Just a short note to say a big thank you to our readers, and to all the clients and suppliers we’ve worked with this year.

2009 has been a great year for Web-Translations, and we hope to make 2010 even better.

Opening Hours during the Christmas period

We are open as usual until the end of the day on December 23rd, the office will be closed on 25th, 28th and 29th.

On the 24th, 30th & 31st December we will be operating a skeleton staff, so please plan early if you know of anything you will need on those days. Our hardworking translators like to take a break at this time of year too, so it can take longer than usual for work to be done.

Happy Holidays!

Windows 7 includes over 40 new fonts which expand the script and language support the system can offer. Far from simply being a means of displaying text, different fonts can change the way we read text, and even how we feel about what we are reading.

For example:

As well as allowing much more versatility for people using languages already supported by Windows, such as Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Tamil and other Indic languages, the new fonts also expand the flexibility of the system for languages such as Khmer, Vai (a Mande language of Liberia) and Lao, giving users more options for those languages.

(more…)

The latest version of Click4Translation is now online, and we’re inviting you to test it - please sign up at www.click4translation.com and get a quote for any translation project by uploading your documents, or submitting a website URL - it’s as simple as that!

Click4translation makes it quick and easy to get a quote for your translation work, with a simple 5 stage process that takes about 2 minutes to get a price.

• There’s no new software to learn or install
• The website can be accessed anywhere at any time, making it easy to buy translation wherever you are
• Instant and easy – no waiting to receive your quote
• Best of all, using Click4translation is free!

We’re asking you to explore the system, try it out for yourselves and report back on any problems you encounter - all feedback helps us improve click4translation and make into the ideal instant quote system.

Help us to hone our new tool and have your say on features you’d like to see - please address all comments and suggestions to: click4translation@web-translations.co.uk

Twitter is the latest company to use crowdsourcing to localise their website and interface - about time they localised it too, as in the arena of social networking, Twitter has been lagging behind other sites such as Facebook when it comes to reaching a multilingual audience…

So what is crowdsourcing exactly?

(more…)

A recent article in New Scientist reports on the imminent release of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from U.S. national control. ICANN is responsible for maintaining the various technical standards that make the Internet possible on a low level.

Under an Affirmation agreement with the U.S. department of commerce ICANN will not be coordinated by any specific government, allowing representatives from many countries to take part. The likely offshoot is that Internet standards will become more inclusive of Internet users outside America. For instance, the article reports that we might reasonably expect domain names to be available in Chinese and Arabic characters in little more than a year. They also report that current browsers cannot access domain names written in these scripts, which is quite right, but a reasonably small change I cannot see any major browser manufacturer delaying in releasing to their customers.

(more…)

Latest EU regulations demand that all packaging and instruction leaflets for pharmaceutical products and medical devices are translated into the official language of the country they are being exported to.

American companies in this sector who intend to export their products to Europe must comply with these regulations, and indeed should embrace multilingual packaging in order to compete with their European counterparts.

(more…)

International eMarketing12th November, 13.00 - 17.00

The Source, Meadowhall, Sheffield (£35)

Learn about ebusiness strategies to promote your business in non-English markets using the Internet.

(more…)

The Web-Translations blog is part of The Daily Reviewer’s list of top 100 blogs!

The Daily Reviewer selects only the world’s top blogs, sifting through thousands of blogs daily to present the world’s best writers. The blogs that  feature on the Daily Reviewer website are authoritative on their respective niche topics and are widely read. To be included in the Top 100 blogs list is a mark of excellence - for the full list of linguistic blogs, click here.

We are very proud to be recognised in this list - it’s great to know that so many people out there read and value what we’re writing.

Keep reading, and remember: we welcome your comments!

[caption id="attachment_1438" align="alignleft" width="166" caption="Take your share of the global market"][/caption]

According to a recent EU report, 2 of the main obstacles faced by UK businesses who are exporting for the first time are language and cultural barriers, and how best to promote their websites using SEO and online advertising.

The first step in trading internationally is to localise your website. This way, you can gain enquiries and orders from overseas customers with only a small investment - with even just one or two pages translated into foreign languages you can use your website to “test the water” in a number of countries at once, and see which ones gain you the most web traffic.

By monitoring the visitors to your localised webpages, you can choose the countries which warrant extra investment and focus on marketing your product or service there.

(more…)

[caption id="attachment_1410" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Top 10 Internet Languages "][/caption]

The remaining 8 top languages are all below 10%, with Arabic and Russian seeing the greatest growth since 2000. Perhaps predictably, as a percentage of language speakers who use the internet, Japan has the highest penetration wish a massive 75% of Japanese speakers accessing the web. German comes a close second with 68%, but the rest of the world has some way to go to catch up.

(more…)