Website Localization - Part 3 - Localization strategies

Website localization – Key strategies to keep in mind:    

In this last article from the Website translation series, we present to you the key points to be borne in mind while planning to translate/localize your website. Localization is not only translation but also adaptation of the website according to the tastes and preferences of a given population, its culture and language.

1. Define keywords and plan Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It is only after a website is translated that companies decide on multilingual SEO and thus website localization efforts become more complex and delays become a norm. This is a huge planning mistake.

Effective multilingual SEO requires team work with your web developers. Most important pitfalls are as follows:

a.    Keyword research – Even countries sharing the same language use different words to refer to the same thing. Terms like rubber vs eraser or lorry vs truck mean very different things in the US and the UK. Bottom line - Good keywords for the UK, France or Spain may not be successful in the US/Australia, Canada/Africa or some Latin American countries, even if it is the same language that is spoken at two locales.

b.    Different search engines in different regions - Google is the most used crawler in the West, but Yandex is the preferred search engine in Russia and it is becoming popular in other countries like Turkey. Baidu is indisputably the best search engine in China. Also, focusing your strategy only on Google may not give results for Yahoo or Bing. Yahoo is still a respected engine and service in Japan.

c.    Monitor search engine updates – All search engines improve and update their search results algorithms. Though rich content and friendly design are important and will not go out of fashion, some periodic SEO strategy updates are required to maintain your ranking healthy.

2. Make friends with the IT team 

You need to prepare the IT team from the start for the possibility that their code will need to be updated. The following potential problems need to be considered:

a.    how to display the default language in a locale- display of content in a right-to-left layout, e.g. for Arabic, Persian, Urdu: making a mirror image of the existing website, such that the links, titles, text, paragraphs  and images are displayed in a right to left format

c.    space requirements needed to present the content in other languages- Remember that every language has a set of characters that occupy a different amount of space in a layout. If your first language is English and you want to localize a website for Germany, then you might be surprised that some words are quite long, even though both languages use Latin characters. Other languages occupy even less space than English, e.g. Chinese. Do the research to fit the content in the layout.

d.   display of special characters and choice of right encoding for them (such as UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.)- Almost every language in the world comes with its own set of special characters, such as unique letters and accents.

The problem arises if you are not prepared to display special characters. The characters could end up as weird symbols as a result and will undermine the quality, feel and effect of your website. Another culprit of mis-rendered special characters is custom fonts that are minified and embedded on websites. Use minified font to display user-generated content should be avoided; comments, for example, might come out wrong even though all other content on the website looks fine.

e.    display of first and last names in a culturally sensitive way: In Russian, a person's fathers name is used while addressing a person with respect. Hence, understanding cultural mannerisms and unwritten rules are of prime importance while localizing such content. 

3. MARKET-SPECIFIC ISSUES (HOLIDAYS, MEASUREMENTS, CALENDARS, GENERAL language register) 

Market-specific issues can be subtle yet make a lot of difference due to cultural sensitivities of your audience.

a.    Date format - In the US, dates are displayed as MM-DD-YYYY, whereas in most European and Asian countries the day precedes the month (DD-MM-YYYY).Imagine users in European countries who are accustomed to a certain format for picking a delivery date, shopping on an Arab website. If they don’t pay attention to the instructions (which mention that the week starts on Sunday), they might just click on the calendar and expect to see Monday first. Users might feel unhappy and feel misled in such cases (according to their cultural code). Holidays are also part of the calendar and could be confusing if the calendar does not show local holidays and vacations.

b.    Register or tone of your message - Some languages are more formal than others – e.g. an informal tone is almost taken for granted in English (especially in the US), and addressing your audience as Sir and Madam might sound a little weird. German, French and Japanese are quite the opposite. A familiar tone might seem rude to such audiences. Hence the importance of working with native language translators; ask them for advice on choosing the correct language register depending on your product and the relationship you wish to build with your clients/customers.

c.    Measurements –countries use various measurement units for the same measures – e.g. inch in the UK, India, but millimeters in the US, France. Localized versions of a website should show the right measurements corresponding to the countries/regions that you want to target.

4. MAKE IT EASY TO PAY on your e-commerce website!

If customers feel that paying for a product is hard or they don’t trust the payment provider, sales won’t happen! The most popular payment methods are popular only for certain markets.

