EJP Translations – Today’s Blog 19.01.2012 – Questions Galore…

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Liz Pascaud

Why is the sky blue?

How do aeroplanes stay up?

Why is water wet?

These are just some of the questions that children ask their parents, usually to be met with a response of “well…just because that’s the way it is!”

According to the BBC News, today, 16% told their children to ask their partner and a fifth made up a response or pretended that no one knew the answer. About a third of parents said they actively researched answers to their children’s enquiries. You can read more on this here.

I remember when my children asked me such questions and in all honestly I tried the bluffing response and usually got myself into a big deep hole that I desperately wanted to get out of! I also admit to referring the children to their father on many an occasion.

Now, of course, the questions are different. My kids are pre-teens and are still just as inquisitive but about entirely different subjects. As you can imagine, the questions are easy to answer but the embarrassment at having to do so is just the same!

If I am not answering rather ‘delicate’ questions before school, and indeed, after school I am answering questions about poems, school book stories, the context of certain words, why people react the way they do, behave in certain ways, why a teacher told him/her off and why are some things simply not fair?

These are questions we all hear and all have to deal with every day – life is filled with questions….lots of little and big questions, mundane questions and very important questions. It’s no different at work here, in a busy translation agency. The day is filled, always with questions…

“How much does translation cost?”

“Why do I need a proof-reader?”

“Why can’t we just use Google Translate?”

“Why can’t I be a translator for you; I speak French?”

“What qualifications do your translators have?”

“What specialist areas do you translate into?”

“How do I localise my website?”

“What, exactly, is transcreation?”

“Why are you charging me more for a legal translation?”

“How can you be sure that the translation is a high quality one?”

and so on and so on…

We answer, when we think about it, hundreds of questions per day. Now, whilst I may not really know why the sky is actually blue or why water is wet I do know the answers to all of the above questions. All of the answers can be found in one or two ways – you can get in touch directly or you can visit our website.

Today and tomorrow we are updating our website to ensure that all of the questions you may have are easily answered. Clear, simple communication.

We will be the first translation agency, to our knowledge, to clearly be publishing our prices online – everything you need to know all in one place.

Of course, there will be more questions for complex projects involving multiple layers or for transcreation projects requiring careful consideration of the clients’ message but that is what we are here for…..feel free to ask away because answering your questions will always be a pleasure and will always be free of charge. And…for this lady, these questions are so much easier to answer than the one’s waiting for me when I get home at night!

Visit our website

Client Testimonials

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Liz Pascaud

Here are some kind words that some of our customers have to say about us:

“Having worked with EJP on a large website localization project I found the team to be on the ball all of the time! Service with a smile is standard and nothing is too much trouble. Technical advice was gladly received and all elements of our translation project ran smoothly, to budget and on time. It was not the easiest of assignments and I would have no hesitation is recommending EJP Translations to anyone.” Bradley Thompson, SBH Events.

“DePuy France has been working with EJP Translations since early 2007 and their work is always in a good and methodical fashion. They’ve enjoyed working on the various projects and in our domain (orthopaedics and medical) they are always very methodical and professional. We always work with them because it is well done every time and they respect the time (even the shortest time). It is a pleasure to work with them and we will do for a long time.” AC Cayssiols, DePuy France

“Excellente traductrice, travail bien réalisé, très bonne suggestion d’idées !” Bruno Lienard, Bruno Raconte Moi Tes Ciseaux.

“I’m not an intensive user of UK-based translators, but when I need one I go to LEJP Translations. The last one was 5,000 words of legal English, to be translated at very short notice and over a weekend. It was technically excellent, and delivered on time — despite the fact that the nationality in question hates working over weekends!” Tom Burnham, CTB Associates.

“You can rely 100% on Liz and her team to deliver outstanding quality and always on time.” Pierre-Alban Guy, PAG Hotels

“I approached EJP Translations with what in translation terms was a nightmare in three respects: size (around 40,000 words), extreme urgency and on a highly specialist subject (local government law in different regions of the world), where the slightest inconsistency in terminology could cause serious misunderstanding.I assumed that EJP would have to compromise on either the size of the job, the deadline or the precision of the translation.To my amazement they took on the whole job, completed it within the very strict deadline and, most surprisingly of all, produced a translation that was technically faultless but also read well. I was also impressed by the dedication of EJP’s management who would not release any text to me until it has been thoroughly checked. I can recommend EJP without reservation to anyone who needs a high quality specialised translation delivered on time.” Dr Adrian Campbell, University of Birmingham

“I found EJP Translations very reliable and very thorough in the quality assessment step of translations. They are pleasant to work with and deliver high quality work.” Malvina Bernard, Avery Berkel.

