Finding my passion

Growing up in a small town tucked away in the hills of Transylvania in Romania, I never dreamt that one day I would call Chicago my home. And yet, at the age of 26, I found myself starting the greatest adventure of my life and moving to the United States.

As a child, all I knew about the United States was what I saw on TV and in the few movies we had access to at the time. But my curiosity for faraway places and cultures was stirred early on by reading. I was a book worm growing up, discovering and imagining new worlds through the books I was devouring day after day. Then, in high school I enrolled in an intensive language program, studying French and English. That truly ignited my lifelong passion for languages and translation, so there was no surprise that I chose to follow the same path in college and beyond.

Moving to a bigger city for college, meeting new people and learning about other places only increased my curiosity and my thirst for travel. So, after my freshman year, when I won a scholarship for a study abroad program, I didn’t hesitate to pack my bags and move to France for a year.

Discovering France

The year I spent in France was an eye-opening experience. I was 20 years old and it was my first time abroad, so everything I saw and discovered seemed fascinating. But then, it is easy to be fascinated by a country like France, with its rich culture and history and diverse natural beauty, not to mention the amazing food. I met wonderful people who made me feel welcome and taught me a lot about their language, traditions and way of life. I travelled everywhere I could, from the northernmost point to the Mediterranean, from Paris to the Atlantic Ocean, and even made it to Belgium and the Netherlands. I marveled at their art and architecture, admired the variety of landscapes, and discovered interesting details about the local culture and history. It was a truly enriching experience that left me eager to explore new sites and broaden my horizons even further.

Winning the lottery

After college, I moved back to my hometown, but I was still dreaming about seeing the world. Then, I heard about the Green Card Lottery and the chance to win a visa for the US, and I thought I should give it a try. So, I filled out the form, mailed it in and promptly forgot all about it, because of course I wasn’t seriously hoping to win anything.

Life moved on, almost a year went by and then one beautiful spring day I came home and found a thick envelope in my mailbox. I opened it and glanced at the first page in utter astonishment: “Congratulations! You’ve won the visa lottery…”

Adapting to the big city

I still remember the day my husband and I landed at O’Hare Airport, feeling a bit lost in the sea of travelers rushing by, and later gazing in awe at the Chicago skyline. It all felt like a dream at the time.

The first few years here were both difficult and exhilarating, with us fighting hard to find our place in the new country and trying to adapt to the life in the big city. All the while, discovering new and exciting things every day.

We fully embraced everything Chicago had to offer: from simply admiring the soaring skyscrapers or contemplating the vastness of Lake Michigan stretching out to the horizon, to exploring the museums and attending concerts or the myriads of festivals, to sampling cuisines from all over the world without having to step foot outside the city. Living in such a diverse place also meant meeting people from all the corners of the world and discovering their customs and traditions, which made us more aware of cultural nuances, and taught us a lot about acceptance and open-mindedness.

Finding a new home

We gradually adapted to the new country and way of life, and the things and ideas that may have seemed different or odd at first ended up feeling normal. We travelled to many other places in the US and marveled at its sheer vastness and breathtaking beauty of all its diverse natural wonders. All in all, it was a tremendous growing and learning experience that made us who we are today.

Over twenty years went by and I built a life here and made great friends along the way that today feel like a second family, and I am proud to call Chicago my home. Although I never forgot where I came from and I go back to Romania to visit my family and friends there as often as possible, I also enjoy my life here and look forward to the new experiences that my adoptive country has to offer.

Mirela is a proud team member and works as a project manager at Interpro Translation Solutions.

The post Mirela’s Journey: A Story of Immigration and Adaptation appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

This article is broken into two parts:

• How to Write for a Multilingual Audience: Translation vs Localization
• Practical Advice When Writing for Cross-Cultural Audiences

How to Write for a Multilingual Audience

Writing for a multilingual audience is the top reason companies and individuals seek out translation services. Savvy users know that (when done accurately) document translation can reach more people, sell more products or services, and provide access to a wider workforce. It’s true that English is spoken around the world, but it’s not enough to reach a global audience.

English is only 20% of global everyday conversation, and even within the United States it’s only 79% of daily communication. Nationwide, more than 300 languages are spoken in homes and communities. One language won’t reach everyone in your audience. Any single language can address no more than 30% of the global population.

Using a professional translation agency is the best way to communicate across languages and cultures. But even with a translation agency’s help, you have to set yourself up for success. If you’d like to reach a global audience (or your multilingual audience right here in the United States), your copy must be easy to translate into other languages.

