Do we need translation services in the public sector? When you look at the public sector in different countries, what can prompt them to agitate for translation services?

As we talk about translation services, we mean translating documents from one language to another, might be from English to German or German to English, but not limited to these two languages.

Public places are always bombarded by people who speak different languages seeking for help, so how do they understand each other? Basically, translation and interpretation are the best choices in this place.

What is public sector?

This is part of the economy controlled by the government in any country and plays a role in delivering social services to the communities. We can talk of places like government hospitals, public schools, police, army, local government and etc.

Currently, the United States public sector increased the procurement of translation services to help people who are non-English speakers, these people need government services like health care, education, legal aid, and public protection. To ease communication, translation is proved to work better.

The governments in different countries can procure translation and interpretation services from professional translation agencies with professional translators and interpreters working in their own native languages.

How translation services helpful to the public sector?

Not only the public sector that requires translation services, different business entities, private organizations and individual business dealings all over the world today need translations so as to run their activities smoothly.

Government hospitals as part of the public sector require translation services, why? With medical related issues, it’s all about dealing with the lives and the health of people. This requires clear communication between the doctor and the patient. A medical interpreter will help the patient to explain the problem fully to the doctor as well as making sure that the doctor understands the patient’s problem. As I said earlier that in public places like medical centers, health care units, people of different tribes, different language speakers visit these them looking for medical care, translation services will, therefore, be helpful.

On the side of security providers like police and army, translation services will make police play their role smoothly in maintaining the law and order, translation agencies have translators and interpreters in all different fields, police will be provided with police translators and interpreters if required and will expertly do their work by conveying the message to the public in different languages. For those who cannot read police and army published documents in the source language provided, their respective translators and interpreters are available to provide translations interpreting services.

In Marc Jones article in 7th/01/2016, says in 2012 and 2013, the Lincolnshire police spent £373,958 for translation services for more than 30 languages. This comes to my observation that translation is a vital activity everywhere in the world, it, therefore, helps the police to have a clear communication with people.

Legal aid access needs translation services. There are people who may not afford and need legal representation in courts of law, basing on the fact that someone is a non-English speaker a language which is commonly used in various offices, legal aid translation and interpretation is necessary.

Under public education sector, we find that translation services play a vital role in fostering communication between students who are non-English speakers and teachers. Public education will need translators and interpreters to help learners to access education services in a language they understand. It will be discriminating if education services are offered in one language which some people can’t understand and it will show that the government ignores foreign native speakers to attend classes in her country.

In today’s era, Globalization is a true phenomenon. Every commodity and service can be made available to someone living in any part of the world. You might be driving a car from Japan, eating Italian food for lunch and laughing over US sitcoms on Netflix. The Internet has all the more reduced the distance between people located in different countries. Offering your business to a global audience is not a herculean task anymore, but localization plays a significant role here. Only if you contextualize your product or service, you can be successful.

Communicating in native language

Communication is the key to every business and serves as a foundation for planning. To achieve your team goals, effective communication is vital across employees present in global markets. Communicating the right message helps in clear exchange of ideas between management and staff, customer and vendor, client and partners, etc. But when it comes to global markets, people are very comfortable and engage more when you communicate in their own language. This has been proved time and again both by research and the experience of many multinational brands. Translation services have therefore assumed much significance in global communication.

What can go wrong during language translation?

Today, 7099 languages are spoken across the world with each having a different origin. Every language has its own system with hundreds of connotations and meaning. Because of this, nuances and subtle differences are overlooked most of the time during language translations. Emotions and depth of experiences in one language is lost when literally translated into another language. Sometimes the appropriate word goes missing in the process of translation. There are instances when the translator misinterprets the text and its meaning.

Why do you need professional Translation Services?

The necessity of translation might be minimal while you are taking baby steps to expand your business. You might need a translation on an ad-hoc basis and would be leveraging someone within the organization to take care of it. Even Google translators come handy for some quick language translations.

But once your business starts growing, you will soon realize the need for a professional touch in almost every little thing that caters to your business. Right from sending out emails, developing a global website, internal communication to employees in different countries, running marketing campaigns in local regions, etc. would require an expert who is proficient in providing the best translation services on time. A Subject Matter Expert (SME) is someone who understands your business, your brand message, grasps the crux and incorporates the same while converting it to the local language to aid effective communication.

