Growth in multi-channel retail inevitably impacts on retail translation requirements. As retailers look to grow internationally, the strong position of the UK with online retail gives potential for retailers to use the same model in international markets. Rather than treating website translation completely seperately to packaging translation, we would argue that retailers should adopt a holistic approach, using the same translation company for both online, and offline translation needs. A major benefit of this is consistency, do you really want the same product title translated differently online and offline? Also with use of translation memory there is likely to be potential for cost saving in using the same supplier for both, for example you may well have matching product descriptions for use both online and offline, which will then only need to be translated once. Contact betterlanguages.com today to discuss your retail translation requirements.

Today is our first day back after the Christmas and New Year holiday, so we would like to take the opportunity to wish all our customers, suppliers and site readers a very happy New Year. 2012 promises to be an interesting but challenging year for the UK. The London Olympics promise to be one of the highlights in July, 2012 is also the Queen’s golden Jubilee, celebrating 60 years on the throne. As a company 2012 offers many challenges. We are very busy with orders, and are looking to grow our staff team, and to recruit more freelance translators in most major language pairs.

The UK economy, like many major economies, is facing major challenges at the moment, and it is encouraging to see many of our customers, both large and small, looking to grow their businesses internationally, despite the economic uncertainty. We wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2012.

Its very busy at betterlanguages towers this morning, several large projects on the go. We even have clients coming out of the woodwork, one who hasn’t ordered for nearly three years, and a major client who we lost about 18 months ago and has now come back.

I feel a bit like Santa, with a huge rush of pre-Christmas orders! December can be a funny month for us, as we normally squeeze a months work into just over three weeks. What is also encouraging is that we have work for different sizes of clients, including SMEs dipping their toe in export for the first time, and larger companies also pushing in international markets. As our largest area of work is UK companies exporting, especially where work is multi-language from English, its encouraging to see UK PLC pushing to make a difference.

There can be a temptation to listen to the economic doom and gloom in the news, and predict a difficult 2012. Whilst I wouldn’t minimise the impact of the Eurozone crisis, and a sluggish UK economy, I’m personally expecting better things. Translation can be an early indicator of improved export performance, as most products and services will require translation to reach new international markets. Often there are legal requirements to translate, as with care label translation, food label translation, and pharmaceutical translation, then there is the marketing translation aspect, be it in print or website translation in order to sell your product or service to an international audience.

Companies large and small often see export as a way of strengthening sales performance, and improving profitability. The logic is clear, if you can sell successfully in the UK, surely you can also sell in international markets. Leaving aside product or service specifics, (i.e. suitability for international sale, which is a large topic in itself), translation is often an overlooked “Cinderella” service. Both SMEs and large companies who are new to international trade often overlook its importance. So why would you translate for international markets?

1. Legal compliance: many products are required by law to have certain information on pack, or intruction leaflets, or product labelling, or all three. Quite simply, if the information isn’t in the language (or languages) of the country of sale, you will be breaking the law. We translate in several highly regulated areas, most countries require food labelling to be in the local language, care labelling is also highly regulated, as is toy labelling.
2. Marketing: many companies never get beyond point 1, electing to get the legal minimum wording translated, if you have a small product, and need to include lots of languages, this approach is very logical, and often unavoidable, but we would argue that marketing is the most compelling use of translation for most products and services. Quite simply, your product may have very compelling features and benefits, but if your customer isn’t aware of them, they are likely to buy something else.
3. Brand image: which brand would you trust more as a consumer, a company who had all their packaging in Dutch, French and German (no English), or a brand who had English on pack? At best you may choose the none-English labelled product if it is substantially cheeper, or if it has compelling other aspects to the packaging, such as amazing design. In either case, price or artwork design will have to work really hard to get the sale. As the “majority language” (actually not true, English is the 3rd most spoken first language after Chinese and Spanish); it is easy to overlook this impact, as we aren’t that used to seeing packaging without English.
4. Customer Care: how can you offer effective after sales service, and product advice, if it isn’t available in your customer’s language? Companies often fall down here. You may have excellent promotional material and product packaging, but what do you do if a customer phones up with a query? Indeed could they even phone you at all? If you have a none geographic UK customer care number, it may not even work internationally.

If this all sounds very retail focused, we would argue that the same issues apply selling B2B. Again it is easy to assume that the whole world speaks English, but even in a country like Holland, which has a high level of English use, nearly 50% of the population do not speak English, then of the ones that do abilities will vary. Do you really want to limit your target market to a maximum of half the population?

