Beginning the Journey

It has always been a dream of mine to travel the world and experience as many new cultures as I can. Prior to the pandemic, I was going to study abroad in Japan for five months but sadly, the program was canceled the week before we planned to head to Japan.

This year, I made the spontaneous decision to go to Japan for a week! I am happy to announce that I did in fact journey to Japan and I loved it! In this blog I will share with you my time in Japan and share some of my recommendations!

Is it OK to go to Japan without speaking Japanese?

One of the questions that gets asked a lot when traveling: is Japan a good place to visit if you only speak English?

As someone who works with languages every day and has officially visited Japan , I wanted to touch upon this language barrier that many people seem to worry about. Surprisingly, language was no issue for me while I was in Japan!

Navigating Travel Signs and Public Announcements in Japanese

You don’t need to be worried about not being able to find your way around the country in Japan. The signs around Japan are in multiple languages, generally including Japanese, Korean, and English. Many times, I saw signs in Chinese too!

Let’s use the train, for example, all signs will be in English along with the other languages mentioned above. All the announcements that are made on the train will also be said in multiple languages including English, so you don’t miss your stop.

Conversations with Japanese Natives

The other question I hear a lot: Do Japanese people speak English?

When it comes to talking to people in Japan, you might be surprised to hear that many people in Japan actually know at least a little bit of English.

Of course, it’s always a great idea (and I strongly recommend this) to learn some basic Japanese before going to Japan. I’ve been studying Japanese for many years now but I am not completely fluent in the language so there are many words I do not know.

For example, I did not know the word for “plastic bag” in Japanese so whenever I would go to the コンビニ (Konbini) or convenience store I would get asked “Do you need a bag?” in Japanese but I would look confused. This then prompted the store clerk to ask me in broken English “Do you need a bagu?”

Situations like this happened many times but even when there were moments when we could not understand each other we would find solutions to understand one another!

Language barriers will happen when you travel, but this is an appropriate place to use translation apps like Google Translate. I did this many times.

So now with your Japanese language barriers solved, let’s go to Japan!

Osaka

Once I arrived in Japan, I met up with my friend in Osaka!

Osaka has always been at the top of my list of places to visit so I thought it would be a great idea to stay in Osaka for the majority of the time and travel to Tokyo and Kyoto for a day. I really recommend visiting Osaka while you are in Japan! It’s a beautiful place full of culture and so many iconic food choices.

Osaka is home to Dotonbori, where you can see the iconic Glico sign. This district is full of stores and so many restaurants and food stalls. This district is where I spent most of my time shopping and trying out new foods.

If you’re looking for a food that is popular in Osaka, I recommend trying Takoyaki while you’re visiting Dotonbori. Takoyaki is a food that consists of a batter that is put into a pan then filled with one piece of octopus then covered in batter again.

The food then comes out looking like this, covered in sauce and Japanese mayo and Bonito flakes. (Here’s an example from Find Dining Lovers.)

Fun fact, “tako” (pronounced like “taco”) in Japanese is actually “octopus”. Please be careful when eating this food, the inside is going to be very hot!

Another food that I ate while I was in Osaka specifically is called okonomiyaki. This food is a savory cabbage pancake that can either be prepared in front of you or simply served to you on a hot plate.

Okonomiyaki is one of my favorite Japanese foods and I can’t wait to go back to eat more! One fun thing about Dotonbori is that the streets and stalls are full of giant-looking food structures and signs. You can find a giant crab on top of a stall or a giant melon pan on top of a stall selling that food. It is such a fun place to explore!

Left: Okonomiyaki; Right: Dotonbori food stall

Kyoto

Although I was staying in Osaka for most of my trip, my friend and I did plan a day trip to Kyoto.

Let me tell you – Kyoto was my favorite place I’ve ever visited!

Kyoto if you don’t know, is well known for its matcha. Of course, I was excited to try lots of matcha powder – and they don’t just put it in drinks!

But also, this district is home to a Starbucks that looks like a traditional tea house. My friend and I wanted to visit this place first and then explore, so we first took a train from Osaka to Kyoto to visit a district called Ninenzaka, which is about a thirty-minute walk from the station.