“Liz is great fun to work with, an enthusiastic professional with a genuine thirst for knowledge. She has laser sharp focus, creativity and is an accomplished marketer. I would have no hesitation in recommending Liz now and in the future.” Donald Munro, Dalmore Solutions.

“I first met Liz at the UK ATC conference in 2010 and I could immediately tell that she is a dedicated and vital businessperson. She has passion and determination to succeed and this means Liz is extremely hard working and dedicated to meeting and exceeding her customers’ expectations. Liz understands the translation world and wants to provide a service better than the rest. Take this as a recommendation!” Elliot Nedas, XTM International.

“I found EJP Translations to provide a very prompt and effective translation service. We had a number of documents to translate, some very urgent, and you dealt with our order very efficiently and in precisely the timescales explained at the outset. The quality of both the translation and the formatting of the document were very impressive given the turnaround time. I would not hesitate to recommend you and look forward to dealing with you again in the future.” Alistair Lockhart, Leggett Immobilier, France

Thank you everyone for these reassuring comments – more, I am assured, are to follow!

EJP Translations – Today’s Blog 18.01.2012

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Liz Pascaud

We’re updating the website so it has fallen to me to write the new content. Now, writing is not as easy as it used to be. First there are the keywords to think of and how you can weave them into your site without anyone really noticing. Then there is the readability of the content – does it flow well, is it meaningful and are you writing what your readers want to hear? It’s pretty important not to write a load of drivel based on achieving your keyword density targets!

We are adding a couple of new pages to the website:

1. Firstly, a page for translators – showing the friendly faces of the translators we work with, some nice comments from them as well as a link for translators to be able to directly send us their CV should they wish to be evaluated by us for future work. We decided we wanted to show the faces behind the brand, personalise a little the translation services we offer.

2. We are going to be big and upfront about our prices. No other UK translation agency is. After each service, after each language, there will be a price button which will indicate what our clients can expect to pay. Whenever I surf online I ALWAYS want to know the price of the product or service I am interested in – and when it is not readily available I move on….. So, we are hoping that by displaying our prices in a clear manner clients will quickly and easily find the information they are looking for. Afterall, 72% of translation buyers are price sensitive. We will also be adding a PayPal button.

3. We are giving each of our services it’s own page – so we can explain in more depth what is involved. As well as this we are adding some new and exciting services:

Students: translation of theses and dissertations
For the general public: translation and notorisation of birth certificates/marriage certificates and other legally required documents
For ad agencies and marketing specialists: transcreation. Transcreating your marketing materials is the only way to render them perfectly adaptable to your target market (see our earlier blog entry on transcreation and what it means)

So, I am off to start writing and hope that the end result will be something that satisfies Google, our customers and our translators. We are looking forward to sharing this new website with you and hope you will appreciate the changes.

Transcreation

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Liz Pascaud

So, what exactly is transcreation?

Transcreation is all about recreating a source text so that it is perfectly adaptable and suitable for the intended market. It needs to ‘speak’ to its readers….it needs to evoke the same powerful message as the original – something which is not always an easy task. It is not the task of a technical translator but rather something that falls to the transcreator.

Think of it as creative translation. A literal translation of creative texts is out of the question and transcreators must look at style, emotion, the message that the text is trying to convey, the intended audience and cultural nuances. Often, when we translate documents, they are localised anyway – number formats, dates, monetary values, expressions are all changed to reflect those used by the target audience – but transcreation goes much further than this. Transcreation is a linguistic art; transcreation results in beautiful translations that really speak to their intended audience.

Texts describing the floral scents, emotions and feelings evoked by a new Chanel perfume would require the skills of a transcreator….technical manuals would not. It is evident, therefore, that transcreation is a service used by advertising houses and marketing teams the world over.

Transcreators often become an integral part of launching new campaigns abroad. Their advice with regards to cultural and social implications of an advertising campaign is much sought after and helps to avoid some of the terrible translation blunders with which we are all too familiar (remember KFC’s ‘lick your fingers off’ campaign in China? – a terrible version of ‘finger lickin’ good’).

In a nutshell, a transcreation service must render target documents/brochures/tag-lines/flyers as culturally ‘on point’ as the source documents. They must be emotive and generate the same feelings to the target readers…..these can be feelings of shock, desire, serenity…the very same feelings as the original.

