidemic: Neglect of Multilingual Website Translation

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Posted by Tomedes Translation Expert on November 24, 2011 – 3:39 am
Filed under Corporate Translation, Online Translation, Translation Services, Web site Translation

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An Internet Business Epidemic: Neglect of Proper Website Translation

Studies have made it an undeniable fact that consumers are much more likely to purchase from websites in their native language. If e-commerce and business enterprises continue to ignore the importance of accurate, quality website translation and localization, they will continue to pass up increased revenues and optimization of consumer base.

Despite ever-expanding translation service technology and industry providers, business enterprises are still reluctant to utilize the plethora of available translation and localization services, according to Forrester Research. While many are reluctant to employ professional language translation providers, or other LSP provisions, they are, it seems, inquiring about it regularly. So why all the buzz about language services if so few are utilizing the industry’s full potential?

 

Why Doesn’t Every Business and E-commerce Site Have Professional Translation?

One of the reasons may be due to Google’s new updates. Since March of this year, the Google Panda updates have changed search engine results to place much more importance upon original, useful content. Valuable content is now what drives much of website SERP, since the Panda I and II updates.   Because large company sites, e-commerce and industry leader websites usually have hundreds of pages of content, in addition to a steady flow of updated content, even if a tiny portion of this content was consistently translated for multilingual audiences, it would require a tremendous amount of translator manpower and staffing. Hence, the development of plug-ins, language service tools, APIs, and auotmated website translation uploads by many large LSP companies.  But c’mon - we all know by now that automated translation and translation APIs are worth absolutely no more than having no website translation at all.  No business or e-commerce site is going to close any sales using Google Translate.

Despite the reasons or the drawbacks of incorporating consistent web content translation and localization, what better way to draw a bigger audience, thicken traffic, build links, and establish higher search engine ranking and industry authority – than by harnessing the benefits of professional translation of any given company website that has something to sell - especially where economies of a young populous are thriving: BRIC. That is, Brazil, Russia, India and China - the top four economies driving global sales, web traffic and influence. The lesser group, whose acronym is CIVET, refers to Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey, who are also considerable sources of economical influence. So in part, this answers the question as to where any enterprise should focus its global marketing and expansion. But if online translation services and technology aren’t being adopted into common use – then how are these groups being reached?

They aren’t. At least not through online or web content translation efforts, despite the fact that thousands of language translation agencies who provide any number of services in, Chinese translation, Portuguese translation, Turkish translation, or any other major language – are not hard to find or outsource. However, few of even actively expanding businesses are rushing to add them to their websites for added commercial strength. Why the hesitancy, at large? A few stigmas still apparently exist when it concerns LSP, whether human or not.

 

Fallacies About Professional Translation Services and Website Translation

 

  • It’s not secure enough.

Regardless of the NDA agreements signed by many a when they are given sensitive corporate content to translate, it doesn’t seem to be enough to make many global companies feel secure about letting their closely guarded information outside of their safety zones. The idea of some unknown translator holding millions of dollars worth of contracts, expansion plans, or even valuable research not yet released- doesn’t settle well with a lot of company executive heads.

  • It’s not good enough.

There is a Russian saying, “С лицами воды не пить”  - which, as an English equivalent, means “good looks aren’t everything,” but a more literal translation is “you don’t drink water with your face.”  However, SDL’s machine translation tool renders it as “with faces not to drink waters” and even Google Translate renders it as “with persons to not drink water.” Obviously automated translations provide a convoluted translation at best, when used from a website API or plug-in. Perhaps its the common use of, and common incompetence of automated translation tools and plug-ins – that have these companies convinced that they can not employ human professional translation services without a lot of the same problems - which, despite what research shows, is a very strange assumption to make.  Obviously there are just some things that computers can’t yet do better than people. 

It’s also a plausible reason that one or two poor translations have soured perspectives, or that many businesses and company heads simply do not trust that translation agencies and language service providers will deliver professional results.  After all, there is no real way to verify the quality of a translation by those who employ language services, without additional or secondary translation proofreading services.  Many translation companies, including Tomedes, offer translation proofreading services, and at rates significantly lower than a full translation or localization.

  • It’s too expensive.

