In 2015, the internet was used by 3.2 billion people, nearly half of the world’s population, so translating your marketing materials, website, and other content into different languages is a no-brainer to achieve global success. But it’s not something you want to leave in the hands of individual translators or your own employees. Your company is professional, and you should rely on a professional translation company to help your business enter the global market and reap these five benefits.

1. A professional translation company provides localization.

Preparing your business to go global is so much more than simply translating your website copy and content into another language. A professional translation company can provide you with localization, which looks at your design and content from the inside out. Multimedia components, graphics, banners – everything is culturally adapted to your target audience to make your company’s content regionally and culturally appropriate. Think of it this way – a freelance translator can overcome the language barriers, but a professional translation company can seamlessly bridge your business to the target culture.

2. It doubles as a marketing tool.

Localizing and translating your company’s content for global consumption is already a necessity, but having a professional translation company take care of your needs doubles as a marketing tool. Not only does a professional translation company have the knowledge and expertise in targeting your intended market, but they know the culture, they know the technology, and they have worked with similar businesses. You don’t have to worry that your newly translated content is going to fall short in another country; with a professional translation company, it will look like it was always meant to be globalized.

3. A professional translation company can globalize your brand with confidence.

Translating your content into Arabic or simplified Chinese will give your business a professional, global appearance, but a professional translation company does more than that. It gives your brand confidence, which can boost your revenue immensely. Your global consumers will feel safe and comfortable with your business as your products and services have been localized for their culture. When consumers are happy and feel wanted by a company, they are more willing to work with you and use your services. A survey conducted by Common Sense Advisory found that businesses that translated information to communicate and keep up with their consumer growth were 2.67 times more likely to experience revenue increases. A multilingual website is one way to achieve this.

4. They are cost-efficient and consistent.

Consistency is key when translating and localizing your products and services. With a professional translation company, the translators are native speakers of each target language and, since they are located in-country, maintain awareness of any changes in the culture and language, in addition to keeping the same tone and voice throughout all of your translated content. A professional translation company will also work with translation memory (TM) tools, featuring linguistic databases that leverage words and keep your translation costs down, give you a shorter turn-around time, and maintain consistency. You also have a lower margin for errors when you partner with a professional translation company and benefit from the technology they utilize.

5. They cover all aspects of your company.

Translating and localizing your products and services goes beyond website copy. Using a professional translation company means everything from your business’s mobile apps to online help is covered. You don’t have to go back and forth between different freelancers to make your entire platform ready for a new language, and if you’re looking to translate and localize for more than one language, you don’t have to start the search for linguistic resources all over again.

The quality you’ll receive when you work with a professional translation company is unsurpassed. Don’t think of it as outsourcing work, but as if you’re joining a team that only wants to provide you with the localization and translation expertise you need to break into the global market with confidence and success.

The post Why Partner with a Pro? 5 Benefits of Working with a Professional Translation Company appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

So, what is translation memory?

Translation memory is a linguistic database, commonly known as TM, a translator uses to help leverage words and during the translation process. Leveraging words helps to keep translation costs down, produce quicker turnaround times for projects, and maintain consistency from start to finish.

Versus working within a native application format, files are prepared in a format where the text is easily readable and a translator is translating line by line within the translation memory tool– as seen below.

Whether  you are researching companies for first-time translations or have already built a translation memory, there are three major benefits to translation memory that you need to know.

1. Economical costs over time

Think about how your company writes about its brand. You may catch consistent terminology within your marketing content or repeated sentences and phrases on your web pages. Translation memory recognizes anything that has been previously translated which decrease costs on future translations.

Translation memory determines what percent of a match each segment is so you can leverage previous translations for future localization projects. To determine the leverage, TM is broken down into categories: context matches, 100% matches, fuzzy matches, and repetitions. The closer the match, the less the cost per word. Interpro Translation Solutions uses an industry standard Translation Memory segmentation breakdown to analyze against the translation memory.

2. Quick turnaround time

The more you build in your Translation Memory, the less a translator has to translate which will generate quicker turnaround times for your projects.

For example, if you are a manufacturing company translating an updated version of your 40-page user manual into French, there will be segments within your previously translated user manual that are recyclable. If you are localizing an eCommerce site, you may find words that can be recycled for each update. As new products are being updated to your eCommerce site, usually the color and size of the item will remain consistent.

3. High-quality translations: never miss a segment

Translation memory is not just a benefit to you, but also to the translators using it. Translators see the files line by line and translate accordingly. When translators receive big projects, translation memory helps ensure that every piece of the copy will be translated which helps to produce high-quality translations.

Partnering with a translation services provider utilizing translation memory technology will keep the quality you require at its best by maintaining consistency, saving time, and reducing costs.

The post The Benefits of Translation Memory: Why You Need to Build One Now appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

At many Chinese restaurants, there are choices between different regional cuisines such as Sichuan and Cantonese. Knowing, for example, that Sichuan food tends to be spicier and that Cantonese food tends to be milder can help you pick out the best entrée suited to your tastes. Just like Chinese regional cuisine, there are different varieties in the way Chinese is spoken – and written.

Having studied Mandarin in college, lived and traveled extensively in Asia, and worked in the translation and localization industry for nearly six years, I have learned a great deal about Chinese speaking markets. In short, when it comes to localization services, there are three key things to know when you want to “order” the right kind of Chinese localization to suit your target audience.

1. Which Chinese localization is best suited for my business?

As many companies are looking to Mainland China (and Singapore) for sources of new business, Simplified Chinese is what most customers request for translation. Simplified Chinese is the character set used in these two countries. If you are targeting Taiwan or Hong Kong, you would use Traditional Chinese.

2. What is the main difference between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese?

Compared with the Traditional Chinese character set, Simplified Chinese characters have a fewer number of “strokes” per character. Strokes are just that – the number of pen strokes needed to write a Chinese character.  Simplified Chinese could almost be compared to “shorthand” and was developed to increase literacy in China as it is quicker to write and easier to memorize.

The chart below shows a few examples of differences between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

3. Should I choose Mandarin or Cantonese for voice-over projects?

For voice-over projects – when it comes to speaking Chinese, Mandarin is spoken in Mainland China, Singapore, and Taiwan. With so many dialects of Chinese, Mandarin is the “unifier” and is mainly used when people from different regions of China speak to each other, the same way that Indians from different regions of India use English to communicate. Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China’s Guangdong (Canton) province and is the main Chinese dialect spoken in most overseas Chinatowns.

For example, people in Taiwan can read a Hong Kong newspaper and vice versa. However, there are some characters used in each others’ scripts that are different, in which case a Cantonese native speaker (translator) or a Mandarin native speaker (translator) would be necessary to translate content targeted to Hong Kong and Taiwan audiences, respectively.

With over one billion native Chinese speakers worldwide, Chinese localization will give you the competitive edge needed to target some of the world’s fastest growing economies.

For more help in deciding which Chinese is best suited for you, contact Interpro and a consultant will provide you with the information you need to take the next steps to assist you in your Chinese translation project.

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