In 2011, Nike, transcreated their advertising campaigns for the Chinese market. It was quickly understood that ‘just do it’ would have no significance in China and the result was a campaign based around the slogan ‘use sports’. This was much more meaningful to the Chinese and went on to become an extremely successful campaign.

We are excited here, at EJP Translations, about moving into the specialist field of transcreation. We have the experts ready and we look forward to working with you on these exciting projects.

App Translation / Localization

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Liz Pascaud

Gadget sales are expected to surpass $1 Trillion in 2012, with 46% of those sales coming from developing countries such as China, countries in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. The technology we use to interact with each other is developing at a rate of knots and Apple are already rolling out the iphone4S into China on 13 January 2012 – their fastest role out yet.

With a growth of 5% on 2011 sales figures, this sets to be another great year not only for the tablet and phone manufacturers but also for those creating and distributing Apps covering a multitude of sectors. I do not know anyone (well, apart from my 83 year old Grandmother!) in my entourage who does not make use of Apps. We use them to help us get to places, to check out reviews, news , do our banking, play games and find out what time the kids rugby match starts…. We are starting to use them for every area of our lives.

Reaching out to those developing markets is becoming crucial to marketers. All content must be translated or rather localized into those countries’ native languages to ensure maximum market penetration. It’s a common misconception that the world speaks English and that the need to localize is not really necessary. However, it is a fact that localization provides a ROI of $1-25. Not a bad statistic to be guided by.

All large and small players should be considering localization in a world that is becoming ever smaller but where the language barrier remains in place. We regularly translate APPs for clients here at EJP Translations – and are anticipating a huge demand in this service over the forthcoming months.

Language Show London – A Translator’s Analysis

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Liz Pascaud

Language Show Live 2011 is the UK’s biggest event for everyone with an interest in languages. This year it took place on 21-23 October in London Olympia.

I make a point of visiting the event every year. It is billed as “the best place for language learners, teachers, professional linguists and anyone with a passion for languages.” The problem is, I am all four of the above and so ideally I would have loved to visit each and every stand, seminar and lecture on all three days of the Language Show! Sadly, it is impossible: there are more than 160 leading exhibitors, 80 free language courses and 60 seminars…

Over the years my focus has been changing depending on what I was doing work-wise at the time. Translation has always been a factor; my interest also shifted from travel and language publishing to EFL teaching stands and lectures. This year, however, I concentrated fully on the resources and information available for freelance translators.

The result was quite predictable: of course, ITI and IoL were there, as well as European Union agencies, thebigword, and Language Empire. What I found quite informative though was the seminar The Death of the Translator? It was held by Edward Vick, the Managing Director of translation company EVS Translations. Mr Vick provided some very interesting statistics:

- every day 75% of all translation in the world is machine-made and is not paid for;

- 92% of all translated content in the world is either from or into English;

- the only language combinations where translators’ prices went up in recent years are French into English and German into English;

- 80% of non-machine translated content is handled by the 15-20 biggest translation companies on the market;

- And finally, the highest number of translation companies is located in the USA and the UK.

This does not make for a very happy read, especially for translators with unusual language combinations or for those living outside the US and Europe. Despite the ominous title, however, the seminar turned out to be a confirmation of what we, translators, know very well: our profession will never go extinct. Mr Vick’s answer is “specialisation and CAT skills”. In his words “translators who do not or will not use Trados have no future”. Do you agree? I certainly do with the specialisation part.

Article written by Lydia Strong.

Use Technology to Grow your Business…

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Liz Pascaud

…. while avoiding the pitfalls

We are delighted to once again introduce Elliot Nedas of XTM International… We are sure you will enjoy his article.

We are all seeing a new type of illness, it doesn’t come in biological packages, but it does affect the lives of humans and how we work with technology.

When I purchase a new digital tool, be it software or hardware I am filled with mixed emotions. The first is a rush of excitement about what the new bit of kit can do for me and the second is a chill down my spine when I wake up the next morning and release version 2.0 is available soon.

I am sure you know the feeling, you buy a new piece of kit, an iPod for example and next thing you know the new version is out. Where does it all end? And what can my business do to avoid these pitfalls?

Imagine the catastrophe and expense that can befall a small business if the wrong choices are made. This will slow down business growth. The decisions involved are similar, however, the extra considerations are massive.

