The introduction of translation software has contributed mightily to overcoming the language barriers induced by globalization. Even as English has become a universally recognized language in cross-border communication, international business affairs and global media, the importance of translation as means of reaching a wider audience is still essential.

News outlets, book publishers, film distributors and retailers expand their reach by introducing their products to foreign markets in multiple languages. Corporations are also expected to hire professional translators, both written and spoken, when dealing with their partners abroad. For small businesses and online publications with smaller budgets, translation software often proves as a viable alternative to costly translator services and expensive employees.

Individuals are just as eager to embrace these technological advantages in everyday communication. In an attempt to improve their web experience, Internet users often turn to automated online translators when viewing content on foreign websites. It gives them access to the information they could not read otherwise, and for people not fluent in English, this is an immense advantage.

However, the use of free translations has been widely criticized by educational institutions, web experts and concerned individuals. In their eyes, such services produce less-than-stellar results and provide a watered-down version of the source material, only proper to give a general impression of the translated content.

Google Translate is the most popular translation service online and the low quality of its automated translations is often cited as an example for criticism against free translators. The service is commonly faced with literal translation issues and the inability to identify proper terminology.

The quality of any translation relies heavily on the translator’s ability to recognize context and tone of the source material and any machine lacks this ability. Conventions, metaphors and idiomatic expressions are usually misinterpreted by computer software, even if the correct interpretations have been programmed by its developers. There is always room for context-related errors or sentences that will seem awkward to a human reader.

The disadvantages of free translation software substantially limit the range of its uses, but the advantages are also plentiful. Google Translate and its lookalikes do not require payment for their services. The uncontested speed and intuitive design of web-based translation applications allow an entire web page to be translated on the spot, giving the Internet user instant access to a foreign website’s content.

The common criticisms of free translation software stem largely from its incorrect uses and do not mean that it should not be used at all. Individuals who value speed and ease of use or do not wish to purchase costly software or translator services will be fully satisfied with the results provided by free translation software.

On the other hand, people who require a high quality service in their business or coursework should never use free software for that purpose. They will benefit more from manual or computer-assisted translation, which lets a competent individual control the process.

The most cost-effective approach, however, would be to combine these methods, and use the translation provided by the free software as a reference to a manual translator who is fluent in both languages.

I’m used to translating a series of dreams from the same dreamer, providing him or her full psychotherapy. I didn’t think this would be possible online though, because there are too many internet users that are curious about the meaning of their dreams: I have to translate their dreams alone without anyone’s help, and the price of my professional dream translation cannot be cheaper than a professional translation from one language to the other, especially due to my responsibility. I give the dreamer advice, really helping him or her solve their personal problems based on the information given by the unconscious mind in their dreams.

I have offered my instant professional dream translation on the internet for those who don’t have time to study dream interpretation according to the scientific method but who have serious problems that no one can solve, or are very curious about the meaning of a dream. I do this in the hope that many people will begin to care about learning how to translate their dreams alone after seeing in practice how helpful this knowledge is, since only one or two dreams are not enough for someone’s psychotherapy, and most people cannot afford paying for a series of translations.

However, I saw in practice since last year, when I started offering this service to the public online, that even by translating only one simple short dream for someone I’m helping many people, and this help is very effective.

There are many short dreams that are revealing, and most people are too ignorant concerning their psychical world. This is why they make too many mistakes in their lives.

Therefore, only by showing them the points of the objective reality that they are despising, and by explaining to them why their thoughts and behaviors are wrong, I’m already helping these people very much.

Many times they don’t agree with me in the beginning, because my advice is based on the vision given to me by the messages contained in their dreams, which may be totally different from what their conscious mind believes, however, as we talk about their lives and their problems, they understand that the unconscious’ guidance is correct, and that my advice is saving them from suffering.

For example, one lady wanted very much to have a second child, but could not become pregnant again after having her first child. When she sent me her dream and I translated it, I had to tell her that she had to forget the idea of having another child, because this wouldn’t be good for her.

Only by analyzing her short dream and a few details about her biography, it became very clear to me why she should not insist on trying to become pregnant again.

