The main reason this is powerful as a learning method is because it simulates interaction which is proven to be more engaging than traditional methods. You can also practice more extensively without the need of tiring out another human being, as well as saving yourself from the possible intimidation of facing somebody and struggling to communicate.

In the future we will easily be able to simulate life-like scenarios including ordering food in a restaurant, going on a date in a coffee shop or even sitting in an airplane – the potential is limitless. This functional and practical learning method will set language learners up for much more efficient use of language in everyday scenarios and more importantly, let them do it in a fun and deeply engaging way. It is also not a bad tool for kid’s party entertainment either.

For more information about virtual reality and how it can be used in a manner of different ways, you can contact VR Base, a London-based virtual reality equipment hire specialist firm.

The post Is Virtual Reality Language Learning of the Future? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

But in truth translation and localisation services have come so far in the recent decades and the growing amount of technological advancements in recent years has seen the acceleration of improved, fast translations amongst humans that we are now starting to look at communicating with animals!

We have already seen with the Temptations ‘catterbox’ device which is hoping to translate cat ‘language’ and how Swedish tech company Gavagai AB are hoping to gain an understanding of dolphin communications and now the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust along with ElephantVoices have developed through over 40 years of research a text/emoji to Elephant translator. So if you have ever wanted to greet your partner or tell that annoying co-worker to “get lost” like an elephant, well good news, you can do exactly that right now!

All you have to do is head over to Hello in Elephant which was launched on 12^th August 2017, World Elephant Day; input your phrase or emoji into the translator and you will be shown a quick video of the elephant translation. Other selected phrases include “I love you,” “Let’s go,” and “hello” to name a few.

But behind the fun of this elephant translator comes a serious message, the number of African elephants are decreasing at an alarming rate due to poaching and the effects of an ever-increasing human population. According to the Great Elephant Census the number of African elephants being as high as over 10 million at the start of the 20^th century and now less than 400 thousand there has been a major decline in the elephant population. Hopefully this elephant translator can highlight the way in which elephants communicate with each other as a way to raise awareness and as a result conserve the African elephant population.

Original story: National Geographic.

The post How do you say “get lost” in ‘Elephant Language’? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

So being the scientist that she is, Radzinski identified the problem and immediately started gathering information and when she had released the statistics it depicted a vast majority of books translated into English had been written by male writers. According to the statistics on Radzinski’s blog as of 2016 only approximately 30% of new book translations are from female writers. These statistics had amassed a great deal of attention amongst writers, bloggers, literature communities and translators to name a few and thus ‘Women in Translation Month’ was born.

When interviewed by The Forward’s Aviya Kushner, Radzinski explained that after she had released these little known statistics she was urged by another blogger to start an event or carry this on as a movement over a month so she decided August was the best month as it was for her the least stressful month.

WIT Month is run in the UK by the Arts Council backed charity, The Reading Agency and aims to even up the playing field of the gender gap when it comes to translations of literature from different languages into English because of this some great books and great writers could miss out of prestige worldwide acclaim as well as receiving accolades for their works and not to mention the limited financial translation of being available to only the original audience.

This year marks the third year of WIT Month and there are signs of progression as creator Radzinski says “Last year on August 30th I happened to be in New York and I saw a shelf in Book Culture devoted to women in translation.” Hinting at a possible shift in thinking and with events happening from Dublin to New York and the movement continuing to gain momentum on social platforms further putting pressure on the publishers, it will only be a matter of time before change.

Read the full interview and Radzinski’s book suggestions here.

Image: Screenshot of biblibio blog.

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The song itself has been remixed and repackaged to the English speaking world which features Canadian pop artist Justin Bieber to help the song gain popularity in English speaking countries and there is also an official Portuguese translation for the song featuring Brazilian singer Israel Novaes replacing Daddy Yankee.

The official video has amassed nearly 3 billion views on YouTube which many believe will become the most viewed YouTube video of all time as well accumulating a whopping 4.6 billion streams and counting leading Despacito to become the most streamed song in history as you can imagine the retail translation is big bucks.

But for those of us who do not possess the skills to understand or speak Spanish enjoy the songs melodic and rhythmic tone coincided with the reggaeton beats we could be forgiven thinking that Despacito is nothing more than a happy, innocent Latin American song. Well it turns out when translated into English the lyrics are more sinister than we might have originally thought.

You see the lyrics to the pop-reggaeton track are actually quite edgy with lines such as “Let me trespass your danger zones” and “I want to see your hair dance” it would be a big surprise that if the song was in English it would have even received the go ahead to be released let alone parents playing Fonsi and Daddy Yankee in front of their kids. Some of the lyrics get even more X-rated and you can see the full translation here on Billboards website.

Despacito’s lyrics were even considered bad enough in Malaysia to see the government ban the song from government-owned media platforms due to be “un-Islamic” and “not suitable to be heard” whilst advising other radio stations to follow suit.

But as the song is just so catchy we can just use the excuse that we don’t understand it and enjoy it anyway. Let us know what you think of the lyrics.

The post The real meaning behind Despacito appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

James runs a popular nightclub in New Your City called Truth. Besides being a family man and business man James is also a major player in a drug ring amassing millions of dollars at which point he is now trying to get out of the drug game in order to focus on his more legitimate ventures. He also battles between choosing to stay with his wife and mother of his children when he reconnects with his childhood sweetheart which has contributed to all the drama we all crave in a series. The show has cast actors/characters from diverse backgrounds and in turn you will often hear the characters speak in languages such as Albanian where the Albanian Mafia are after Ghost or conversations in Spanish. These Non-English conversations on the show are very limited and when they do occur subtitles and transcriptions are often available for the viewer.

**Minor Spoiler Alert**

In the most recent episode which appeared on Netflix one of the main characters Angela Valdez who is James’s childhood sweetheart is shown speaking to her sister about knowing about some valuable evidence which sufficed suggesting that he was innocent of a murder he was accused of. For most of the conversation she is heard speaking to her sister in Spanish however there was no Spanish translation provided! Now for anyone who has been following Power knows how passionate the fans of power are often flocking to social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter to vent their frustrations at the actors playing the characters despite this being all fictional. The fact that people could not understand what was being said in Spanish sparked many angry fans to take to twitter and bash Netflix on the mishap.

One viewer Gustavo took to twitter and wrote “The makers of Power must’ve just assumed everyone learned how to understand Spanish in episode 5 with these non subtitled conversations ?”.

The makers of Power must’ve just assumed everyone learned how to understand Spanish in episode 5 with these non subtitled conversations ?

— Gustavo (@delanowebley) July 25, 2017

Another twitter user called ‘Warning Track Power’ vented their frustration and tweeted “Don’t call asking if we speak Spanish. This is America we speak English or get yourself a damn translator”.

Don’t call asking if we speak Spanish. This is America we speak English or get yourself a damn translator

— Warning Track Power (@Butta1231) July 24, 2017

More tweets surfaced with some directing their frustrations directly @Netflix:

*Angela and her sister switching from English to Spanish during their conversation*

Me tryna figure out why:#Power #PowerTV pic.twitter.com/j2jjCvIz2G

— Unknown Beauty (@2beAbeauty) July 23, 2017

Why has power not put subtitles on any the Spanish for that episode do a look like a understand it ???

— Gary (@gspence26) July 24, 2017

@NetflixUK there were no subtitles during this episode of Power for the Spanish speaking scenes!! Can this be fixed?

— Cam (@Camz_Rozay) July 24, 2017

One thing for sure is that Power fans are extremely passionate about the show and its characters. Surely someone at Netflix is fixing the technical glitch that occurred or perhaps Netflix requires some professional translation services?

The post Why Non Spanish Speaking Power Fans Are Angry At Netflix appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

As well as on the flipside how ‘DIY’ Chinese translation services carried out by Chinese locals can sometimes lead to confusion, frustration or humour amongst English speaking travellers. One time leading to a very heated argument between a shopkeeper and a customer over a “free tea” sign.

Well these tales of confusion and comedy might soon be a thing of the past according to authorities in China. The authorities in China announced that a new national standard of English translation will come into place from December that will affect 13 public domains such as financial, transport, medical and the entertainment areas according to the People’s Daily newspaper, China’s state newspaper. The aim is to implement proper localisation services which would spell the end of poor English translations that are too literal and riddled with grammatical errors on signs such as ‘Please do not feed the fish with your private’ or ‘Racist Park’.

This type of Mandarin to English translation is known as ‘Chinglish’ and is somewhat of an embarrassment within China as children are given English lessons early on. The newspaper goes on to say that the new English translations do “not contain content that damages the images of China or other countries”. So if you are out in China towards the end of the year, be sure to be on the lookout for such changes and let us know the worst ever translated sign you have ever seen.

The post China aiming to eradicate translation fails appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Now for the average person who did not perhaps attend private school and is well connected to people with influence it is sometimes not easy to get connected to the people who can be instrumental in your success. Now let’s not be mistaken buy thinking that just because you attended private school you are instantly going to be more successful than say a state school student! There are many other factors to take into consideration to come to such a conclusion. Factors such as your will and determination because let’s face it you could have had the best education but if your work ethic does not match, someone with a basic education but with great determination can be more successful. On the other hand private school education does put many people at a higher advantage especially later in life when wanting to work for the likes of government bodies or prestigious law firms. Privately educated students also tend to get into the higher ranked universities like Oxford and Cambridge despite reports suggesting that state school students get better degrees than private school pupils with same A-levels.

Now back to the point of how to know who to know. So we’ve established we need to have god connections in order to achieve success whether in business or working career but often times we wonder how do we build these useful connections? How do we position ourselves amongst influencers? Where do we find these people to connect with?

There are plenty of resources out there to help. Thanks to the internet a multitude of information is accessible to all that are looking and it just takes a little digging. To highlight a few mediums you can take advantage of in order  to make valuable connections you can refer to the below list:

1. LinkedIn

Sites like LinkedIn provide an inside access to ‘who’s who’ in your industry. For example if you are trying to break into the financial industry you can easily send a message to the director of finance for a large multinational company. Needless to say they probably get tons of these on a daily basis so being creative is key!

2. Business networking events

Attending business networking events is very useful as these are often intimate settings where you can actually speak and connect with people and ask all the questions you need answers for.

3. Trade shows

Trade shows allow you to speak to your competitors or potential competitors giving you a firsthand experience of what they do. This is also a great opportunity to meet people and generate leads.

4. Apps

There are many business apps available on the market and one which stands out today is Meetup. This free app allows you to join other like minded groups of people in your local area ranging from business clubs to leisure and sport.

5. Social media

Social media is one of the best things to come out of the internet with the likes of Facebook and Twitter allowing you to connect on an informal level. This also gives you an insight into the hobbies and interests of whoever you wish to connect with which can be a great ice-breaker when starting conversations.

Are there any other means you have found successful in creating great connections? Feel free to share.

Image by: Internet Association on Flickr

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Now many Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted software such as Google Translate which we have previously discussed lacks human touch and thus lacks nuance especially when you are trying to translate a complex message. As a result the meaning behind what you are trying to say gets lost in translation which can prove to be a non-starter and even costly especially when in professional settings like business meetings. This is where the benefits to you for using a professional translation agency to help you with your language translation needs comes into effect.

