My introduction to the forum

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M

multilingual

  • #1
    Hello All,

    My name is Jonathan Bowman. I run a multilingual translation company in the Midlands, which provides international language support for businesses expanding into foreign markets. We translate brochures, magazines and websites into specific foreign languages, enabling our clients to connect with a target group on a local level.

    The reason I joined the forum is to try and discover how foreign markets are judged by UK companies, and listen to any ideas which they feel would help in their quest for more overseas revenue. By taking views from a cross section of businesses I hope to gain a better understanding of where the UK market is in terms of globalization. Any feedback I receive will hopefully help me to create a better translation service.

    Look forward to chatting with more of you over time.

    Regards
    Jonathan
     
    M

    multilingual

  • #5
    Thanks for the welcome.

    If you would like to see how not to translate material for business, take a look at this site: www.engrish.com.

    Take a look at 'bad elmo' in the toys section. :?

    I must stress that none of these examples came from our company, but it just goes o show how an expensive product launch can be ruined by a poor 50 quid translation.

    JB
     
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    Cornish Steve

    Cornish Steve

    Free Member
    Jul 4, 2005
    13,260
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    Atlanta, Georgia, USA (formerly Cornwall, UK)
  • #7
    Jonathan,

    I'm sure your service is highly sought after. Having travelled to 70 different countries in the last decade, I'm acutely aware of the problems caused by poor translation and clashing cultures. As free markets continue to expand, the need for good and rapid translation services is certain to increase.

    In addition to translation from English to other languages, I've sometimes wondered if there's a need for translation from English to English. This isn't meant to be a conundrum. English written for business professionals from overseas is different from English written for the local community. Internationals don't understand colloquial words, local turns of phrase, subtle nuances, many acronyms, etc. Often, as I read websites, I realize that much could be done to improve the text for the benefit of overseas visitors. (This topic has been touched on here in previous discussions.)

    Since you posted the Engrish site, I must relate my favorite example from Japanese to English: A hydraulic ram came out as a water sheep.

    Welcome!
     
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    M

    multilingual

  • #8
    Fully agree with the need for better English, especially where the use of specific cultural references goes straight over the head of everyone else.

    Somebody once asked us to translate 'lovely jubbly' into Spanish!

    Unless you know who Del Boy is then it doesn't work in English, let alone a foreign language.

    JB
     
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    D

    dagr

  • #9
    Hello Jonathan,

    I see you do localisation too. In another life, I used to do a lot of localisation on big software packages. Turn-key localisation contracts were much more lucrative than just plain document translation back then, but I'm not sure if that's still the case. (Of course, "ripping" the text out of the source code was a lot more complicated back then too).

    I have a few friends in France that do French-English or English-French translations/localisations, but they tend to be fairly specialised (pharmaceuticals, software installation, etc).

    One other avenue that was lucrative, but alas depended on close collaboration and trust with known customer, was the re-write; that is, taking a so-so original document and re-doing it properly, then translating that into other languages. Good work if you can get it, but difficult to market widely as companies don't like being told their documentation is not up to scratch. You could also add document creation to your site (manuals, etc).

    RE: your website. Quite good - simple, clear. I would however replace the menu title "products" with "services" and replace the actual "services" title with something like "quality" or "quality counts". Also, I'd put the price indications in Euros and dollars too (unless you're just aiming at UK clients).

    David.
     
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    M

    multilingual

  • #11
    Thanks for the feedback.

    The site is still fairly new and the buttons came as standard with the template I bought. I am not sure yet how to change the gifs to read differenty, but in time I will work it out. I agree that they need changing.

    With regards to your other comments, we are seeing more and more work where we rewrite the original. We don't get too many comlaints because we tell them that for multi lingua translation purposes it needs to be a generic base. Marketing is one of those areas that differs greatly from culture to culture so a fantastic sales pitch in English might not go own well in Russian for example.

    We tell them that by rewriting the original it will remove any ambiguity and reduce the translation costs. It is also important to protect the brand identuty of the client so we try to remove any English text that could be dubious once translated.

    I could go on for hours about the subject, and I can if anyone is interested in listening.

    For example, did you know that over half of the world's internet users now surf in a language other than English?

    How many people have got multilingual websites?

    Lots of customers getting away!!

    Food for thought.

    JB
     
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    R

    Russ

  • #12
    multilingual said:
    Somebody once asked us to translate 'lovely jubbly' into Spanish!

    Unless you know who Del Boy is then it doesn't work in English, let alone a foreign language.

    JB
    Click to expand...

    Here is some useless information for you the lesser known Jubbly is an Orange Drink :?

    'Lovely Jubbly' was originally an advertising slogan for a triangular-shaped frozen orange drink which was popular in the 1950s and 60s. When John Sullivan was writing the script for 'Only Fools and Horses', he included the phrase as one of Del Boy's own.

    :wink:
     
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    D

    dagr

  • #13
    I have a lot of both funny and horror stories. While most clients were open and helpful, there were always some that stubbornly dug their heels into what they thought was correct in English.

    We had one client who, dictionary in hand, was always asking why we didn't use such and such a word in English. For example, he'd say "Why don't you use ameliorate sometimes instead of improve?". Or worse, when it wasn't text but a cultural thing. Trying to tell him that the translation of that accompanying letter was actually no letter at all. He couldn't get his head around the fact that in the UK & US, adding a letter to say that the envelope also contains an automatically-generated invoice (that the customer was expecting anyway) was just a waste of time and would probably confuse the customer more than anything else.

    My biggest failure was not being able to stop a French company putting out a product, an industrial electronic processor module, called "The PIG". No matter how hard I tried, they just wouldn't let go of their original rationale: "If it can be piggybacked, then calling it a PIG is OK". Ah well.

    (Sorry, wandered off down memory lane there a bit).
     
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    Cornish Steve

    Cornish Steve

    Free Member
    Jul 4, 2005
    13,260
    1,906
    Atlanta, Georgia, USA (formerly Cornwall, UK)
  • #14
    dagr said:
    My biggest failure was not being able to stop a French company putting out a product, an industrial electronic processor module, called "The PIG".
    Click to expand...

    In the other direction, I once worked with some folks from GPT. They told me about a presentation they had given in France. The French audience started laughing during the first slide. I don't speak French, but I understand that "J'ai pete" (with appropriate accents) does not translate well.
     
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