Posted by Jim Cottrell on Thu, Oct 16, 2008 @ 08:12 AM
Everyone wants to increase their business if it makes sense to the bottom line. And while our economy might be a little rattled, there might be some great opportunities to export your products into another country. So, that got me thinking... I know we translate a lot of product literature from English into various languages for companies. With that in mind, what countries does the United States export to the most?
Top 15 Countries the US Exports to:
- Canada - $248.9 Billion
- Mexico - $136.5 Billion
- China - $65.2 Billion
- Japan - $62.7 Billion
- United Kingdom - $50.3 Billion
- Germany - $49.7 Billion
- South Korea - $34.7 Billion
- Netherlands - $33.0 Billion
- France - $27.4 Billion
- Taiwan - $26.4 Billion
- Singapore - $26.3 Billion
- Belgium - $25.3 Billion
- Brazil - $24.6 Billion
- Hong Kong - $20.1 Billion
- Australia - $19.2 Billion
The total amount of exports in 2007 was $1,163.3 Billion, according to the Foreign Trade Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. (That's almost $1.2 Trillion in One Year!)
If you decide that it's feasible to export your goods into another country, obviously you will need language translation and website translation for all of your marketing materials. That's where we definitely can help you regardless of the language. Just contact us for a free quote and we will handle everything - language translation, multilingual typesetting, website translation, software localization, and more...
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Sun, Oct 05, 2008 @ 05:57 PM
I recently came across an article in "Direct Marketing News" that discussed how in the past couple of years, many more companies are marketing directly to the Hispanic population within the United States. Obviously, in order to do that, your marketing materials and corporate website will need to be in Spanish. But, the payoff could be huge!
Here are some facts about the Hispanic market:
- Hispanic Population - 45.5 Million (2007 Census Est.)
- Hispanics Comprise 14% of US Population
- Hispanic Spending Power Hit $1 TRILLION in 2006
- Of Second-Generation Hispanics, 84% Own Computers
- Children of First-Generation Hispanics Are Very Influential in Family Purchasing Decisions
Kathleen Haley, the Hispanic marketing manager of HP, said "the grand majority of Hispanics in the US are bicultural and bilingual, and we want to make sure we talk to them in their language and their culture." They obviously want part of that $1 trillion in spending power. What about your company?
I also read another study where Hispanics would rather do business with those companies who communicate to them in their native language (even though they know English). They feel a special connection to companies who make an effort to reach out to them in Spanish.
Of course, this can be a big undertaking. The first thing would be to make sure you have someone on staff who is bilingual in English and Spanish. After getting everything translated into Spanish, you want to make sure if a Spanish-speaking person E-mails or calls in Spanish, you can respond accordingly.
Once you have that figured out, we can help you with all of your spanish translation needs from website translation to doing an english to spanish translation of your brochures, business cards, advertisements and more.
One question that we ask our clients is if they want "Universal Spanish". That's where it's not localized for one particular country but something which all Spanish-speaking people can understand. But if you know the Hispanics in your area are from a particular country, then our spanish translators will definitely use the words and phrases which best match their home country.
One Trillion Dollars...definitely something to think about!
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 @ 09:49 PM
Are you translating documents from English into another language for use outside of the United States? Maybe it's an RV brochure which will be used in Canada. Or, maybe it's an employee newsletter being sent to The Netherlands. These are two examples where the units of measurement would need to be converted to the metric system.
There are only three countries in the whole world which do not exclusively use the metric system - Burma, Liberia and the United States.
One option is to include both the imperial units and the metric equivalents so there is no confusion, especially for US companies with plants in other countries. Actually, in the United States, we've been using dual measurements for many years - e.g. "2 liters (67.6 fl. oz.)". The other option is to completely replace the imperial units and only use the metric values.
Many of us though still aren't familiar converting US measurements into their metric equivalents. Here are a few websites which might help:
But instead of looking at this as a boring math problem, changing the values to metric make your statements much more interesting:
- I weigh 100,697 grams. (I'll let you figure that one out.)
- It's 23 degrees here in the office.
- Today, the average price of gasoline in the US is $1.02 per liter.
- On the way to work, I was going 118 on the interstate.
Injecting metric values into our everyday sentences, makes them a little more interesting! Using the standard metric conversions, you can convert these values to see what we normally would say here in the United States.