Tea house Starbucks in Ninenzaka –
a must see when visiting Kyoto!

Ninenzaka

Throughout this area, you can find many cafes and shops with unique and local items. Make sure to also visit the many character shops while you are in Kyoto.

In Ninenzaka, I visited the Studio Ghibli store and the Sumikko Gurashi cafe and store. At these stores, I bought so many cute character items like stickers, keychains, and socks.

When it comes to food, we stopped at a cafe called Kumonocha cafe for a quick sweet. This cafe is known for its cloud-shaped mousse sweet, matcha, and other sweet drinks.

Afterwards, we found a shop selling tanghulu, which is a snack food that consists of skewered fruit covered in sugar and dried. I’ve always wanted to try the strawberry tanghulu, so we found a shop selling them. Please try this whenever you have the chance.

Left: Kumonocha macha drink and cloud-like mousse.
Right: Strawberry Tanghulu – the best thing I ever had!

Arashiyama

After our time in Ninenzaka, I wanted to see Arashiyama so we hopped on a train and made our way over. Once getting off the train in Arashiyama, you can walk for a couple of minutes and you will find a park where you can see a beautiful river and where you can get some snacks like Mitarashi Dango.

If you don’t know how amazing this dessert is, mitarashi dango is a rice flour dumpling that is that usually comes skewered but is grilled first and then brushed with a sweet soy sauce glaze. One of my biggest regrets, while I was in Kyoto, is not having bought at least one more of these sweets!

After viewing the park area, we made our way over to find a rikisha. My friend insisted all day that we needed to find a rikisha and we did! A rikisha is a man pulled carriage, this ride/activity takes you around all of Arashiyama to view all of the best spots in the area.

Specifically in this area, we were taken to see the famous bamboo forest. But instead of walking the public path, we were taken through a path that only these carriages are allowed in. The person pulling the carriage acts as a tour guide telling you all of the facts they know about the area.

So many fun photos and videos were taken during this ride! After this ride, we made our way over to see some of the shops in the area. Here you can find multiple character shops and cafes such as the Miffy bakery and the Rilakkuma shop and café.

Of course, I had to buy so many things from these shops. If I could go back to Japan, I would spend so many more days in Kyoto.

 Left: Bamboo Forest; Center: River in Arashiyama, Kyoto; Right: Rilakkuma Store and Café

Tokyo

­­On my last day in Japan, my friend and I hopped on a local train to a station with a bullet train to make our way over to Tokyo. This was my first time ever riding a train that fast! It took us about a little under three hours to make it to Tokyo.

Once in Tokyo, we made it over to our first spot on our list, Harajuku. We had seen that there was a Sanrio (the company who made Hello Kitty) café in this area and wanted this experience.

We made our first stop at the Pompompurin café!! This was one of the cutest places I had ever been to. Immediately after entering the café, you are greeted by the very friendly staff and guided over to a table. We were each given a little card that is an invitation to Pompompurin’s party.

I ordered a rice dish known as omurice shaped as Pompompurin sleeping and an iced coffee with a cute little chocolate character on top. The food was actually very tasty! If you’re a Sanrio or Pompompurin fan, you should put this on your list of places to visit.

While we were waiting outside of the café, we saw a Shiba Inu café right across the street so of course we needed to go right after eating. We made our way over put our names on the list and continued exploring while we waited for our turn to play with the dogs. (If fashion is your thing, then I really recommend shopping in Harajuku. Here I bought a lot of accessories like earrings and hair clips.)

Once it was our turn at the Shiba Inu café we were greeted by so many dogs immediately when walking into the café!

In these types of cafes, a drink (juice or coffee) is included in the price you pay. I picked a mango juice and found a nice spot by some dogs. As we were sitting, one of the dogs came over to my friend and sat on her lap for a while but then walked over to me and sat on my lap!

Left: Pompompurin Café; Right: Pompompurin omurice;

Shibuya

After our thirty minutes was finished with the dogs, we decided to go see the Nintendo Store and Pokémon Center.