Regardless of the many independent and/or smaller translation companies out there (ahem, such as Tomedes) who offer extremely low translation rates, companies still believe they’ll pay 30 cents or more per word. Most companies restrict human translation to only extremely high value content, and even then, only in English to French and . So, the stigma of human translation services being much to expensive persists, unfortunately – at least enough not to employ on a regular or consistent basis.

  • It’s not fast enough.

Forrester did not cite this as a reason, but this is a frequent and common reason behind resistance or apprehension to use of professional translation services. Business websites often want translation to be available on demand (such as with browser applications) or they want entire website translation on demand and instantaneously - like automated ”tools,” or, at the very least, delivered within an hour at most – the latter of which is often feasible. Both large LSP corporations and independent translation agencies like Tomedes Translation Service, make it a point to emphasize urgent or rush-order services.

  • It won’t be able to handle the level of technical knowledge and terminology required

One of the biggest demands from translation companies and agencies is industry-specific translations.   Some of the most common types of translation are those that are highly technical, and require a certain kind of experience, knowledge and skill.  True:  A run-of-the-mill, general translator could not aptly translate a mechanical engineering report on design and tolerance grades for a new cylinderical grinding machine.  One of the chief major concerns of many new clients who hire professional translation services for the first time, is that their translators will be under-educated or lack the skills, knowledge and experience to handle highly technical language and industry jargon.  Yet what they do not know is that at least half of all translators specialize in specific industry translation and localization, in addition to the fact that translators have research tools and resources just like any other professional that uses reference and research materials.

  • It’s too confusing to know where to begin or where to get it from

As lame as this excuse sounds,  according to Common Sense Advisory, 46% of survey respondents who’d never used professional translation services said they simply don’t know where to start.  I am not sure how to go about correcting such a simple-minded fallacy except to say, well, gee, why not start with a Google search..? Just a thought.  After that, check some industry review sites, search for specific translation services and compare rates (almost all online translation companies offer free instant quotes) ask your social network, check out companies on LinkedIn, and read some LSP blogs.  It’s really not that scary, people.

 

What Companies and Brands are Passing Up Without Professional Website Translation

While studies have shown that global enterprises are still hesitant to utilize the developments and services within the language service industry, consumer studies have shown again and again that language is important to conversion rates. Figures from numerous studies on this range anywhere from 63% to 75%, for consumers who agree that they are much more likely to purchase a product or service from a website offered in their language, and over 70% said they frequently encounter e-commerce sites not available in their native language.

Studies and surveys performed by large language service enterprises such as SDL and TransPerfect have found an important dichotomy between consumer and brand/company perspectives and responses about website translation and localization. In general, brands and companies seem to believe that any level or quality of translation will do, including attached language APIs or plug-ins like Google Translate, or browser-based website translation. However, consumers have made it clear that both professional translation and localization, and other cultural accuracies, have a direct impact upon purchasing decisions. Whether websites are translated without regard to localization or cultural considerations, or simply left up to the consumer to translate website content, most consumers get frustrated and terminate the shopping process.

For truly optimized online and/or website conversion rates, companies and brands must employ professional language translation and localization services. As long as business and corporate websites continue to downplay the importance of accurate, human website translation and localization services, they will continue to pass up a huge opportunity to optimize their consumer base, conversion rates and annual revenues.

 

 

sources used: Forrester Research, Common Sense Advisory, Mygengo.com

The Top Translation Companies of 2011

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Posted by Tomedes Translation Expert on July 1, 2011 – 2:50 pm
Filed under Corporate Translation, Language Translation Advice, Language Translators, Online Translation, Translation Companies, Translation Languages, Translation Services, Translation Site, Translation Tools

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A few weeks ago, the Common Sense Advisory, which is the leading company for LSP market research, released a long research report on the LSP market for 2011. Part of that report included a 9 page section on the top 50 language service providers. The list included their names, country, yearly revenue, number of employees and number of offices. The list was 50 providers deep - which is significantly more than previous years – but a total of 912 translation companies were surveyed for the Common Advisory research and top 50 list.

Surprisingly there were quite a few companies in the top 50 language service providers of the world that had less than 50 employees, and 5 or fewer offices. Språkservice Sverige AB in Sweden has only 40 employees and 2 offices, and it comes in at number 23. The Concorde Group in the Netherlands has 75 employees and 2 offices, and makes the list at 38, and Japan’s Chizai Corporation has 75 employees and 3 offices at number 48. It just goes to show that by comparison with the top of the list, smaller regional translation companies can still make a big impact. It will be interesting to see if these smaller LSP companies move up the list in 2012.