She didn’t want to accept this truth though, and we had to exchange many messages with her questions and my answers, until she understood why it was not wise to insist on her plan. In the end she agreed with me, embarrassed for insisting so much on her opinion…

Another example is the case of a dreamer who sent me a short nightmare, irritated because he could not understand why he had such negative dream. He didn’t believe that my translation would be accurate and really helpful, but asked me to translate his dream only because it was a horrible nightmare that left him quite thoughtful.

My translation helped him understand that he could make a very serious mistake that would ruin his entire life.

When he understood from what the translation of his dream saved him, he thanked me many times, abandoning his initially suspicious attitude and becoming very friendly…

Yes, the translation of only one short dream can save you from a lot of trouble, changing completely your life.

Imagine now how many advantages you can have if you learn how to translate alone your own dreams everyday!

Translation is an important factor in bringing people and businesses across the world closer together. Etymologically speaking, “translation” refers to “bringing across” or “carrying across”. Thus, with the help of translation, one can break language barriers which often hamper effective communication. If a company, individual or organization wants to communicate or share information with people and business contacts who speak other languages, you can use the the help of a professional agency for translation in Toronto or any other large Canadian city.

Language translation is a detailed, complex process in which a translator or language expert expresses the meaning of content in the first language in a second language. While converting the text from one language to another, the meaning must remain the same. Usually, the first language is referred to as the “source language” and the language into which the text is translated is known as the “target language”.

Language translations completed by an established translation agency in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary or for that matter any other large Canadian city, is usually of professional quality. However, dealing with foreign languages is not as easy as one might imagine. It would be incorrect to assume that translation means simply changing the text word for word from one language into another.

To start with, translation work requires intensive research into the subject matter of the source text. The translator naturally needs to have a thorough knowledge of both the source and target languages. Ideally, the translator will be a native speaker in the target language.. Plus, the translator also needs to have profound knowledge and understanding of the customs and lifestyle of the group of people who are going to benefit from the translated work so that they are able to understand the translated work in its entirety. In addition, the translator must be a subject matter expert, with a specialization such as legal, medical, technical, scientific or commercial translations.

Translation work is not a mechanical process where you just translate each source word to the targeted language. Rather, there are many factors that need to be considered to obtain accurate and culturally appropriate output in the target language.

Here are some of such factors a translator must understand and pay attention to:

1. The actual context of both the source and target language – The meaning and connotations of the same concept can be very different in two languages.

2. The rules of grammar of both languages – Grammar is an essential part of language translation and every language has its own set of structural rules that must be observed.

3. Correct spelling in the target language, for example, even in American and British English the spelling of the same word can be different . For example, the American English word “color” would be spelled “colour” in British English.

4. The writing conventions of the target language – These conventions include spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and paragraphing. The translator needs to employ the correct conventions to enhance the readability of the paper.

5. The meaning of idioms and phrases of both the source and target language is often a complex issue. For example, if we use the English phrase “Wear your heart on your sleeve” translated literally, it will probably not have the same meaning in another language.

6. The usage of points and commas to separate decimals and thousands within numbers has different rules in different languages. This is important as in English the convention followed is 1,000.01, while the same is written as 1.000,01 in the Spanish language. This is something that needs to be considered for high quality service for Spanish translations.

7. Plus, while translating in certain languages such as Arabic and Hebrew, a translator must translate using a right-to left alphabet.

In addition to the above mentioned factors, it is important for the creation of an error-free translation to carefully proofread the translation against the source text. Editing at different stages is a good method to come up with an error-free copy. And even after editing, before delivering the final copy, final proofreading is must.

Keep these things in mind while selecting an agency for translation in Toronto or any other large Canadian city.

Machine translation (MT) systems are now ubiquitous. This ubiquity is due to a combination of increased need for translation in today’s global marketplace, and an exponential growth in computing power that has made such systems viable. And under the right circumstances, MT systems are a powerful tool. They offer low-quality translations in situations where low-quality translation is better than no translation at all, or where a rough translation of a large document delivered in seconds or minutes is more useful than a good translation delivered in three weeks’ time.

Unfortunately, despite the widespread accessibility of MT, it is clear that the purpose and limitations of such systems are frequently misunderstood, and their capability widely overestimated. In this article, I want to give a brief overview of how MT systems work and thus how they can be put to best use. Then, I’ll present some data on how Internet-based MT is being used right now, and show that there is a chasm between the intended and actual use of such systems, and that users still need educating on how to use MT systems effectively.