There are many points that must be considered when writing content for a multilingual audience. First, important to understand that localization is the key during the translation process. Let’s consider the difference between translation services and localization services.

Translation vs. Localization

Translation is the practice of using the same words and the same content, only transcribed into another language. A translation agency would keep any references, anecdotes, and explanations the same—which could cause confusion or even offense to someone in another culture.

Localization adapts and modifies the source document into the local cultures or region you’re aiming to target. Translation is only one of the several elements of the localization process.

A prime example of translation vs. localization is a reference to “calling 911.” In the United States, we all are aware that 911 is the number for emergency services. But other countries have different emergency numbers, and the translated text stating “call 911” may not be accurate. A localization agency would adapt the content of your document to include the appropriate number for the country or region you are aiming to serve.

Once you understand the difference between translation and localization, you can begin applying practical tips to your writing. 

Practical Advice When Writing for Cross-Cultural Audiences

1. Define Your Target Audience

With these cultural differences in mind, it’s crucial that you determine who you are writing for before you begin a project. While that’s a first step for any writing project, it becomes even more important when you plan to translate the final product. Especially if you plan to work with a translation agency, this will help them make your final product even more accurate.

Relating to your audience is much more difficult than simply translating the words literally. For effective cross-cultural communication, you must be able to efficiently convey your desired message and avoid misunderstandings. In short, you must write your source document in a way that will be understood by other cultures.

2. Include Document Translation in Your Planning Phase

As mentioned, your translation agency will put in the difficult work and help you reach a multilingual audience. However, there are considerations you need to make in the beginning stages before you even start writing a document that will need to be translated.

A source document is the original text that will need document translation services. This could be any type of document, including a  PDF or InDesign file.

When planning a document translation, first consider the scope of the project:

• What is the content? Translation and localization services can help with any type of content, from web pages and user interfaces to publishing documents and even to video scripts.
• What is the format? How is the source document going to be structured? Are there any space or even character limitations?
• What is the tone? Is this a formal document or an informal, conversational piece?
• Where is the audience? As mentioned above, it’s critical to consider where your audience will be located and what language they speak.

Tip from a Professional Translation Agency:

If you translate content often, it’s helpful to provide reference materials like an approved glossary of translated terms or a translation style guide to provide to the translation service.

A glossary of terms is helpful, especially for highly technical content.  If one is not developed yet, your organization should partner with a professional translation agency to develop one. The Glossary Development process allows the establishment of an English and corresponding target language translation of the most frequently occurring terms in your content, to then be reviewed and approved by a native speaker designated by your organization. This is done prior to beginning that actual translation of the entire content.

Once the glossary translation has been completed, you will have the option to review, edit, modify or approve the developed glossary using native speaking resources. This review will ensure that any preferential suggestions made by your team will be resolved upfront before the entire translation process begins.  Once any feedback is implemented and the Glossary is finalized and ultimately approved by your organization, your translation partner will use the approved glossary during the localization process.

The next few tips will address what to consider during the writing stage.

3. Consider Names with Alternate Meanings in Other Languages

First, you should try to consider names or other terms that might have different meanings when translated into another language. A famous example is the Suja brand of juices. Unfortunately for the brand, “suja” is literally translated to “dirty” in Portuguese! This product would not be popular in Brazil or well received by anyone who speaks Portuguese.

4. Stay Away from Everyday Expressions

You should also stay away from references to everyday expressions that other cultures may not understand. For example, in the United States it’s common to ask for a “ballpark figure,” which is an idiom meaning a general estimate. Countries where baseball is not popular or even known would have no context for this reference and completely misunderstand.

To avoid confusion, inform your audience on context and relate explanations when reporting something specific. In the case above, if the reference to a ballpark figure is in a direct quote, try to include an explanation that can then be translated so that the audience can understand. Explaining the circumstances of a situation can go a long way to helping include a multicultural audience.

5. Avoid Acronyms

Another possible confusion is the use of acronyms. Because different languages use words in varying orders, acronyms are not universal. Americans might automatically know the reference to the CIA, but in France it could stand for Centre International d’Antibes—a language school that teaches French to foreign visitors. No matter what your acronym is or how famous you think it to be, you always need to provide context and explanations to make it clear.

6. Think of Sensitive Subjects

Finally, consider subjects that may be more sensitive in nature. For example, it is expressly taboo to discuss gender inclusivity and “alternative lifestyles” in Arabic. Most Arabic translation and localization services won’t even work on content that discusses LGBTQ+ topics.

