We are undoubtedly in times of fiscal ruin. Whole countries are going bust (how does that even happen?) and there is an impending sense of stagflation, or worse, deflation in the air…or even relegation if you are George Dub-ya.

“…Let’s stick to what we know, then, and make cut backs: no investment for a while, let’s just ride it out…” might say a chief decision maker whom, in doing so, will ensure his business only treads water for the foreseeable future.

There’s no need to be so afraid: online sales have allegedly grown this year, as reported over at the Office for National Statistics.

‘…The volume of retail sales increased by 0.9% in October, higher than analysts’ predictions of 0.3%. This represents the biggest monthly rise since November last year.

The highest three-monthly growth was in non-store retailing, which grew by 3.3% from August to October. According to the ONS, this reflects increased sales growth by internet retailers…’

Tapping into that market in the UK is one thing, and is to be commended in the current clime, but shoving open your cyber door to international sales is the really cute move. And, what’s more, it requires only marginally more effort and financial outlay to do so than for solely a UK market.

There are many off-the-shelf ecommerce packages available, but for large and heavily stocked online sites, we at Web-Translations have tended to use Open Source applications, specifically osCommerce and new code on the block, Magento. But which is the best? Well, we have finally mined our way to the core of this blog post, so let’s begin…

I reason the easiest way to do this is with a comparative table, so here it comes:

osCommerce….

osCommerce has been around a while and, as such, there is a very well established community whom are fairly responsive to any unfathomable problems you may have, should you post within their forums.

There are also innumerable ‘contributions’ or ‘modules’ to be found on the OS site. These are invaluable and mean your site can be as tailored to your needs as you wish and, importantly, are easy to add owing to osCommerce’s flexibility.

Need a CMS on your site? It’s there. Need to make and dispatch money off coupons? Sorted. Want the increasingly popular lightbox effect on your images? All doable. The modules come with clear instructions and, on the whole, are regularly updated with bug fixes so if you get one that’s a few months old, chances are it’ll work just fine.

But the real beauty of osCommerce is in its palpable willingness to be translated and localised into any language. The structure of the site, written in php and using definitions, means all the text you see on an (unhacked!) osCommerce site is handily stored in reference files which contain only plain text for translation, thus minimising the risk of file corruption by an inexperienced web page translator.

Magento

This new and trail blazing package scores highest for its look and feel, features, and ‘translatability’. The back-end is well organised and most bases are thoroughly covered (as against osCommerce which is fairly basic until modules are added) including re-writable URLs which are a must for a well optimised online store.

There is a great range of user experience enhancing features such as ‘related products’, ‘add to wishlist’ and ‘compare products’. In turn, these also benfit the store owner as the time a consumer spends on your site is proportional to the amount they spend. These such functions are all well administrated from the back-end, with cross referencing being much easier than in osCommerce owing to the emphasis placed on SKU numbers.

Magento, too, has something called ‘Store View’ which, although difficult to get ones head around, affords online shop keepers the ability to set up multiple stores, with the same products, at different prices, and even in different languages, all from one admin area.

As for translating a Magento store - many language packs are already available, meaning all the hard coded static content and navigation (add to basket, subscribe to newsletter, invoices, checkout, my basket etc) is good to go at the click of a button (thankfully, all the while keeping the admin area in your native language).

So, if all that wasn’t enough to at least prick your ears up to the fiscal punch you could be packing with a multilingual eCommerce site, then consider this…

As a nation, we spend more on foreign soil - or in foreign cyber space at least - than any other country: an eye watering £2.3 billion in fact. France and Germany are but mere spots on the horizon in comparison, with overseas sales totalling a meagre £857 million. That gap is expected to close so what’s stopping you from becoming a gleeful recipient of that increased foreign spend?

Nothing. Exactly.

This is, by no means, a comprehensive analysis of the different packages out there, rather a discussion of the ones we are most familiar with and have used extensively. I will be sure to add to this as our experiences grow.

In the meantime, if you have any specific questions about Magento or osCommerce, leave a comment below and I promise I’ll get back to you!

The survey also showed, however, that UK housewives spend even more of their free time online - a surprising 47%.

A total of 27,522 people aged 18 to 55 years old were interviewed online by TNS Global Interactive in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. 2,500 were surveyed in the UK.  The questions focused on online behaviour and, interestingly, also raised the issue of trust in traditional versus online media.

The average respondent in China spends 44% of their leisure time online, nearly three times the amount of the average Danish respondent.