How machine translation works

You might have expected that a computer translation program would use grammatical rules of the languages in question, combining them with some kind of in-memory “dictionary” to produce the resulting translation. And indeed, that’s essentially how some earlier systems worked. But most modern MT systems actually take a statistical approach that is quite “linguistically blind”. Essentially, the system is trained on a corpus of example translations. The result is a statistical model that incorporates information such as:

– “when the words (a, b, c) occur in succession in a sentence, there is an X% chance that the words (d, e, f) will occur in succession in the translation” (N.B. there don’t have to be the same number of words in each pair);

– “given two successive words (a, b) in the target language, if word (a) ends in -X, there is an X% chance that word (b) will end in -Y”.

Given a huge body of such observations, the system can then translate a sentence by considering various candidate translations– made by stringing words together almost at random (in reality, via some ‘naive selection’ process)– and choosing the statistically most likely option.

On hearing this high-level description of how MT works, most people are surprised that such a “linguistically blind” approach works at all. What’s even more surprising is that it typically works better than rule-based systems. This is partly because relying on grammatical analysis itself introduces errors into the equation (automated analysis is not completely accurate, and humans don’t always agree on how to analyse a sentence). And training a system on “bare text” allows you to base a system on far more data than would otherwise be possible: corpora of grammatically analysed texts are small and few and far between; pages of “bare text” are available in their trillions.

However, what this approach does mean is that the quality of translations is very dependent on how well elements of the source text are represented in the data originally used to train the system. If you accidentally type he will returned or vous avez demander (instead of he will return or vous avez demandé), the system will be hampered by the fact that sequences such as will returned are unlikely to have occurred many times in the training corpus (or worse, may have occurred with a completely different meaning, as in they needed his will returned to the solicitor). And since the system has little notion of grammar (to work out, for example, that returned is a form of return, and “the infinitive is likely after he will”), it in effect has little to go on.

Similarly, you may ask the system to translate a sentence that is perfectly grammatical and common in everyday use, but which includes features that happen not to have been common in the training corpus. MT systems are typically trained on the types of text for which human translations are readily available, such as technical or business documents, or transcripts of meetings of multilingual parliaments and conferences. This gives MT systems a natural bias towards certain types of formal or technical text. And even if everyday vocabulary is still covered by the training corpus, the grammar of everyday speech (such as using tú instead of usted in Spanish, or using the present tense instead of the future tense in various languages) may not.

MT systems in practice

Researches and developers of computer translation systems have always been aware that one of the biggest dangers is public misperception of their purpose and limitations. Somers (2003)[1], observing the use of MT on the web and in chat rooms, comments that: “This increased visibility of MT has had a number of side effets. […] There is certainly a need to educate the general public about the low quality of raw MT, and, importantly, why the quality is so low.” Observing MT in use in 2009, there’s sadly little evidence that users’ awareness of these issues has improved.

As an illustration, I’ll present a small sample of data from a Spanish-English MT service that I make available at the Español-Inglés web site. The service works by taking the user’s input, applying some “cleanup” processes (such as correcting some common orthographical errors and decoding common instances of “SMS-speak”), and then looking for translations in (a) a bank of examples from the site’s Spanish-English dictionary, and (b) a MT engine. Currently, Google Translate is used for the MT engine, although a custom engine may be used in the future. The figures I present here are from an analysis of 549 Spanish-English queries presented to the system from machines in Mexico[2]– in other words, we assume that most users are translating from their native language.

