One Hour Translation Blog

Translation service agencies conducting professional translation by themselves (human translation) or with the help of computer software (machine translation) are currently in demand by a multitude of industries ranging from multinational corporations to diplomatic envoys. Even small businesses and individual enterprises are now getting into the act of hiring translators to promote their wares thanks to the global interconnectivity that the Internet presently provides.

Because of this rise in interconnection, more and more people are clamoring for the services of a professional translation company. However, finding the best translation service can be an … Continue Reading

Because of the dramatic evolution of the professional translation industry, there are currently new terms and words being used to describe translation service specializations that don’t fall under general categories like human translation or machine translation. This article intends to serve as a brief guide of sorts to some of the more common and basic of these recently coined expressions. Here are just some of them:

• General Translation: The simplest of translation types, a general translation allows a translator quite … Continue Reading
  

The usual advertising framework of many a multinational company—especially those originating from France—is mostly focused on marketing and communication strategies. More to the point, it’s not necessarily a given for a large enterprise to hire freelance translation services or professional translation agencies when preparing their international commercials and promotions. Some companies actually insist that localization isn’t necessarily the be-all, end-all answer to global advertising.

The Two Approaches to International Promotions

On that note, there are two approaches that a company can use to advertise in a foreign market: global standardization (promotes universal messages that can be understood by all creeds and cultures), … Continue Reading

Many people underestimate the art of translation, and they usually aren’t the ones involved in the industry in the first place; that is, they’re neither a part of freelance translation services nor professional translation agencies offering both machine and human translation features. More often than not, they have no idea how the translation process really works.

To those critics and companies who take the art and science of translation far too lightly, they need to realize that it’s an intricate practice and viable business that should be given its due respect so that … Continue Reading

Every language poses its respective quirks, idiosyncrasies, and difficulties to translators whenever they’re being translated into another language. On that note, the Chinese language can present itself to be quite a nightmare to any professional translation company or solo translation service. As such, there have been deficiencies and failures in the way human translation firms handle Chinese translation that’s rooted from lack of awareness of the significance of context.

More to the point, in order to be able to translate context, a professional translation service needs to have a firm grasp … Continue Reading

There are a surprising amount of people who discard their childhood dreams of becoming a cowboy, a policeman, a fireman, a pilot, an astronaut, or a doctor in order to get started in a freelance career in human translation service. Granted, not many children want to become a translator or diplomat from the get go—much less a freelance one—but after they reach a certain age, they quickly realize the perks and the benefits of this career that they were too young to even dream about a few decades or so earlier.

Many jobseekers are raring to get … Continue Reading

Whenever people try to express themselves across a language barrier, it usually goes terribly, awfully, and hilariously wrong. Even supposedly professional translations from honest-to-goodness translators get victimized by this phenomenon. Gaffes, blunders, and double entendres tend to happen because—let’s face it—no translation service on the planet is perfect. Work made via human translation may come out like machine translation with a simple slipup or a minute of negligence. These types of instances are so well-known that there isn’t really a need to cite an example.

At any rate, professional translation companies and individual translation services are no … Continue Reading

Company owners and their marketing departments should be aware that whenever they attempt to expand their businesses globally, they’ll have to do so by conveying their product message, promotions, and overall corporate identity to the respective vernacular of their target markets. Furthermore, their audience will probably have a cultural background that’s different from theirs—and it matters a lot.

It’s surprising to see how many people believe that creating a website in a foreign tongue merely entails translating the existing content into another dialect. That’s a common blunder among most enterprises. If your company intends to globalize itself, then read the rest … Continue Reading

Misfired translations happen quite a lot. Whether it roots from negligence in the worldwide translation industry’s part or just a lack of certain elements in human translation that many a professional translation company is unaware of (that is, cultural awareness and the importance of adaptation and localization), they usually end up in websites spoofing poor translation practices or articles such as this.

Indeed, companies and the translation services under their employ should take a good look at some of the mishaps, blunders, and bloopers that their lot has committed over the years due … Continue Reading

As a translator who does professional translations for various client documents and other related translation services like speech interpretation and website localization, you must realize that you are a member of the global community, and as such have a responsibility to help solve the world’s communication problems and think about world affairs related to and outside the scope of your line of work.

This credo isn’t limited to diplomat translators or interpreters used by various foreign dignitaries either; anyone providing translation services in industries both political and commercial must realize that their linguistic … Continue Reading