Translation memory is a type of software that stores a unit or “segment” of a source language together with its translated equivalent in the target language.
This is useful for several reasons. Firstly, it improves the consistency of translated documents, as once a segment of text is stored in the memory, the translator will be prompted to use it wherever it appears in a file. Secondly, where text is repeated in a document, the client does not need to pay for the sentence to be translated twice. Thirdly, it makes the process more efficient, so translations take less time.
Other useful feature common to most types of translation memory software are:
Ability to analyse many different file types to get a wordcount
Protection of code in web files such as HTML so that strings are not damaged in the translation process
Displays all text within a file, so that nothing is missed out of the translation
European Union institutions are currently under-represented by British natives, in part due to low-level language skills. Just 5% of positions in the European Parliament and Commission are filled by Britons, despite the United Kingdom comprising 12% of the total population of the European Union.
English is commonly used as a universal language in international situations and, as we commented in a previous post, the number of students of foreign languages in other European countries is high above the figure in the United Kingdom. What’s amazing to me is that some people still argue that there is no need for native English speakers to learn other languages, when in conducting international relationships with other EU countries, understanding another language, culture and country is paramount. As Michael Shackleton, Head of the London European Parliament Office, commented “The balance of the use of language has been in favour of English, but to understand what people are thinking about you also have to get a sense of them and how they see the world.” (more…)
In a recent poll, 90% of internet users in Europe would visit a site in their own language when given the choice. Meanwhile, 53% would still use a site if it was in English rather than their native language. However, despite this relatively high figure, these users would not necessarily be happy about the lack of information available in their own language, with 44% of respondents stating that they felt they did not necessarily receive all the facts when the website was only available in another language. (more…)
An interesting guide to Europe featured in the Guardian, entitled “Europe by Numbers: the complete interactive guide” shows the variation in statistics throughout countries within Europe. Did you know, for example, that the populations of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom account for over half of the 501 million strong population of the European Union member countries? Or that Austria has the highest number of practising physicians per 100,000 inhabitants, with 459, whilst the UK lags behind with 257.7? (more…)
Daniel Rajkumar of Web-Translations and Altug Inci of The Related Group discuss their partnership, the latest innovations in technology, and the international trade opportunities available in Turkey.
The Related Group is a digital marketing company based in Turkey aimed at businesses who need to apply technology in the most up-to-date and innovative ways.
The company is composed of several brands:
euro.message, the flagship brand, primarily offers a comprehensive email and mobile marketing system; Made by Cats, a digital agency specialising in website projects for blue-chip and corporate clients; Brandmail provides database marketing services; The Related also represents Omniture analytics and optimisation services in Turkey.
Web-Translations has partnered with The Related Group to offer an extended portfolio of services to all our clients.
For more information on multilingual email marketing campaigns and managing international digital marketing, please email sales[at]web-translations.co.uk or call +44 (0) 113 8150460.
International trade has many benefits, some of which are more obvious than others. Detailed below are key benefits highlighted by clients who have made international trade a major part of their on-going business strategy.
Read on as Charles Purdy, Director of Smart Currency Exchange Ltd gives his insight on the main advantages of international trade.
In this video, Daniel Rajkumar presents the case study of the South African Airways website localisation project delivered by Web-Translations.
South African Airways chose to use OpenCms as the content management system for their multilingual flight booking site. This video outlines the project, challenges that were faced and the fantastic results that were achieved.
A few customers have recently asked me if they should host their multilingual sites locally for the market they are targeting, while others with locally hosted sites have asked me about the implications of moving to the cloud.
Reading between the lines, the premise of such questions tends to centre around SEO and so my post is somewhat more marketing-oriented than IT. All comments are welcome.
I recently read an interesting blog article citing “25 things translators should never do”. Whilst a company’s employees may have a contract or be given guidance by fellow employees or their boss, freelance translators trust their opinion, instinct, business acumen, or all of the above, in order to decide how to behave. This raises the question as to whether these ideas vary greatly between translators, whether there are any generally accepted rules, and how clients view different behaviour. (more…)
