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.

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Having shelled out money, time, and other resources on getting a web translation done, it’s important to choose the right person to review it if this step is part of your process. An inexperienced or overzealous reviewer can change the meaning of the text entirely, or introduce errors if they are rushed or their written skills in that language are inadequate.

There’s a delicate balance that must be struck between the translator’s knowledge of their language, and the client reviewer’s knowledge of their company and products. So who is the best choice as a reviewer? (more…)

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This month in Yorkshire’s Insider magazine, Daniel Rajkumar, managing director of Web-Translations answered readers’ questions about web translation and emails, and setting up internationally usable websites.

 

Q: I have set up a new arm of my company in France as a base for drawing in business from across Europe. As I am looking at a lot of different countries do I need translation of the whole of my website or blog into all the possible European languages? Won’t English do?

A: “If you are serious about drawing business in from Europe you will have to have the website or blog professionally translated for the main language of each country you are targeting. People use the web for research and they search in their native language, so if your website is not multilingual, it will simply not be found.

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Trade figures have recently shown an improvement in business exports  – partly due to the weakened value of our currency. According to research, companies which trade internationally are more likely to stay in business longer and are usually more profitable than those which choose to concentrate only on domestic sales.

Exporting is a great way to expand your business – those who trade internationally grow faster and fail less often than companies that don’t, and the current weak curerncy makes our prices much more competitive, so there’s no time like the present.

Which products/services sell well in Europe?

Machinery, engineering products and consultancy, vehicles, aircraft, plastics, crude oil, chemicals, plastic and rubber, metals, foodstuffs, beverages, textiles & clothing are all in demand throughout the Eurozone, and a little effort in approaching a potential client in their own language can go a long way. Even something as small as localising key pages of your website for a foreign market show that you are interested in foreign customers, and are a forward-thinking company.

What about in Asia?

The main exports to China are electrical/mechanical equipment, precision instruments (medical, optical, photo, technical), plastics, iron & steel, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and Automotive , Biotechnology & pharmaceuticals, Construction, Engineering, Financial services & ICT are all industries which have experienced growth there. As for India, there is a similar focus on engineering, sciences and technology, but in fact opportunities exist there for most sectors.

Where else should we look to?

Emerging markets have been identified in Poland, Vietnam, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Singapore, and Argentina. Opportunities exist in various sectors in these countries, notably design, consultancy and engineering – the sectors that are most commonly successful for overseas trade.

Brazil and Russia will also continue to be key areas for companies trading internationally.

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Smythson of Bond Street have enjoyed a profitable Christmas with online sales to Japan reaching record levels. We’re so pleased with the success of the Smythson project, we’ve taken the case study a step further by creating our first video!

Laura elegantly explains the steps we took to launch, promote and maintain the Japanese website for Smythson. We hope you like it, please do let us know your thoughts.
Turn up your speakers, sit back and enjoy. rnrn

< img class = "dimensioni-pieno wp-image-901" title = "Smythson di Bond Street" src = "http://blog.web-translations.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/capture2.jpg" alt = "Web-Translations Smythson aiutare a raggiungere record di vendita" width = "247" height = "184" /> [/ caption] rnrnSmythson di Bond Street hanno goduto di un proficuo Natale con le vendite online in Giappone raggiungendo livelli record. Siamo così soddisfatti del successo del progetto Smythson, abbiamo preso la caso di studio un ulteriore passo avanti, creando il nostro primo video! rnrnLaura elegantemente spiega abbiamo preso le misure per avviare, promuovere e mantenere il sito web per Smythson giapponese. Ci auguriamo che ti piace, si prega di non farci sapere la vostra thoughts.rnTurn i diffusori, e godetevi.

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This post is just to point both new and regular readers in the direction of our updated Industry Glossary.

This glossary gladly serves to save you the hassle and embarrasment of asking your resident techno-geek for an overly convoluted explanation of any industry terms, by providing simple, jargon-free definitions of the terms below…

 

If you would like to add to the exisiting definitions, or have a fantastic industry term that you can’t wait to define, let me know and I’ll add it to our list.

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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…

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