One Hour Translation Blog

The international arena is peppered with cultural and linguistic variety. These differences between geographic regions, locales and people necessitate the creation of robust, dynamic, intuitive and reliable translation memory software. The ability of software manufacturers to create an endearing product is dependent upon the TM programs being able to translate information accurately, rapidly and effectively without losing any of the contextual meaning. Such is the challenge in the development of software for international markets. Within the ambit of accurate and reliable translation software is the issue of pros and cons. Many of the issues pertaining to developing software for International … Continue Reading

As the world became increasingly globalized, many companies started seeking out greener pastures in order to increase their profits and boost their total sales. People started going overseas for higher education, medical treatment and tourism. This gave rise to the need to translate the documents into many languages. Companies started translating their websites in various languages. This is because research indicates that people tend to do more business with the companies and people who speak their own language. This step saw the companies’ profitability increase. This allowed the people from countries where the company was not based to avail of … Continue Reading

A language is way to see and understand the world. It is the vehicle of our ideas, thoughts and perspectives of our world. However since human being is essentially a social animal we perpetually interact with our environment. This interaction with environment is a factor of time and space. When and where we are interacting determines what actually we are meaning. For example ‘March’ is an act as well as month. The meaning depends on when, where and how.

Translation is understood as an act of carrying the meaning of a text from one language to another. … Continue Reading

One of the main reasons why companies are so eager to adopt the Internet globalization paradigm into their marketing strategy is because it will theoretically help bring in a multitude of profit and intensify trade to a global scale. The ability to access a worldwide audience and become a multinational success is nearly every business’s dream, which is why they’re all willing to go through the trouble of looking for professional translation firms or freelance translation services that’ll provide them with either high-quality human translation or comprehensive human translation with a bit of machine … Continue Reading

The professional translation agent’s role in localization has become all the more critical nowadays because globalization has ironically enhanced the feelings of local identity in the international business arena. Let’s just say that the role of the translator has evolved from “a person who knows two languages” to “intercultural communications expert” in a relatively short period of time.

On that note, what should a translation service firm do in order to adapt to this eventuality? Making its translation staff become more proficient with the cultural codes that “sell” a product is one way of … Continue Reading

Since the rise of the Internet, our world has become a lot smaller than before. Every country can now cheaply and instantly connect to each other across the worldwide web. In terms of ecommerce, this eventuality has paved the way for companies seeking to use the widespread influence of the information superhighway to access an international customer base in the most economical and streamlined way possible.

Most companies believe that all they really need is a freelance translation service or a professional translation agency in order to penetrate different international markets. However, there’s a fundamental flaw behind … 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

Google just announced a new feature in its Gmail system: automatic machine translation of e-mails in your inbox. The feature is based on its long developed translation engine.

For us marketers – this could help dealing with one of our acute pains: communication with customers who do not speak /understand English.

How it works?
(1) You ask the customer to write you an e-mail explaining his/her request in his/her native language.
(2) You click “Translate this e-mail” and you’re done.

There are several disadvantages with this method:

1. Machine translation still works poorly. The translated results provided can show us only … Continue Reading

Global marketing and international marketing aren’t the same thing, even though many marketers treat them the same way, as I witness every day.

International marketing means that marketing decisions are made in the individual countries, with staff who is the most knowledgeable about the target markets.

Global marketing views the whole world as one, and creates products that will only require weeks to fit into any regional marketplace.

Many marketing managers who use our services, didn’t make (together with their boards) a clear decision about the type of marketing their companies will do abroad. Translation of a brochure from English to Japanese … Continue Reading

Want to see an angry e-customer ?

Let your customer discover that you don’t ship to his country only on the checkout.

As a frequent Internet shopper who lives in Asia I can testify that this situation is quite common on many e-commerce websites, especially on American websites:

You choose a pair of shoes, compare prices online and decide where is the best deal.

Then you register to the website and even enter your address and credit card info.

It says nowhere “We ship to the US/Canada only”, or “Check if we ship to your country”.

This is a marketing problem, and therefore should be taken … Continue Reading