Now on the other hand not everyone requires professional translation services and a new app called Boomerang has taken on a task to correct inaccurate Google translations. The app which was developed by Ishmael Shabazz and Heidi Helen Pilypas is designed to help you verify that what you are trying to say in another language actually makes sense before presenting it to the intended party. This works where the app translates your source language to your target language and then translates the content back to the original source language allowing you to make sense of it before you send it out. The app which is currently on the iOS platform translates your text using Google Translate then translates it back to you to ensure that your message reads as you want it to in another language. The app currently translates in 104 different languages.

The Boomerang app is free to download but as with many apps these days has ad’s. For a subscription of $1.99 however you are able to utilise the app ad free according to The Verge.

Although this app appears to be basic it could help prevent the most of awkward situations like what was demonstrated on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where actress Ana Hathaway sang songs translated through Google translate into another language then back to the original language which although created some good comedy for TV could have been disastrous had that been a serious setting.

Although many new creative apps seam to edge closer and closer to eliminating the need for human translation services it seems a long way ahead before the need for professional translators will be a thing of the past. Businesses and individuals who require their translation to be the most accurate still need a qualified translator to translate or interpret their message as accurate as can be.

The post This new app helps you verify your Google translation is accurate appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The development of AI assisted machine translations might not be any use when translating documents, specifically technical ones and they will produce ‘awkward’ real time translations that might get you into trouble, but one area in particular that could see AI translations becoming valuable is for translations of sign language.

Machine translations are being used to help translate sign language into text and then back again into sign language for those who are hard of hearing or deaf. A Dallas, Texas based start-up KinTrans have been trialling this technology in government offices and banks in the United Arab Emirates.

The way KinTrans sign language translator works is by means of a 3D camera which records the hand signs being gestured by the individual using sign language; the hand movements are then translated by the device into text. It can also be used the other way around for those trying to communicate with a deaf person but don’t know sign language, by typing the message in text the translation into sign language will then be shown on screen using an avatar.

KinTrans currently supports American and Arabic sign language with 98% accuracy according to the company’s founder Mohamed Elwazer. Although with an estimated 70 million sign language speakers and over 100 different dialects, they are looking to expand on this in the future with sign language for Indo-Pakistani and Portuguese translation services.

Another company SignAll from Budapest, Hungary along with Gallaudet University in Washington DC, USA has also developed similar technology to aid students who are deaf or cannot hear well. They aim to have the largest database of sign language sentences, as of now it can translate around 300 signs from American sign into English text and the CEO Zsolt Robotka hopes his device will have learned 1000 signs by time they start their trials next year.

Of course like any new technology there will be teething problems and initial issues that will undoubtedly be sorted as technology advances but this is the way in which machine translations can do good for humans and make life easier, who knows we could eventually have these machine translations running perfectly like human translations, American sign language to Hebrew translation services and vice versa.

Image by: langfordw on Flickr

The post How machine translations are being used for good over evil appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

1. Invest in a good website

This is by far one of the most effective ways of marketing your business especially if you aim to reach an audience outside your local community. A website today must be fully functional and mobile friendly as more and more people use their Smartphone’s when it comes to their online activities. Most Smartphone’s have the ability to give users the chance to download apps whether it is banking apps or news apps. Ensuring your site is mobile responsive or even taking it to the next level where you can create an app for your service will ensure you are ahead of the competition as not only will you rank better in search which will ensure you are visible to a wider audience but you also will be able to monitor online behaviour for your audience and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.

2. Use professional translation services

With many consumers more comfortable purchasing in their own language this is a part of your marketing mix worth tapping into. Take for example you are an English tourism agent who helps people book holidays and tours. If you aim to target more people in China it may be worthwhile you investing in professional Mandarin translation services as this is likely to boost your enquiries allowing you to achieve more sales. Often times people look at translation services as too costly but forget to see past the greater benefits this may have on their marketing.

3. Actively use social media

We all know that in 2017 social media is not just some cyberspace platform where teenagers and twenty-something’s get to showcase their ‘perfect lives’ go on rants or snoop on others! Many businesses ranging from large corporations to small companies and freelancers have been tapping into the benefits of social media. With a chance to reach millions of users on a daily basis surely it is a no brainer that you can benefit from increased brand awareness and the ability to get your products and services in front of your intended audience without sitting and waiting for them to find you.

These are just a handful of ways in which your business can reach a wider audience. There is plenty of information online which goes into depth and can all be found by a simple Google search. Sites like Search Engine Watch and Moz provide a great staring point.

What other methods would you recommend?

Image by: Brisbane City Council

The post 3 ways to boost your marketing activities appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The ransomware has come about when hackers stole a hacking tool called ‘Eternal Blue’ which was developed by American military organisation the National Security Agency (NSA) to gain access to all computers operating with Microsoft Windows in order to stop criminal activities such as terrorism. Although it is not known for sure who is responsible for the WannaCry with most people strongly linking it to a group of hackers from North Korea. But security firm Flashpoint have suggested after linguistic analysis that it may have emerged from Southern China through the help of machine translations services.

On their blog post, Flashpoint say that after analysing the ransom note sent to victims demanding payment, the person who wrote the note was “native or at least fluent” in Chinese. They also go on to say that after looking at all of the 28 notes sent in different languages only 3 out of the 28 were actually written by a human; the English, Chinese Simplified and traditional version; with the remaining 25 being translated from English with the help of fast translation software Google Translate.

The way in which WannaCry works is often through a technique known as ‘phishing’ where an email is sent out fooling people into opening the attachments which contain malware, once opened it spreads onto your computer locking your files and encrypting them and the message or ‘ransom note’ appears demanding $300-600 payment through bitcoin in order to re-access your files. If not paid after a few days WannaCry threatens to delete your files. Although some experts have urged against paying as it is believed there is no guarantee once paid and such a big financial translation could see more attacks like this occurring.

The post How machine translations were used for evil appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Whatever the type of translation service you require you would be pretty well covered by the vast amount of professional translation agencies out there, But how about if you wanted to talk to the animals? Dr. Dolittle comes to mind whenever the idea of being able to communicate with animals is brought up, that the idea is nothing but nonsense some have even argued that if communication between humans and animals was to exist the outlooks and reference points of two different species could be so different that it would be pointless even trying.

Well it turns out that the notion of being able to understand animals through the means of translation services could be realised sooner than you think! We previously talked about the ‘Temptation catterbox’ which aims to translate a cat’s meow into human languages; well now it’s the turn of dolphins.

Swedish language tech company Gavagai AB along with KTH Royal Institute of Technology are working together with the aim of being able to understand the language of dolphins. Gavagai AB has already developed language analysis software that has grasped 40 human languages. They plan to have an understanding of the way dolphins communicate by monitoring bottlenose dolphin using Gavagai’s language analysis software.

Jussi Karlgren the Gavagai co-founder and KTH adjunct professor had this to say when speaking to Bloomberg “We hope to be able to understand dolphins with the help of artificial intelligence technology,” as well as commenting on the complexity of dolphin communications “We know that dolphins have a complex communication system, but we don’t know what they are talking about yet.”

The project will run for four years and they hope to have an understanding on the dolphin communication by 2021. This could be the first real breakthrough in being able to understand animals and have them understand us. Who knows we could have something like dolphin to Romanian translation services or rabbit to German translation services sooner than we think!

The post Ever wanted to talk to the animals? You might be able to very soon appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Gone are the days when big top brands with hefty budgets had almost the entire market share in a multitude of industries which could have been attributed to lack of choice from the consumer. With things having shifted drastically over the years and there is no sign of this slowing down. Take for instance the local bakery or vintage clothes store in your local area whereas before they would have been limited to their local area and relied on word of mouth to advertise their products however today at the click of a button, with a good social media and internet marketing strategy they are able to place themselves amongst the big names in the industry and give themselves a fighting chance to gain market share.

In addition with shipping companies like DHL, UPS and FedEx shipping to nearly every corner of the world you can guarantee not only to get in front of people who are searching for your products but to also be able to deliver you products to them in a speedy way.

With more and more people choosing to skip the hustle and bustle of having to go to a store to shop and as technology continues to shape the way in which people shop online, many companies are taking advantage of this opportunity by upgrading their e-commerce platforms and taking advantage of language translation services.

With many free tools such as Google translate which is able to convey your website content into another language at the click of a button this will surely lead to more sales? Well that is something that in theory works but marketing managers need to be careful about using automated translation tools when it comes to reaching an audience who does not speak your language.

It is therefore imperative to use a professional translation agency. Although the likes of Google translate will translate your content word for word the lack of human touch can misinterpret your message altogether and not only prevent you from gaining new customers but could easily result in you losing existing customers who may no longer trust your brand. Adding translation services to your marketing budget will yield results especially if your product or service is in demand on an international scale.

Many reports have showed that people prefer to shop in their native language and studies by Common Sense Advisory found that more local language content on a website lead to a greater likelihood of purchase.  

If you require translation or localisation services you can contact Exchange Lingo today to discuss your needs.

Image by: Robert Scoble on Flickr

The post Why you must not overlook language translation services to boost international sales appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In a story originally reported by VICE’s Motherboard; they tell a story of how a stroke survivors use of emoji to text translation software is having a positive impact for people who have communication problems, helping them to break the barriers.

In 2005, Judy Crane was at the peak of her powers in medical sales when she was diagnosed with aortic dissection at the age of 47. As a result of a complication from the surgery of her aortic valve, she had a stroke she which left with paralysis and aphasia. Aphasia affects the part of the brain responsible for communication. Crane had problems reading, writing, speaking and processing information; this inevitably left her unable to continue her job.

Crane, who runs the Young Aphasia Communications Club, said to Motherboard that all she wanted to do was to get her message across and tell her story and that not being able to convey her message was frustrating as well as isolating and anything that could aide this would be ‘wonderful’.

There are an estimated two million people in the United States alone who suffer from aphasia, according to the National Aphasia Association (NAA) but not enough technology to support them. However Crane did use Dragon’s speech recognition software as well as things such as speech to text and predictive texting via her phone. This is where Samsung’s emoji to text translator ‘Wemogee’ can help improve matters.  Wemogee is an app which is used to communicate through emoji’s, the sender will send their message using an emoji from the library of 140 phrases and the receiver will then get the fast translation of the message written in text. For example a smile and thumbs up emoji sent will be received as “How are you?”

When asked her thoughts on this app for people with aphasia she noted that although she did not really pay attention to emoji’s as such but friends in her Young Aphasia Communications Club will find it useful as sometimes those with this disorder will shy away from communication when it becomes too hard and this app just might be the way to keep them communicating which is vital for individuals with aphasia.

Crane can write, send emails and hold conversations now twelve years after her stroke and she advocates that assistive technology could be better in helping however they can.

Of course this technology is in the early stages so it is understandable there are glitches in the app but it just goes to show the potential in this software and that emoji translations are not as ridiculous as you once thought and who knows maybe one day companies would be offering multi-lingual emoji translations, emoji to Romanian translation services anyone?

The post Are emoji translations more than a gimmick? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

We previously talked about which languages in Britain would pay the most and found that on average the best paid jobs were those which required candidates to speak a second language with the top language being Mandarin. Evidence of this was highlighted based on a search of how many job opportunities were available online via jobsites. There are many reasons for this some of which can be attributed to China’s economic growth one being its shift to becoming a global force to be reckoned with over the last few decades. With China’s GDP ranked second on a global scale behind the US it is no wonder why many people are deciding to learn Chinese more specifically Mandarin which is China’s most widely spoken language which has also fuelled the need for Mandarin translation services for businesses looking to trade effectively with China.