What is not so surprising is the total market revenue percentage from the top 50, versus the percentage of the total LSP market they represent. The large, multi-million dollar LSP companies are not common – the top 50 make up less than one-fifth of 1% of the total LSP market. Out of a total of 25,256 providers worldwide, the 912 who were interviewed account for 3.6% of the total LSP market – and 17% of its total revenue. It’s pretty typical for the top-earning minority in any industry to hold a much larger proportion of market revenues. The remaining 24,344 companies who were not surveyed, or 96.4% of the total market, all contribute much tinier individual revenue percentages. Most language service providers worldwide are small private companies with yearly revenues under $1M – when all combined, make up an immensely splintered market.

What I found to be two of the most noteworthy characteristics about the top 50 providers:
1. Many, or even most, are not direct competitors, because
2. Most of the top LSP guys specialize in one or two services in one of the 3 major branches of language services: localization, interpretation or translation.
Some offer services mainly in technology localization, others specialize in only telephone interpretation, and some offer technical translation within a certain industry - but very few market themselves as a provider of general language services.
To cite some specific examples, Verztec Consulting PTE Ltd of Singapore specializes in business management solutions like conference interpretation, multilingual staffing, multilingual web content management, and other language services for business management type stuff. CSOFT International, which headquarters in China, focuses on multilingual software development and application testing, terminology management and language service technologies. RWS Holdings PLC , based in the UK, focuses almost entirely on patent translation, searches and and databases. Before finding this out, I would never have guessed that an LSP company could be a multi-million dollar giant, just by searching and translating patents.

Which begs the question (or questions, actually): just how many different specialized services can any given LSP company offer? And, secondly: What specialized services seemed to be the most popular and/or the most in demand? So after a little bit of research, here’s what I found:
For the most part, it’s more common for North American LSP to offer general language services across or 1 or all 3 subcategories. Although to be fair, a large proportion of top 50 LSP companies in North America provide services to government entities, like the military, D.O.D.,public welfare and other departments – and, as you can imagine, it accounts for huge chunks of their equally chunky annual revenues.

It’s also much more common for the little LSP guys to offer general translation services, except for in Asian and South Pacific regions. Emphasis on general technical translation is more common around those areas, but even a lot of smaller companies offer specialized services. For instance, some specialize in legal documents, another in automotive, manufacturing and electronics. Technical manual translation specialty services are provided by several Chinese and Japanese LSP companies. MCL Corporation is a Japanese LSP who provides not just specialized services for pharmaceuticals, drug development research and medical articles/books, but they also specialize in primarily Japanese language translations for those documents. So you have companies that narrow their services not only according to industry or document types, but also by language pairs. This is found a lot in Western European companies, too.

LSP in Europe is pretty diverse, but there were quite a few agencies specializing in law and finance. Specialized technical and technological language services seem to be the big thing, though – anything from software to medical tech to desktop publishing, and even laser technology. One of the most unique LSP agencies is one in the UK by the name of Balthasar Ltd, which offers language services almost exclusively for the HVAC industry: heating/cooling, air conditioning and ventilation – kind of like a blue-collar LSP for VoTech. Pretty cool, actually.

So what’s the point of all this, besides a lot of numbers, percentages and annual revenue figures that don’t have squat to do with your next translation project? By looking at this research we can see what services are growing and which services seem to be the most in demand, as well as what market trends made significant ROI. The research provided a projected annual market growth of 7.41% - this gives every company at least a starting point by which to set company goals. However, Common Advisory does note that companies who set out with the specific goal to increase annual revenue aggressively, usually have much higher growth rates. There are growth rates according to regional market contributions as well, meaning that LSPs in Istanbul will have different growth rate averages than they do in Florida. If nothing else, companies who wish to grow in size, revenue and overall market contribution have 50 LSP companies to look to as exemplary case studies. Its not a new idea for those who wish to be successful to study those who already are.

But the overall theme here is that there is plenty of room for all language service providers: from the top 50 giant companies, to the highly specialized, and of course, the guys with small companies and general services – which are not to be ignored or overlooked. On the contrary, the small companies make up over 95% of the market, and offer more affordable translation rates for individuals and businesses wanting to increase bottom line revenue. If you are looking to cut costs for your business, would you hire services from a giant, multi-million dollar company whose translation rates reflect their size – or a small, modest translation company with very affordable rates and the same competent services? The answer is obvious.

