A major factor overlooked by businesses to increase your business prospects

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As we all know by now when it comes to doing business one of the main aims of it all is to make profits. Whether your business is designed to help the less fortunate or you operate in bullish markets like stock brokers the ultimate goal it to ensure your sales outweigh your overheads and there are many different factors to take into account when designing your business strategy to do just that. Whether you operate in the medical sector or translation services sector we all ultimately share the same or similar goals.

When deciding what you want to achieve with your business there are many different factors to take into account when devising your business model and your sales & marketing strategy. Obvious things come to mind during this process, things like who your target audience will be, what your pricing will be, where you will advertise and how your budget will be allocated.

Something that is overlooked especially when deciding your marketing strategy is how best to reach your audience. Take for example you are a hospitality provider looking to attract more visitors from South America, your first considerations would be to advertise your business on south American platforms but a key factor often overlooked is that although many more people will be aware of your presence is the fact that in that part of the world English is not peoples first language nor is it the number 1 choice for people looking for products or services. Statistics show that people in South America would rather use their local native languages such as Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese hence a need for professional Spanish translation services or Portuguese translation services would be highly advantageous through the use of professional language translators or a translation agency. Doing so allows you to reach and capture a clientele that is more ikely to book through reading in their mother tongue.

Not only does it benefit you to use language translation services but using localisation services will give you that extra edge to generate new business. Localisation services in comparison to translations takes into account things like colour schemes used by the local market. Things like numeric representation and the way images are places and what images are used to convey your message all play a big factor in appealing to the local market.

If you would like to maximise your customer base it is worth consulting a translation and localisation services provider. At Exchange Lingo we do just that. Get in touch with us today for a free consultation to help you tap into new markets.

Image by: Cydcor Flickr

How idioms translate hilariously into English

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Languages are very complex and interesting ways to communicate from one person to another. The way in which some languages are expressed are more creative than others, without these sometimes utterly bizarre differences between languages there would be absolutely no need for things such as translation services.

These services that are provided by a professional translation agency and professional translators help us comprehend and translate one language to another for individual or professional use. You could also obtain basic translations from machine translation software’s such as Google translate although not the greatest tool. One thing that machine translation would definitely be no help for is idioms of different languages.

These certain quirky sayings can easily be misconstrued when translated unless they are carried out by a native of course. For example from an infographic created by Citybase apartments, take the German phrase ‘Leben wie die Made im Speck’ without some type of German translation services or native to help, you will get the literal English translation of ‘to live like a maggot in bacon’! Now to us that makes no sense because through simple translation the phrase has lost its meaning, the true meaning of this German idiom is ‘to live luxuriously.’

Another perfect example of idioms lost in English translation is that of the Italian phrase ‘un cane in chiesa’ which if you were to use translation software the literal English translation would produce a phrase of ‘A dog in a church’ which would mean absolutely nothing, but if you were to use Italian translation services by native translators they would tell you what the idiom actually means ‘An unwanted guest’.

It is not just limited to the German and Italian languages, all languages have phrases and idioms that will have bizarre and hilarious translations including English, imagine what the Romanian translation of ‘Like water off a duck’s back’ will be like. Thanks to Citybase apartments here is a list of 21 idioms translated into English to comedic effect.

Idioms

Lost In Translation: 21 Idioms Which Literally Make No Sense When Translated – An infographic by the team at Citybase Apartments

 

 

How a ‘robot’ is offering legal advice to refugees

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You’re probably thinking oh no not another robot story! Well as many seem to think they will become more prominent within human society in years to come virtually performing tasks which today we as humans cannot comprehend a robot performing, we thought we might enlighten you on this story we came across where a robot is able to assist some of the most vulnerable in today’s society. Not all robots are bad and not all robots are here to steal human jobs as some may argue.