Shibuya, Japan is a very busy place with tons of stores and people. If you are a fan of video games and anime, you’ll love this place!

The Nintendo Store was very busy but such a cool place to visit. There were so many life sized statues of some of my favorite video game characters like Isabelle from Animal Crossing.

After doing some shopping, we went to check out the Pokémon Center, and let me tell you how cool this place was! Like the Nintendo Store, there were a lot of life sized statues of characters from Pokémon and a lot of cute goodies from the game.

If you’re a big video game or Pokémon fan, you should definitely visit the Pokémon Center.

Left: Nintendo Store Shibuya; Center: Pokémon Center Shibuya; Right: Spicy miso ramen

After shopping for some stickers and other stationary from other stores like Tokyo Hands (if you love stationery and stickers like me, Japan is the place to find the best stuff) we made our way over for some dinner. For my last dinner in Japan, we picked a small ramen shop to try. I ordered a spicy miso ramen and it was delicious and surprisingly spicy!

Back to the United States

And like that, my trip to Japan had come to an end. The next day, I grabbed some breakfast from a konbini (convenience store) and took a train to the airport. 

Visiting Japan was the best thing I have ever done! If I could recommend one thing in Japan, it’s visiting Kyoto and riding a rikisha. Out of everything that I did while in Japan, the rikisha ride was just absolutely stunning and the most fun I’ve ever had! I cannot recommend this enough.

Please try everything you can while in Japan, if it’s food or an activity, try it! I hope you can visit this beautiful place one day!

Emalyn’s journey to Japan.

—
Emalyn Caballero is a project manager and proud team member at Interpro Translation Solutions.

The post Emalyn’s Journey: A Story of Travel and Cultural Immersion appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

The Lottery That Changed Anastasiya’s Life

Since I was a little girl, I had an interest in exploring other cultures and languages. I wanted to know how other people thought and how they saw the world. The majority of my childhood was spent reading books and exploring my hometown of Ternopil. Walking down the central park amongst the rows of birches and oaks I could never imagine that one day I would walk amongst the skyscrapers of Chicago.

On a normal sunny day, as I was returning home from taking out the trash, I saw a small, folded piece of paper in the building’s lobby under the dilapidated mailboxes. I could have simply walked past it as many people before me, but my curiosity made me pick it up. As I unfolded the pages, I saw that it was some kind of an application, the title read “Would you like a chance to win a Green Card?”

I brought the paper to my mom and showed it to her. She didn’t think we would win this Green Card. I told her to just try anyways, we don’t really have anything to lose. After some deliberation, my mother filled it out, glued two of our passport photos, and sent it by mail the next day.

Time moved on, as usual, our lives went on. We have forgotten all about it.

Then, one year later we received a phone call…

“Congratulations! You’ve won the Green Card!”

We thought it was a joke, a scam perhaps. But, it turned out to be that one in a million chance of truth. We had really won the lottery. My mom and I really got a chance to go to the USA.

The journey to get to the United States was not an easy one. First, the countless interviews, preparing all the documents, traveling to the capital, and trying to get the plane tickets. We hadn’t even arrived in our new country yet.

Time moved on as usual…

I still remember the day we arrived in Chicago. That crisp winter air, the buzzing of the airport, the people zooming past, and the unfamiliar ways in which people spoke and interacted. My mom and I just stood in the middle of the airport with our four bags, slightly stunned. We didn’t know where to go, we didn’t really know anyone, and we didn’t really speak the language.

As time passed, we got accustomed to life in the US and now we are helping the rest of our family to make the journey here. For them, the journey is slightly easier since we already know the ins and out of it.

Even with the difficulties, I feel grateful to be living life in the United States of America!

Anastasiya Shatrov is a project manager and proud team member at Interpro Translations Solutions.

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

I’m not going to wax on about the team, roles, process, ceremonies, and such. Rather, I hope this helps you understand how the Agile process impacts translation and internationalization. I’ll start comparing the historical way translation has been done versus what the opportunities and challenges are if your organization is, has, or plans to embrace Agile translation.