Residents of some countries do not trust PayPal and will expect you to support locally popular payment methods, such as Wire transfer or Money bookers or Payoneer, Arab countries for example. Brazilians are accustomed to pay in installments and will expect to be offered that option. In the Netherlands, people are used to paying through a secure system, which redirects them to their own bank.

5. TEST YOUR IDEAS ON THE TARGET AUDIENCE before finalization of website

A website is like a living being. It needs to be continually developed to meet the public’s expectations and to deliver on your business goals. Remember to test your website on target users.

Audiences in different countries could be attracted to different things. Ask for feedback with a simple survey. You’d be surprised by the answers you get to just a few open questions. With this feedback, you will be able to adjust your content strategy and localize your website with even greater precision.

We are sure these pointers will be of help while beginning your website localization process .. do get in touch with Language Services Bureau for any support on the same!

TRANSLATION OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

CERTIFIED TRANSLATIONS = AUTHORIZED TRANSLATIONS = OFFICIAL TRANSLATIONS = GOVERNMENT AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION ?? 

So many terms and so much confusion!! :D 

At Language Services Bureau, we handle many requirements of “Certified Translation Services” of official documents on a daily basis. But that does not mean LSB is certified to do such translations!!

As a matter of fact, no agency is “Certified/authorized/approved” by the Indian government to provide certified/official/authorized translations in any Indian or international language.

And what about “Sworn translator”, a concept which exists in some European, South American countries and the US?  

According to Wikipedia, in some countries, it is a requirement that a translator swears on oath to attest that a translated document is the legal equivalent of the source text for translations of evidentiary documents. In some cases, the translation is only accepted as a legal equivalent if it is accompanied by the original or a sworn or certified copy of it.

A sworn translator needs to have different qualifications, requirements to be fulfilled and has to apply to various authorities granting the status of sworn translator, depending on the languages he/she works in and the country in which the documents are to be submitted.

However, such “sworn translations/translators” do not exist in India.

Another recurring requirement from our clients is that of notarized affidavits to be submitted along with the translation. Such affidavits are to be made and signed by the translator to confirm that the translations are done by him/her on a stamp paper. This affidavit is then signed by a notary regardless of the fact that he/she does not even know the source and/or target language(s). It is therefore quite clear that such an exercise is quite futile since the authenticity and correctness of the translation cannot be checked by the notary!

Language Services Bureau is the first Language Service Provider in India to start providing “Certified translations”. “Certified” means, our translations are provided on our letterhead, with our stamp, signature and certification that mentions that it is us/our translator who has done the translation. Sometimes, for translation into a foreign language, we also need to put in a disclaimer.

We provide “Certified” translation of documents like

• Birth Certificates, Death Certificates, Marriage Certificate, Divorce Certificates, 
• Academic degrees, Diplomas, Course Certificates
• Custom documents
• Driver’s licenses, Citizenship Cards, Passports, Ration cards, Visa copies, Residence permits
• CVs, Bank statements, Tax Receipts, TDS certificates, Experience Certificates, Salary Certificates
• Utility bills (Electricity Bill, Landline/Mobile Phone Bill, Credit Card Bill, etc.)
• Land related documents (Registration, 7/12 extracts or RTC extracts)
• Wills, Sale Deeds, Partnership Deeds
• Prescriptions, Medical Reports

Thousands of documents translated by us have been accepted at various schools, government offices, banks, universities, consulates and embassies in India as well as in foreign countries for three and a half decades! Yet this does not guarantee that our translation will be accepted every time and everywhere. This is because every office, consulate, embassy, or university will have its own set of rules for acceptance of translations .. which may even change with time!

It is always safer to ask about the terms and conditions of acceptance of certified translations wherever the document needs to be submitted before ordering a translation. This way, one saves much effort, money and time.  

LSB offers certified translation in three different service offerings:

- Regular delivery

- Next day delivery

- Same day delivery

Quotations are provided after going through the document for translation.  

Translation charges depend on:

- volume

- language pair

- file format

- delivery timeframe. 

Payment options are easy too! 

- Cash 

- Bank transfer 

- Cheque 

Once a draft translation is accepted, it is finalized and can be sent by courier to the address of the one's choice upon payment of courier charges.