Now a word of warning. Translation will add cost to trading internationally, as will any product adaptation including possible re-brand, repackaging, relabelling etc. There are also the logistical implications of selling in another market. Even if you are a market leader in your space, brand recognition will be much lower where you don’t have a presence. Selling internationally will therefore take time, money and a lot of perseverence.

Are you a translator based in Nottingham? If so betterlanguages.com would like to hear from you. We collaborate with a network of translators in many countries, but have comparatively few Nottingham translators.

If you would like to apply to betterlanguages.com translation services company, here are a few points to consider:

• You must be a professionally qualified translator – it isn’t enough just to know a second language
• We don’t directly employ translators, and you will need to be established as a freelance translator
• You need either a post graduate translation qualification, or to be a full member of one of the main translators professional bodies such as The Chartered Institute of Linguists, or the Institute of Translation and Interpreting
• You need to be translating into your native language
• You will need use of a major CAT tool such as Trados Studio
• You will need an attention to detail, a willingness to learn, and exceptional translation skills in your areas of specialism

In return we offer:

• A pleasant team environment where you will liaise closely with our translation managers
• competitive rates and prompt payment. As a high quality translation services company we want the best translators
• interesting and varied translation projects – major specialisms include retail translation, website translation, and translation of labels and packaging.

Please note that we get a high volume of applicants, and inevitably have more demand for some languages and specialisms than others. Our translators section has more information on how to apply, and what to include in your translator application.

As most translation companies charge on word count (us included), as a general rule the more text you need translated, the more it will cost. In tight financial times then, how can you get best use of your budget when buying translation?

Buying on price: all translation is the same, right? So you just select the cheapest quote….Hmm the answer here of course is that it depends. Firstly are you comparing reputable companies all using qualified and skilled translators? Secondly is the basis of quote the same? The safest way to compare prices is to look at per word rates, and ideally supply the same text for pricing purposes. Then there is the thorny issue of who the translators are. The usual convention is to use translators who are native of the target language. If an agency in China quotes a price less than half the UK competitors, you should be at least checking to see whether the translators are qualified and native of the target language.

Before translation: its easy to assume that your 800 page UK website should all be translated into Simplified Chinese, or French, or whatever your required target language. Certainly search engines love content, and undoubtedly the more foreign language content you add the better, but it is really important that it is well written and expertly translated. Clients often want us to add foreign language page content, but forget about the SEO aspect that meta information, especially important things like page titles, descriptions and alt tags should all be translated. In general I would rather work with a smaller amount of well written and targeted content, than work with the scatter gun approach of lobbing in 800 pages and hoping for the best. Less content will be cheaper, but better written content with appropriate SEO will give best return on investment. We want you to win commercially – our rationale is simple, if it works, you’ll be likely to come back for more, and if it doesn’t – you won’t.

Culture and target market: it may seem obvious but cultural issues, and understanding your market are really important to get best return on investment. There are two possible risks with cultural influences, ignore them at your peril. Even something apparently obvious like not trying to supply food with alcoholic content to an Islamic country, may seem simple, but if you have 800 PLUs needing translation against a tight deadline, its easy to miss the ones affected. A good translation company will challenge these types of issues rather than just churn out anything you ask for.  The opposite is also true – it is possible to so over emphasise the differentness of the target market and culture that you will never do anything. At the end of the day, many products which are popular in one market are likely to also be popular in others.

Machine translation: tools like Google translate have become increasingly popular, and why wouldn’t they? For understanding general gist of a document they can be invaluable, but they have severe limitations. If a translation company is using machine translation, they are likely to offer lower rates, but the quality of outcome will suffer. Even with heavy post editing by a human translator, machine translation still reads very poorly, and often starting again with professional translation is likely to be quicker and easier. Machine translate pack copy and expect it to be readable, never mind legally compliant in a target market, and you are likely to have a nasty shock – especially to your bank balance if you have product recalls and need to relabel.