The Traditional “Waterfall” Method vs the “Agile” Method

Traditionally, products emerged through the “waterfall” method. The product is envisioned and designed, specs written, team assembled, stuff built, an intense round of testing, then repairing, and finally documentation and translation. Initial releases are usually monolingual – developed in the principal language of the company – and internationalization, localization, and multi-language character set support were considerations for future releases.

About 20 years ago, Agile was hatched. Agile is based on embracing continuous change – product versions are released rapidly, with small incremental changes. Remember the early versions of Windows? Updates were few and far between, deeply tested, and slowly rolled out – sometimes a year elapsed between minor releases. Now we get Windows updates, silently, weekly – rapid release. Printed documentation has also gone the way of the dodo bird. In part, documentation had to shift from print to accommodate Agile’s rapid release – being impractical to print and ship documentation to users monthly.

Agile vs Waterfall Method

The Waterfall Methodology (traditional) vs. Agile Methodology (continuous).

What translators are experiencing is, instead of getting a final draft of content (user, service, or marketing documentation), they get a latest draft, possibly as often as every three weeks. Translated work is expected in days as opposed to what often would have been weeks, months if you include in-country review of translations.

The good news is, even though Agile doesn’t come close to specifically addressing rapid, iterative translation, there are core tenants of Agile that will help – ceremonies, specifically End of Sprint demonstrations.

What is a Sprint?

The development team sets a cadence for their work, called a “sprint”. It is a window of time to get some work done. Sprints are typically three weeks long, possibly two or four. At the beginning of a sprint, the team themselves choose the work they feel they can complete within the Sprint. At the end of each Sprint, the team formally demonstrates what they’ve accomplished (working features), ideally including a few customers. The Sprint demo is a useful (repeating) moment for the technical writers (and by extension the translators): they can use the demo to get started on their work for what was completed.

Modern Day Translation is Leaning Towards the Agile Method

Does translation effort really need to adjust? In my opinion, yes, you need to embrace this is going to be an ongoing collaborative effort, not a single undertaking. Translators need to connect with the people writing the documentation as it is being done and get invited to the Sprint demos. The goal is to be part of the team. To “see” what is coming and to translate in as quickly as possible without impacting quality.

To review, engineering has (or is) making a transition from a historical, waterfall way to something called Agile. Agile revolves around these small rapid releases, which, as I’ve noted, has had a big impact on translators, technical writers, localization, and even database schemas. – the people at the backend just before release. The shift is not an easy one.

What is a translator or Language Service Provider (LSP) to do? My experiences tell me, kind of in the following order…

• Use Translation Memory (TM) technology to your strategic advantage. Find services that use it, or deploy it yourself. TM, amongst other things, is a tool that a human translator uses during the translation process to conduct the localization. The TM ensures translations are consistent across projects.
• Your people need to be personalities that thrive on interaction. They are going to be involved, over a period, working directly (or nearly) with the development team. A closet recluse who was great at pure translation is going to find this difficult. Get people who are good multi-taskers and can juggle a few projects at a time.
• Scheduling will be odd at first. However, as time goes on, a rhythm will emerge. Your first thought on scheduling needs to be: “How soon can I get started?” rather than “When is the final draft available?”
• Have your translation team interact with your team members, even if only a little bit: they now are part of the team. Facilitate direct communications, not through a lead or handler, or a manager.
• Pricing is important to all, and with Agile, it is all about delivering value through service. Track, measure, and bill:
  • Time the translation partner spends interacting and gathering content and time attending the team demos and the occasional standup. This is likely in 15-minute increments once or twice a week.
  • Then there is the usual calculation for the cost per unique and leveraged words. This is where the Translation Memory comes in big.
• Lastly is status reporting. With Agile, progress is measured in a variety of ways, none of which includes percentage of work done – because the work won’t ever be done. Reporting needs to be open, less formal, and very transparent. The key is to report daily – whenever translation is blocked by something, anything, big or small, internal or external.