Now back to the point about African languages one of the major reasons why African languages are not at the forefront of discussions could be put down to the fact that many African countries still use their colonial languages as their first language and these languages are also used as the official language by their governments and education. This is evident in countries like Nigeria arguable one of Africa’s richest nations and one of the most traded with western nation’s especially exporting oil which is one of its major resources. Nigeria adapted its colonial British language of English as its official language. Countries like Angola which was colonised by the Portuguese also adapted the language as the official language of the nation. This being the case many local languages although spoken by large numbers of the population, many of them cannot read or write in their native tongue despite being able to do so in their colonial languages.

This has become even more of a concern as more and more people travel across the world and settle down in different parts of the world where their local language becomes less and less relevant as they often communicate with their children in the native tongue of the country they are living in. You will find this is the case with many first and second generation immigrants in the UK who will communicate with their children in English instead of their mother tongue and thus eliminating the development of their native language. This is not only the case with migrants there are many native Africans within the African continent who cannot understand or speak their own mother tongue but are highly fluent in English. With that being said is there any hope to save African languages for generations to come?

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Paul Birnie

The post Why many African languages may become extinct appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In an article originally reported by international new network FRANCE24 they take a look at how each of the potential French president’s slogans and party names translate from French to English. They started with the most awkward English translation, that of the far-leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.  Mélenchon’s campaign was named “La France Insoumise” which makes complete sense in French but in English has been awkwardly translated to “Unsubmissive France” by FRANCE24 journalist Florence Villeminot, although the author of the article Christine Buckley noted that another of their journalist suggested the phrase to be translated to “Indomitable France” whilst others like Politico have used “France Untamed”, The New York Times went with “France Unbowed” and “Rebellious France.” This just goes to show that there are many different ways that words can be translated and even the best French translation services can be in disagreement of a translation.

The rest of the campaigns translation into English were more or less straight forward with the conservative François Fillon slogan being “Le courage de la verité” which translates to “The Courage of Truth” and Buckley commented on the fact that ironically the truth part was not so accurate as he had been plagued with scandals so the slogan was swiftly changed to “Une volonté pour la France” or “Willpower for France”. To which political activists then changed to “Un vol pour la France” which actually means “Theft for France,” due to the scandal involving Fillon. Socialist candidate Benoît Hamon’s slogan read “Faire battre le Cœur de la France” which translated well into English, “Make France’s Heart Beat Again.

Of the two remaining candidates left running for the presidency, far right’s Marine Le Pen’s campaign slogan is simply “Au Nom du Peuple !” which means “In the Name of the People!” in English. Her opposition on the other hand centrist Emmanuel Macron’s “En Marche” campaign was meant to translate to “Onward!”, but like most translations this was up for debate with some English language-based media outlets using the terms “Forward” or “On Our Way”. Saying this political translations are not unlike marketing or retail translation services as many political parties just like businesses will have a slogan to sum up what they are about or represent and these phrases can easily be misconstrued  when being translated into other languages and essentially lose their impact or their meaning altogether.

Let us know your thoughts.

The post The awkward translations of the French election appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

But regardless the discussion of whether machine translation software’s like Google translate will ever be taking over professional human translators remains a hotly debated topic, and of course with all the advancements in technology within the past couple of years and all the different applications and gizmos who is to say that the day when machine trumps man in the translation fields is not closer than you think?

Imagine the world in just a few years where you could be getting your Portuguese translation services from a machine or even further down the line when you can receive localisation services from a robot!

Of course this is just an exaggeration, but we are not truly sure of what the effects or what role these new machine translations will have on the translation and interpreting industry but one thing is for sure they are not good now and we should still make fun of them whilst we have the chance.

This is exactly what television host and comedian Jimmy Fallon decided to do when he dedicated a segment of his popular late night talk show ‘The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon’ or ‘At night show stars Fallon Jimmy’ to which Fallon describes is the shows name once it has been translated through Google into Hungarian and back into English.

The skit itself is named ‘Google translate songs’ and uses the same rules with three songs  being translated into Hungarian and back into English and the twice Google translated lyrics had to be sung by show guest and Actress Anne Hathaway and Fallon himself backed up with live music from the soulful hip-hop band, The Roots.

The songs included Hathaway singing The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” which is translated hilariously to “My front is not felt”, whilst Fallon took on the new translated version of the old Gloria Gaynor classic “I will survive” which is now “I will be punctual” and finally the pair came together for a duet of Pink and Nate Ruess’ “Just Give Me a Reason” which became a nonsensical “Only tell me grounds.”

Have look at the full video below and tell us what you think.

The post Google translate songs? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In this post we will highlight two more reasons to visit Zambia this year.

Wildlife at its best

One of the best places to visit Zambia for wildlife is the South Luangwa National Park. Located in eastern Zambia the South Luangwa National Park is only 1hr 10minuts flight away from the capital city of Lusaka. You can travel by plane from Lusaka via Proflight for around $325 return. Several travel agents are able to organise flights and transfers to and from the various lodges located at the national park. Simply doing a Google search will show you results and reviews of different agents and also offer tips before you book. A good start is the Zambia Tourism website.

Sitting on 9050 km sq square miles this vast space is filled with rich wildlife that animal lovers would die for. Wildlife such as hippo can be seen in the Luangwa River, zebra can be viewed at close distance and beautiful antelopes can be seen whilst visiting the park.  The likes of elephant’s and giraffe are also familiar occupants of the national park.

Other National Parks where the beauty of wildlife can be experienced include; Kafue National Park and Lower Zambezi National Park and the previously discussed Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

Zambian weather and the best time to visit

When it comes to choosing the best time of year to visit Zambia it simply comes down to what you would like to do whilst you are there. If your interests are mainly visiting the Victoria Falls it is best to visit during the rainy season when the waterfalls are at their peak. The rains are at their peak during December, January, February and March.

June, July and august have cooler nights with June being considered ‘winter’ although average temperatures are usually around 10 degrees Celsius and maybe cooler in the night.

The hottest months to visit are September and October where temperatures can reach between 31 – 40 degrees Celsius.

Regardless of when you choose to visit there will be plenty of activities to do. Places like Siavonga offer comfort and luxury for holidaymakers. Although Zambia is landlocked this town is off the shore of Lake Kariba giving a beach like holiday feel.

The basics of greeting people in the local language

Although English is the official language and former colonial language which is used in schools and government several indigenous languages are commonly used on an everyday basis. See below how to greet and respond in two of the most spoken languages in mainland Zambia

English to Bemba translation

How are you? – Mulishani or Shani (adding the “Muli” adds respect to the greeting it is often used when speaking to people older than you)

I’m fine thanks and you? – Wino Shani (to which the other will respond with “Wino” pronounced as we-no).

English to Nyanja translation

How are you? – Mulibwanji

I’m fine thanks and you? – Bwino Bwanji (To which the other will respond with “Bwino”).

Where have you been or would like to visit in Zambia? Share your thoughts below.

The post 2 more reasons to visit Zambia this year (Part 2) appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The old tale was originally written in 1943 by French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who himself an interesting man was born to an aristocratic Catholic family in Lyon in 1900; he was also a poet, journalist and pioneering aviator. The translation of his most famous story into Hassanya and therefore the 300^th language translation of the book have a big significance as the Hassanya language is spoken in the area of Cap Juby, Southern Morocco which is in fact where Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was working as Aéropostale station manager. Whilst flying one day he crashed in the Libyan Desert, somehow he and his navigator André Prévot had managed to survive for 4 days on just rations which eventually inspired him to write the setting of Le Petit Prince in.

Le Petit Prince has been a major success with a very positive retail translation all over the world and as well as now being the most translated non-religious book of all time with 300 translations receiving the likes of Abkhaz to Portuguese translation services, the Saint-Exupéry classic is also one of the bestselling books of all time, with an estimated 140 million copies sold around the world and nearly 2 million still being sold annually.

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So what is it that attracts people to this land locked country? Well asides from the friendliness of the local people who welcome people from foreign countries with open arms there is a lot more than meets the average eye.

Victoria Falls + Animal Parks

Undoubtedly one of the biggest tourist attractions in Zambia is the Victoria Falls which lie between the borders of Zambia-Zimbabwe and are commonly described as one of the 7 wonders of the world. These 355 ft waterfalls are located on the Zambezi River, Africa’s 4^th longest river after the Nile, Congo and Niger rivers. The source of the Zambezi River is located in Mwinilunga District of Zambia and flows through 6 other countries before it ends in the Indian Ocean.

Image by: Harvey Barrison (Flickr)

The Victoria Falls are locally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya which when using a translation service into English reads “The Smoke That Thunders”. The original name is derived from the Lozi language of Zambia. Victoria Falls was named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom after Scottish Missionary David Livingstone became the first European to visit the falls. The town in which the Victoria Falls lies was also named Livingstone.

Whist in Livingstone there are plenty of activities to do although just visiting the falls is breathtaking enough. For the thrill seekers you can actually bungee jump close to the falls. You can also walk across the Victoria Falls Bridge to catch some amazing views of the falls. In addition the Mosi-ao-Tunya National Park is home to wildlife such as Zebras, Giffaffes, Crocodiles and Buffalos to name a few.

Image by: Walter Schärer (Flickr)

The best time to experience the falls is during rainy season which normally falls between late November to April.

Culture & Languages

Zambia is home to around 72 languages and dialects each with its unique use of words. Although English is the main language spoke and taught in schools the main local languages spoken are Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga and Lozi. Many of these languages are known as tribes. For foreign travellers you will not need to worry too much about translation services as many Zambians do speak or understand fluent English so there won’t be a need for professional Bemba translation services or Nyanja translation services however if you do visit rural areas for example filming documentaries or need legal translation services then the use of a professional translation agency may need to come into play.   

There are many more reasons to visit Zambia including the tasty food, lovely weather and wildlife which we will discuss in our next post about Zambia.  For now Stay tuned and “Tukamonana Limbi” (Bemba translation of ‘see you later’)!

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Many have envisioned a future where computers completely replace real human translators, leaving human translators obsolete with only the major professional translation agencies seeing a positive financial translation, others have claimed that machine translations will never be able to match the level of human translators due to the complexities and feeling for the languages that a machine just would not be able to create. Whilst some imagining that rather than humans and computers  competing, there is a thought that maybe machine translators can be used by human translators to make their jobs easier as they have for a number of years now.

One thing is for sure, whatever argument you agree with, machine and AI assisted translations do exist and will be getting better. The majority of the opinion is that machine translations are nothing but basic translations with many grammatical errors, whilst good for one or two lines to get a basic understanding, but when a paragraph is put into a machine translation software, all hell breaks loose.

In a story originally reported by long running Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in a reaction to Google’s announcement that as part of the language list that their Google’s neural machine translators (NMT) already worked within, they were adding Arabic and Hebrew to the list; two much more testing languages to translate. So Haaretz decided to test just how good Google’s NMT Arabic and Hebrew translation services were using a passage of a Hebrew written article to be translated into English. The results? Not so good. They commented on the fact that the overall translation was “adequate” with some sentences being acceptable whilst others lost meaning altogether.