This is something to keep in mind when thinking about language translation and website translation for your documents. If you're not comfortable figuring the conversions yourself, our translators will calculate the metric values while working on the language translation.
When translating documents for other countries, it's important to localize the translations so they read as if they were originally written just for them. That is our goal with every translation.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Tue, Sep 16, 2008 @ 03:28 PM
Most people when they come to our website are interested in getting a quote for language translations. They need a document translated, some multilingual typesetting or they might be interested in translating their website. So, they either click the "Free Translation Quote" button or send us an E-mail. You might be thinking about doing the same thing right now. Well, let me help.
What do we need in order to provide you with the best quote for your language translation project?
- Please E-mail us the files. This is so important. We need to see the subject matter, review the complexity of the text, see what program it's been created in, and get a word count. Unfortunately, we can't produce a quote without seeing the files.
- What is your deadline? Like everything else, the quicker you need something completed, the price may be higher. On average, each translator can translate 2,000 words per business day. That will give you an idea of how long it will take - approximately 10,000 words per week. We can have more than one translator per project but we start to lose consistency. Please let us know what kind of timeline you have in mind.
- Is the subject matter unique? We have a network of thousands of experienced and certified translators available from around the world. This allows us to match their experience and knowledge with your particular project. Any information you can provide about your document is helpful so we can find the best translator who truly understands the material and can make the translation sound like an original.
- Who is the audience? We want our translators to put themselves into your reader's shoes. So, we need to know who is going to be reading the translated document. What country is going to use the translation? What is their education level? Is it going to be online or printed? How will they receive the translated document?
- Desktop Publishing, Editing Graphics, HTML Files? Along with translating the words, many times it takes more to finish a project. And it might be a little daunting as you look at the words and characters in each language along with fonts that you've never seen before. We have graphic artists, website programmers and DTP professionals who can take the translation and get your files ready for print or for the web. But, we need to know that. Our base prices assume that the translation will be provided in Microsoft Word. Please let us know if you are interested in multilingual typesetting / DTP or having us create HTML files in the translated language.
Giving us the above information would really be helpful. These are things that many times we have to ask the client about as we want to provide the best quote possible and ultimately the best translation.
Please let us know if we can provide a translation quote for any type of document translation or website translation.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Tue, Sep 16, 2008 @ 03:26 PM
When you think of Canada, what do you think is the most commonly used language? English or French?
Well, before we reveal the answer, let's look at some interesting facts about Canada:
- Canada Population - 31.2 Million
- Total Imports from United States - $25.3 Billion in June 2008
- Approximately 10% of the population is Asian (Chinese, East Indian, Vietnamese, etc.)
- "Official Bilingualism" mandates that the federal government of Canada conduct its business in both official languages of English and French.
So what's the answer? The most common language in Canada is English. But, according to the 2006 census, 22% of the population primarily uses French. Chinese is the third most common mother tongue (native language) accounting for about 3% of the population. Actually, 12% of the people living in Canada has a mother tongue other than English or French.
If you like French, you will love Quebec! In Quebec, 94% of the population knows how to speak French and only 40% knows how to speak English. This makes English to French-Canadian translation important if you are selling goods in Canada. There are over 6 million French-speaking people in Quebec alone. That's a number you sure don't want to miss!
And don't forget that even though English is the most common language, the whole country uses the metric system. Ideally, your English documents should be localized (or should I say "localised") for Canada. That's something which our French-Canadian translators are very familiar with. Whether it's English or French, they can get your documents ready for distribution throughout all of Canada.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Fri, Aug 15, 2008 @ 04:26 PM
Last week, I received a request to translate a document from English into Portuguese for the country of Angola. To be honest, that was the first time I had heard of Angola. There is an Angola, Indiana; but for some reason, I didn't think that's what the client had in mind.
We have done a lot of Brazilian Portuguese translation and even Portuguese translation for Portugal. But, thinking this might require a special localization of the language, I embarked on a little research mission asking my Portuguese translators about any differences and finding out a little bit about the country online.
Here are some tidbits that you might be interested in:
- Angola is a country in South-Central Africa with a population of 16 million.
- Portugal rules over Angola for 400 years and became independent in 1975.