On average across all countries, under-25s spend 36% of their leisure time online; in China, under-25s claim they spend 50%.

In the UK, a breakdown by occupation shows striking differences in the responses; students spend 39%, more than the unemployed (32%) but still far less than housewives.

As for media and other information sources, in the UK online news sites are second only to friends as the primary source of trusted information; 40% of those surveyed said they considered online news a “highly trusted” medium.

The UK was noticeably much less trusting of print media, with only 23% counting newspapers as highly trusted - roughly the same fraction who considered the Wikipedia site as highly trusted. At the top were Finnish respondents, who were some three times more likely - 69% - to describe their newspapers as such.

An Australian debtor couple have been served with legal documents through the popular social networking site Facebook, in a ground-breaking move.

Mark McCormack, a lawyer in Canberra, persuaded a court to allow him to use the unconventional method after attempts to serve the couple with papers relating to the repossession of their home by other means failed.

The couple’s home is being repossessed after they reportedly missed payments on a loan of over A$100,000 ($67,000; £44,000).

It is believed to be the first time Facebook has been used in this way.

Mr McCormack says he resorted to Facebook to trace the couple after several attempts to contact them at their home address and via email met with no success, and their failure to attend a court appearance on the 3rd October.

He found the woman’s profile page, and used details listed there such as her date of birth to prove to the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court that she was the person in question. Her partner was listed as one of her “friends”.

In granting McCormack the permission to use the social networking site, the judge made a stipulation that the papers be sent via a private email so that other people visiting the page would not be able to read their contents, thus protecting the privacy of the couple in question.

“It’s somewhat novel, however we do see it as a valid method of bringing the matter to the attention of a defendant,” Mr McCormack said.

He said he thought courts would probably use Facebook more often in future, as long as they were sure the message was reasonably likely to be read by those concerned.

Australian courts have previously granted permission for people to be served with legally binding papers via email or even text message, but this is the first time that Facebook has been allowed to be used for this purpose.

The “tingo” in the title is an Easter Island word, which means to borrow objects from a friend’s house one by one until there are none left.

Some of my favourite examples from Adam’s collection are the German ones: “Tantenverführer” - a young man with suspiciously good manners, literally, an aunt seducer; and “Trennungsagentur” - someone hired by a woman to tell her boyfriend he has been dumped. 

One word that may not have a British English equivalent is “Layogenic” - Filipino for someone good-looking from afar but ugly up close, but there is an American slang expression for this that is certainly used in California: “A full-on Monet” (as used by Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher in the film Clueless.)

Here are some other beautifully descriptive, often hilarious examples:

Gwarlingo: Welsh description of the sound of a grandfather clock before it strikes.

Pisan zapra: Malay for the time needed to eat a banana.

Mouton enragé : French for someone calm who loses their temper - literally, “an enraged sheep”.

Kati-kehari: Hindi meaning to have the waist of an elegant lion.

Yupienalle: Swedish for a mobile phone - literally, “yuppie teddy” like a security blanket.

Ikibari: Japanese, a “lively needle” and describing a man who is willing but under-endowed.

Fensterln: German for climbing through a window to avoid someone’s parents so you can have sex without them knowing.

Stroitel: Russian for a man who likes to have sex with two women at the same time.

Okuri-okami: Japanese for a man who feigns thoughtfulness by offering to see a girl home only to try to molest her once he gets in the door - literally, a “see-you-home wolf”

Momma ko ene: Cheyenne for having red eyes from crying over your boyfriend marrying someone else.

Kanjus Makkhichus: Hindi description of someone so tight that if a fly falls into their tea they’ll fish it out and suck it dry before throwing it away.

Tlazlimquiztli: Aztec for the smell of adulterers.

Nosom Para Oblake: Serbian for “he is ripping clouds with his nose”, describing someone conceited.

Traer la lengua de corbata: Latin American Spanish for to be exhausted - literally, to have your tongue hanging out like a man’s tie

Sjostygg: Norwegian for someone so ugly the tide refuses to come in if they stand on the shore.

Lolo: Hawaiian for someone who would gladly give you the time if only they could read a clock.

Lalew: Filipino word meaning to grieve so much you can’t eat.

Nito-onna: Japanese for a woman so dedicated to her career that she has no time to iron blouses and so resorts to dressing only in knitted tops.

Buaya darat: Indonesian for a man who fools women into thinking he’s a very faithful lover when in fact he goes out with many different women at the same time - literally, a land crocodile

Chantepleurer: French for singing at the same time as crying.