Consider your situation. The desired release schedule. Ask questions. How does your translation get done today? Is it done rapidly enough for the release schedule – could it be? How does the initial documentation get tested – which leads to how does the translation get tested? How connected are your translators to the development team – what tools do you use? Are you leveraging Translation Memory? How are versions of content and translation stored?

About the Author

Gordon Varney has been an Agile practitioner for 20+ years, is a certified Senior Scrum Master and Product Owner, has led Agile teams and transitions at seven software shops, and coached a number of other organizations. All of those organizations faced Agile-based translation challenges required for rapid releases.

The post Agile Methodology in Translation Projects: A Guide to Success appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

But what about your workers in Seoul? Or Moscow? Or Lisbon? For international companies, global training consistency can be challenging. Even if your training department speaks every language in your company’s portfolio (which they most likely do not), training can still be tripped up by cultural differences. A sentence or remark that plays in Peoria might be offensive in Oslo. If you’re dealing with 20 or more languages, the task of translation — or even finding a good translation company — can be daunting.

Fortunately, Interpro is well versed in training translation, with a wealth of experience in eLearning as well. And experience is important. Senior Project Manager Adriana Romano points out that translating a Storyline course can mean translating a number of items, including on-screen content, audio overlays, videos, graphics, navigation controls, interactive assessments, attached documents, and even mouse cursor movement captures.

Your translators have to be up to the task, but there are many things you can do to help them along. Here are three hints for great translations to get your global workforce on the same page.

Hint #1: Prepare Your Content

One of the best ways to wind up with great translations is to create content that is easily translatable. Christie Wroten, writing for eLearning Industry, provides several ideas on preparing content. A few important thoughts are:

• Avoid idioms and colloquialisms. Every culture loves their colloquialisms, but few cultures share the same sayings and idioms. A local phrase may end up “lost in translation.” I recall a story of a friend who spent a great deal of time trying to explain the punning phrase, “If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it,” to a Spanish-speaking cab driver who was equal parts amused and bemused by this non-translatable phrase.
• Provide plenty of space for on-screen content. If your text boxes are the perfect size for English content, chances are pretty good they’ll be too small for some other languages. Give your words room to breathe, and you’ll save valuable time and money when it’s time to translate.
• Check your images. Do you have a wonderful photograph with an American flag fluttering in the background? Yeah, you can probably see why that would be a problem. Be sure your images have universal and global appeal.

Hint #2: Localize!

A few years back, a young lady became a YouTube sensation by translating popular American songs into other languages and then translating them back into English. The results were often strange and hilarious. But, of course, you’re not going for “strange and hilarious” with your training, right? The best translations are NOT just word-for-word. Taking local cultures into account is an essential part of global training.

As Business Development Manager, Dean Haman, says, “[. . .] when people are presented with content in their native language, it creates an inclusive and welcoming environment for all. Statistics show that 90% of people prefer learning in their native language. By giving your learners a course that they can understand, you show that you care.”

One of the best ways to be sure your translations have local color is to use local talent — native speakers of the language who have lived (or who currently live) in the cultural environment. They’ll be able to advise you on hitting just the right note with the local crowd. And be sure to test your translations with in-country people before letting your training go out into the world.

Hint #3: Train Your Translators

You would never, ever send someone out to conduct a training session if that person didn’t understand the intent of the training, would you? Yet we often provide “just words” to translators without giving the training the proper context. If your translators can actually experience the training, they’ll do a much better job translating for a worldwide audience.

Be sure your translators understand the content and the purpose of the training. Connect them with SMEs in your company who can instruct them on the finer points of the content. It’s pretty simple: More knowledge = better translations. It takes a little extra time up front, but the benefits are enormous.

Translating virtual training does not have to be difficult. Start with an experienced company that you can trust, and provide them with easily translatable materials along with content knowledge that will allow them to make the best decisions. Your training will move hearts, minds, and bodies, from Kalamazoo to Kathmandu!

The post Virtual Training Translation: 3 Essential Hints for Success appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

If you want to develop your linguistic skills in a stimulating way, there are much more efficient ways to do it. This is very important since motivation plays a key role in language learning. When someone is bored, they will not be making an effort to learn.