First, what are people using the MT system for? For each query, I attempted a “best guess” at the user’s purpose for translating the query. In many cases, the purpose is quite obvious; in a few cases, there is clearly ambiguity. With that caveat, I judge that in about 88% of cases, the intended use is fairly clear-cut, and categorise these uses as follows:

• Looking up a single word or term: 38%
• Translating a formal text: 23%
• Internet chat session: 18%
• Homework: 9%

A surprising (if not alarming!) observation is that in such a large proportion of cases, users are using the translator to look up a single word or term. In fact, 30% of queries consisted of a single word. The finding is a little surprising given that the site in question also has a Spanish-English dictionary, and suggests that users confuse the purpose of dictionaries and translators. Although not represented in the raw figures, there were clearly some cases of consecutive searches where it appeared that a user was deliberately splitting up a sentence or phrase that would have probably been better translated if left together. Perhaps as a consequence of student over-drilling on dictionary usage, we see, for example, a query for cuarto para (“quarter to”) followed immediately by a query for a number. There is clearly a need to educate students and users in general on the difference between the electronic dictionary and the machine translator[3]: in particular, that a dictionary will guide the user to choosing the appropriate translation given the context, but requires single-word or single-phrase lookups, whereas a translator generally works best on whole sentences and given a single word or term, will simply report the statistically most common translation.

I estimate that in less than a quarter of cases, users are using the MT system for its “trained-for” purpose of translating or gisting a formal text (and are entering an entire sentence, or at least partial sentence rather than an isolated noun phrase). Of course, it’s impossible to know whether any of these translations were then intended for publication without further proof, which definitely isn’t the purpose of the system.

The use for translating formal texts is now almost rivalled by the use to translate informal on-line chat sessions– a context for which MT systems are typically not trained. The on-line chat context poses particular problems for MT systems, since features such as non-standard spelling, lack of punctuation and presence of colloquialisms not found in other written contexts are common. For chat sessions to be translated effectively would probably require a dedicated system trained on a more suitable (and possibly custom-built) corpus.

It’s not too surprising that students are using MT systems to do their homework. But it’s interesting to note to what extent and how. In fact, use for homework incudes a mixture of “fair use” (understanding an exercise) with an attempt to “get the computer to do their homework” (with predictably dire results in some cases). Queries categorised as homework include sentences which are obviously instructions to exercises, plus certain sentences explaining trivial generalities that would be uncommon in a text or conversation, but which are typical in beginners’ homework exercises.

Whatever the use, an issue for system users and designers alike is the frequency of errors in the source text which are liable to hamper the translation. In fact, over 40% of queries contained such errors, with some queries containing several. The most common errors were the following (queries for single words and terms were excluded in calculating these figures):

• Missing accents: 14% of queries
• Missing punctuation: 13%
• Other orthographical error: 8%
• Grammatically incomplete sentence: 8%

Bearing in mind that in the majority of cases, users where translating from their native language, users appear to underestimate the importance of using standard orthography to give the best chance of a good translation. More subtly, users do not always understand that the translation of one word can depend on another, and that the translator’s job is more difficult if grammatical constituents are incomplete, so that queries such as hoy es día de are not uncommon. Such queries hamper translation because the chance of a sentence in the training corpus with, say, a “dangling” preposition like this will be slim.

Lessons to be learnt…?

At present, there’s still a mismatch between the performance of MT systems and the expectations of users. I see responsibility for closing this gap as lying in the hands both of developers and of users and educators. Users need to think more about making their source sentences “MT-friendly” and learn how to assess the output of MT systems. Language courses need to address these issues: learning to use computer translation tools effectively needs to be seen as a relevant part of learning to use a language. And developers, including myself, need to think about how we can make the tools we offer better suited to language users’ needs.

Notes

[1] Somers (2003), “Machine Translation: the Latest Developments” in The Oxford Handbook of Computational Linguistics, OUP.

[2] This odd number is simply because queries matching the selection criteria were captured with random probability within a fixed time frame. It should be noted that the system for deducing a machine’s country from its IP address is not completely accurate.

[3] If the user enters a single word into the system in question, a message is displayed beneath the translation suggesting that the user would get a better result by using the site’s dictionary.

You can crash an automobile, the Stock Market, a party you were not invited to or cymbals together to make a sound. You can describe a flowering plant as a noxious weed or a more-desirable garden flower. Maybe that plant is yellow, but your hair is blonde. You can create, but what do you mean when you use create? Are you building, constructing, erecting, composing or imagining? When you are using the word human, are you talking about a male, female, child, adult, bachelor, father mother, sister? Are you taking your money to the bank or sitting on the bank of a river? If you use the seemingly simple word “on,” how shall you use it? Is it a preposition? Is it on top or on the table? Perhaps it’s an adverb where you put your shoes on? Or an adjective when you are putting the game on in 20 minutes? The list is quite long for such a tiny word; you can be on call, on the roof, on cloud nine, on edge, on fire, on purpose or on the phone.