Localization Rates - Knowing How to Localize Your Rates

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Posted by Tomedes Translation Expert on November 18, 2010 – 7:27 am
Filed under Translation Discount, Translation Quote, Translation Services

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Working in a global marketplace has plenty of upsides – and of course, some downers. Depending upon where you live, pay rates can either be much higher or much lower than your cost of living and daily expenses. Likewise, the value of your currency – whether it be in dollars, Euros, yens, rubles, rupees or anything else – can also be to your advantage or disadvantage, depending upon the location of those employing your translation services. Regardless of your particular situation, regional locations should be considered when determining your rates.

This is not to say that you must adjust your rates entirely to accommodate the economical currency values in proportion to your own. In other words, if you live in the UK, and a U.S. business employs you as a translator, this doesn’t mean you should always decrease your rates to fit within U.S. salary ranges. But, it’s probably not a bad idea to take this into account.

Thankfully, there is a neutral service that allows translators to look up their salary range according to location – zip code, state, country, etc etc. You can then determine which percentile you fall under for your typical rates, and decide if they should be raised or decreased. If you are asking too much from international clients, you may see more business if you decrease your rates a bit. On the other hand, perhaps you do not realize your own worth. You may discover you are not asking as much as you could be.

To determine various salary translator ranges and a few other factors, go here:

http://www1.salary.com/Translator-salary.html

2010 Valentine’s Day Gift

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Posted by Tomedes Translation Expert on February 3, 2010 – 1:45 am
Filed under Translation News, Translation Services, Translation Tea Break

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We have decided to show our love and affection towards our beloved new and returning customers by hading them a special gift for Valentines day.
This time we will not provide a discount of 5% or 10% for our professional translation services . This time it’s a crazy discount of 15% from now till February 15th.
All you have to do to get the special valentines day gift is to use the coupon code “cupid”. Just go to http://www.tomedes.com choose a language pair and text to be translated and submit the coupon code.
All of us in Tomedes send you our hugs and kisses and wish you all the best with our love coupon

Desertec translation

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on January 13, 2010 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Services

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Desertec is a highly innovative and timely concept which involves using solar and wind energy from the deserts of Middle East and North Africa to generate power. It uses as its basis the fact that more energy falls in a mere six hours on the deserts across the world than is consumed worldwide in a year. The concept has been proposed by the Desertec Foundation and developed by a consortium of Algerian and European companies called DII GmbH, Desertec Industrial Initiative. If this concept is successfully implemented in reality then a significant percentage of African and European power requirements can be met through solar and wind energy.

The proposal states that the idea of creating concentrating solar power systems, wind parks and PV systems spread out over 17,000 square kilometers in the Sahara Desert. The electricity that would be produced by this setup would then be transmitted to African and European countries through a super grid made up of high-voltage direct current cables. The year 2012 has been set as a deadline for the company to design the complete plan which would include the financial and technical requirements of the project. Since several European and African countries are involved in the project, the difference in languages could become a barrier in allowing clear communication. Thus language translation services have a very important role to play in the Desertec project.

Since the Desertec project is huge and documentation related to it would span over technical, as well as financial domains, it’s necessary to get the required language translation services from specialized professional translation providers. Tomedes has already been working on translating a number of critical projects for a few Desertec companies. We have got a grip on the unique requirements of the project and are in a position to turnout high volume and quality translations across all required languages. Moreover we guarantee the best translation rates across the market. So if you require Desertec translation services look no further than Tomedes!

Technical translation – Requirements

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on December 11, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Language Translation Advice, Translation Services

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The world has shrunk so much more with the increasing proliferation of the Internet. We are living in fortunate times where information about progress in any part of the world can readily be made available everywhere for the benefit of the masses. Since our age is characterized by rapid progress in technology, a considerable amount of new information revolves around technological stuff. Now such information cannot be translated by a translator who is only an expert in the required language pair. Technical translation is a highly specialized job and its requirements change according to the needs of the project.