The first step is to identify the right language service provider for your brand. Reputed LSPs like Mayflower, one of the best translation website, provides you renowned experts in this space to make your life easier. They provide best-in-class service with an extensive range of offerings- translation of documents, multilingual website, and videos, mobile apps in local languages, translation of courses and LMS, software UI strings and documentation, voiceover, and subtitling, etc. They also have language experts whom you can hire for your organization. Mayflower also provides consulting services before you launch your product globally.

Translation is an art and a science, leave it to the experts. And focus on growing your business.

How do you really know if you can trust a translation certification program? Is there a single thing to look for or check to make sure it is credible, well known, practical, and worth completing? The short answer is no, there is no easy way to tell, and that’s why we are writing this article to provide advice on this very topic.

While there are many translation certification programs around the world the two most global and popular and probably the Certified Translation Professional (CTP) and ATA programs which are completed by professionals in many different countries. If you were to evaluate these programs or other more regional programs what would stand out that makes them more credible than not? Here is a list of features which helps certification programs become more beneficial for participants to complete while also making them more credible?

• Career coaching
• Global participation and evidence of satisfied clients (testimonials)
• Resume feedback and coaching
• Video training modules
• Study guide and/or syllabus
• Keywords to review within the assigned readings
• Email & Phone support for participants
• Audio expert interviews

This review of translation certification program features should help you determine which certifications are more credible than others. It is not extreme to ask program sponsors about each of these resources and whether they offer something in those areas as each part will help you move forward within your career.

The piece of advice we would give on this topic is to be careful about calling yourself a certified translator within countries like Canada or other countries where there are legal restrictions over titles that you can give yourself within that specific state or country.

Here is a brief comparative description of following services:

• Localization

• Translation

• Copy-writing services

Localization stands for conversion of content from one language to other language and editing of content in order to match cultural nuances of a particular region or country including use of appropriate colors, graphics, currency, numbers, common date formats, etc.

Difference between Localization and Translation

The main difference between Localization and Translation is that the entire process of translating is quite simple whereas localization process is a bit complex. Process of translation requires contribution of the following:

Project manager: to receive files from customer and forwards the document to the translator

Translator: to receive files and does translation to the desired target language

Project manager: to deliver translated files back to customer.

This process looks simple however the reality is just opposite of that. Depending on the domain expertise required for a project, all translation projects usually involve people with following skills:

• Project management

• Graphics

• DTP

Difference between Translation and Copy-writing

Translation means process of transforming the content from one language (source language) to another language (target language). The translator must have in-depth knowledge of both the languages (source, target) and must be a native of the target language. In translation, the translator can only convert the source language text into the target language text without adding or removing information, and cannot deviate from the information provided in the source text for translation.

The translator is expected to produce the translated text as much as possible similar with the source text, even if there are always chances of shortage of similar kind of words or suitable phrases while translation into another language. The translator needs to stick to the source language text. The translator should not redefine or change the meaning of the source text.

If the translator redefines or changes the text given in the text given in source language, the translation is believed to be redundant and useless and may destroy the core objective of the translation.

Copy-writing

Copy-writing is a kind of an art which involves creative writing to develop marketing content based on inputs provided or source text, by ensuring adherence to pre-stated objectives and taking care of target audience sentiments. It requires including the nuance of a culture and characteristics of a language.

Copy-writing is must to develop marketing content or publishing material particularly in case of when your content is going to be circulated publicly and read by many people. Copywriters need to develop content which is easy to understand and read ensuring a pleasant experience for customers. The copy writer can write content for:

• Websites

• Brochures

• Manuals

• Multimedia presentations

Translation v/s Copy-writing

Copy-writing may not involve translation but require that the copywriter develops new content which includes rewriting, generalizing and addition to source content, to make it sell-able. A copywriter must possess creative writing skills as opposed to a translator, who is bound to and limited by the scope of the source content.

Doing a little casual translation may be not difficult, but, if you want to engage in professional translation services, you need to have the following key qualifications: an expertise in source and target languages, some basic knowledge of the specific branch of science your translation centers on, and much discipline in translation practice.