The best part of trying new methodologies is that you can improve more than one skill at a time. So, you could, for example, read aloud a text in your target language. In this way, you will improve your reading and pronunciation skills. Though this may seem too simple, you would be amazed by the results it can yield!

If you want to discover more techniques like this one, we have gathered some very easy and effective activities that you can do any time, anywhere to boost your abilities. Explore them below!

The post Language Learning: 4 Common Language Skills to Master appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

Back to the devs. The developer (in an English-speaking (a G8 country at least)) has to get out of the mindset that what she/he sees and lives every day is not universal. Since they think what they experience is “normal” (date format, character sets, language direction, length of words) they hard code formatting and text strings, and allow a certain amount of room for titles and phrases.

Developers (or leaders of developers) frankly only do this once, maybe twice, then they realize that the up-front effort to accommodate either localization or translation is small compared to the effort to retrofit the code. Do it right (supporting localization and translation) the first time. It really is as simple as that. Inexperienced folks will push back, hard, especially due to the cost and extra testing effort.

There is a next step, but that is absolutely the first one: recognize the need and address it from the get-go. The second step is a choice of “how” you will support localization and translation. There are a number of methods/architectures. There is no industry-standard way or best practice guidance. It depends on your development language(s), your target (translated) languages, your database structure and configuration, whether or not switching on the fly is supported, your browser or app, whether you are dependent or not on an OS locale or language, what the expected UI speed is, and so on and so on.

Like most things software based, ultimately you will be heavily influenced by your leader’s past experience, frankly whether relevant or not. Some people like Michelin tires, others Continental, others Pirelli; some summer and winter, some all season. Senior staff, architects, forums, and consultants may or may not agree. The kicker is, once you choose a method, you are stuck with it (for all practical purposes).

So, writing software – any software? First question is, will Product Management *ever* want to support multiple locales and or languages? And I mean *ever*. The default answer must be yes. Then you need to decide how you will support that, at the beginning. Don’t do one or the other; do both at the same time. Otherwise you will be back in the code doing the other one someday. Choose a locale and language other than your own to test with if you are using English as the base; French is often a good second choice for locale and language. Bear in mind, though, it is not the extreme situation – Simplified Chinese, German, and Hebrew will push your database and UI to their limits.

Then all you can really do is start externalizing strings. Do a bit, test, do a bit more. Choose certain modules or isolatable areas of the code/UI that you can do first – rather than believing you have to do everything all at once.

Make sure you document your choices of architecture, tools, string format, and so on. Everyone needs to follow the same method. Changing your architecture or technology is ok, as long as you do it for good reasons, early.

And that gets the code ready. Then testing begins and that is a whole other story.

The post Software Localization vs. Software Translation: What’s the Difference? appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

To help expand your business into foreign markets, we’ve put together a list of five steps you need to know.

1. Research International Markets

There is no doubt about it, you have to do homework before selling in international markets– learn about your new potential customers, what types of products they will buy, and what their buying behavior is like. You can gather some information by checking your current customer database to see if there are already some international buyers in the mix. If you do, gather market research in the areas where they live since you already have success in that region. There are also many tools available to help you with research. Try the following sites to get started:

• Export.gov
• U.S. Small Business Administration

2. Handle Legal Needs

Once you’ve established the foreign locales to sell in, obtain the appropriate documentation to do business in those countries. You may have to obtain a business license for the specific countries or other documentation to be compliant legally. Again, this will require some research. Different countries have different requirements. Export.gov has some good information about legal considerations when selling internationally.

3. Develop a Fulfillment Strategy

Next, come up with an order fulfillment plan. Fulfilling international orders is different than doing so domestically. You may want to consider using suppliers that are located in the countries where you sell to simplify the process. This will cut down on shipping time, which is a big deal for online shoppers. Alibaba is one of the largest online suppliers and they partner with importers and exporters in 200 countries. TradeKey, Kompass and Global Sources are good sources for directories of global suppliers.

Additionally, as part of the fulfillment process, find shipping providers that are local to the areas where you sell. Researching local shipping providers will help determine what is best for both you and your customers.