Computer Assisted Translation: no not a play on words, this is quite different to machine translation. CAT tools were originally developed for working with html in the days of static websites. They offer many benefits to translator, translation company and end client. There are efficiency gains, as the translator commits phrases to memory as they work, and so you are not having the same text re-translated every time you need a new document. This is better in some instances than others, for example a clinical trials manual of 10,000 words with only 2,000 new words, will be substantially cheaper using a CAT tool with translation memory than if starting from scratch. We have just priced on translating a large number of product data sheets for a single client however, and there were very few matches, so not much to be gained with price discounts. The other major gain however is in consistent use of terminology. The translators can refer to same and similar terms, and ensure that they are translated consistently.

Client / company interface: don’t be surprised if your translation company asks you questions. Some texts simply need collaboration between client and translators. We recently translated some Health and Safety procedures for a French client. Translating much of the information was straightforward for our lead translator – a health and safety specialist – but as this was internal procedures, some of the terminology was client specific, and even site specific. We needed to use not just correct terms, but the terms being used on-site by our client, the only way to be certain of this was through agreeing a glossary of approved terminology. We also “sense check” documents, if your product user guide doesn’t make sense to the translators, it probably won’t make sense to your end customers.

Buying in volume: inevitably, the more you buy, the cheaper the likely unit price. However it is easy to overplay the discounts possible with large volumes, beware for example the translation company that quotes a very low unit price, but then charges for lots of extras. Our per word price for example normally includes translation, QA checking and all co-ordination by the translation manager, whilst some of our competitors will quote a low unit price, then charge extra for proofreading, post editing and project management.

Translation capacity: There are limits on translation capacity, even for the largest translation companies. Translators have a limit to the amount of work they can do effectively in a given time. Typically daily output for a professional translator is around 2500 words. More may be possible with lots of repetitions within a document, but essentially there is a physical limit, and the service you are buying is the skill and professional knowledge of the translation team, including selection of the right translators, and any proofing and other QA checks. We recently had to decline a job from a potential new blue chip client, why? They wanted over 60,000 words in a single language within 24 hours. Although it would be possible to split the work between a number of translators, and use a shared translation memory to help with consistency; the result would always have read like a document with multiple authors, and our company name would still be linked to a sub-standard piece of work long after the rediculous deadline had been forgotten.

These are a few general comments on a complex subject. In general, the earlier we talk to you, and the better we understand your needs, the better the likely translation outcome, and therefore the better the return on investment. Looking to buy translation?

Overseas episodes of The Apprentice always appeal to me, apart from making great television, there are always some lessons about international business. Last night’s episode was no exception. If you haven’t seen it yet, its worth the effort, and is available on BBC i-player. So are there international business lessons from this episode?

• You don’t have to communicate in French to sell in France, or do you? The winning team proved that with the right contacts and a great product it is possible to sell into the French market, but there was a noticeable difference in required language skills between pitching to top buyers, and trying to sell to smaller businesses, and communicate with the French public. Would you buy a product in the UK if it only had French packaging, was marketed in French, and the sales team only spoke French?
• Melodie proved that communicating in the local language by itself isn’t enough. In my opinion she ruined the task for her team, and should probably have been fired. One of her mistakes appeared to be talking at people and not listening. Easily done in a second language, but in this case having big consequences, as she missed people saying how good the car seat/backpack product really was. The wider lesson here for businesses trying to sell into the French market, and indeed any other overseas market, is to listen and engage with customers. This will be more difficult than in the UK, but can reap big rewards if you get it right.
• There were a few cultural mistakes, particularly Suzie asking such basic questions as “do the French drive”? and “do the French like children”? Funny on air, if you ask this type of question in the market you risk alienating your potential customers before you start. It is extremely easy to patronise a culture you know little about, and there is a careful balance to strike about commonality – there will be similarities between UK customers and overseas, and genuine cultural difference.

So how can a translation company help businesses seeking to trade in other countries? Well the most obvious service is that of written translation services. Marketing materials, including “brochure” websites and e-commerce websites, will all need to be localised for your intended target market. Then there is product packaging, labelling, and inserts such as user guides, all of which will need to be translated into the local language.

Translation companies also provide other services however, here are just a few:

• Interpreting: in a business meeting the party who has the best command of language is likely to have a big advantage, professional interpreting can help, by ensuring you know what is going on. Choose carefully, as speaking a bit of each language isn’t enough for interpreting, it is an extremely skilled profession, and the best interpreters won’t just be sitting ready to drop everything at two hours notice. We only use professional interpreters.
• Intermediary work: sometimes you need an initial client contact, and having someone in-country able to make calls in the local language can make all the difference.
• Social media marketing: if you want to run social media campaigns such as viral marketing on Twitter, you will need careful and accurate translation to make it work.