This robot developed by Joshua Browder a 20 year old British student currently studying at Stanford University in the US is not necessarily helping refugees through translation services although Browder intends to expand his chatbot from its current functionality through Facebook messenger into more applications like whatsapp and also other languages. For the not so tech savvy readers a chatbot is a computer programme which conversates via audio and text methods. The aim of such programmes is to allow for a human like conversation to take place between actual humans and technology.

Joshua Browder initially created his chatbot DoNotPay to help people challenge parking and speeding tickets having been frustrated with the amount of parking tickets he received since passing his driving test. With over 160,000 successful appeals he expanded his chatbot to help people in need of emergency housing and has now gone on to enable the chatbot to assist refugees and asylum seekers needing help on their immigration applications and funding. Browder’s app was created with the help of lawyers across the UK, USA and Canada and can now help refugees in each of these countries for example assisting UK asylum seekers with applying for financial support.

With many refugees coming in from regions such as the Middle East it may be a challenge for them to effectively use such software as presently the chatbot works in English and is not yet able to offer an Arabic translation service. In the US with many migrants from South America a need for Spanish translation services is valuable and this is something that the chatbot could add on in order to help a wider audience.

It goes without saying that technology is advancing at a fast pace but with inventions like Joshua Browder’s many people will be able to access the help they need much more easily.

What are your thoughts on this? We would like to hear your opinions.

Image: Screenshot, donotpay.co.uk

How ‘fake’ translation services got this man in deep trouble

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Translation services can come in all forms, it could be professional translations carried out by professional translators and interpreters and they could be specifically catered towards businesses for anything from tourism to retail translation services. Or individuals perhaps looking for quick translations that can be done through software’s which include the likes of Google translate. Translation services also cover a wide range of languages from around the world even lesser known languages up to more broadly spoken languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, French and German translation services.

However whether you are using professional Mandarin translation services for legal documents or are just trying to get an Italian translation for something like “Where are the toilets?” One thing is for sure, they better be spot on! As one Tanzanian tourist guide found out.

A Tanzanian tourist guide who goes by the name of Saimon Sirikwa and works at one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world, the Northern Tanzanian Serengeti National Park was arrested and charged with breaching Tanzania’s cybercrime laws by producing what they are calling a ‘fake translation’ of a tourists words from English into Swahili in a video he uploaded onto his Facebook page. Here is what was said in the video:

Tourist: “Hi. My visit to Tanzania has been beautiful, gorgeous. The people are fabulously wonderful and friendly. Greetings are always jambo (“Hello” in Swahili). Happy to be here. The land is beautiful, beautiful. The animals are wonderful.”

Tour guide (translating into Swahili): “You Tanzanians complain/cry a lot about hunger. Every day you cry about hunger when you have flowers at home. Why don’t you boil the flowers and drink them. It is not good to cry/complain about hunger.”

Tourist: “The variety of animals and people you see is incredible, unlike anywhere else. It is just fabulous.”

Tour guide: “You are asking your president to cook for you. Do you think your president is a cook? Can you get busy, even boil your clothing and eat.”

Tourist: “It will be an experience to savour for all of your life. It is fantastic and beautiful and incredible and just unremarkable.”

Tour guide: “Get busy in every corner of the country. The president can’t leave State House to cook for you. You have to cook for yourselves.”

Despite Mr Sirikwa, who is known to be a comedian where he has been seen to regularly post comedy videos on his Facebook page, posting a second video with the tourist from the original video explaining it was all a joke and his love for his country as well as apologising to anyone offended. 

He was still accused of putting the Tanzanian tourism in a ‘bad light’ according to the police. With the regional police commander telling the BBC there was sufficient evidence to back up these claims that Mr Sirikwa had breached the legislation. The cybercrime law which was introduced in 2015 had been deemed to give the police “too much power” by politicians and activists alike. According to the BBC some correspondents noted that Mr Sirikwa’s joke translation was not unlike the words uttered by Tanzanian President John Magufuli when he told people at a rally to stop complaining about hunger.

So you can make your own mind up about that one. Let us know your thoughts.