4. Set Competitive Pricing

Pricing for online stores is always a challenge. You have to be competitive but also make a profit. It’s no different when selling internationally, but it requires knowledge of what pricing is like in the countries where you plan to sell.

The main consideration is knowing how people value their money in the areas you plan to sell products. For example, spending $50 for an online purchase in the U.S. may be normal, but for a buyer in India, $50 may be a bigger portion of the buyer’s income so they may not be able to afford it.

The key to successful international pricing is adjusting your prices in different markets to stay competitive locally. This might mean certain products can be sold in certain areas because it just isn’t profitable.

5. Market Products for Local Audiences

Marketing for international sales also has to be localized. You may be selling in areas where you must reach buyers who don’t speak English. Even though you may have various detailed photos of products in your listings, many non-English speaking consumers will not buy products from sites they cannot read. That means you need to provide foreign customers with websites and marketing that are in their native languages. Companies like Interpro Translation Solutions can help you with multilingual marketing.

Final Thoughts on International eCommerce Expansion

Even though selling online internationally can be challenging, it’s a business decision that is worth making. There are endless opportunities and being successful isn’t as hard as you may think. Following the above steps, doing research, and coming up with solid strategies for marketing and fulfillment, will help your global expansion.

The post Going Global? 5 Easy Steps to Expand Your Online Business Internationally appeared first on Interpro Translation Solutions.

As your company grows, so does the diversity of your users. Therefore, it is important to make sure your LMS and content can be tailored to the right language to reach your learners and other constituents in various parts of the globe. Understanding the language use of your users is essential to creating a successful international program and should be an important step to consider when choosing a learning platform.

With over 120 language packs available, Moodle, the world’s most widely used learning platform, excels at multilingual customization. Multilingual capabilities in Moodle can be used to teach students new languages or support employees around the globe with a variety of different language backgrounds. The multilingual features in Moodle helps organizations with users located in various parts of the world to host and manage trainings based on the user’s native language as well as their location when using the LMS.

In today’s busy tech-centric world, geographical limitations are a thing of the past. By default, Moodle detects a user’s language from their computer browser settings, but allows an individual to customize their language preference within the LMS.

Learners can also use multiple languages at the same time in the LMS with the ability to switch back and forth between languages, as multiple language packs can be installed within a single site. These packs will not slow down your Moodle performance and can easily be uninstalled if they are no longer needed.

In addition, words or phrases used on the site may be easily changed in Moodle (in any language) using the language customization feature. For example, you may want to change the word “Course” to “Unit” if this is the most accurate or more commonly used term in a specific region.

Similar to the importance of localized eLearning content, the multilingual capabilities in your learning platform is essential in ensuring that there are no linguistic limitations to learning online. Moodle is a great choice as the Moodle community continues to add more languages to their existing repertoire of 120+ language packs so that users can easily localize their site to share education with no geographical limitations.

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With this in mind, what forms of online content distribution do you find yourself most engaged with? If you’re like the majority of your peers and associates, you probably rate video at the top of your list. Consider this statistic, courtesy of Content Marketing Institute, “Audiences are about 10 times more likely to engage, embed, share, and comment on video content than blogs or related social posts.” Does this sound like you? Because it sure sounds like me.

In 2015, Advertising Age reported that “people are posting 94% more videos to the social network.” This is a staggering statistic, and a very clear indication that online communication is progressively becoming more and more video based. Why is this? Why do we prefer video to other forms of content distribution such as text and images?

VIDEO IS THE KING OF CONTENT

There are, of course, information processing and retention benefits to video. For instance, when reading text the only signifiers for future recollection are the words themselves, and perhaps a few scattered pictures. However, when watching a video, an audience member can utilize the visual and aural cues present to aid with retention and remembrance. Reading the word “wolf” does not communicate with the efficacy of seeing and hearing the said animal. We could continue to delve into signifiers and mnemonics here, but that isn’t really the point. Video certainly assists with the mechanics of successful information intake and recollection, but these mechanics aren’t why you, and me, and the rest of the connected world so often prefer video to other avenues of content distribution.