So many meanings, so little time, so many ways translation can go awry. You simply can’t translate without pondering the meaning behind the words, the semantics. As we know well, translation based on one-to-one substitution is seldom acceptable and never acceptable in this instance. Here are a few issues that you may have come across in your work and some ways to resolve them.

Finding the Meaning

Meanings of words evolve over time as language evolves. The British word, treacle, now means molasses, yet it’s definition was not always “a thick syrup produced by the refining of sugar.” It’s derived from the Ancient Greek word for the bite of a wild animal. Then, the meaning broadened to refer to any injury. From there, it morphed into the medicine used to treat injury. Then it evolved to refer to the sweet substance added to medicine to make it taste better. The most recent rendition is one such sweetener we all know-molasses. Seems like an odd path to follow, yet the word’s previous meanings motivated its metamorphosis. Words develop and shift, gain meanings and lose them. What happens to a word in one language will not happen exactly the same way in another. This adds to translations complexity and difficulties.

When the Spanish talk about fish that are swimming around, they use pez, yet if they catch that fish and cook it for dinner, they call it pescado. In English fish is fish whether it is part of fish and chips or in our lakes and streams.

Translators face these dreaded multiple meanings all the time; which is why they need to have thorough knowledge of both languages and an ability to deal with differences in meaning that appear insignificant until you cross over to the other language, something no computer can do. It’s job security for translators, really.

Paying attention to multiple meanings is especially important in marketing and advertising where word play is often used and multiple meanings abound. Take the word “power,” a favorite with pharmaceutical marketers. Imagine a headline “The Power to change your life,” accompanied by a photo of an electrical cord. In the headline, power is intended to indicate strength. But power also means electricity. Now consider other languages. The Spanish use the colloquial alternative to electricity, or “lights.” Thus, the double meaning would be lost in translation if the original headline is used, unless, of course, your company is a lighting company with products so exceptional, they really do change people’s lives.

Be specific… or Not

Multiple meanings must be handled using sematic criteria, both general and specific. Knowing the general topic points translators travel in the right direction, enabling them to choose how different words will be used in the target language. For example, the word “run” is generally known to indicate a pace faster than jogging. But what if a river ran dry, or someone is running a company, or a meeting ran long, or someone ran a man down. Did he run over him with a car, speak out against him or catch up with him? Thankfully, most words and phrases don’t appear in isolation, so context clues can save the day.

Knowing if the topic is generalized or industry specific can meant the difference between calling a bus, a vehicle to transport multiple people from point A to point B or a computer component into which cards can be placed.

Consider the Context

Being sensitive to total context, your audience and important details such as regionalisms and culture is key. For example, ‘thank you’ in Japanese is dependent upon whether or not the person being thanked was obligated to perform the service and how much effort they put into the service. In English we can say ‘thanks a lot’ or ‘thanks much,’ but in Japan’s immensely polite culture, those two words are much more intricate and convey many more meanings in different situations. It is something to keep in mind.

One example of how an insensitive translation can have serious repercussions is the Cold War remark made in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Soviet Union, who had been complaining about the United States. His off-handed remark was translated as “we will bury you.” This remark left an indelible and infamous mark on the minds of all Americans. Believing Communism to be a superior system to Capitalism and predicting that Communism would outlast Capitalism, Khrushchev actually said something along the lines of “Whether you like it or not, we will be present at your burial.” Assuming that the Russian word for “bury” could only be translated one way, as “we will bury you,” unnecessarily raised tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union perhaps needlessly prolonging the Cold War.

So, you see, multiple meanings are ever-present and important. Know how to use them well and be prepared for any instance that comes your way. And stay tuned for next month when we discuss how multiple meanings are by far the most important reason why computer translations fail (and always will fail) when it comes to accurate language translation.

There’s a lot of buzz going around about opportunities on the Chinese internet. Website owners hear that China has far more internet users than any other country, they see reports of the Chinese economy surging forward even while other countries’ economies are lagging, and they hear the question “what is your China strategy?” asked over and over again.