You can read the whole story here:  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.781219

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Take for example you are out and about on holiday in China and need to order food at a local market where the owner only speaks and understands Mandarin. In such a situation because of the informal scenario you are found in surely using translation software such as Google translate to perform the Mandarin translation should do the job? Although as several tests have shown that machine translation is not always accurate and usually translates word for word and is not yet able to digest the feel of the conversation as well as a human being would, it’s worth a try to see what you actually receive after making your order.

On the other hand there are times when a translation is required for professional use usually via legal translation services such as birth certificate translation or marriage certificate translation. In such instances it is imperative to use a qualified translator to perform the translation as this will have a big impact on the decision made by the intended party that requires seeing such documents for various purposes. Another time when the use of professional translation services is imperative is when you require your website translated from one language to another. Yes there are tools online where automated translations of your web text can be done at the click of a button, however you will find that the literal translation of text does not always make sense leaving your website visitors to perceive your business as unprofessional and you may lose out on potential clients because of it.

As much as it is easy to use machine translation one has to assess the situation as to how important getting an accurate translation will be to you. If the answer is yes you are better off finding a qualified native translator or a translation agency to manage the translation process for you.

Image by: Tinou Baou on Flickr

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But you see in China it has been a different story because back in 2010 Google had to remove their search engine (www.google.cn) and direct all searches to their Hong Kong website (www.google.hk) because of disagreements about censorship as a result from the Chinese-based hacking and cyberattacks on Google. Although Google translate has been available on the Google webite for Chinese users for years, this is the first since the ban on Google that the Chinese have been able to access Google’s ‘fast translation services’ without having to use VPN software’s to bypass China’s censorship firewalls.

Google had this to say on their blog post. “Today we’re releasing version 5.8 of the Google Translate apps for Android and iOS, adding instant visual translation between English and Korean, as well as an improved experience for users in China.” This indicates that Google might be willing to make some big improvements on their relationship with China, which makes sense since China has now the biggest population of mobile users in the world at an estimated 700 million.

But when asked to explain why they have all of a sudden made this app accessible to Chinese users, a Google spokesperson declined to comment on the situation. Although most of Google’s services have been blocked in China, most notably their search engine, Google have been able to keep themselves in the Chinese zeitgeist by aiding Chinese companies operate in foreign territories with services such as localisation services and Mandarin translation services.

But all in all the release of Google’ translation app is definitely a step in the right direction for Google-China relations and with something such as an app offering a less controversial first step as it contains less sensitive information than other Google products due to the lack of data collected.

What are your thoughts on this move by Google?

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When deciding what you want to achieve with your business there are many different factors to take into account when devising your business model and your sales & marketing strategy. Obvious things come to mind during this process, things like who your target audience will be, what your pricing will be, where you will advertise and how your budget will be allocated.

Something that is overlooked especially when deciding your marketing strategy is how best to reach your audience. Take for example you are a hospitality provider looking to attract more visitors from South America, your first considerations would be to advertise your business on south American platforms but a key factor often overlooked is that although many more people will be aware of your presence is the fact that in that part of the world English is not peoples first language nor is it the number 1 choice for people looking for products or services. Statistics show that people in South America would rather use their local native languages such as Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese hence a need for professional Spanish translation services or Portuguese translation services would be highly advantageous through the use of professional language translators or a translation agency. Doing so allows you to reach and capture a clientele that is more ikely to book through reading in their mother tongue.

Not only does it benefit you to use language translation services but using localisation services will give you that extra edge to generate new business. Localisation services in comparison to translations takes into account things like colour schemes used by the local market. Things like numeric representation and the way images are places and what images are used to convey your message all play a big factor in appealing to the local market.

If you would like to maximise your customer base it is worth consulting a translation and localisation services provider. At Exchange Lingo we do just that. Get in touch with us today for a free consultation to help you tap into new markets.

Image by: Cydcor Flickr

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These services that are provided by a professional translation agency and professional translators help us comprehend and translate one language to another for individual or professional use. You could also obtain basic translations from machine translation software’s such as Google translate although not the greatest tool. One thing that machine translation would definitely be no help for is idioms of different languages.

These certain quirky sayings can easily be misconstrued when translated unless they are carried out by a native of course. For example from an infographic created by Citybase apartments, take the German phrase ‘Leben wie die Made im Speck’ without some type of German translation services or native to help, you will get the literal English translation of ‘to live like a maggot in bacon’! Now to us that makes no sense because through simple translation the phrase has lost its meaning, the true meaning of this German idiom is ‘to live luxuriously.’

Another perfect example of idioms lost in English translation is that of the Italian phrase ‘un cane in chiesa’ which if you were to use translation software the literal English translation would produce a phrase of ‘A dog in a church’ which would mean absolutely nothing, but if you were to use Italian translation services by native translators they would tell you what the idiom actually means ‘An unwanted guest’.

It is not just limited to the German and Italian languages, all languages have phrases and idioms that will have bizarre and hilarious translations including English, imagine what the Romanian translation of ‘Like water off a duck’s back’ will be like. Thanks to Citybase apartments here is a list of 21 idioms translated into English to comedic effect.

Lost In Translation: 21 Idioms Which Literally Make No Sense When Translated – An infographic by the team at Citybase Apartments

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This robot developed by Joshua Browder a 20 year old British student currently studying at Stanford University in the US is not necessarily helping refugees through translation services although Browder intends to expand his chatbot from its current functionality through Facebook messenger into more applications like whatsapp and also other languages. For the not so tech savvy readers a chatbot is a computer programme which conversates via audio and text methods. The aim of such programmes is to allow for a human like conversation to take place between actual humans and technology.

Joshua Browder initially created his chatbot DoNotPay to help people challenge parking and speeding tickets having been frustrated with the amount of parking tickets he received since passing his driving test. With over 160,000 successful appeals he expanded his chatbot to help people in need of emergency housing and has now gone on to enable the chatbot to assist refugees and asylum seekers needing help on their immigration applications and funding. Browder’s app was created with the help of lawyers across the UK, USA and Canada and can now help refugees in each of these countries for example assisting UK asylum seekers with applying for financial support.

With many refugees coming in from regions such as the Middle East it may be a challenge for them to effectively use such software as presently the chatbot works in English and is not yet able to offer an Arabic translation service. In the US with many migrants from South America a need for Spanish translation services is valuable and this is something that the chatbot could add on in order to help a wider audience.

It goes without saying that technology is advancing at a fast pace but with inventions like Joshua Browder’s many people will be able to access the help they need much more easily.

What are your thoughts on this? We would like to hear your opinions.

Image: Screenshot, donotpay.co.uk

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However whether you are using professional Mandarin translation services for legal documents or are just trying to get an Italian translation for something like “Where are the toilets?” One thing is for sure, they better be spot on! As one Tanzanian tourist guide found out.

A Tanzanian tourist guide who goes by the name of Saimon Sirikwa and works at one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world, the Northern Tanzanian Serengeti National Park was arrested and charged with breaching Tanzania’s cybercrime laws by producing what they are calling a ‘fake translation’ of a tourists words from English into Swahili in a video he uploaded onto his Facebook page. Here is what was said in the video:

Tourist: “Hi. My visit to Tanzania has been beautiful, gorgeous. The people are fabulously wonderful and friendly. Greetings are always jambo (“Hello” in Swahili). Happy to be here. The land is beautiful, beautiful. The animals are wonderful.”

Tour guide (translating into Swahili): “You Tanzanians complain/cry a lot about hunger. Every day you cry about hunger when you have flowers at home. Why don’t you boil the flowers and drink them. It is not good to cry/complain about hunger.”

Tourist: “The variety of animals and people you see is incredible, unlike anywhere else. It is just fabulous.”

Tour guide: “You are asking your president to cook for you. Do you think your president is a cook? Can you get busy, even boil your clothing and eat.”

Tourist: “It will be an experience to savour for all of your life. It is fantastic and beautiful and incredible and just unremarkable.”

Tour guide: “Get busy in every corner of the country. The president can’t leave State House to cook for you. You have to cook for yourselves.”

Despite Mr Sirikwa, who is known to be a comedian where he has been seen to regularly post comedy videos on his Facebook page, posting a second video with the tourist from the original video explaining it was all a joke and his love for his country as well as apologising to anyone offended. 

He was still accused of putting the Tanzanian tourism in a ‘bad light’ according to the police. With the regional police commander telling the BBC there was sufficient evidence to back up these claims that Mr Sirikwa had breached the legislation. The cybercrime law which was introduced in 2015 had been deemed to give the police “too much power” by politicians and activists alike. According to the BBC some correspondents noted that Mr Sirikwa’s joke translation was not unlike the words uttered by Tanzanian President John Magufuli when he told people at a rally to stop complaining about hunger.

So you can make your own mind up about that one. Let us know your thoughts.

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Just a reminder the human translators were represented by four professional translators who were pitted against three artificial intelligent (AI) machine translators which consisted of the western world behemoth Google translate from Google Inc. based in the USA, the self-learning hybrid translation software Systran machine translator from Systran International and Naver’s Papago from Naver Inc. which is Korea’s leading internet provider. All seven competitors were given 50 minutes to translate two random English articles into Korean and then two Korean articles to translate into English.

So standing in the red corner, they have been walking this Earth for roughly 200,000 years, they have risen to the top of the food chain, countless languages spoken and an unknown amount created; we have the Human “Homo sapiens” Translators! (CHEERS) And in the blue corner we have the younger, faster, and created by humans but maybe better than humans; Machine “Robot” Translators! (Boo’s obviously.) LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEE!!!! Of course that’s not really how it happened but that’s how we like to think it might have happened.

It was tense, it was difficult, it was one hell of a battle, after all the pride of all translators and professional translation agencies and humans everywhere was on the line. But just as the bookies predicted the fan favourites, and still the champions of the translation world, the Humans did in fact come out on top. With the professional translators delivering the knockout blows by scoring an average out of 30, a massive 25 on the scorecard whilst the AI/machine translators scoring only between 10 and 15 for Korean translation services.

But man’s triumph over machine may not last so long, with more advancement the gap will surely be closing, with the NMT progressing and learning more it is only a matter of time before the machines take over hopefully not any time soon.

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As much as this type of technological advancement has occurred as with most things in life there is a downside. Many industries have automated their processes and as a result have had benefits such as increased productivity and reduced costs to the expense of human workers. Some reports have even suggested that in the USA robots will eliminate 6% of all jobs by 2021.

With the likes of driverless cars likely to be in full force in the future eliminating jobs for the likes of taxi drivers, drones being tipped to be the new delivery guys and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) software such as computer assisted translation services which will have an impact on the way a translation agency manages its translations, these examples although benefit companies highly pose problems for employees in these positions.

Now that we have discussed touched on the potential threats that technology advancement may have on humans a topic of debate is whether such technology should be taxed the same as humans? Well technically speaking if a robot is replacing a human being who is now unemployed as a result then realistically you would think that the “robot” or the company using the robot should pay some type of tax on that wouldn’t you? It all really depends on the point of view that you are looking at this from.