Key to all of this is how will the technology help the people in my daily business and how will it adapt and how can it grow with changing times and business processes.

The people in the business need to see the value of technology for themselves and their interrelated business network of customers and suppliers.

Translation providers need tools that are flexible, powerful and easy to use based on a robust infrastructure which can withstand fluctuations in revenue – both up and down.

But, which type of technol- ogy is affordable and can help a business sell more? With hardware it is impossible to have a system which will still be valid in even one year. However, software, can adapt and stay valid all throughout its natural life. How can we protect it? By keeping it alive, by feeding it new ideas and new ways of working and by adapting.

By a type of micro-evolution you can develop robust, healthy and adaptable systems that are a healthy technology and not going to come down with a case of Techno-Flu.

It’s a simple choice; either control your digital destiny or get ill year after year.

EJP Translations: Please do not hesitate to contact Elliot Nedas for further details at www.xtm-intl.com

From the X Factor to the Greek Language….

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Liz Pascaud

As I sat last night with my 2 children watching ITVs the X Factor (I couldn’t not!) my 9 year old son asked me “Mummy, out of all of the Judge’s houses – which one would you most like to visit?” I pondered Miami, LA, Barcelona or Mykonos (Greece)?” Well, I replied (after not really very much thought) I think I’d like to go to Greece.” My reasons were based purely on my love of Europe, the Mediterranean and the fact that I have always longed to visit this country that is so steeped in history, archaeological wonders and natural beauty. Ever since reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (written in 1994, set in Cephalonia, Greece) I have wanted to visit.

“No, Mummy, not a good choice.” came back the immediate response “They don’t have any money!”

Quite observant from a 9 year old boy whom I thought knew nothing about current and world events unless it had to do with football or rugby.

His comment made me laugh at first and then I got thinking about Greece and as I do, about translation – even on a Sunday night! I realised that EJP Translations has not been asked to carry out any Greek translation for 2 years…none at all. I remember vividly 10-15 years ago that Greek translation was a requirement by large medical companies looking for CE marking conformity and something that I, as a then project manager, was heavily involved with. Greek was always on my to do list. It was as much as a requirement (for my clients), in those days, as French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Since the year 2000, tourism in Greece has declined by 28%. Tourism is Greece’s number one export followed closely by shipping, which has also declined in terms of revenue by 27% since the year 2000. The GDP of the country is at the same level as it was in 2004 and it is not expected to reach pre-crisis levels (2008) until as late as 2020. All sounds rather bleak, doesn’t it? It is no wonder that over the last 2-10 years I have noticed the gradual decline in companies requiring Greek translation services. After all, with a population of only 10.6 million and a financial crisis to manage, it’s not all that surprising that multinationals are skipping right over Greece and are instead focusing their marketing objectives on bigger fish in the Far East.

Managing the current crisis is headline news and the subject of much debate. Today the news is dominated by the Greek government cut backs and striking officials. The debate will rage on and the solutions will no doubt take time to implement but one day there will be a recovery and one day I hope that the country recovers enough to become “in demand” once more. I’ll let you know when we next get asked to translate something into Greek – but I fear it won’t be for a while yet. In the meantime, I feel a re-read of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin coming on.

Liz Pascaud

Machine Translation

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Liz Pascaud

Is machine translation combined with translator editing really quicker, more efficient and cheaper? This is the very question I asked my fellow colleagues on LinkedIn recently.

What is machine translation?

I am sure you have all heard of Google Translate, Yahoo’s Babelfish and Bing Translator. These are machine translators. Machine translation is a translation tool that works by breaking down sentences or other text segments, analysing them in context and then recreating their meaning in the target language. Thus you would type a sentence, for example, in English and select your target language as being, say German, and hey presto – your English converts into German. Just like that! A neat tool it would seem.

Does it work?

Let’s give it a whirl…I have just typed a perfect French sentence into Google Translate:

Selon notre expérience, lors de l’exploration de nouveaux territoires, il y a généralement deux façons de pénétrer le marché.

The human translation is:

In our experience, when venturing into new territories, there are typically two ways to go to market:

The machine translation is:

In our experience, while exploring new territories, there are usually two ways to enter the market.

It’s not bad – not as fluent or as attractive sounding but it’s ok. Let’s try out another one:

April showers in English is machine translated as “les pluies d’avril” which is literally correct but totally ill adapted culturally as the actual French is expression is “giboulées de mars.” April showers = March showers as in France, they fall earlier! Obviously les pluies d’avril means nothing to a French person.