- Portuguese for Angola is practically the same as Portuguese for Portugal. While there are a few minor differences in the spoken Portuguese, the written Portuguese is the same.
Since then, I've heard a lot about Angola thanks to the Summer Olympics. First, I noticed Angola in the opening ceremonies with their 32 athletes participating mainly in basketball and handball. Then, I watched USA beat Angola in basketball 92-69 on Tuesday. And, China later beat Angola on Thursday. In that game, it was actually very close until the third quarter when China started to run away with it.
Then, I heard about Angola this week in the news about how they have an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of oil discovered in oil fields within Angola. I had no idea.
That is one cool thing about working with language translations. Along the way, I learn a lot about other countries and cultures that I didn't know anything about. Now that I know more about Angola, I'll be more aware of what is going on in that part of the world, whether I'm involved with a Portuguese translation job or not.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Wed, Jul 30, 2008 @ 05:31 PM
As the Hispanic population in the United States continues to increase, more companies are asking themselves - "Should we translate our website into Spanish?" Of course, it depends on each business and who your target market is. But, it's starting to be a necessity, especially if you have a larger business.
I ran across two different reports with some interesting facts:
- 51% of online Hispanics in the US prefer to be offered Spanish-language websites.
- 23% of online Hispanics MUST have Spanish online (because of their poor English skills).
- In 2008, there are an estimated 23 million Hispanics online in the US at least one time per month. (About 11.4% of all internet users in the US.)
- 28% of Spanish-preferring Hispanics are more likely to trust companies who have Spanish-language websites.
Here is another quote from the same Forrester Research article: "English-language sites are currently under-serving 7.1 million online Hispanics," said Forrester Research data researcher Tamara Barber. "If companies are serious about reaching this growing audience, they need to offer Spanish-language sites."
OK, so should YOU offer both Spanish and English on your website? Here are a few questions or ideas to consider:
- Do you have a large Hispanic population in your immediate area?
- Is your product or service local, regional or national? (If you are a plumber in a small town where very few Hispanics live, then Spanish will likely not be worth the investment.)
- Is your product or service something Hispanics would likely use?
- Do you have any Spanish-speaking people on staff who can assist in communicating with the potential Spanish clients who might call or E-mail?
- Would the ROI of translating your website into Spanish exceed the cost?
For many companies, it would not make sense to translate into Spanish. They don't have any Spanish-speaking staff. Or, they are too small to realize the potential benefits. But there are a lot of companies who, if done correctly, could become a market leader for their product or service because they made the extra effort to reach out to the Hispanic market by having Spanish on their website.
How do you begin? Well, if it makes sense to translate your website into Spanish, here is what we need to know for a website translation project:
- What is the URL to be translated?
- Are there certain pages or attachments which would NOT be translated? (You can always translate your entire website in sections.)
- What format are the files in - HTML, ASP, PHP, Flash, etc.?
- In addition to translating the text, should we also edit the graphics and finalize the layout and design of the translated website and graphics? Or, should we only do the translation and you will finalize the layout and design?
- Is there a certain timeframe for completing the translation project?
Those are the basic questions we will need to know before we could begin considering your website. If you have any questions about website translation, please feel free to contact me for more information along with a free translation quote.
Sources:
Forrester Report - Half of Online Hispanics Prefer Spanish-Language Websites.
E-Marketer - The US Hispanic Online Populations
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Mon, Jul 28, 2008 @ 04:11 PM
If you are reading this post, then you can obviously read English. But did you know that makes you a minority? Yes, that's true! According to the world language stats found on the Internet World Stats website, only 30.4% of all Internet users use English. That means if your website is only in English, 70% of the world can't read it. They can't buy your products. They can't use your service. They just click over to another site which in their own language.
Here are some other facts and figures... One estimate I saw was that there are over 156 million websites in the world. And, there are 1.4 billion internet users. But yet, only 427 million internet users read English. In a world of 6.7 billion people, that's not many! Can you imagine the growth potential that still exists?!