First of all, if you want to gain competence in professional translation services, you need to have an expertise in at least two languages. A good command of the source language is the most basic requirement for professional translators to start their works. Take E-C translation as an example, before you translate a text into Chinese, you need to perfectly understand which the branch of science it belongs to, like what the English text is talking about, the associative meaning, including the syntactic structures, all the nuances of the stylistic devices, the language tenor and mode, and the cultural context of such an English text, etc. Otherwise, it will be impossible for you to achieve faithfulness to the source language during the process of translation. In addition to a perfect understanding of the source language, you also must skillfully master the target language (here it refers to Chinese) so that when you are entrusted with a translation task, in order to make your translation totally understandable and acceptable to the counterpart experts in such field of science who can speak and read only the target language,

you can know very well how the text shall be conveyed and organized and what kinds of words and phrases you shall choose to use in the target language. To make it short, high proficiency in at least two languages is a must foundation for good performance in professional translation services.  

Apart from an expertise in the source and target languages, for those translators delivering professional translation services to the clients, a basic knowledge of the scientific field the text to be translated is categorized into is a must. Usually, a language can be grouped into different genres according to the content and purposes of the text. For instance, English can be classified into news English, English for science and technology, English used in drama, English used in daily life, etc. As for English for science and technology, they may involve the knowledge of different branches of scientific learning, such as physics, medicine, computer science, architecture, electronics, telecommunications, law, and so on. If you have to put theories or scientific procedures of a specific branch of science to paper, you need to resort to the specific language domain where the words and phrases are at, which may contain technological terms that you might have never seen before if you are unfamiliar with such a branch of learning. Therefore, professional translation services require that the translators be equipped with some knowledge of the scientific field to which the translated text belongs.  

The last requirement for providing professional translation services is discipline. If you want to translate a book from one language to another, it means a lot of commitment, which demands effort necessary for fighting a war. Such a task will become a torture for those who are not prepared beforehand. If the book consists of 100,000 words, suppose you can translate 5000 words on average per day, you need to work continuously for twenty days. For those who don’t have much experience in professional translation services, they may work very hard during the first few days, engaging a lot of time and efforts, and then they have to rest for a day or two because they feel exhausted, but when the due time is round the corner, they might find that it would be impossible for them to fulfill the tasks.

Even some green hand translators are   reluctant to do the job for the first few days, imagining that they can accomplish the work in an efficient manner by just using the rest of the days. In fact, magic will never occur. Experienced professional translators will always make an advance estimation of the average amount of the words that they can translate each day, calculate their time in taking care of their family routines under those circumstances, make a schedule of the translation task, and then try to carry out their plans day by day. In professional translation services, it’s not just the translator’s will to timely accomplish the assigned translation tasks, but is concerned with the fact that whether the translator can strictly observe the discipline and keep doing translation on a regular day to day basis.  

To sum up, engaging in professional translation services is not as easy as it seems to be. But to be precise, to master the languages with maximum efforts, to accumulate some professional knowledge by learning some specific branches that your translation work mainly focuses upon and related to, and to develop a good, disciplinary habit in doing translation is very important and helpful to your work in the process of providing your clients with high-quality professional translation services.

Finding high quality Japanese translation services is, in many ways, like buying a car. It will involve paying attention to core factors such as your budget, the quality of the service and the different features that are linked with the sale.

The reason behind the first is fairly obvious, different Japanese translation services charge varying rates. During your search, you’ll come across companies that charge anything from a few dollars to several hundreds of dollars for their services. There is no hard and fast rule on which you should choose. Selecting the most expensive Japanese translation services will not guarantee you quality results. The same is true if you choose the least expensive option. Instead of using the rates of the different translation agencies as a determining stick; your budget should serve as a guide that will direct your approach.

The quality of the translation service that you choose is undoubtedly important. If you wish to have effective Japanese translations with well written prose and an absence of spelling errors, you will need to find professional agencies that offer this option. There are several ways of going about this.

The most convenient way of finding a reliable translation service is to ask your members of your family, friends or colleagues for possible references that they have used in the past. The advantage of this approach is that you’ll be able to get a first hand assessment of the Japanese translation agency from the person recommending it. However, if you are unable to get any credible lead through this method, you will need to do some search on your own and the best way of doing this is to enlist the efficient tools of the web.

