Language translation and training blog

Would it be melodramatic to say that technical translations can be the difference between life and death? What if you needed medical documents translated and the translator misunderstood and mistranslated a vital element; might it then be a life or death issue?

Well all drama aside, technical translations are essential for professions such as law, finance, engineering and medicine. To translate such documents effectively requires a mother tongue translator who specialises in translations in a particular discipline. If you wanted an engineering specification translated from English into Mandarin, you would need a mother tongue speaker of Mandarin who specialised in translating engineering documents. When translation may form part of a contract, research submission or other time-sensitive project, you need to get the translation right first time. This reinforces the need for specialists who completely understand the original document and are educated native speakers of the target language with knowledge of the subject.

Whether you need to translate technical manuals, procedures, journals or information about your products and services, contact us for a correct and reliable translation. To find out more go to Translation Services or call us on +44 (0)118 934 6000.

However good a translation is, it can always be improved by good desk-top publishing. This should be done by someone who is familiar with the language or you will make wrong decisions about hyphenation at the end of lines. You will be very likely to make silly mistakes such as dropping parts of words or sentences or accidentally combining paragraphs because you do not understand the meaning of the words. Apart from anything else, it takes far longer (and is therefore more expensive) to work in a language you cannot understand.

If your translation is for a document that requires subsequent publishing, electronically, or in hard-copy, Robertson Languages International can give you the finished article.

Robertson Languages International translates all languages. Whether it’s a presentation or business report or a technical document e.g. (legal document, tender or medical prescription), our highly trained and dedicated staff can ensure you the best service at all times. Your translations are assured through our certification to EN 15038 which means they are reliable and accurate as they are subject to rigorous post-translation editing to check style, content, consistency and the correct use of relevant glossaries.

Today’s interesting news from Icann will change the look of the web for all of us. But most importantly it will mean that all those people who live in countries which use non-Latin scripts will be able to have website domains in their own script. Arabic based languages will also read in the correct way from right to left. In order to use these, some users will have to install language packs or additional fonts.

It will make the web a more comfortable place for many people and will perhaps begin to enable it to truly represent the diversity of languages around the world.

It will also lead to changes in web localisation. You could now have real Chinese, Japanese and Arabic versions of your company’s website, with their own domain names in the appropriate language. That would be the best possible way to demonstrate your customer care.

Further information from www.icann.org (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)

Translating from one language into another requires extensive skill and knowledge. Speaking the language is of course important but the art of translation is the combination of highly advanced reading and writing skills, and cultural and technical knowledge in both the source and target languages. Translating is a professional skill that few people can do well.

So when you are considering translation services make sure you use a competent translation company that guarantees

·         Professional translators with a post-graduate translation qualification and country specific experience

·         Technical experts with a proven track record in their specialism, eg. medical, legal, marketing translation.

Here are some examples of translations where the words make sense but the translator’s lack of cultural knowledge produces a humorous effect which he/she did not intend. Would you want your foreign documents to produce the same reaction in the reader?

In a hotel in Tokyo

·         In the bedroom - You are invited to take advantage of the chamber maid

·         At the bar - Special cocktail for ladies with nuts

At a restaurant in Zurich – our wines leave you nothing to hope for

At a dentists in Kowloon – teeth extracted by the latest Methodists

At Copenhagen airport – we take all your bags and send them in all directions

At a cocktail bar in Oslo – ladies are requested not to have children at the bar

Doing business internationally means having to produce documents in other languages (legal contracts, medical research, technical specifications). You need to get it right first time, so avoid risk and disaster by using language experts to support your business just as you would in other areas.

For more information about obtaining quality translations certified to EN 15038, click on:

http://www.robertsonlanguages.co.uk/index.php?p=187&pp=136&title=Getting_a_quality_translation

Robertson Languages International aims to provide our customers with the best, most cost-effective solutions to all their different international communication and translation needs. If you need to translate a few words, a sentence, or even a paragraph quickly and cost effectively, try our free online translation tool and see for yourself just how easy it is to use.

Click here to be directed to our free online translation tool.

If you would like any further information about Language Services, please visit http://www.robertsonlanguages.co.uk/ alternatively call 0118 934 6000.