Hira hira: Japanese for the fear you get from walking into a decrepit old house in the middle of the night.

Les avoir à zéro: French for “to have one’s testicles down to zero”, or be frightened.

Du kannst mir gern den Buckel runterrutschen und mit der Zunge bremsen: Austrian for “go to hell” – literally “You can slide down my hunchback using your tongue as a brake”.

This book looks set to be a hit this winter - it’ll certainly be a late addition to my Christmas list!

For the second time in twelve months much of the UAE and Egypt’s internet connection was lost on Friday last, according to France Telecom, with many reporting that performance levels have still not been fully restored.

The Middle East, Europe and America are connected by three cables, all of which have been cut, reducing internet capacity to 85 per cent, according to Etisalat, UAE’s telecom operator.

The cables, which run from Egypt to Italy and carry roughly 75 per cent of the region’s traffic, have back-ups running along side them to shoulder the burden in times of emergency and are in use at the moment, ensuring at least some connectivity is maintained.

While no official reports stating the cause of the current cable cuts (earlier in the year it was down to ships dragging their anchors), speculation is rife that it could have been a result of under-water earthquakes or landslides.

Ships have been sent to repair the damage and New Years’ Eve is the day earmarked for completition of the works.

An etisalat spokesperson said:

‘The redundant cables linking the region to Europe and the US has allowed for the internet to remain operational, albeit at low speeds.’

UAE’s two telecom operators have re-routed a lot of traffic to minimise interruptions.

Are you from this region? Is your internet working?

Those of you who watch Top Gear will be familiar with the section of the show which sees an anonymous chap in a white overall drag a range of cars around the test track in as fast a time as possible. Whilst doing so, he often has music (think Baroque) or language learning courses (Greek recently) playing in whatever high horse powered beast happens to be at his mercy that week.

The last few shows, however, have had the - now cult - figure listening to Morse Code. And yes, we have a translation of it…

The dot dash character encoding which transmits telegraphic information using rhythm, or Morse Code in layman’s terms, is being rather cheapened given that it was a great breakthrough in telecommunications in 1840!

Anyway, I’ll delay no further. The following messages have been surreptitiously piped into our living room…

‘Strictly Come Dancing is crap’
‘I Love cheese’
‘I voted for Ross Perot’ (a tribute to a US politician’s failed bid to become President in the 90s)
‘Too Many gears’ (probably in reference to the 8 in that weeks’ car)
‘I like Mr Sulu’ (the Japanese gent in Star Trek)
‘I Like Gary Numan’ (I assume this in because of Numan’s famous track, ‘Cars’)

Reportedly the messages have been transmitted by a human, rather than a machine, owing to the inconsistencies between dots and dashes.

You will find all this either hilarious, or childish, depending on your views of Clarkson most likely, a man who polarises opinion like no other.

I for one find it amusing. You?

Here is an early Christmas gift - just a few pointers for translators who are looking to increase their client base (and in the current economic climate, who isn’t?) by applying to agencies.

1. Your CV: Cast a critical eye over your CV. The same rules generally apply for translators as they do for anyone applying for work: anything over 2 pages is just too long. Two pages is ample to give an overview of your relevant experience, qualificiations and specialist subjects - you can keep a list of translation projects you’ve worked on separately, then it’s ready to provide should someone ask for it. Doesn’t belong in your CV!

2. Please please please send your rates with the CV. Even if you negotiate with clients for most projects - your rates may or may not be be the deciding factor in whether you will be approached for a particular project, but you’ll almost never be added to an agency’s internal database without them.

3. Only mother tongue language as target please. “Near-native” strikes me as a vague and somewhat worrying term, and most agencies worth their salt will not use a translator who works into any language that is not their mother tongue. Interpreting and other types of language work are a different matter, each situation may call for something different.

4. Email it. Most agencies won’t thank you for a printed copy these days, as then someone has to input the information into whatever database they use. Don’t even get me started on faxing.

5. Describe yourself. It doesn’t have to be long, and a traditional covering letter may not be appropriate if you are sending your CV speculatively, but do mention your language combinations either in the subject line, or the body of your message. A short description of the type of work you are most interested or experienced in will stick in the memory of whoever receives your message. Many companies also file emails for future use, so this will be a great help if they can search for the language or specialised subject they need at that time, and your message will be found easily.