A quick search will reveal dozens of potential translation providers that offer the services that you need. You will need to take the time to carefully review the different options if you want to make the right decision. Avoid translation services that appear to have several unsatisfied feedbacks from former clients. Instead, search for Japanese translation services that have an established history of providing quality transcriptions in their results.

One of the problems that people sometimes face during Japanese translations is the challenge of dealing with mistakes that might be present in the completed translation. This is even more challenging in situations where they do not understand how to speak or read Japanese. Choosing a reliable Japanese translation service will go a long way in preventing this. You’ll be able to hand over your document with the guarantee that the final results will be well written and free of errors.

There are lots of available companies that offer document translation services and each one of them has their own process and system on how to do their offered services. If it’s your first time to avail of these services it is very important that you must know if their system will be the right one for you. There are different types of documents that need to be translated and each one of them has a different approach in order for the output to be accurate and precise with a fast turn around time. Patents, scripts, manuals, company policy, standard operating procedures and textbooks are just some of the documents that require translation; the method used by the company in translating scripts may be efficient to this type of document but it doesn’t mean that it can be an efficient method when used in another type like patents or manuals.

Before you hire a company that you think is suited for you or you are confident that what they are offering is the best, you must first determine the data that your documents contain. Patents, scripts, manuals, textbooks, and other forms of documents are either regular documents or technical documents. This must be your basis in choosing the company that will work for you; they may be efficient and precise and translating regular documents but it does not mean that they have the experience or the personnel needed in translating complex technical documents. The process in translating a technical document is very different from those used in the translation of regular documents.

A technical document contains terms, phrases, symbols or equations that are specific to a certain discipline. A medical or an engineering manuscript is an example of a technical document. These types of documents cannot be accurately translated by someone who does not have the knowledge nor is not an expert of the subject. A known effective method in handling translations involving this type of document is to have an expert of the subject work with the translator to have an accurate output or better yet if their expert is also their translator. Look for companies who have these personnel or using this type of method of translating documents. You must avoid those who offer translation by use of machines when these types of documents are involved.

The best method of translating regular documents is by the use of machine. Some companies have the technology to translate documents by the use of their programmed machines. This process is faster compared to manual translation and is also accurate when regular documents are concerned. Regular documents do not involve any technical data or terminologies that are specific to a certain discipline; the translator alone can achieve accurate output.

Expanding businesses into other countries means that you will be conveying your messages to people who speak other languages. What’s more, your audience may have cultural background other than yours — and it does matter.

Surprisingly many people think that creating, say, a website in a foreign language means just to translate the existing English version. Good translation by all means is very important. But what about putting your message into the context of the particular culture, which is native to your new audience?

This process is called “website localization”. It is like “tuning” your website (both content and design) into unison with mentality of other people — the prospective visitors.

Here I won’t describe the part of web site localization which deals with programming; this issue itself is complex enough. I will focus on writing content for your website and its further translation.

What part of this work you can do yourself? Probably not all of it, but quite a lot. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you in the process.

Step Zero: Remember: Your Website is Not for You.

It is for VISITORS. So it is logical to consider what THEY think such websites should look like. It is their points of view that matter, not yours. When you memorize this axiom, go to

Step One: Learn!

Self-education is useful in itself; besides, this knowledge is going to save you money and bring profit later. Learn as much as you can about your prospective audience. The more, the better.

It’s a rather time-consuming but exciting process. I hope you will manage, as Ancient Romans used to say, “Miscere utile dulci” (to mingle the useful with the pleasant). You will find out plenty of interesting things about another culture. Customs and traditions, rules of etiquette and moral principles, stereotypes, superstitions and lots of other stuff for you to consider when addressing people from a country other than yours.

You can find plenty of information in the Internet. Search Groups as well. Show your interest in other culture, and almost any native will appreciate it and help you as an expert. In addition, you will make good friends with great people.

Travelers’ guides can be an excellent source of information; they will help you avoid costly mistakes not only during a trip abroad. Just one example. You must have seen websites with pictures showing people gesticulate. Note that any gesture which is quite OK in the USA may be misunderstood somewhere else. By the way, do you know what the “OK” gesture means in some Asian countries? Demand for money, that’s what. In Tunisia it will be interpreted as a threat to kill; in Arab countries — “go to h…” In France it means just “zero” or “nothing.” In Denmark or Italy it can be taken as an insult; and so is in Brazil, Guatemala and Paraguay — here it is considered very obscene. So, you’d better make pictures of your website “culture-neutral”.

