Max Planck Institute Science journal mistakenly uses flyer for Macau brothel to illustrate report on China…

The respected research institute wanted beautiful and elegant Chinese classical texts to adorn its journal, which included a special report on China. Little did they know that the text they had chosen was from a saucy flyer promoting stirppers and other features of a brothel!

To Western eyes, Chinese characters look dramatic and beautiful, and have a powerful visual impact, but be careful that you know what they say before you print or publish whatever you are using them for!

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Further to my inaugural post on this blog, a colleague, Marianna, has decided to flesh out some of the details, and they go like this…

“Preparing a document for translation may be, sometimes, a tricky and potentially overwhelming job, depending on how important the project is, and how vital, say, specific terminology or marketing flair is to this particular translation. We realize that you may need a little guidance from a professional translation company, as our mission is to make translation as hassle free as possible for everyone, leaving you to concentrate on your main business affairs.

Bien sur, this is not an exhaustive list. So, if you want to send us any of your own tips, leave a comment here or email us.

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Now, that may seem like a bizarre post title - I mean, how hard can it be…’make this text Spanish, would you?’ - but there will hopefully be things to learn for everyone in this article, be you a translation purchasing virgin, or a seasoned pro’.  The aim here is to help you to help us which, in turn, will hopefully result in more satisfying project outcomes for you.  Let’s begin…

Firstly, let me outline to you what we at Web-Translations consider to be quality.  We understand that you only want to pay for what is of use to you, and that’s it; nothing else in our world constitutes quality.  

(more…)

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!