Even if you’re not speaking directly about a topic, it could still impact your translation. Many languages have gendered nouns. Imagine if you were writing a source document on a topic for women but included no context. You could end up with masculine language for situations or products that only apply to women! Always include context for the target audience.

7. Consider Cultural Implications When Using Colors, Images, or Video Translation

Color matters! A professional translation agency will always consider the colors, images and videos in the target language.

What are the implications of the colors you plan to use with your text? In China, green is an unlucky color, so you wouldn’t want to design a user interface around that color. In the United States, orange is a typical color for prisoners’ attire. Therefore, you would want to stay away from any images or photos that show someone in an entirely orange outfit.

Despite the assumption that they are language-free, choosing icons can also be challenging. Even when reduced to their simplest form, pictorial representations may have different cultural meanings. Your translation agency should be able to assist with avoiding any cultural issues—this is another great case for localization.

Another translation agency best practice is to use infographics to convey data with your source document. Using an image to clearly show the relationships between data can go a long way to inform audiences across cultures. Be sure to leave room in your source document so that you can include additional explanations if necessary.

Keep all aspects of multimedia or video translation in mind. If have the video script translated into another language, don’t forget subtitle translation as well. Voiceover translation can also be used to provide a more inclusive, especially for ADA compliance. For example, if you have captions on a video and then you need to translate that video, you’ll want to ensure you’re translating the captions along with the audio.

8. Use Professional Translation Services that Offer Localization

Now that you’ve written your source document and provided plenty of context, you’re ready to have your friend translate it, right? After all, she took Chinese in college. And there’s always using Chat GPT to translate —why bother with a translation agency?

Each option above is a bad idea! Let’s unpack the many reasons why you a need professional translation agency.

First, your friend who took Chinese in college may be a great resource, but they won’t understand all the cultural dangers that can be found. They may be able to literally translate each word, but what about idioms and other localization issues? They didn’t grow up in China – they can’t translate into common terms used in their culture.  Plus, cultures and languages evolve over time. By using a translator that is immersed in the country and culture where your content will be used, they will be providing you the most modern and accurate translation possible.

Second, AI translation tools are a great resource for translating a word on the fly. Tourists use it all the time to order a cup of coffee (they just might not get the right order). But machine translation can’t understand the context and nuances that humans can, and the results can be hilariously awful (just Google “Google Translate Fails”). A mistranslated text could result in legal issues, public relations headaches, human resources complaints or violations, and could affect your bottom line. Plus there are a fair bit of translation formatting struggles you’ll experience.

Ready to start translating?

If you’ve applied these tips to your English source file then, congrats! You’re ready for the next step – starting your translation project. To ensure your hard work pays off and your content is localized correctly, we always recommend choosing professional translation and localization services like Interpro.

No matter what language your audience is using, set yourself up for success. Follow our guide to preparing your source document for translation and localization services and choose a partner that will be with you every step of the way!

The post Writing for a Multilingual Audience: 8 Tips for Success appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

Topics covered in this article:

• The Power in PowerPoint Translation
• 8 Tips to Design with PowerPoint Translation in Mind
• Next Steps: Begin Translating Your PowerPoint

PowerPoint is one of the backbones for information communication deployed by businesses and organizations around the globe. In fact, it is estimated that over 500 million people use PowerPoint worldwide. Since information shared via PowerPoint has a global reach, PowerPoint translation is essential to ensure that information is understood clearly in the language of your audience. Let’s explore the benefits of PowerPoint, along with steps you can take to make the translation process more efficient.

The Power in PowerPoint Translation

PowerPoint lives up to its name. From its initial release in 1990 through today, it remains one of the most powerful and widely used presentation tools available. The main benefit of PowerPoint is that it guides its intended audience in an engaging way.

If you are targeting a global audience, you need to be able to re-create your English Powerpoint to be just as effective in other languages. This includes translating and localizing:

• Powerful and attractive graphics
• Text formatting capabilities to highlight and reinforce key concepts
• Accessibility of presentations across multiple devices
• Personalized video and audio
• Quick and straightforward editing
• Support for multiple learning modalities

Mastering powerpoint translation of these elements can significantly enhance your results, whether you’re aiming to educate a global workforce or communicate effectively with a multilingual audience.

Companies and businesses that want to have the most accurate and engaging PowerPoint translations rely on experienced, turnkey translation companies like Interpro for guidance.

8 Tips to Design with PowerPoint Translation in Mind (it’s all about the details)

Working with translation professionals gives you an edge, and of course, we’re here to help. The best way to kick off an effective translation project begins much earlier than when you send files to be quoted on and translated. When you first sit down to create your PowerPoint deck, follow these steps to ensure that your design elements lend themselves to a successfully translated presentation.