The farther in, the deeper… What is considered rude, impudent, offensive, or impolite in this culture? What is respected, valued, venerated? What traits of character are appreciated most? What are the favorite colors and what are they associated with? What are the most noticeable differences between your culture and this one?

Don’t be surprised if points of view on what is beautiful and what is ugly will also differ from yours.

When you come to the conclusion that your text won’t do and the design probably needs changing as well, go to

Step Two: Analyze!

Turn your findings into tips for writing another text. “Don’ts” here are of much more important than “Do’s”

Realize how you shouldn’t write. Learn what won’t work. Find out what to avoid in graphics and website design.

When arranging content and graphics, it is very important to know whether the audience reads left-to-right, right-to-left or vertically.

Step Three: Write for your audience.

What to begin with when writing for a person from another culture? Put on his shoes first. Well, that’s second. First, take off your own shoes. I mean don’t be a representative of your own culture — just for a short time you’ll be writing the content.

• Avoid jokes, slang, idioms, proverbs and sayings. They are YOURS, not theirs. Allusions to books they probably haven’t read, quotations, however familiar they are to you — all that won’t work.
• Be cautious with metaphors and similes (comparisons). Pretty clear and familiar to YOU, for others they might be not so obvious.
• Symbols can mean something very different in other cultures. If you can’t do without one, find out what it means THERE.
• Abbreviations and acronyms are tricky, too – they may be unknown to your audience.
• You will have to explain stuff you think to be trivial. Not everybody in the world knows what is eBay, Paypal, or Amazon. Celebrities’ fame isn’t worldwide, either. Big companies and brands may be unknown on the other side of the globe.

Step Four: Find a RIGHT translator

If you can, get a well-educated native speaker of a language you are going to have your text translated into (it is called “target language”)

The reason is simple: nobody can ever say: “I have learned this language” — only “I have been learning”. We all have been learning our mother tongues since birth. That is why native speakers have an advantage. The larger the translator’s vocabulary, the better your message will be expressed.

Besides, a native speaker often has precious knowledge on the culture — it’s precisely what you need for website localization– and will help you in the process.

Step Five: Bring it to Perfection

How to check the end result? Ask somebody from this culture to proofread the text before launching the website.

Encourage feedback when your website is launched. Correct mistakes, if any, at once. Improve your website all the time.

Getting your messages understood in other languages and cultures is a tricky task. It takes plenty of effort — but it will pay. Not only will you make profit and avoid bitter losses caused by misunderstanding. As a bonus you will get deeper undestanding of people whose languages, cultures and even ways of thinking are different. This understanding is the key factor of your success in doing business or communicating with these people.

Good luck to you! Success be to your efforts!

A common misapprehension exists among people everywhere, especially those not working in or related to the translation profession, that translation is nothing but a straightforward mechanical process comprising a simple word-for-word correspondence between two languages that anyone proficient in two language pairs could easily handle. To this end, we are bound to say that a simple word for word translation can only apply to machine translation whereas human translation and God-created human brain are totally different.

Human translation or the God-created human brain of a professional translator is backed by study and experience to which the translator resorts to when need demands. He knows how the job is to be done, understands the Translation Paradigm and knows how to apply it. Putting his senses to good use, he is capable to learn, develop and update his knowledge, thereby constantly undergoes a non-stop developmental process of knowledge absorption that pours to expand his personal and professional experience.

Consequently, a professional translator can solve problems and can make correct decisions regarding issues such as; ambiguity, the correct choice of the exact accurate word to be used among a long line of synonymous meanings to convey the exact meaning of the source document into the translated document, the correct decision regarding when to add or take off words to support the meaning and clearly convey it, how to bridge the linguistic and cultural gaps between two languages and cultures while crossing the cultural barriers, how to use the right collocations, how to use the right approach, style and tone of the author while observing, at the same time, the language conventions in order to finally create a translated document (target language) that is a mirror copy of the source document conveying the exact message of the author and conforming to the translation ISO being IDEA, STYLE AND ORIGNIAL COMPOSITION.

