Language and Culture
Challenges of Chinese to English translation or how to avoid Chinglish
China is well-known for its populous land and abundant history. Its language is considered the oldest and the most spoken around the world. No wonder, Chinese language is extending its popularity, heading today towards an even more important position. However, conveying meaning from Chinese to English and vice-versa isn’t done without any trouble along the way. Thus, Chinglish is the phenomenon which occurs when the Chinese way of thinking interferes with a proper translation into English. No doubt, variations manifesting between these two languages...
Brand translation - mistakes in localizing advertisement campaigns
Achieving success with an enticing slogan in your mother tongue can be a great premise for a market extension overseas. Enhanced sales converted into increased financial revenues is what the contemporary businesses are aspiring to. But here’s another turn of events resulted in failed expectations due to… poor marketing translations. A whole host of humorous and embarrassing cases have marked the history of translated advertising campaigns, which have raised more than just a few eyebrows and, sometimes, caused a burst of laughter to international consumers.
Most translated books - the annual poetry and novel translation contest 2019
The conversion of creative content into other languages, including novels and poetry, plays a key role in reaching a broader audience by spreading literature world wide.Why is the literary translation important?In fact, the translation of books is of great importance. Firstly, it contours our understanding of the world in its mesmerizing complexity manifested through a variety of elements which it encompasses. Secondly, foreign literature delivers a considerable dose of extraordinary insight into other cultures. Last but not least, novels and poetry may carry valuable knowledge, and can open us up to fascinating journeys into the...
Why is difficult to translate Donald Trump? Trumpslation explained.
The increased demand for political translation brings some sensitive questions into the international scenario. Apparently innocuous errors or details omitted by negligence can become subject to serious conflicts, and even leading to war. In order to ensure the proper message rendition, the most viable means of identifying and delivering the ideological content should be deployed. Plus, it is important to provide a faithful conversion of the source material. But what about a more intricate context, when the discourse is infused with some supplementary emotional load accompanied by garbled articulations? In this context, the president Donald Trump...
Is Emoji Becoming a Language?
Virtual communication has put in front of us new possibilities of interaction. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and a network of other apps calls for improved and more dynamic means of expression by regularly releasing fresh emoji, ready to serve to the distribution of less ambiguous messages.
The graphical elements coined to compliment our speech by adding emotional resolution to it, constantly rise in number. Till now, there are 1,085 officially-recognized emojis in circulation. While some may consider the usage of icons a primitive approach, others sustain that the ideographic elements widely involved in Social Media might extend...
Best Localization Process Practices
‘‘If you are trying to persuade people to do something, or to buy something, it seems to me that you should use their language, the language they are using every day, the language in which they think.’’- David Ogilvy
Business is now becoming more and more global, meaning more competition but also a great potential when it comes to making your product a success. Localization (also referred to as "l10n") is the process of adapting a product or content to a specific locale or market. Translation is only one of several elements of the localization...
The most sought-after languages in the business world by region
Approximately 50% of the words we use on a daily basis consist of circa 100 recurring words. And most of our conversations make use of merely a few thousand words. Therefore, learning the 1000 most common words of a language gives a solid linguistic grounding in this language. All businesses are facing more or less head-on global competition due to economic globalization.
In this context, either you choose to remain in your local stronghold even if it hampers the growth of your business, either you decide to conquer new export markets and in this case, there is no other choice...