Not every speaker of a language can translate and not every translator can translate all documents. To translate documents with technical content or specific style requirements (such as marketing collateral, websites or presentation slides) you need a translator who understands the source text properly, knows what your readers will expect and has access to the dictionaries, on-line reference tools and glossaries to do your text justice.

Our translators are experts in specific subject areas, have access to all the tools they need and are supported by qualified post-translation editors and project managers. We are certified to EN 15038, the specialist quality standard for translations so you can have peace of mind.

For more information contact Robertson Languages International or email xin@robertsonlanguages.co.uk.

The French have taken a lot of stick over the past few decades (not least from some of their own countrymen!) for their heroic resistance to the tidal wave of Anglification that has swept the fields of business and technology. To be fair, this mindset - sanctioned at official level through legislation such as the Loi Toubon of 1994 and lists of approved ‘French’ words for official use - has produced some rather bizarre curios. Ask any French person what the word bouteur means, and you’ll almost certainly be treated to a Gallic shrug in reply: it was originally invented in an office somewhere to give French people a way of not having to say le bulldozer. As it turns out, the word never really caught on in France; although I’m told Francophone Canadians (for whom the invasion of English is possibly an even more keenly-felt issue than it is in France- check a map to see why!) still quite like it. The French language has also - so far - failed to come up with decent home-grown alternatives to such dubious imports as le parking, le camping and le weekend.

However, the news is not all bad for lovers of a ‘purer’ form of French. In fact, I’m blogging now because two marvellous terminological successes have just come to mind, both of which have achieved the not-inconsiderable feat of having entered common French usage despite their firm roots in the world of the Internet - a domain in which Anglo-Saxon words and phrases have traditionally ruled supreme. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

Internaute

It’s time for the English-speaking peoples of the world to slap their heads in unison and say, why didn’t we think of that first? The best Anglophone attempt that comes to mind to describe a person browsing pages on the Web is a ’surfer’, but I think the best that can be said for that particular term is that it has gone on to give us an entertaining new twist on the phrase ‘silver surfer‘. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but perhaps we should petition the British government to pass a law mandating the introduction of the beautifully adventurous-sounding word ‘Internaut’ (yup, we can do without the final ‘e’, thanks) into the Queen’s English. Heaven knows we’ve, er, ‘liberated’ enough words from the French in the past; maybe they won’t notice?

Pourriel

And you thought the last one was clever… Not surprisingly, there are many in France who dislike the use of the English word ‘email’, and its semi-French bastard cousin mêle, and so it came to be that the French word courriel was invented (and frequently used by real French people, too) as a contraction of courrier électronique, meaning ‘electronic mail’. Fine, but how do you then describe an offshoot of this concept such as junk email? Enter stage left the wonderful word pourriel (pourri = rancid, corrupted, disgusting). The only thing that stops this from being absolutely perfect is the fact that as an English speaker, you’ll probably now never think of pot pourri in quite the same way again. Sorry about that.

Robertson Languages is proud to announce that we have translated some of the documentation presented to the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen.

In 20 years Robertson Languages has learnt what to do and what not to do when translating documents, however large or small the project. Whatever provider you use, we would urge you to ensure that the translator:

·         is translating into their mother tongue

·         has a very good understanding of the language they’re translating from

·         has a deep knowledge of the subject being translated i.e. marketing, financial, legal, software

·         has knowledge of how to translate

The art of translation requires specific skills and knowledge that take many years to master. Understanding or speaking a language does not equate with being an effective translator. Moreover, delivering a translation on time and to budget is more than a linguistic task. We would strongly urge you to use a competent and experienced translation company. Their project manager will take the responsibility of ensuring the best linguists work on your project, your preferred glossary and style are maintained and that you get the benefit of the latest software tools, in terms of cost, time saving and consistency.

Our project managers can save you money through adopting best practice procedures. We play a prominent role in the profession, are certified to EN 15038, the specialist quality standard for translation and have four awards from UK Trade & Investment  as the best language service provider in the UK (1994) and London & SE (three times). For information about how to receive better translations for less cost, ring Susannah on 0118 934 6000 or email help@robertsonlanguages.co.uk.