If you are interested in expanding your website to reach the “other half of the internet,” one of the first things you probably wondered is what type of Chinese should be used. Mandarin or Cantonese? Traditional or Simplified? First I’ll give you the simple answer, and then answer the most common questions I hear.

The simple answer: If you want to attract the maximum number of Chinese consumers, use Mandarin Chinese written in Simplified Chinese characters.

“What about Cantonese?” I’m often asked. Cantonese is just one of many spoken Chinese dialects. It is spoken mostly by people from Canton province and Hong Kong. There was a large wave of Cantonese speaking emigrants over the past fifty years, so much so that many Western cities have a large population of Cantonese speakers, causing some Westerners to think that Cantonese is a lot more important than it is. In fact, Mandarin is the official language of China and most Cantonese speakers can understand Mandarin as well.

“How many Chinese letters are there?” is another question I hear a lot. The answer is that there aren’t any Chinese “letters” – Chinese uses “characters,” and there are many thousands of Chinese characters used in modern Chinese. Most modern Chinese words consist of two characters, but there are also words with just one character or with three or more characters.

“Isn’t there more than one kind of Chinese writing?” Yes, there is. There are two forms of Chinese characters – “traditional” and “simplified.” Nowadays, the simplified form is used on mainland China, and that makes it the global standard. However, traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and in many Chinese immigrant communities. Readers of one form can often understand the other form.

Finally, a common question is “Which direction is Chinese written?” Chinese is usually written left-to-right. The only reason a website would be written right-to-left or top-to-bottom would be to give a fancy image, usually for traditional products. So, you don’t need to create a mirrored version of your website design.

So, there you have it, as a general rule, when you have your website translated into Chinese, you should use Mandarin Chinese written in simplified characters. Only if you are targeting a specific Chinese location (or emigrants from that location) should you consider using traditional characters and another Chinese dialect such as Cantonese.

Patriotism has become a common theme in President Yoweri K. Museveni’s speeches during national celebrations such as Independence Day. He always talks about how we need to promote patriotism and become a people that put the interests of the country above self; in the words of John F. Kennedy, a people that don’t ask what their country can do for them but rather what they can do for their country.

President Museveni has tried to walk his talk of promoting patriotism through awarding national medals to citizens from various disciplines that he feels have played their parts well in building the nation. His government has also launched campaigns such as “Buy Uganda Build Uganda” which are all commendable. But in order to really build and entrench the spirit of patriotism among Ugandans we need to go back to the basics.

Translate the National Anthem into Several Local Languages

Certainly the most important thing to be done to promote patriotism is to translate the National Anthem into our diverse local languages. This anthem is the embodiment of our cultural and national heritage considering how much is it sung and the feeling and intensity with which it is sung. It makes you wonder how much more it would unite and galvanize the whole nation if it was promoted among the sections of Ugandans who have no formal education.

Every Independence Day local television stations telecast clips of random Ugandans ‘murdering’ the National Anthem firstly by getting the lyrics wrong and singing it out of tune. The first words of the first stanza that go, “Oh Uganda may God uphold thee, we lay our future in thy hand… ” is often sung as “Oh Uganda may God appozzi, we lay Africa in zza hand… “

To make matters worse, these clips are posted on YouTube where they generate many hits from all over the world. The first time I watched these clips of our national anthem being ‘massacred’ like that by ignorant Ugandans, I was revolted, and wanted to launch a sit-down strike outside the offices of the Minister of Education as well as the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development that should be responsible for ensuring that all Ugandans memorize and understand the national anthem as a microcosm of national culture and pride.

Come to think of it, you cannot blame uneducated Ugandan for failing to grasp the words of the beloved national anthem since they are in a foreign language. Which is why time is ripe for government to raise resources that will go into translating the national anthem into all the local languages as well as teaching it to all Ugandans both the educated and the uneducated. Yes, even the elite shouldn’t be left behind because most of them only know the first stanza but are clueless about the last two stanzas. Other possible language translation services done in different countries include;

Somali translation services

Tigrinya translation services

Yoruba translation Services

Malagasy translation services

Borrow a Page from Other Countries

By translating the national anthem into local languages, Uganda would be borrowing a page from other countries who have theirs in local languages. Rwanda’s national anthem is in Kinyarwanda while Tanzania’s is also composed in Kiswahili and so is the East African anthem. Even Kenya has a Kiswahili version of its national anthem (Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu). So why shouldn’t our beautiful anthem be translated into Luganda and the Bantu languages which are popular around the nation?