6. Offer references. Better still, include a couple in your CV as standard, if you have space.

7. Test pieces. We know no-one likes to work for free, but this can be a very effective way to get particular ongoing or large projects from agencies, and also to pick up other additional work from them along the way. Most project managers feel more secure using a translator they know has been tested, even if not for the specific project they are working on. If you are willing to do a test piece of reasonable length (no more than 200-300 words) for free, you could get a lot more work from that company. Unfortunately there is no guarantee of this, just as there is no guarantee that the agency themselves will get the work.

Keep one thing in mind: Project Managers are busy, so the easier you make the processes of remembering you, contacting you and working with you during a project, the more they will want to use you.

Happy Hunting!

While on the surface, this sounds like bad news, and it is in terms of UK buying     power, as well as the cost of living which, recently reduced petrol prices aside, looks set to continue climbing well into 2009; for exporters it’s actually good news.

 The tide has turned: where once the UK could count on importing goods from overseas cheaply, and it was our own goods and services that were perceived as expensive by other nations, the shoe is, for the time being at least, firmly on the other foot.

The reduced value of the pound makes goods and services UK companies sell abroad appear more competitively priced, so now is a good time to sell to countries that are part of the Eurozone, and see this decline in our currency’s value as an opportunity for business.

Having a foothold in more than one market spreads your risk, so if one economy (i.e. the UK) is not faring well, then you can focus your attention on other markets and hopefully weather the storm.

*At time of going to press, the exchange rate was 1.11 EUR to the £.

Even though it’s been a few years since I first had this emailed to me, it still makes me chuckle! For those of you that have ever travelled to Asia, you will certainly identify with it! It’s a transcript of a supposed telephone exchange between a guest and room service in an Asian hotel. Read it out loud for full effect. Whether true or not, it’ll certainly put a smile on your face!

Tenjewberrymuds for reading…..

Room Service (RS): “Morrin. Roon sirbees.”

Guest (G): “Sorry, I thought I dialled room-service.”

RS: “Rye..Roon sirbees..morrin! Jewish to oddor sunteen??”

G: “Uh..yes..I’d like some bacon and eggs.”

RS: “Ow July den?”

G: “What??”

RS: “Ow July den?…pryed, boyud, poochd?”

G : “Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry, scrambled please.”

RS: “Ow July dee baykem? Crease?”

G: “Crisp will be fine.”

RS : “Hokay. An Sahn toes?”

G: “What?”

RS:”An toes. July Sahn toes?”

G: “I don’t think so.”

RS: “No? Judo wan sahn toes??”

G: “I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what ‘judo wan sahn toes’ means.”

RS: “Toes! toes!…Why jew don juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?”

G: “English muffin!! I’ve got it! You were saying ‘Toast.’ Fine. Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”

RS: “We bodder?”

G: “No…just put the bodder on the side.”

RS: “Wad?”

G: “I mean butter…just put it on the side.”

RS: “Copy?”

G: “Excuse me?”

RS: “Copy…tea…meel?”

G: “Yes. Coffee, please, and that’s all.”

RS: “One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin we bodder on sigh and copy….rye??”

G: “Whatever you say.”

RS: “Tenjewberrymuds.”

G : “You’re very welcome.”

Yesterday, it was 60 years since the Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations’ General Assembly (that makes the year 1948, just in case you’re in the throws of a mid-week lull and can’t do the maths).

Clearly, that was as great a day for humanity as the day a certain snake tricked poor Eve into eating an apple wasn’t. But it was also the beginning of a long story for the translation industry. The Guiness Book of Records claims said document is the most translated text in the world - available at last count in 337 languages. (This sparked debate in the office as the Holy Bible, as commented on recently by me, is available in over 2000 languages: something must exclude it from the running - probably its confabulated nature.) Many of those languages are ones we, as a translation agency, have never even heard of - Huasteco, anyone? (spoken in Mexico) - and include even the synthetic language, Esperanto.

The Declaration arose as a result of experiences from the Second World War, and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. It is composed of 30 articles, most of which have been elaborated upon in subsequent international treaties, regional human rights instruments, national constitutions and laws.

My favourite part of the Declaration has to be:

Article 15

1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

I wish you could chose that nationality. Not through a distaste for my own, but rather a green eyed view that I think it would be cooler to be Brazilian. Especially in light of a recent visit from one of our translators who claims it to be one of the most laid back, sociable and unrestricted countries in the world.

I wonder if you are happy with your nationality?! Do let me know.