The above examples show, simply, that machine translation can literally translate and give back some useful translation but if you are looking for commercially viable, culturally adapted, beautiful content then machine translation is NOT the way to go. It should be noted that I have only used French and English in this example where machine translation does quite well. Use the machine for lesser-used and known languages and the results may be even less viable. As Jean-Luc Aufranc points out “It also depend on the languages. For example, English <-> French MT may yield reasonable results with some texts, but Thai <-> English MT usually provides terrible translations.”

So, back to my colleagues on LinkedIn. Here are some of their thoughts:

I have never taken machine translation into account because performing a translation service requires a serious brain performance including reading, evaluating, remembering, interpreting and finally establishing a corresponding response. Additionally, since each of these mechanisms may change depending on the translator, machine can never replace a translator initiative. Machine translator may remain as a joke according to my idea. Machine and operating systems may be only our servants working in our big house called “brain” and they can work only if we order them…Umit Yakup Dural – Professional Medical Translator.

Machine translation has a very long way to go. I use Google when I’m looking for a specific term and quite often I have to consult my paper dictionaries, especially the technical ones. As for grammar, that is also quite inadequate…Ana Heitor – Independent Translation and Localization Professional.

Google Translate is “acceptable” when translating a grammatically correct, well written text (for example a simple manual). The word “acceptable” to me means that the output has some kind of meaning, and sometimes only requires the repositioning of single words, which however takes time and therefore “ruins the game”.. With a technical translation, on the other side, Google never gets the right words, as its vocabulary is very limited and therefore cannot include all the fields in which human knowledge spreads…Giorgio V – Technical Translator and Interpreter.

My personal opinion is to be cautious, tread lightly and don’t rely on the translation tools to produce content that is to be published. As we know, translation blunders happen all of the time and can be embarrassing at the best and brand damaging and costly at the worst. Always use a professional, human translator who translates into his/her native language if you want to be guaranteed great translation results. Do they help translators speed up their work, become more efficient? I think the general consensus of opinion would have to be no.

To enjoy all of the comments from the discussion please click here. To compare the various machine translation tools available please visit this blog
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2011/03/comparative-look-at-machine-translation.html

Technology and Translation – A match made in 01101000011001010110

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Liz Pascaud

The team at EJP Translations is proud to introduce our first guest author/blogger. Mr. Elliot Nedas of XTM International (www.xtm-intl.com). In his own words he describes himself as “the eyes, ears and voice of XTM International, always making sure new customers nearby are ready to benefit from XTM technology (translation CAT tool) and services. My focus is on ensuring that quality consultancy is delivered throughout the sales process and to deliver what I promise, when I promise.”

“I manage international sales for XTM International and have been instrumental in building the XTM brand to ensure our success. As a passionate businessman, I am by default dedicated to delivering exceptional results to customers and team.”

Here is Elliot’s article:

I’m proud of the industry I work in. I have the opportunity to work with good people with an honest desire to make a thing better. We are all involved in creating seemingly simple solutions to artificially created and complex problems. There is an obvious concerted effort to make better the things that we do, to make our daily working lives less unbearable.

Picture us as ancient tool makers, sitting in our workspace trying to make a particular task less troublesome. The epic burst of ideas and of new ways of working with technology is analogous to the burst of life forms during the Cambrian period, the parallels to biological evolution are wonderfully clear. There is an explosion of many forms of information, a creative soup seething with wonderful and strange possibilities. But evolution demands the top be skimmed from the soup. The myriad forms must be chiselled and the burst of ideas must find equilibrium because not all expressions of information are practical. Species die out and so do proprietary systems. The seachange toward open standards and interconnectivity is rapidly speeding ahead at many knots per day.
Adaptability is a prerequisite for longevity, just like in our biological world.
The translation world is at its very core good, it’s the only professional practice for which sharing different human language content is paramount, where the nuances and variety of the world are expressed for the entire world to appreciate. Without translators the world would surely be a poorer place, without people willing to help others understand other languages our lives would be sadder.
So I say rejoice for we are helping the world communicate across language and culture barriers!
Three cheers for language teachers and academics,
Three cheers for translators,
Three cheers for language technologists,
Three cheers for all of you who are in your way contributing to the free expression of human language to a wider audience and creating a new level of interaction across the globe.
Technology is just so cool! And I just realised I take I normally take it for granted…

Liz Pascaud Translations

Welcome to my translation world….