After all, even the churches are realizing the importance of local languages by translating the popular classic hymns into mother tongues. Pop into any church on Sunday and you will be amazed how the all popular Christian songs both old-school and contemporary, have local language versions. In fact, this trend of ‘localizing’ foreign songs is not new since in secondary schools we used to translate blockbuster tracks into local languages and perform them at socials.

Imagine then what a uniting factor it would be if all Ugandans were able to sing our national anthem correctly and in all our languages. That would mean there would be no more fumbling at social or national events and at international events that Uganda participates in, where it is sung, we would all join in heartily like true patriots sing their anthems, and the man who composed it 56 years ago, Prof. George Wilberforce Kakoma, would smile in his grave.

A new debate is unfolding these days amidst geologists, marine scientists, and curious people.

A continent adjoining New Zealand may soon add itself to the good old list of seven continents we have grown up remembering so far. It would be fascinating in the context of global contours as well as from the perspective of the evolution of land mass and mountain-ranges. But what it won’t affect too much is this – the business atlas.

The world has already turned from seven continents to one – the global village – with fast-dissolving business boundaries. Geography is no more a determinant of a company’s success or failure. But interestingly and ironically, the languages inside borders do affect the fate of a business to a vast extent. That is where the role of translation comes into picture – whether it is a translation from Dutch to English or any language to any other language.

So a brand may catapult its anchors towards far-off lands without any worry today, thanks to the ever-expanding impact of technology, new geopolitical currents, and customers’ increasing taste palate. But while a brand may set foot on new sands without any worry of entry, things are not so sure when it comes to the exit part.

Language is still a pivotal ingredient in approaching and engaging customers across new shores. A Dutch brand can go international but not until it can translate Dutch to English across the entire gamut of its communication and content pillars. Whether it is software localization, website translation, automatic app updates, branding material, advertisements, official correspondence or even grievance-redressal – the Dutch brand would have to translate to English, and beyond the superficial layer. The translation exercise has to be continuous, consistent, real-time, deep, empathetic, and really nuanced if the brand wants to make an actual connection with people beyond the countries that speak Dutch.

Similarly, for someone who is well-entrenched as a global brand, but wants to penetrate European markets in a much deeper way than before, there would be a compelling need to undertake translation touching the entire array of content that speaks to the new audience. For a brand, no matter how successful in the UK for instance, there would be not much attraction in an alien market like Spain, if it does not translate English to Spanish adequately to connect to and engage with the people in Spain.

It will be a very expensive area of neglect if any seemingly tiny detail is left out from the radar of translation. A Spanish speaking user would not accommodate a FAQ or app alert in English, especially as other brands are ready and well-equipped to cater to this user in the language s/he understands and prefers.

Poorly-executed or shallow translation would find no place in making a real impact and connection with people from a new place. Translation loss, leaks, mistakes and syntactic alignment are factors that may seem not-too-strategic, but when handled sloppily, they can inflict irreparable harm on a brand’s image.

For a brand, that aspires to touch new segments and stretch its lifecycle as well as adoption-footprint; translation takes on the attire of quite a significant tool that can’t be done at the last minute. The entire process and perimeter of one’s content and marketing has to be redone with the eyes and ears of the new segment and hence, the new language in question. What works for software may not work for an app, if the proxy is good for a passive website – it may work in an adverse way for a dynamic one. What works for the Netherlands – may completely bounce off in Barcelona; and so on.

Zealandia or no Zealandia, do not jump onto new continents without studying the topography well and without that gear called translation.

The world is one but language holds the keys for navigation in business.

For me – there’s no question.