However, we are not against machine translation but we are in favour of Human Translation supported by Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools. In order to conserve time, money and quality, CAT tools, including Translation Memory (TM), have become very popular with translators, translation agencies, and even clients.

Although TM has its advantages and disadvantages for professional translators and translation bureaux, it has advantages and virtually no disadvantages for clients.

Firstly, the great advantage of TM lies in the capacity of translation quality which is likely to improve in terms of consistency, both in the same document and throughout other documents. TM saves pairs of terms or strings of texts, and reproduces them whenever the same Source Language (SL) term or string comes along in any other place in the document being translated. Therefore, it helps to maintain consistency by always using the same equivalent for the same term or string. In other words, the translation becomes more efficient and consistent. Moreover, the same TM can always be used with future translations, thus achieving consistency in terms of terminology and style throughout the translation projects.

Secondly, Terminology search is said to account for 75 percent of a translator’s time. Thus TM saves the translator’s time by sparing him the need to look up the terms and words again if they are repeated in the text, especially in the case of large projects, or in another translation from the same client or in the same field of specialization. The translator will translate repeated terms and strings only once and TM will ‘translate’ them whenever they appear again in the SL which saves time. TM also spares the translator the need to strain his memory in remembering how he translated a certain term or string before or the need to go back searching through the document to locate it.

Thirdly, TM increases productivity which can lead to an increase in income. This accounts for the fact that many clients now are not only aware of but also require that their work be translated by TM software. In other words, the use of TM makes translation agencies more competitive by being distinguished from others who do not use TM, thus they are more likely to receive more work. Finally, TM is quite portable. It can be stored on a CD or a ‘ Flash Memory Stick’.

In spite of all the above advantages of TM, we have to admit that it is a tool that can only be used for technical documents comprising a certain amount of repetition such as manuals, brochures, and balance sheets that contain a considerable number of repetitions and need to be updated quite often. This is where TM comes in to achieve consistency and efficiency. On the other hand, TMs are not likely to be used for literary texts where the context plays a more important role compared to non-literary texts. Literary texts are also characterized by their figurative language and elevated style which makes them difficult to translate with TM. Moreover, literary texts do not seem to have the same amount of repetition as technical texts.

We therefore conclude that making use of human translation together with CAT tools is the ultimate goal that any client must seek to be sure to achieve an originally efficient and consistent translation quality.

Communication is among the most vital factors in the consideration of the development for any business. Thanks to the developments in communication technology, one of the most significant factors to consider is the impact on global business. With corporations spanning nations in search of revenue, the ability to competently communicate with all the people involved in every aspect of the business is extremely important.

The most important thing for any business is to duly maintain successful and healthy long-term relationships with all their clients. With a competent email language translation service provider, communication not only becomes a lot easier, but increasingly efficient as well, thanks to the elimination of logistical delays, contextual ambiguities or even linguistic misunderstandings.

With a serious rise in the number of companies expanding their international ventures, dealing with clients from different countries, who speak strange, new languages is a daily occurrence which is about as avoidable as taxes. If your business can avail the services of a quality email translation service provider for your business, then your task would become very simple.

Hiring a translation service provider is vital to successfully solve a large number of linguistic problems. If communicating in the client’s language is not possible, then the business in question will face many difficulties in developing their business in those territories. For this reason, email translation can be extremely helpful in getting rid of any such misunderstandings and getting the business running at full speed.

With the right email language translation service provider, all the various business development plans and business ideas can be readily communicated to an involved person from another country to understand the communication properly, which helps in successfully achieving the company’s objectives in the long-term.

When businesses are working on big multi-national projects which involve a number of professionals and huge amounts of investments involved in the associated projects. Even the smallest misunderstanding regarding a minor technical detail could prove to be extremely detrimental in these circumstances. Therefore, all communications must be accurately translated and communicated properly between both parties.

Getting the right email translation service provider in such matters would not only be necessary for the propagation of the business but could also result in its permanent stoppage, if there is an error. Whether the communication is a technical manual or a final business presentation, there is no room for errors, ambiguity or confusion. In such times, email language conversion providers are very useful, since it would be error free and completed a lot faster. For the client receiving the email in their native language, getting to work on the communication becomes a lot easier, giving your organization a good professional image. Get the right provider and make the most of your businesses potential.