New Market, New Labels guest article by Stuart Shotton

The advent of e-commerce and high speed transit links has produced a new type of consumer, one that wishes to explore the cuisines of other cultures;  and with this new consumer demand new markets also appear. Venturing into a new country is an exciting time for any business, bringing with it the potential for increased growth and exposure and as a consequence increased profit. However, new countries bring with it new cultures and potentially a wholly different legal framework affecting how your product can be marketed and presented. It is fair to say that many developed countries in this day and age have established their own regulatory requirements based on the principles of worldwide recognised standards, such as Codex Alimentarius and those produced by the International Standards Organisation (ISO), which can sometimes mean a degree of harmonisation between EU and Non-EU countries.

However, even within the EU a significant number of differences can be found, especially in the area of food. Ice Cream produced outside of the UK for instance is unlikely to meet the UK’s own compositional requirements, relating to the minimum amounts of fat and protein that must be present; or foods containing certain additives which are legally acceptable within Spain may not be acceptable within Germany, due to differences in the interpretation and translation of EU legislation and subsequent transposition into National requirements.

All in all, issues such as this can make exploring new markets sometimes seem “too risky”; although organisations such as FoodChain Europe can help you to reduce that risk by utilising their knowledge and contacts to provide you with practical economical advice and service. Together with BetterLanguages.com, our industry leading experts can provide you with pre-market reports on legal and practical issues affecting new markets, as well as providing legal pack copy and sign off for your labels; with a turnaround time and price that our competitors cannot match.

Stuart Shotton

Consultancy Services Manager

FoodChain Europe Ltd

Translation of packaging is a major area of our translation work. We work with some of the UKs leading brands translating pack copy into a wide variety of languages. better languages can offer you:

• fast and accurate translation of packaging
• EU compliance advice from one of our compliance partners
• ISO9001: 2008 UKAS certified Quality Management System
• Advice on going multi-lingual at any stage of the process
• in-country translators for most markets, translating into their native language

The benefits of working regularly with better languages:

• better understanding of your packaging translation needs
• named Translation Manager to manage your account
• consistency, as we use the same translators wherever possible and build client specific glossaries
• use of Translation Memory – this shouldn’t be confused with machine translation, your translation will always be human authored and edited, but we can offer discounts for repetitions, and build a database of previous translations which we can then refer to with new projects

Typically smaller clients approach us either with existing single language artwork, or with existing multi-lingual pack copy, wanting to be sure that they are compliant for their target market. We can proofread other people’s work, but please remember that if a translation has been either machine generated, or poorly translated by a human translator at may be quicker, easier and cheaper to start again.

Working from specifications, or existing artwork:

If you need us to prepare translation source text from either a specification or from existing packaging, we can do this, but we will need you to sign off the source text prior to translation, and we will need to price the work involved into the job. Translating from a clean, pre-prepared and editable source text, will be both quicker and cheaper.

Contact better languages today for translation of packaging

Like most decently ranking websites, we get lots of enquiries from potential suppliers. A well targeted approach can certainly achieve results, but some approaches are just downright annoying. An “SEO” company (and I use the term lightly) has been bombarding our contact forms with spammy offers of service. So far we have had 8 enquiries via different versions of our site in under 24 hours. So what is so annoying about their approach?

1) They clearly don’t believe in their service, because they are hiding behind anonymous e-mail addresses, and never mention their company name.

2) Their feedback is badly written, and I would think it machine generated if it wasn’t for the fact that they are filling in our capcha form each time.

So you are a potential supplier, and you want to know how to approach us, what should you do?

1) Please read our website, and understand our business first!

2) If you are a translator, please read our translators page before applying, ensure you meet our criteria, and include all the information we ask for. Please note that we get a high level of applications, and are not always able to reply individually.

3) Please note that we do not normally contract other translation agencies, we are extremely selective of translators, and only the best are accepted. A condition of working with freelancers is that they are not permitted to sub-contract without our express permission.

4) SEO and search marketing: we have an excellent approved supplier, and do not wish to receive offers from SEO companies, so please place your effort elsewhere.

5) Other suppliers: please give clear and concise company information, and only contact us if there is a good match with our business, this will economise our use of time and yours. If you want to send a brochure, or other information, please use the e-mail address from our contact page. You will have to prove you are a human by substituting (at) with @ in the address.