So, all in all, LSB can surely help you translate your official documents in any language combination, whether from Assamese to French, from Dutch to English or from Malayalam to Hindi! You just need to verify if our translation will be acceptable wherever the document is to be submitted!

Send a mail on info@languageservicesbureau.com with the document for translation, and we will promptly get back to you. 

Lack of Data security and other issues in (free) online Machine translation

MACHINE TRANSLATION

Translation of text by a computer, without human involvement

               

While interacting with our clients, increasingly these days, the clients mention “We use free online translation regularly for translating emails, letters and documents” – while this is like a quick fix which is free of cost, most people don’t know the cons of using free online MACHINE translation. Yes, it is a machine that handles your text!

What is machine translation?

Normally, text is input to the machine, the machine has a software program that scans the text and translates it using some algorithm. That algorithm could be as simple as a word-by-word dictionary lookup or a bit more complex with some statistical analysis thrown in.
Still, it retains the 'artificial' feel that would not appear in a human translation. Machine translations (MT) are useful for getting a general idea about the meaning of a text written in a foreign language. However, "general idea" isn't always exactly accurate; the program literally translates (word to word) the text which often results into an unprofessional and inaccurate result which is grammatically incorrect, or sometimes a completely incoherent text. 

How/for what is machine translation used?

It is a common practice to use free translation programs available online to read a document in a foreign language, or to translate a document into a foreign language.  It is also sometimes used off-hand for Indian languages. See an example in Hindi in Image 1! This is an actual snapshot taken by our team, of an ad appearing on a website!!!!

Image 1 – Machine translation from English to Hindi for an advertisement

Indian language perspective –

The image 1 in itself is a proof of how free machine translation works in Indian languages, language pairs in which the technology is in a nascent stage of development.

Foreign language perspective -

However, the situation gets worse when MT is used for translating into a language one does not know. In such cases, the translated output cannot be read and therefore cannot be verified by the person. He/she then just blindly uses the output for whatever purpose, blissfully unaware of the problems that could arise.

Multiple issues of using MT in the corporate world

Now consider a scenario where a Project Manager is translating a document related to a Tender from Portuguese – English online on a free translation portal, just to roughly understand it- here the problems are manifold

Even if the PM understands English, how can he be sure that:

i.                  All data has been translated – he does not have the time to verify and check with the original, whether all text, numerals, etc. have been translated and transferred fully.

ii.                That the machine has interpreted the meaning correctly

iii.               That no linguistic nuances have been ignored

iv.              AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, such sensitive information has been passed on to the MT provider, and this data will be stored by the program! This means, though it will not immediately affect your business, this data loses the confidentiality you require! MT providers claim rights to using that information for their own purposes.

Data leakage through MT – a real threat:

a.    Data leakage:

      It is well known how critical information can leak – sending or accessing it over unencrypted connections, through unsecured Wi-Fi networks or storing it on cloud servers. These are risks that most of us are aware of.

What most people are unaware of are what the online machine translation providers do with the data users input.

b.   Rights to your data:

      These sites exercise the right to use your data in ways you may never even have imagined. When you enter text for “Free translation”, you inadvertently provide the MT companies a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

c.    Types of data divulged:

       Millions of people use MT services daily to translate text from emails, text messages, project proposals, legal contracts, merger and acquisition documents, and other sensitive content.

d.   Risk:

      Organizations worldwide are realizing that confidential information, trade secrets, and intellectual property (IP) are thus open to eavesdroppers and interpretation by the free MT providers to the world.  The bottom line: Data leakage via MT is a real and present danger to enterprises.

Solution:

If MT is required to produce professional high quality translation, a trained MT engine is necessary, together with specialist translators and post-editors (proofreaders of text post Machine translation!) who can check, edit and validate the MT output. However this is only possible for large corpora of data. When it comes to a one time translation requirement, especially for your commercial or technical data, it is always better to get it translated through a human being!

Difference between human and machine translation:

   Artificialness in language after translation – problems in syntax (sentence structure) influenced by source language, therefore providing translation that seems unnatural/artificial.