From a company’s point of view you are more than likely to disregard this notion completely as this will save you money and although some may argue that an increased productivity means more profits therefore more company tax paid, this is not always the case as there are several ways companies enable themselves to pay less taxes as any accountant would tell you. Even the richest man in the world Bill Gates recently stated that he believes robots that steal human jobs should pay taxes, although European Union lawmakers rejected such a proposal in the past.

What are your thoughts on the idea of robots being taxed the same as humans?

Image by: European Space Agency ESA–G. Porter | Flickr

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Well thankfully for the moment at least it is not something we have to really worry about, it is not more than a hot debate in this present time because in truth although machine translations have advanced a great deal in the past couple of years thanks to the development of NMY (“neural machine translation.”), it’s fair to say machines are still somewhat lagging behind their human counterparts. This is because the sheer complexity of languages and even though machines can translate words and sentences in a select number of languages, it is not fluent yet and grammatical errors still occur as well as not taking issues such as localisation services into account, maybe one day it will be the norm but that is for the future.

To prove who is on top at the moment Korea’s International Interpretation Translation Association along with Sejong Cyber University are holding a competition pitting a professional human translator from Ewha Woman’s University against three machine translators in the shape of Naver’s Papago (a Korean translation app specialising in English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese), Systran’s machine translation solution (a self-learning hybrid translation software) and Google translate (probably the best known free translation software in the western world).

The big translation showdown will commence on Tuesday 21^st February 2017 on the Sejong Cyber University website. Each contender will be given the task to translate two random English articles into Korean and two Korean articles into English with a time limit of 30 minutes per paragraph. The human translator for now is considered as the favourite but in the future machines and AI translations will become more and more prevalent, for example who wouldn’t want their Romanian translation services carried out in a matter of minutes and at a fraction of the cost? But hopefully like any industry the translation agencies and translators can find a way to adapt and live side by side with machine translations.

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Businesses can now be run from your bedroom by just one person alone. The rise of the small business has been possible because the internet has allowed them to do so. Many people are profiting off of buying and selling, creating apps, small scale retailing, translation services, investing in stocks to name a few and as a result are earning thousands if not millions of pounds with teams of less than 5 in some cases.

But with the massive rise of small businesses being set up every day most do not make it past the first year whether its due to poor planning, underestimating the financial translation and cost of running the business, how many customer numbers will be achieved or simply overestimating the success of the business and making a loss.

There is however one way that could skyrocket a business’s success and that is through the means of global marketing. Today businesses are able to have virtual offices anywhere in the world in order to gain a foothold in foreign markets. But virtual offices are not enough to help a business work and this is where translation and interpreting services can help. We have previously discussed how translation services can have a big impact on how your business is run but interpreting services could also have a major impact on your businesses’ success.

Imagine you are just about to put the finishing touches to a project for a new and potentially game changing client for your business that is the result of months of work and charming, and all you have to do is do is have a face-to-face interview with the director to seal the deal but there’s a problem your potential new clients director is from Israel and speaks mostly in Hebrew what do you do? Luckily for you, you have already been using professional Hebrew translation services from a professional translation agency and with this in mind you hire an esteemed Hebrew interpreter to mediate between English and Hebrew thus finalising the contract and boosting your businesses international standing.

This is just one way interpreting services can be used for your business. It is not only a fast translation service but it also gives your business a voice in another language.

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Winter Olympics traditionally includes sports that are practiced on snow and ice, sports such as ice hockey and snowboarding. Over the years the Winter Olympic Games have included events such as free skiing on a skip also known as Freestyle Mongul Skiing attracting more countries to participate and as a result increased interest in the sport from a wider audience.

The forthcoming winter Olympics due to be held in PyeongChang, South Korea between 9-25th Feb 2018 are expected to include 2500 competing athletes from 90 competing nations. Usually during these types of events a need for professional translation services or interpreting services are higly valuable to aid good communication for participants and the audience to help avoid embarrassing situations similar to what transpired during the 2015 Women’s FIFA World Cup where a twitter hashtag suggesting “Gonorrhoea for Sweden” was misinterpreted.

Now we know the Japanese are ahead when it comes to technology advancement and this latest reveal does not seem to be slowing them down. Hancom a Seoul based computer software company is set to reveal a new “artificial intelligence (AI) powered robot interpreter” for use at the 2018 Winter Oympic Games according to Korea Times. This human like robot is designed to emulate human-like facial expressions and is to be initially developed to translate 9 languages supporting Chinese translation services, Spanish translation services and French translation services to name a few with plans to expand in the future.

Will this development reduce the need for human translations? Now that is something to debate. Let us know your thoughts?

Image by: YOHNAP NEWS

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Google have offered us a unique fast translation service for the last year in which all you have to do is take a picture using the camera on your phone of the quote or sentence written in the language you want translated from and then it is instantly translated into whatever language you wish. For example if you were over in China and wanted to order food from a restaurant but had no idea what it was because the menu is written fully in Mandarin. Don’t panic! just whip out your phone head over to Google translate, set your language pairs e.g. Mandarin to English and click the camera icon and just like that you get an English translation and as a result you avoid ordering those prawns you hate. It also works the other way around where you will receive a Mandarin translation from the written English.

Google’s live camera translation feature can be used offline also by downloading the offline translation pack which is around 42MB with Google’s latest update adding the language pairs of Japanese to English and English to Japanese to the growing list of instant image translations. Of course this is never going to replace professional translation services carried out by human translator, but it’s definitely more convenient and useful in certain situations. So if you are ever in Munich reading German directions for some reason, you know you have portable German translation services at your fingertips, Or if you are out in Rome and even though you don’t speak Italian you choose the Italian menu anyway because you know you have Italian translation services in your back pocket.

Image by: Rich DeMuro

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With all the issues and outrage surrounding immigration and migrants in the midst of Donald Trump’s presidential reign of the US, restaurant owner Sook “Sue” Shin unbeknownst to her had somehow managed to get herself and her restaurant involved into these political debates. Sue was just on the lookout for some new employees of the restaurant when she claims she came across a “help wanted” sign on eBay little did she know that this same sign would later make her restaurant go viral and not for any good reasons.

You see the help wanted sign she purchased had the phrase printed underneath “Minorities need not apply” in plain English along with a Spanish translation. With echoes of President Trump’s election campaign as you could imagine this didn’t go down well with the locals as one customer took a photo of the sign and posted it on Facebook, which of course sparked a massive backlash from the locals to ‘boycott’ the restaurant along with the apparently ‘racist’ owners.

But Sue quickly moved to take down the signs and put up a note to apologise wholeheartedly for any offence caused. Sue a Japanese native explained that English is not her first language, nor her husbands who is Korean and that she did not fully understand what the message had meant. This was further backed up by Melonie Henderson, an employee of two years who said “They thought it meant minors, not minorities,” she than went on to stress that Sue herself is a minority as well as the employees who work there.

Sue had also had to change her voicemail message to explain the situation and again apologise since they were getting abusive phone calls throughout the day. Despite Sue’s best efforts at reconciliation one regular customer of African-American ethnicity explained she was not comfortable eating at the restaurant after this incident. But it now seems that business has been getting back to normal as most customers have acknowledged this simple misunderstanding.

A simple misunderstanding it may be but due to the current political climate along with the migrant scepticism, you can’t help but think this could have all been avoided through a simple translation service. This incident could have major ramifications for the restaurants future due to an innocent mistake on something as menial as a help wanted sign. Or maybe not, but one thing is for sure if you are not fluent in the native language, seek professional services whether it is English, French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese translation services. Let this be a lesson to all businesses around the world.

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We learnt how to make tools to hunt animals that are much bigger and powerful than us, we managed to create and control fire which we used to cook food, keep us warm and protect ourselves amongst other things, we built houses and buildings, we made art, we made cars etc. But one of the most impressive creations we have had is the use of complex languages.

There is such a vast array of languages, dialects and variations in the modern world not counting the amount of now extinct languages right through human history and as more and more languages formed there was bound to be a time where two cultures meet with completely different languages and the need to understand each other is a necessity, this is how translations were born.

These early translation services so to speak enabled the skill of learning a language from a completely alien civilisation which in turn introduced different cultures and encouraged more spreading of populations around the world.

In today’s world learning what something means in another language is not a problem and thanks largely to the internet a fast translation is something that can be done through typing it in on Google.

Alternatively if you wanted an official document to be translated there are professional translation agencies so all the work is done for you. You could even pick which language you wanted to be translated for example Romanian translation services.

Of course due to all the studies and knowledge on languages coupled with the ever increasing globalisation and the internet making the world smaller, translation services are even more in demand as businesses and individuals alike have more of a reason to be in contact from someone across the world.

You don’t even have to know the languages anymore if you wanted to have a basic conversation with someone of a different tongue as advances in technology have made this possible. There are so many ways how translation services have had an effect on the world; these are just some of the ways.

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Many of today’s international companies such as eBay were founded by entrepreneurs from their bedrooms. Some successful entrepreneurs like Mashable’s Pete Cashmore started writing blogs as a hobby and did not foresee the success Mashable has translated to date within the social media industry from its humble beginnings, however one thing that stands out and that is common by all such companies or entrepreneurs is their ability to use internet marketing in order to generate sales.

Online marketing has been a growing industry for many years now with expertise earning substantial amounts of money for services such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which involves activities such as link building, directory submission, article writing and social media to name a few. SEO can now also be studied at higher education level in some countries. Over the years this field has grown extensively and pretty much anyone can do this type of marketing by simply learning the basics through published books and online forums. With that has come numerous bad practices in online marketing most notably in the form of spammers. Many are spamming blogs and forums with unnecessary links in the hope to generate traffic. The question is does this pay off?

In the short term maybe! You may boost your companies’ visibility in major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, but for companies with a long term focus, such practices must be avoided. Investing in a good online marketing strategy is what will give companies longevity in search engines and allows the company to be seen as a credible source by its users which will enable the company website to rank even higher on major search engines and provide a competitive edge. This is also where good budgeting comes into effect. As a fundamental rule of marketing strategy it is better to be both effective as well as efficient. Being effective means you have a good strong product or core service to offer whereas being efficient means you have the right team to sell and market your product. Both need to be present in order to achieve optimum success.

With over one billion search queries per day for products and services on Google alone, it is vital that in this day businesses appear in such search engine results. This is a must as this is a major source of traffic to your website. As any online marketing manager will tell you, doing so will ultimately lead to higher revenues.

Internet Marketing VS Traditional marketing

One thing to understand is that internet marketing does not and should not work in isolation. The traditional styles of marketing such as face-to-face or business to business marketing are still valuable in this day in age as they allow companies to have a personalised touch to their service. Having these key principles of marketing work alongside online/internet marketing will lead to positive financial results for your company which proves the value of internet or online marketing as a valuable contribution to business.

Translation agencies around the world have clearly taken advantage of this. By simply typing a keyword such as Slovak translation services or German translation services through Google you will find millions of results to choose from. From this it is usually the top 5 companies appearing in the search results of these particular keywords that will gain the most business from this; another clear example of the value and influence of online marketing and SEO.

Undeniably internet marketing is a competitive industry but is not something that should be vaguely overlooked by companies.  Today over 95% of the most successful companies in the world poses a website; however it is only the businesses that effectively uses internet marketing that pull the most traffic to their sites and so make the most revenues.

The post Internet marketing worth it? What entrepreneurs need to understand appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In terms of translating documents for example legal documents, immigration documents or documents which call for certified translations, it really is fundamental to use a human translator in order to increase accuracy and quality.