Here are the top 10 languages used on the internet:
- English - 427 million users
- Chinese - 233 million users
- Spanish - 122 million users
- Japanese - 94 million users
- French - 67 million users
- German - 64 million users
- Arabic - 60 million users
- Portuguese - 58 million users
- Korean - 35 million users
- Italian - 34 million users
Of course, there is more to selling your products around the world than just taking your website and doing a website translation into all of these languages. Before jumping into a website localization project, it's important to realize that if you want a Spanish website for example; you really should have someone on staff who can respond to customer calls or E-mails that you might receive in Spanish. If someone in your office has strong bilingual skills and is customer-oriented, this might be a great opportunity. Then, you can start thinking about translating your website into Spanish, Chinese, French, or whatever language you want to go after.
Here's another fun fact. If you look at the Top 10 languages above, which one do you think has grown the fastest since 2000? It's Arabic. The number of Arabic internet users has increased 2062%. By comparison, the number of English internet users has increased only 201% during the same period of time. This same study estimates 17% of Arabic-speaking people have access to the internet. That's not far behind English-speaking people where 21% have access to the internet. Both are a far cry from the 74% of Japanese-speaking people who are connected.
There are a couple of languages that aren't on the list which surprised me - Russia and Hindi. Both languages are in the Top 10 as far as overall usage but they must have limited access to the internet as their countries continue to develop and modernize.
If you are interested in our website translation services for your own website, please contact me. I can work with you to see if it makes sense to have your website translated into another language for prospective clients here in the United States or around the world.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Tue, Jul 22, 2008 @ 06:33 PM
Many times our clients know they need their documents translated into "Chinese", but they are left scratching their heads when asked if they need "Simplified Chinese" or "Traditional Chinese". Hopefully, this will help... When you are requesting a chinese translation, it depends on the country where the translation will be used.
Here is a listing of countries and which version of Chinese they use:
- Mainland China - Simplified Chinese
- Taiwan - Traditional Chinese
- Hong Kong - Traditional Chinese
- United States - Traditional Chinese (generally)
- Macao - Traditional Chinese
- Malaysia (Chinese population) - Traditional Chinese
- Singapore - Simplified Chinese
You might be wondering "what is the big deal?" Unfortunately, there is a significant difference between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. The Simplified Chinese characters have fewer strokes. It's enough of a difference, that it is difficult for those who learned Traditional Chinese to read the Simplified Chinese and vice-versa. It's a movement which The People's Republic of China started in 1949. Since then, the simplified characters have been modified as the new language continues to evolve.
Primarily, all of this only relates to written Chinese. As for speaking, Chinese people can understand each other without any problems. But some of the word choices are a little different between the two. It's kind of like how people from America and people from England have different ways of expressing themselves, even though both use English.
Let's look at some examples between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese:
|
English Word |
Traditional Chinese |
Simplified Chinese |
|
CD |
光碟 |
光盘 |
|
activate |
啟動 |
激活 |
|
Police |
警察 |
公安 |
|
horse |
馬 |
马 |
|
happy |
高興 |
高兴 |
Because of these differences in the language and the desire to communicate to multiple countries who speak Chinese, the best answer might be to have both versions on your website or available in print.
What if you already have Simplified Chinese and you want Traditional Chinese? It has to be retranslated. And while it's easier than translating from another language, special care must be given to completely change the document from one form to another.
If you have any questions regarding the Chinese languages, please contact us and we would be glad to help you get the correct chinese translation you need.
Posted by Jim Cottrell on Thu, Jul 17, 2008 @ 08:38 PM
Not a real exciting title, I know. But, the title is supposed to be what the article is about, right? This is my first post on our new blog which centers around language translation. Our goal is to share useful information about languages, give tips on getting your business documents and websites translated, and share fun trivial facts about the world languages.
There are literally thousands of languages in the world. Honestly, most of them I've never heard of - Chuvash or Tonga anyone? Any guesses as to what is #1? Here is a list to ponder:
Top 10 World Languages (by Number of Native Speakers)
- Mandarin Chinese
- Hindi
- Spanish
- English
- Arabic
- Portuguese
- Bengali (Bangladesh, India)
- Russian
- Japanese
- German
Were you surprised that English was #4? Of course, there are other major ones as well. You can see a list on our website - http://www.protranslations.com/languages.html.
Just think if everyone could read and understand everything, regardless of language. How cool would that be? All of the music you could listen to, the shows you could watch, the books you could read...even the people you could meet.
With our blog, we want to share what we know about languages so that maybe we can work together to help others understand your unique message through the magic of language translation. Please visit often or subscribe to our RSS feed to see what we share next.