1. Avoid text in graphics

Graphics are one of the most powerful attributes used in designing PowerPoint presentations. Not only do they provide support for visual learners, they also help the audience stay engaged and focused on the topic at hand. When creating your PowerPoint deck, use graphics strategically. Instead of placing text within or over the graphics, use bullets and captions surrounding them. This design tip speeds up the translation process and, as a bonus, keeps your audiences from becoming visually overwhelmed.

2. Allow for text expansion

No one wants to view a PowerPoint presentation that is all text from top to bottom. Adhering to this design principle also pays off when it comes to PowerPoint translation.

Depending on the language, text expansion often occurs during translation. Meaning: the language you want the text translated into (the target language) requires more space than the original language (the source language). This sometimes happens when translating languages having different alphabets or character sets. Or simply the target language just requires more words than the source language to accurately reflect the meaning.

Regardless, it’s advisable to take this into consideration when laying out your initial PowerPoint content. By leaving more space around the text, translators can easily preserve the original design. Slides will not feel crowded, and it’s less likely that additional slides will have to be added.

3. Opt for more slides and space

In addition to being strategic with the amount of text used, PowerPoint designers should also think about the number of slides and the amount of space utilized in their presentations. One effective strategy is to use two slides to cover the same amount of content as you might normally put on a single slide. That way, the presentation layout will be preserved during translation. Additionally, this strategy has benefits from a pedagogical standpoint. Audience members will know exactly what information to focus on, without being unnecessarily inundated with content.

4. Graphics and screen captures

Virtually all PowerPoint presentations contain graphics of some kind or another. If you are using text with your graphics that will require translation, it is important to provide source files, allowing for that text to be easily accessed.

More so, screen captures continue to be an increasingly common feature in presentations. Our skilled translation and desktop publishing teams can easily replace the source language screen shots with the localized equivalents. You just need to let us know this is what you want done, and provide us with the target-language screens.

5. Animation

Another aspect of PowerPoint that boosts audience engagement is animation. Animation helps to make your presentation more dynamic, and the information you are presenting more memorable to your audience. Syncing animation audio and visual with translated content may be a critical piece of the project scope.

If an audio voice-over is included along with translated content, re-syncing these elements may be necessary. By re-syncing, the target language audio will mirror the on-screen animation. Our teams of translation professionals and AV engineers are adept at making this happen seamlessly.

6. Notes

One of PowerPoint’s most useful features is speaker notes: talking points that are visible on the presenter’s monitor but aren’t visible to the audience. They might include reminders about timing, key points to cover, or other information that compliments the overall presentation. This is especially helpful if multiple speakers are presenting the same information.

If your PowerPoint deck includes notes, you need to decide whether or not to have them translated. If the speaker is presenting in a foreign language, having translated notes allows them to stay focused in one language rather than pivoting back and forth from one language to another.

7. Links

Especially in cases where PowerPoint presentations are shared electronically with audiences, giving some thought to linked information is important. Many times, on-screen text or speaker notes contains links to external content. You need to consider whether or not this information should be translated (if it is not already available in the target language of the PowerPoint presentation) or left as-is.

If the links are not translated, viewers and students can be supported in another way. Our team suggests translating the phrase “English Only” into the target language and adding that after each hyperlink. This way, viewers will know that when they click the link, the information will be in another language.

8. Handouts

Presentations traditionally take place in conference rooms, classrooms, and other similar settings. Handouts are the perfect way to extend learning beyond the session itself. If you are including handouts with your PowerPoint presentation, consider having them translated as well. That way, audience members have your information to consult after the event.

Next Steps: Begin Translating Your PowerPoint

PowerPoint enables you to get your ideas across visually and engage your audience successfully. Partnering with a professional translation company to make your PowerPoint content available in multiple languages will allow your organization to exponentially extend its global reach.

1. Decide which PowerPoints will need translated and the target languages. You can find a list of some of the languages Interpro commonly works with here.
2. Review your PowerPoints and review the list “Design with PowerPoint Translation In Mind”. You might be ready for translation, but is your PowerPoint ready too?
3. Select a translation agency experienced in PowerPoint translation and cultural nuances. Interpro offers complimentary localization consultations if you’re ready to start translating but don’t know where to begin.

Incorporating these suggestions during the initial design of your presentation will streamline the entire process, and provide your audience with heightened awareness of the message you are striving to convey.

The post PowerPoint Translation: Tips and Best Practices for Maximum Impact appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.