Technical translators should be evaluated on the basis of the given translation project. They should have thorough knowledge of the subject area of the translation and should also be good at research. Technical content can easily become unreadable and boring, while an expert in the subject and the language can easily turn out translations of technical matter, he/she cannot ensure that it is easy to read and interesting. This is important if the targeted readership of the translated document is going to be large and comprised of laymen, like in the case of manuals for various gadgets and software. It is not only important that the technical translator understand the terminology, he or she should also be adept at selecting terms that not only convey the meaning of the original but are also simple. This is why while working on technical translations it is always recommended that one work with experienced translation providers with a track record of turning high quality technical translations in their language pair/subject area.

Name translation anyone?

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on December 10, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation News, Translation Services

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As a name “Suri” sounds unconventional and quite nice. Perhaps that’s why Hollywood’s star couple Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes named their daughter so. But how would they feel when they came to know that the word Suri means pickpocket in Japanese, “horse mackerels” in Italian, “red” or “fire” in Farsi and “turned sour” in French. David and Victoria Beckham have also muddled up somewhat with their son’s name Cruz, which in Spanish means ‘withers’ - the ridges between a horse’s shoulder-bones.

Generally most parents go the conventional way when it comes to naming their children, and many do check out the meanings of names at least in their own language. But with people increasingly getting interested in christening their babies with exotic sounding names, (probably inspired by the celebrities) it was just a matter of time before a service came into being to check out the various meanings that an unconventional name could have in different languages and contexts. Today Translation, a British company has began offering such a service. It will investigate the various meanings of unconventional names chosen by couples so that their children don’t end up with a name that might mean something negative or embarrassing in another language.

The company is charging about $1,700 for the service which it calls ‘Name Translation Audit’. It will involve the company’s linguists checking the meaning of the given name in 100 languages. The appeal of this service may not be restricted to people who would like to name their children unconventionally but also interest those who want the names to have substantial and positive meanings.

Banking translation – An overview

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on December 8, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Translation Services

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The banking sector has seen many changes in the recent years. The latest trend being the acquisition of small banks by larger ones, a strategy, with the help of which huge international banks are making their presence felt in various parts of the world including both developing and developed countries. Now these big banks frequently acquire smaller banks located in regions where people speak a different native language, in order to function smoothly in these regions such banks need high quality language translation services on a regular basis.

Banking translation involves translation of classified documents like foreign exchange information, documents of acquisitions, mergers, liquidation, loans, receivables, securities, debts, overdrafts, creditors, disposals and repayment schedules among others. It is extremely important that the confidentiality of such documents is protected. Other types of documents that come under the purview of banking translation include the monthly reports of management information system which need to be translated into a language that the main office of the bank will be able to understand and localizing the information available at ATMs and other similar outlets.

Banking translation requires a substantial understanding of banking concepts, associated legal background, and also the formal style of writing associated with the industry, as well as the typical formatting of various documents. The consequences of mistakes in banking translation can range from plain embarrassment to damage of the reputation of the bank, as well as monetary loss. For banking translation reputed translation companies are recommended over independent translators as not only do they make provisions for confidentiality but can also mobilize the man-power required for high-volume and ongoing translation projects.

Literary Translation – The Dilemmas

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Posted by Faisal Kalim on December 4, 2009 – 10:00 am
Filed under Language Translation Advice, Translation Musings, Translation Reference, Translation Services

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Literary translations have always been a thorny topic and will probably remain so because language translation is a combination of art and science and it does not come with any tools that can exactly evaluate a translation. Literary works are generally heavily grounded in the culture and language they represent and they project a lot of thoughts and ideas implicitly which makes them very difficult to translate satisfactorily.

An enduring issue in language translation concerns the author’s role. How does a translator figure out what the author was really trying to convey through a sentence/paragraph or the entire book. As mentioned earlier, literary works – in parts, as well as whole, can be subject to multiple interpretations. What’s the author’s place in this scheme of things? The translator cannot assume the author’s intentions, even if he or she does so, there’s no guarantee that the assumption would be correct. So is it then all right to judge the text on its own merits? The situation might be resolved to a certain extent if the author and translator work closely on the project. But this is not always possible, many authors either don’t have the time to allocate to a translation project, else they are not inclined to do so.

There might never be a perfect solution to literary translation dilemmas, the safest way to go is probably to live with the book for a sufficient period of time, read and re-read it and then if possible discuss it with the author, before getting into the actual translation process.