A translation agency is one way to seek out qualified translators. It is usually fast, and easy to obtain a quote. By using this service you are able to save time as well as money. This gives you the opportunity to contact a quantity of companies, get quotes and judge which translation agency to make use of based on your requirements. Another benefit of using professional human translators instead of using automated services is the grammatical accuracy that is included with it. Despite the ever changing and advancement of technology it is still crucial that you proofread documents before they are handed back to a client or professional body. Translating using software programmed services will translate your text word for word; however, it does not think along the lines of the grammatical accuracy. Not yet has there been an invention which has met all these needs. Again from this, one can clearly see where it becomes more reasonable to work with human translators in such occurrences.

Hundreds of languages are spoken globally and with globalization on the rise, companies are investing heavily in markets like India and Brazil.  This has created many opportunities for firms to grow and reach broader horizons. This really is also where the utilisation of a translation agency comes into effect. On account of language obstacles, a superb translation is critical in order to be aware of all of the messages or instructions. This can vary from translating a technical document for only a car manual, translating a legal document for immigration purposes or translating an organizations website into another language. Take for instance visiting any company website on Google that targets the Slovak market and has a website translated in Slovak professionally, also try and use some of the free Slovak website translation tools online and compare the two. There is no doubt that you will spot the difference instantly as websites do not only require translation of words but need to be localised to suit the intended audience.

For businesses seeking to branch out and go global, the use a good translation company is vital in effectively reaching a wider audience with the ultimate goal of increasing sales and revenues.

Image by: Prank Sky Media – Flickr

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How about someone shouting translations in your face? Because that is exactly how Japanese electronic product giants Panasonic want you to see translation services. Just imagine yourself in a foreign land, lost and not able to speak the local language even to get by and just when you are about to give up hope your saviour turns up shouting something in your face that you can actually understand and this is all possible thanks to Panasonic.

This is because Panasonic have come up with a megaphone that is capable of automatically translating about 300 pre-set information and warnings messages from Japanese to English, Chinese and Korean in order to help companies deal with the increased foreign visitors coming to Japan. This really is the definition of retail translation services as Panasonic plan to obtain contracts to produce 10,000 units aimed for 2018.

The megaphone works in a way such as when the user speaks in Japanese into it; the software recognises the phrase and instantly translates into one of the three languages programmed into the megaphone so far, even if the sentences are incomplete. The estimated 300 pre-set sentences includes lines like “Watch your step” and “The train has been delayed,” and can even function with background noise which makes it perfect for places like train stations and airports. Although more phrases can be added through updates.

Panasonic have started offering the megaphone translation for around ¥20,000 ($183) per month based on a three-year contract with organisations such as the police already trialling these services since 2015. Depending on how well this product is received by the public, it could spell a very positive financial translation for the Osaka based company.

We think it is a great idea and something that can potentially expand greatly in the future. What are your thoughts on this?

Image by: Jason Hargrove via Flickr

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In such a situation it is vital for the person dealing with the customer to maintain a professional level of composure and despite knowing that the customer is wrong and they are right, does the serving party still need to bear in mind that the customer is always right? Some may say; how do you do that? It is important to understand that sometimes people do not follow instructions well.

It may be a simple case of not reading an advertisement well or a more serious one. E.g. in a situation such as a translation agency offering Russian translation services or Chinese translation services and you are offering a special promotional discount whereby the customer has to purchase a particular product in order to qualify for the special promotional discount on offer, but the customer having misread the promotional details or “small print as they call it” is unhappy that they do not qualify for the discount, it easy to pinpoint where the customer is wrong and the issue would usually be resolved there and then.

However in a situation more complex where there is no quantitative data to back up your companies point against the customers, it takes much more effort to resolve the issue at hand. This can be seen as a waste of time and is something that is overlooked by managers at times.

In such cases it is fundamental to ensure that the customer does not feel as though they are being belittled or their point of view is being undermined but to empathize with the customer and make them feel as though they have not made a mistake will in most cases work as an advantage to your company.

This will make the customer know that they are in the wrong without you explicitely stating that (and despite them not admitting it in most cases); however they will be more likely to use your services again because of the excellent customer service they received. We as human beings do not want to be told we are wrong and in most cases do not like to admit we are wrong. That is just human nature!

When answering the question ‘is the customer always right’, one cannot simply say yes or no without explanation. It simply depends on the situation at present and the way in which the serving party handles the situation.

For companies, training employees to effectively manage situations such as the ones raised earlier in this post is an invaluable step in ensuring customer satisfaction is met. This can be the fine line between keeping a customer and losing one. We all know the value of customer retention and many researchers have noted that it is more valuable to retain a customer than to get a new one.

No matter how popular your products may be with the public, if you do not provide a good service, customers will not feel valued and your company could be in deep trouble as customers will most likely decide not repurchase from you. On average a customer tells around 10 people when they experience negative customer service from a company but hardly tells anyone when they do experience positive customer service.

This alone should be something that managers in a company should bear in mind and this should be communicated effectively to supervisors and also the workers who interact with the customer at the point of service delivery. If conducted appropriately, there is no doubt that customer satisfaction will increase as well as sales and profitability.

The post Is the customer always right? What every business should consider appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

When it comes to doing business in 2017 one thing you must avoid is to limit your possibilities. Now more than ever is the time to maybe take that leap of faith and invest into reaching global markets. Perhaps it is something that has been weighing on your mind for a while and you just haven’t got round to doing it. Once you have sorted out the logistics as to how you can deliver your product or service on a global scale your next step should be the utilisation of professional translation services.

Using translation services can be a huge benefit to your company and separate you you’re your competition. After all, research has found that despite English being the most popular language in the western business world as we previously discussed many countries prefer and do business in their native mother tongue.

When targeting countries like Germany you would see major differences in terms of your marketing by utilising a German translation service for your website translation you could see a dramatic increase on traffic from Germany. If you aim to reach the South American market, Brazil to be specific a Brazilian Portuguese translation would be highly advantageous for your business.

When it comes to using translation services the most common objectives are the usually “oh it’s too expensive I’ll just use Google translate”. Well try and send a proposal to a potential new client in China using Google machine Chinese translation service and see what happens. We don’t really advise you do that. In all fairness Google translate has its benefits and can be used in many instances to get quick translations of text to have an understanding of what is being said.

However technology has not quite yet replaced the human touch so for now the most accurate translations can only be performed by humans. Before jumping the gun and translate your entire content test the waters with a few pages and see what difference it makes.

The post How to utilise translation services in 2017 appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

You would usually associate book translations with some type of translation service of more prominentg languages for example Mandarin, English, Arabic, and Italian translation services to name a few, so it might come as a surprise that these children’s favourites from Julia Donaldson and Roald Dahl have been translated into the Scots language from Scotland.

So instead of Oopmpa-Loompas how about Heedrum-Hodrums? This is the Scots version of Mr Willie Wonka’s (or Wullie Wonka’s) tiny orange helpers. The 1964 Roald Dahl story was translated into Scots by poet, novelist and translator Mattew Fitt. Fitt has previously worked with Black & White Publishing’s to translate other Dahl stories into Scots including The BFG (The Guid Freendly Giant), George’s Marvellous Medicine (Geordie’s Mingin Medicine) and our personal favourite The Twits (The Eejits).

Whilst The Gruffalo has been giving more of a Glaswegian take on the language of the story originally released in 1999 and written by Julia Donaldson, The Gruffalo has been translated into Glaswegian Scots by Actress and comedienne Elaine C Smith for Scots language books specialist Itchy Coo. To give you a feel of the translation, the opening line of the original Gruffalo goes “A mouse took a stroll through a deep dark wood. A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.”  Whilst the Scots translation is as follows “A gallus moose taen a dauner through a scary big wood. A fox clocked the moose an the moose looked good.” The Glasgow Gruffalo as it has been renamed has also had a Dundonian Scots in addition to a Shetlandic Scots translation.

It will be interesting to see just how the translations of these series of children’s books influence the number of Scots speakers within the new generations to come.

Image by: pettifoggist Flickr

The post You’ll never guess which language translation these two children’s classics received appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Following on from our first post on what to take into account when learning a new language we know that even though a lot of people will set new goals and new ways of thinking most will soon drift back into their old ways but fear not we are here to give you some tips on how to stay on track when you hit those oh so familiar speed bumps of the new year.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes

When you set out to learn anything in order to grow yourself you will soon encounter some difficulties and learning a new language is no exception. When you are learning new words you only have to look at children as an example, they are not born speaking a language, they learn from their environments and experiment with words that they utter and the reactions they receive. They are not afraid to make mistakes or look foolish so why should you? Leave your ego at the door with 2016 because you will learn much more from making mistakes than not trying at all. You are not a professional translation agency you are going to make mistakes, it is part of life, learn from it!

Consistency is crucial

Consistency in general will get you through anything in life and when you do start learning from these mistakes alongside being consistent in acquiring your newfound language skills you will see yourself becoming more fluent. This would hopefully lead to a snowball effect where you should start gaining more confidence to attempt to carry out advanced conversations and as a result more of the language will stick with you which means you will not need that Mandarin translation service when you travel to China on that impulsive trip you booked as part of your New Year goals.

Remember why

Finally just like any other goal you want to achieve, remember exactly why you are doing this and remind yourself of this reason every time you feel your motivation slipping away! It could be a desire to learn a new language out of necessity like relocating for a job abroad or traveling to a certain country that requires so. On the other hand you could be learning a new language as a passion or part of your New Year resolution to yourself. But whatever your reason for learning a new lingo you will get that motivation back once you have thought about exactly why you started learning it in the first place.

Comment on your experiences of learning a new language.

Image by: Robert Lowe | Flickr

The post New year; New language? Learning a new language: Part 2 appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Four years into the so called real world many people do not get time to even stop and analyse how far they have come since graduating from university. Many of us caught up in the so called ‘rat race’ barely get time to actually process and translate what we have or have not achieved in that time. Some have gone into retail work while others have ventured into fields such as finance, translation services or marketing. While most of our weekdays are spent commuting to and from work, working and spending time with family and friends whilst weekends are spent either getting drunk (if you can still keep up, going out to eat and running errands, we even manage to fit in the occasional holiday once or twice a year for the lucky ones both have enough to fund them or lucky enough to get the time off their busy careers.

Before getting into this it is important to highlight that university teaches us a lot both academically and socially. The aim of university is to prepare us for the real world whether that is transitioning into full time employment or perhaps for some of the risk takers venturing out on your own. When at university you learn several skills including how to work with others via group assignments, importance of meeting deadlines, presenting in front of an audience etc. What you don’t learn is that you may not necessarily get into the industry you studied for; you may actually not like working in that particular industry once you get in or getting high grades doesn’t necessarily mean you get the better job!

Once you leave university you begin to better understand the term “it’s who you know more than what you know” as you experience the ups and downs of work ranging from lows such as working under incompetent managers, favouritism in the workplace, or highs such as job satisfaction and bonuses. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it this is something that we cannot avoid hence why many successful people constantly advise on building a good professional network for yourself whether in business or in employment. Networking is something that can be started whilst at university. You do not need to wait for graduation day to start networking. There are many ways you can do so whether it is attending job fairs or local meet ups to applying for internships in the field you hope to get into. Proactively doing so will give you an advantage over other graduates who have not done the same.