Sooner or later as teachers of English as a Foreign Language, the question arises; “Do I need to translate my resume into Spanish?” After more than 20 years in the business the question still comes up occasionally even for me. Invariably you’ll need to send a resume or CV and a cover letter to a potential employer, administrator or agency. So what do you do when an ad or job notice states “send resume and cover letter with copies of certificates to: …?” My procedure is simple. I don’t translate. Here’s why:

As a native-speaking English teacher you’re expected to have the highest English language level possible. By sending your documents in English, right away you establish your “credentials” when ALL your correspondence is in excellent English. Which would you rather present – documents in flawless English or questionable Spanish? Yeah, I thought so. Me too.

More than a few educational institutions frown on the use of the student’s first language (in this case Spanish) in the classroom or even on the institution’s premises. So showing that you know (or are not so good at) Spanish, the students’ first language may NOT be a plus.

At the vast majority of institutions the contact person you are responding to is bilingual with English as one of their languages – which is often why they’re the contact person. Besides, besides if it ever becomes necessary to translate your documents you are expected to have it done, not necessarily to do it yourself. You will likely be told by whom, when and where you can have it done. In any case you’ll be advised specifically that “X” document must be translated. In more than 20 years, other than “official government procedures, visas, work permits, etc. I’ve never had to do it.

“But what about upper-level management and personnel administration, don’t they need translated documents?” Well, often no, but if it ever does come up you’ll certainly be provided with some assistance with completing the process.

During those times when I, as an English Department Director, Coordinator or other administrator, needed to interview and hire English language teaching professionals, virtually all those CVs and resumes which landed on my desk in English went immediately to the top of the pile. Although it was expected that English teacher applicants would send in their packages in English, it was the exception to receive resumes in English rather than the rule. Make yourself stand out. Provide your cover letter and resume or CV in English.

Finally, you should absolutely do your best work in preparing your cover letter and resume or CV (called “hoja de vida” in Spanish). By all means, put your best foot forward and send initial paperwork in English. Don’t worry, it WILL get read and quickly acted upon. So, start polishing up your presentation materials in your native tongue ASAP.

Other English language learning and teaching articles available in this series include:

“Learning a Language: 6 Effective Ways to Use the Internet”

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=76453

“Six Quick Tricks for Learning a Language”

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=72718

“What’s the Strangest Thing you’ve Ever Eaten?”

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81349

“What Makes a Person Intelligent?”

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=81350

Teach English in Colombia: Grappling with Grammar, Gold, Guns, and Guayaba

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=85995

Try This for Perfecting Past Tense Pronunciation Practice

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=86780

7 Steps to Better Business English: Choosing a Business English Training Program

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=81697

English Only in the EFL Classroom: Worth the Hassle?

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=89180

Grammar Teaching: Implicit or Explicit?

http://ezinearticles.com/?id=89342

Many people are mildly puzzled by translation services. After all, we are in the new millennium. We have trains that float above the tracks and go 300 miles per hour. We have cannons that can fire bullets at almost light speed, and we have refined metals so strong that a fork can hold the weight of an elephant. So why do we still need document translation services?

There are hundreds of software programs that can translate text into every language in the modern world. So you might ask: why are companies still paying for translation services? The truth is it is because language is very complex on its own, and when you try to translate one from another, you need to understand the reasoning and logic behind every sentence you read.

Have you ever wondered why you can type the same sentence into Google translate and get two answers? How if you change a few letters into capital letters that the translated sentence looks different? Did you notice the multiple options that they give you on the right? Or how if you translate something to English then the sentences come out muddled, and the grammar and sentence syntax is terrible? This is because language is not a mathematical code, and therefore cannot be interpreted perfectly by a software program.

When you purchase document translation services, you are buying the expertise of a person who fully understands both languages involved. You are buying the time of translation expert who knows the difference between a tear as in a teardrop, and a tear as in a tear in one’s jeans. You are buying the time of a person who can construct a sentence based upon the meaning of a foreign sentence, instead of based on the composition of the sentence (i.e. its words).

Translating from one language to another is hard enough, but imagine a software program attempting a technical document translation. Technical documents are difficult when they are read by native speakers, so you can imagine the mess that a software program would make of it. Without technical translation services, commerce between two companies from different countries would take years for them to fully communicate with each other. Can you imagine buying Japanese machinery for your high-tech factory without advanced technical translation services? The deal and the process would simply be unachievable without a mass exchange of staff from one company to the other.