   WORDS

a.     Untranslatability: The vagaries and origins of different languages mean that some things cannot be expressed – a concept known as untranslatability. E.g. Ushta (in Marathi) or Jootha (in Hindi) [Food that has been half-eaten by someone] cannot be translated into English/ any other European language as the concept itself is untranslatable. A human translator in such a case inserts a translator’s note to explain the meaning.

b.      Choice of words: You can get the gist of the draft or documents through automatic translation, but machine translation only does word to word translation without comprehending the information. So the words placed in the translation don’t necessarily mean what is said in the original document. A human translator on the other hand can re-express in his/her own words in the target language. Moreover, since the words in machine translation are statistically selected, it means if a word is used by a large number of people incorrectly, the same word is used in machine translation.

c.       Unknown words, incorrect language: Words that the machine is not trained for or does not know are not translated and are retained in the source language as is, even after translation! Sometimes, even basic things like spelling mistakes, grammar errors are left in a machine translation! A professional human translator can avoid such issues due to his/her long standing experience, knowledge of the language, and getting proofreading done by another translator.

d.      Context: A word can have many different meanings and connotations depending on the context in which it is used – and it is difficult for a machine to comprehend these minute differences yet.

E.g. “order” can be related to:

a. something you place in a restaurant,

b. a government order,

c. a superior’s instruction to you,

d. law and order,

e. order of different things in a system, etc.

Depending on these meanings, the word is translated differently in the target language by a human translator. However, it gets complex for the program to translate it in such cases & it chooses a statistically highly used word. Things get worse when such words are not available in the target language at all. In such cases, a human translator will normally put in more words and make the term comprehensible, whereas a machine translation will just replace the word by any translation it has depending on the statistics of the word being used in a corpus on which it is trained.

  UNDERSTANDING THE MEANING OF A TEXT:

a.     Mental outlook: Systematic and formal rules are followed by machine translation so it cannot concentrate on a context and solve ambiguity and neither makes use of experience or mental outlook like a human translator can.

b.    Literary ‘machine’ translation not possible: As human thoughts are not predictable and mechanical, computerised system cannot translate most literary works or regular general texts, like humans can.

c.    Emotions/nuances/double meanings: Software programs have no “soul,” no rational, emotional faculty that could translate hidden meanings, irony, subtle humour and all those linguistic details that make a language what it is.

Repercussions of using Machine Translation on your business:

Poor product quality -

Think of the consequences of such irresponsible use of MT in business situations! The results can be catastrophic. We have been thinking of writing to the Marketing Department of a Large FMCG group in India, the food labels of which have been translated into painfully incorrect French and have been printed on their packs. This not only annoys the respective buyers (as most Europeans are very particular and proud about their language) but leads them to question the quality of the products also (from India).

Solution:

It is clear that automated translation software is here to stay, and there is no turning back. What should you do?  First of all, know that automated translation software has its place, but only for a certain applications. Since it is free, you can always use it for general purposes, such as chatting with a friend abroad, expanding your vocabulary, etc.

Apart from that, you should use translation services provided by trained professionals to achieve desirable results; otherwise, problems are bound to arise. If, however, you cannot avoid using a software application, make sure to hire a professional translator/editor to give your document a second look. This kind of final-editing and quality check is always recommended, even for a translation done by a human, because it reduces the inevitability of mistranslation and errors, and thus can turn a translated piece into something worthwhile.

At this point of time, at least, that what is written by a human can be properly translated into another language only by another human. Computers with translation software can get very close indeed, but excellence is not about getting close.  It’s about delivering accurate and professional translation results.

A good translation is a basic requirement for any company selling a product or service worldwide. It makes good business sense to have brochures, website, promotional literature and contracts translated in the language of the target country. At times, it seems easier to use free translation software through a search engine or other websites. However, one shouldn’t forget that incorrect translations of documents can be disastrous for both the company and clients.

LANGUAGE SERVICES BUREAU - Your language partner

For the last 37 years, Language Services Bureau has helped the Indian Industry to bridge the communication gap while interacting with their foreign clients, collaborators and counterparts. Right from translating websites, brochures, product labels, patents, legal documents, agreements, contracts, recipe books, to general correspondence, technical manuals, drawings, standards and specifications, LSB has consistently delivered high quality reliable and timely translations.  For more details visit our website www.languageservicesbureau.com or get in touch with us at info@languageservicesbureau.com

Devaki Kunte

Head of Operations