Often times it takes people to lose a loved one to realise what so called ‘life’ is about and many say it really puts their life into perspective e.g. losing someone to lung cancer can have a profound influence in helping you quit smoking. Why wait for it to get to that stage why not start living a healthier lifestyle now, why not walk away from that company who values you the same way you value a KFC chicken bone, why not go travelling as you planned 2 years ago? We discussed previously on 3 signs you need a career break how and when it is time to take a career break whether it is to rejuvenate or simply reassess your life goals and such a choice can have greater rewards than you could imagine.

The post What I didn’t learn in university appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In the UK we are all too familiar with the battle of Christmas TV adverts mainly from companies such as John Lewis and Marks and Spencer’s who use their advertisements to manipulate our emotions like any advert to be fair but these certain ads always seem to garner so much more attention so it is reasonable to say that it plays a key role in how well these companies are likely to perform over the Christmas period so much so that they are prepared to spend millions in order to see a huge financial translation in sales.

But this year even though Buster the Boxer ad by John Lewis and the Amazon ad involving an Imam and a Priest, just to name a few have caught the eyes of many this year in the lead up to Christmas in the UK there is one advert that has seemingly topped them all, not from John Lewis, M&S in fact not even from the UK.

The ad in conversation is from Poland by Polish based online auction website Allegro. The advert has been viewed nearly 13 million times on YouTube and is titled ‘English for beginners.’  This heart-warming advert begins with an elderly man receiving a package from Allegro which consists of Polish to English translation audiobooks as well as English for beginner’s books. He then gets himself completely immersed in the English language in the following comedic scenes which involves putting sticky notes with English words on objects around the house including his dog as well as copying rude phrases he hears from the movie.

Eventually we see the man as he prepares to board a flight which sees him arrive in the UK to a nice house where he embraces his son who now lives there with his wife when rather timidly, a little girl appears out of a room to which he walks up to her and says “HI, I am your grandfather”. The conclusion was he learnt to speak English in order to be able to speak to his granddaughter the first time he met her. The response for social media was massive with many saying that this is the best Christmas ad ever and even more saying they shed tears just watching it.

We dare you not to cry!

Image by: Art DiNo

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The Neural Machine Translation or simply ‘NMT’ is the name of the latest technology that Google has employed to help improve their real time translation services. Originally showcased earlier this year in September, Google announced that these neural networks are going to be the process behind Google Translate. Google has already started utilising NMT for some languages within the last month.

Traditionally Google Translate has always been a useful tool if you ever needed to know anything from a word to a phrase in another language and was perfect if you required a fast translation as it is instant. But Google Translates’ translations for anything more would mostly be grammatically wrong and lacked a ‘native feel’ (don’t even think about translating slang words). But now with these improvements in technology Google aims to have more accurate translations as well as the NMT being able to learn more with what Google are calling “zero-shot” translations which could be bad news for the professional translation agency of tomorrow.

The zero shot translation is essentially a translation system that has the ability to translate one language to another without previous experience of translating that language pair beforehand. So for example if the NMT had been taught to translate English into Hebrew and vice versa as well as being taught English to Romanian translations and vice versa; now imagine you were in need of Hebrew translation services from the Romanian language the Neural Machine Translation system would be able to translate without having learnt that language pair before.

So for this to happen there must have been some kind of ‘learning’ process involved from Googles artificial intelligence (AI) which begs the question ‘Has Google created its own language?’ that’s the hypothetical thought Devin Coldewey offered when he wrote an article in which he discussed Google’s NMT and its ability to understand a language pair it hasn’t faced before through connections made from prior knowledge.

In fact he is partially correct with these assumptions as AI researchers have suggested that the zero-shot translation might have been a result of Googles NMT being able to communicate with itself potentially bringing the translation level up to exert level.

This all sounds impressive but in the longer run could this ‘Interlingua’ that this AI possesses be the foundations for something more sinister? We tried to warn you before in our previous posts. But in all seriousness it is the forward step in making language translations easier to obtain.

What are your thoughts?

Image by: Kathryn Decker

The post Has Google created its own language? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

It all started on Wednesday 30^th November in a Westfield FFA cup final that was contested between two Australian teams Melbourne City FC and Sydney FC at AAMI Park. The tightly fought cup final was eventually decided in the second half when Australian footballing legend Tim Cahill scored with one of his trademark headers on the 53^rd minute to secure Melbourne City FC the win and their first ever trophy in the clubs history.

As you can imagine emotions were most likely running high after such a historic game for the club and this is where the controversial and comedic moment happened. Melbourne City’s Uruguayan captain Bruno Fornaroli was giving a speech to the fans in the stadium on his side’s extraordinary win, bearing in mind his mother tongue is Spanish and his English has been described as ‘broken’ so he was reading his speech from cue cards; when after he ended his speech he threw the cards into the air and screamed out ‘And f..k off!’ Perhaps better localisation services are needed here?

But in all seriousness Bruno came out the next morning to explain this odd expletive. According to the skipper himself, he apparently was meant to say ‘vamos’ which has a Spanish to English translation of ‘let’s go’ to cheer on his team refer to his excitement and overjoy as the reason why another word came out instead, he also apologised to anyone it might have offended.

We are not sure how true that explanation is or that anyone has been offended but one thing is for sure it is definitely hilarious. Let us know what you think about him blaming translations, see the footage below and tell us your conclusion.

Image Screenshot: The Tight Five Football YouTube

The post Blame it on the Translation? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

One common misconception about interviews is that you cannot really be your true self and well in some respects this is right. In order to make it in life you have to be able to adapt accordingly in different situations whether its having your first child and the need to spend less time at the bar or getting that first mortgage and cutting down on the number of holidays you take in a year, being able to adapt well in these situations surely will lead to more successful outcomes. Also knowing the type of interview you will be taking part in is key as your approach will differ. Perhaps you have a competency based interview at a language translation agency applying for a Russian translation role you will find that practicing competency based questions will enable you to go far in the interview process as these types of interviews require you to provide solid examples of your previous accomplishments on the spot. Having an idea of what to talk about whilst relating to the role you have applied for will make you appear as a well-researched candidate, something recruiters admire.

When it comes to attending an interview many people feel as though they have to be someone different to who they really are and very often going in with this approach ultimately ends on a sour note as further down the line you realise you cannot pretend to be someone you’re not all the time especially if you will be spending the majority of your time at work interacting and living up to expectations you may not fit.

One thing to note is that human beings come with multiple layers of personality and habits. Perhaps you are one of those people who laugh a lot at any statement made, surely you will not do that in an interview as maybe your more professional side kicks in. Let’s face it people are rarely altogether ‘themselves’ all the time especially at interview stages because they often are trying to be the person they feel the interviewer wants to hire. Really the best way to approach this is to showcase your personality in a professional setting and that is something that takes practice. Try it out with friends and family and get some feedback on how you come across before going to interview and you will become more conscious of what to reveal and what not to at that interview.

The post Can you really be yourself at an interview? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

So do give yourself a pat on the back for considering putting effort into learning another language, whether it is for a need, hobby or just something for you to tick off the bucket list but there are a few things to take into account before you embark on this journey

It takes time/patience

Learning a new language, especially a language that is on a separate branch of the language tree is going to require full attention and a lot of time and patience. It is estimated that for an English speaker to achieve a basic fluency in a new language could take between 480-720 hours of learning depending on the difficulty and intensity of learning. So if you are heading on your travels in a weeks’ time and you think a couple minutes of your English to Mandarin translation book will help you, think again!

Forget your language rules

Forget every grammar rule you know, well at least just for when you are trying to comprehend your new chosen lingo. The mistake that many people make when they are learning a new language from English is that they apply the same rules that the English language consists of for the language which they are learning. Save yourself a lot of time and frustration and remember, most languages just have different rules and you have to adapt yourself to them accordingly. You will find that some languages are affected by male/female words, some languages where a different tone of voice will change the meaning and so on. You will also discover that some words and phrases might not have a direct nor fast translation into English.

Immersing yourself is key

This last point really is an important one because like any growth skill actively engaging in your subject will lead to quicker results and this applies to learning a new language. If you were to constantly speak to a native, read literature, watch films or even live in the country of the language you are learning you will find yourself becoming more fluent at a quicker rate. For example if you were learning Romanian, a good idea would be to live out in Romania for a while and with the help of Romanian translation services of some type or English speaking locals you would then be able to encounter the Romanian language on a day to day basis, thus picking up the language even quicker as well as learning some informal expressions used by native speakers.

Are you an English speaker that has learnt a new language? Share your experiences below or if you have learnt English as a second language let us know your thoughts!

Image: © Thomas Williams/Crossroads Foundation

The post 3 Things for English speakers to take into account when learning a new language appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

By voting to opt out of the EU with a view of an independent UK in control of their own borders and able to set up new trade agreements has led to a major split within the countries that make up the UK as the vote was a close one. Brexit had even seen former Prime Minister David Cameron, who previously campaign against the EU step down from his position which has since seen Theresa May take over as PM. Not to mention the financial translation the Brexit vote has had so far for the pound (GBP).

This major split has been highlighted in the way the media have gone about reporting the story and can be clearly seen in how the major newspaper services interpretation of the stories surrounding Brexit.  Of the major newspapers in the UK the Daily Mail and The Telegraph are pro Brexit whilst The Guardian is pro remain and this is clearly seen in their articles which has been underlined by Francesco Guerrera for Politico.eu, he compared both the Daily Mail’s and The Telegraph’s headlines in a recent speech by German chancellor Angela Merkel implying that Merkel had given in or softened her stance to adhere to the British government’s requests regarding immigration, with the main focus on the story being that she stated the EU will need to further discuss the laws on freedom of movement.

Angela Merkel did indeed say that but with headlines of “Merkel Hints at New Migration Limit” you would think its 1-0 to the UK. When in fact she went on to explain that freedom of movement within the EU is not negotiable as it is one of the four fundamental freedoms and rather than stop that Merkel was indicating a discussion on clamping down on “benefit tourism” which is where migrants abuse a countries welfare system. So you can clearly see the way these outlets influence their readers, perhaps it’s just isn’t professional German translation services they are using who knows.

But translation agencies beside, The Guardian themselves have admitted that 56% of their articles about Brexit have been led with headlines such as “the pound will weaken”, “unemployment will rise”, and “racism will increase”, to name a few but as you can see these extreme headlines are obviously put in place to have an influence of readers opinions.

It’s well known that media outlets are used in manipulating views and opinions; do you think you have been swayed by this? What do you make of these interpretations?

The post How interpreting and translation services influenced Brexit appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Below are three must follow online marketing activities you will need in order to rank well online and maximise your website success potential.

Blogging

When it comes to blogging many people have this misconception that blogging is just for individuals who write about their life experiences and occasionally review products they have somehow either received for free or they have been paid to advertise.  Well that’s not the case; if you look at most websites they will have a section that states blog or news. This section can allow you to elaborate on your business activities and keep your customers informed on industry news highlighting your know-how of market trends. Blogging allows you to produce high quality content which is a key player for search engine rankings today.