So what is the point? The point is that we are an emotional species before we are an intellectual one, and it is video and the forms of storytelling that it inspires, that really tap into our storytelling substrate. We want the story, we want the journey, we want the feels (as the kids say)! This is why we continue to spend exorbitant amounts of money on movie tickets, cable bills, and VOD downloads. We thrive for emotional connection and activation, and nothing is as capable as the video art at doing this. The question now becomes, how do we best utilize video to capitalize on this core truth about human nature?

IT’S ALL IN THE FACE

Faces. Nothing draws, and holds, a human being’s attention quite like a face. Faces are magnetic, faces tell a story, faces communicate subtle and complex layers of emotion that words are simply incapable of. If there is a person within the scene of a video, you will generally be staring at their face. You are programmed to do this, and there is a deep rooted evolutionary significance to this behavior. Just go with it! And a photo of a face doesn’t do it; we want the ever evolving landscape of a human face, sending us it’s subtle, and not so subtle, transmissions of what is going on just beneath the surface. This engages us on a visceral level that simply cannot be achieved behind the wall of a frozen frame, and certainly not across the gulf of words.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Next in line is speech. The written word is one of humanity’s greatest achievements, and has been the overall impetus for cultural evolution. But the written word carries no emotional weight. Our great poets can string words into tapestries that move us, but these tapestries will never move us like a human voice reciting the same words. We are attracted to voices for much the same reason that we are attracted to faces: the majority of our time on this planet, humans were not sitting behind screens like I am now–communication and interaction typically occurred in the flesh. Voices, much like faces, can tell a story. And, perhaps more importantly, voices give us further insight into the nature of the messenger. It is also worth mentioning that translations services, such as those Interpro has provided to our company in the past, allow for this voice to tell a story and break through the language barrier.

Taken together, the human face and voice allow us to be exceptional mind readers. These two components of expression telegraph more subtle signals than we can even imagine, and our wonderfully complex brains ingest and organize these signals are lightning speed to give us an overall impression of the information presented. If the message is sincere, this system is unparalleled in its ability to influence and inspire. On the flipside, if the message is disingenuous, this system will pick up on that, and paint a much more negative picture.

MUSIC MAKES THE MOOD

Another component to video that is often taken for granted is music. Music, much like faces and voices, move us on a very emotional level. Hollywood knows this better than anyone, consistently employing music to direct emotions within a scene. If you doubt the efficacy of this, attempt watching scenes from your favorite films without the music present: Jaws isn’t nearly as scary without the crescendoing tones of its theme. And, who can debate that specific songs and albums mark points in our emotional existence and development much more effectively than other elements?

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER

Alrighty, now that we’ve gone through the emotional core of a video, let’s see how these actually function within the setting of a marketing piece to enhance its potency, by using the example of a video testimonial.

Testimonials on websites, or within the greater breadth of an organization’s marketing strategy, are generally text based affairs, with the possible addition of a headshot. Remember those subtle cues triggering an impression of sincerity? None of those are present here. Now, let’s change the situation. Instead of text and a headshot, let’s actually put the subject of the testimonial on film. Through observing the visual and aural signals that they send, an audience member can truly appreciate the sincerity of their message. We often act based on sincere recommendations from friends and peers. When someone tells us in passing about the amazing new novel that they read, and how it changed their perspective on the universe, we are apt to purchase the same title. If you want to tap into this effectiveness, it pays to accommodate a truly satisfied customer of your business to deliver the message on video. The audience will be capable of deciphering the sincerity in the speaker’s presence, and are much more likely to be motivated by this sincerity.

Want to add to the potency of this cocktail? Apply an inspirational musical track to the video, and now you have a powerful emotional motivator directing the entire experience. Follow this prescription, and you will be firing on all cylinders in the race to convince and convert potential customers, clients, and supporters. Video truly is the great unifier, and the preference for it as a content delivery form is seemingly on its way to being included in an updated list of human universals. Now, if you can make that video relevant to global markets, via video translation into key languages for your market, you’ve written the most potent possible story.

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