Social media

Well social media is not just for the Kardashian brand although they are one of the most if not the most popular figures on social media amassing more than 250 million followers between their social media accounts. Social media is a high ranking factor for search engines and is a must to get your business active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and more. These platforms are a great tool to share your website content to reach a wider audience.

Email marketing

When it comes to email marketing many people frown upon this type of strategy because of the bad rep this activity has achieved over the years. Let this not put you off as doing this right can increase your business returns. When you decide to perform email marketing you need to be clever about your approach. One way to do this is to link your other online activities to your email marketing so as to emailing people who have actually shown an interest in your product/service. We all receive junk mail at least several times a day however some so called junk mail is actually relevant to us and we end up reading on and sometimes even doing further research and purchasing a product or making use of the advertised service.

Image by: Sean MacEntee

The post Three online marketing strategies new websites must follow appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

We have already shown you how a bad translations has negatively affected a company such as Tesla here, however on the other hand we have also shown you some terrible examples of Mandarin translation services to hilarious effect here. But very rarely these translation fails could have such a comedic effect that it becomes viral and is reported around the world, which in turn could actually help boost a business/organisations audience to reach more people more than anything else.

This is exactly what happened in Japan recently in an episode of localisation services gone wrong as reported by twitter user Domoboku whose real name is Akiyama Kojiro from Tokyo. It all started in a Japanese convenience store when a non-native man took a bottle of lemon iced tea off the shelf and started to drink it without paying; as you can imagine this resulted in a heated argument between the man and the shop’s cashier, with neither speaking the same language before Kojiro intervened.

You will probably be thinking the shopper was in the wrong but in his defence he was not to blame but rather the miscalculated Japanese to English translated brand name on the bottle. The reason why the man was not to blame was because the drink which is produced by Pokka Sapporo had in clear English words ‘FREE Tea’ on the bottle, (See image below) other than that everything else was Japanese. It turns out that this is just the brand name and not an offer, which according to Kojiro anyone could easily confuse as given the amount of freebies you receive in Japan. A quick look on the website explains that the drink “encourages people to be free from a stress-filled society,” hence the name.

Image credit: @domobuku

Kojiro’s account on this ironic incident has seen his post attract over 34k retweets and more than 19k likes, leading to a discussion of people sharing their own translation fail stories. A lesson for everyone to take from this is whether you need English, French, Spanish or Hebrew translation services make sure it’s done professionally and localised too or if you are going to make a mistake, make it so funny and bizarre that it leads to a viral sensation to reach a massive population.

The post How this confusing translation led to a ‘heated’ argument appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Whether you run a business or are an employee of an organisation there is no doubt that each respective role involves a high level of competition, graft and perseverance which translates to success. In spite of this there is something that seems to stand out when people think of success which is attributed to being a ‘hard worker’! When you ask most people what the key to success is, the first thing that comes to thought is hard work. This is also something that is instilled in us from a young age by our parents and teachers, as children we are taught that if we work hard we will be successful and be able to afford all the things we want in life. Although that is very much a big part of becoming successful it is without saying that hard work only gets you so far.

As we get older it becomes clearer that hard work simply isn’t enough to get you to the top of the chain when it comes to career or business. Whether you are in the translation services business or are a medical doctor you have to be able to communicate with different levels of stakeholders, be able to plan and meet deadlines for projects, be willing to sacrifice sleep to get stuff done, be able to network with different people, be a good leader and the list goes on…

Leadership

Having good leadership skills will surely help propel you to get further in your career after all if you look at any organisation often times the leader delegates and the workers perform tasks assigned to them by the leader/supervisor and in most cases the leader earns a substantial amount more than their juniors so if you want to become successful in whatever you do it is important to develop your leadership skills. Although some may argue that some people are natural born leaders there is nothing stopping you from becoming a good leader. So next time your boss asks you to participate in a leadership training programme at work take that with two hands and learn as much as you can.

Networking

Being able to network is very important not only in business and career wise but life in general. Now we have all heard the saying it’s not what you know but who you know. Sadly in most cases it is! Statistics show that hiring managers are more likely to hire someone who is referred to by a family or friend before they select others. If you are looking for new business opportunities or a new career network the life out of yourself until you meet the right people that can help you achieve your goals. Here’s a great piece of advice from Forbes about networking.  

Having been taught that hard work is the key to success many find later in life that all these other skills are vital, take for example you have a manager who works hard but does not know how to lead or communicate with their team, chances are they will probably not last long in that role. Another example could be a hard worker who settles to work in a supermarket warehouse but has talents that can enable them to be successful in the business world. In that case they are not harnessing their full potential and although they might be happy and feel successful and some may argue that success differs from one person to another which is true, they are not living up to their full potential.

Taking from this remember hard work will get you far in life but life skills and your network will take you even further.

Image by: Go Fish Digital

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Translators and interpreters across the world who are there to keep their respective nations up to date on what is one of the most widely publicised presidential debates of any country to date are finding themselves in a bit of a bother when it comes to providing a fast translation service of Trump’s speeches in their native tongues. As if translating political affairs into other languages isn’t sensitive and tricky enough, translators have to deal with Trump’s unorthodox way of speaking which could sometimes yield some interesting results.

One twitter user @tylerantichrist commented on an interpreter providing German translation services on a German radio show for the elections that she felt sorry for the interpreter as he had explained his friends teased him because he had to first emphasise with Trump in order to quickly translate his comments into German.

There is also an example on The Huffington Post showing trump’s misogynistic and offensive language which has had a Mandarin translation which actually makes him sound worse. The words that have been translated makes his comments sound even more sexist and sometimes racist in other languages. On the other hand when some of his harsh and brash comments are translated into other languages it sometimes has the reverse effect and makes his tone sound softer when his intentions may be otherwise. For instance he was criticised and mocked for rudely interrupting and shouting “Wrong!” but when translated into Spanish “Es falso” which means that is not true actually made him sound civil.

With less than two weeks to go until America elects a new president, whether its Hilary or Donald, whether you love or hate Donald Trump, you can’t say he’s not entertaining.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore

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Chaz Hutton a 32 year old Australian living in London posted his humorous and very spot on interpretations of everyday life on his Instagram page @instachaaz which has since gone viral and amassed an impressive following of over 150k followers.  His witty humour and accurate interpretations of what goes on in everyday life is so eye catching that you may find yourself spending the rest of your lunch break scrolling through his Instagram page laughing at your smartphone screen leaving your work colleagues wondering whether you have lost the plot!

Chaz who told BBC Trending he did not have the patience to be an architect so drawing things on sticky notes “seemed like a step in the right direction” has even gone on to land a book publishing deal and has released his book ‘A Sticky Note Guide to Life’ both as a hardcover and Kindle edition on Amazon. He has even been branded as the “world’s first sticky note lifestyle guru” according to the book description on Amazon.

So if you’re down in your career get creative you too could be the next social media sensation.

All images credited to Chaz Hutton and published on his Instagram page @instachaaz.

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Could be costly

Sometimes you have to spend money to make money or at the very least make progress and when it comes to translations, getting it wrong could be a very costly mistake as chocolate makers Milka found out. Milka’s Oreo chocolate bar label had an ingredient “chocolate liquor” which is a cocoa paste, translated separately into “chocolate and alcohol” in Arabic in Dubai where although you can purchase alcohol it is considered haram (forbidden) in Islam. Although no alcohol was found in the product, Milka had to recall all of the bars which were sent out with this error. Financial translation = Ouch!

Negative brand image

As well as potentially having a detrimental effect on your businesses finances, making an error when translating into another language could affect the credibility of your business which could in theory cause current or potential clients and customers to lose faith in your brand. Also with the importance of social media in today’s society magnifying every aspect of life, a translation fail could also see a business labelled a laughing stock that without a big budget PR system could be hard to rectify. So please if you are a retail business please seek professional retail translation services.

Avoiding offence

Making an inaccurate translation due to poor translation services or more commonly machine translations could have more than a negative financial or marketing effect for a business. One little mistake could end up being something that causes offence which results in a business being blacklisted or boycotted by an entire community and sometimes a whole nation. To avoid this it is advised to seek localisation services to help even further adapt your operations to suit the needs and customs in a foreign market. 

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When it comes to taking a career break one of the main obstacles which arises is the fact that your existing employer may not offer such a policy in the workplace which as a result could force you to resign. With the current job climate being very competitive this often puts people off the idea of actually taking a career break although they may need one.

Below are some signs which can help you decide whether taking a career break is the right choice for you.

1. You wake up in the morning and your first thought is ‘I don’t want to go to work’!

This is something many of us experience from time to time and is a natural feeling which may not necessarily indicate that you need a career break however when this occurrence happens on a consistent basis then you may have to think about taking time off. Sometimes a career break may not be the best option especially if you have been in the job less than 2 years where maybe a one or two week holiday can help you refocus and relax ready to go back to work.

2. You feel stressed, anxious and depressed in your role

Stress, anxiety and depression are some of the major causes of illness in the workplace with reports from Health and Safety Executive (HSE) finding that stress, depression and anxiety accounted for 440,000 cases in 2014/2015 in the UK. These psychological problems are behind one in five visits to a GP in the UK according to NHS reports. Major causes of stress in the workplace include lack of support from management, work pressure and work related violence and bullying. If you are experiencing the above at work the best thing to do is to speak to someone you think could help. This could be a family member or other professionals in your industry who may have overcome the same problems you are facing. If you do all you can to help resolve the issues you are facing but feel as though you are banging your head against a brick wall then it may be time to consider a career break.

3. You lose creativity and are not performing at work

Ever sat on your computer at work and failed to do a task that you could easily do before, perhaps you work in the creative media industry or in a digital marketing role where you are expected to come up with creative ways to do things or produce fresh organic content but you just can’t seem to wash off that period of writers block? These are perhaps some signs that you need to take some time off, even go travelling and explore other parts of the world and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. Many choose this path as it often leads to finding one’s self and finding your inner passion.

Choosing to take a career break can be overall daunting with many outlooks to consider. The first step should be to identify why you need a career break and afterwards look at the different options available to you. For example you could take on a short term course whilst you travel the world therefore you gain new skills and a qualification that can help you in your next role.

You can find some help and advice for taking career breaks on the GOV.UK website.

Careershifters is another organisation that helps people find fulfilling work.

You can also find some useful tips on bow to get back into work after a career break here.

What experience have you had with career breaks or perhaps you are thinking of taking a career break. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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The definition of an endangered language is so complex that it is hard to narrow down it just to one simple definition. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) whose values include supporting global education so as every child has access to quality education and building cultural understanding among nations, have managed to categorise the definition of endangered languages into 5 groups highlighted below.

Source: Moseley, Christopher (ed.). 2010. Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, 3rd edn. Paris, UNESCO Publishing. Online version.

The latest Atlas of the Worlds Languages in Danger which was published in English, Spanish and French by UNESCO has estimated there to be around 3000 endangered languages worldwide. This alarming number leads to the question whether such languages can be saved and whether they are worth saving?

For many decades English has been referred to as the global language and is the official language in as many as 60+ countries such that it is the language used in education, work and government. Although that maybe the case, many people in these countries where English is the official language commonly use their native languages and also pass these languages onto their children and thus the language is preserved from generation to generation. Take a country like Zambia where the majority of people who have gone to school speak and write in English, you will find that many of them also speak languages like Bemba and Nyanja mostly at home with family but also when communicating with friends. Although such examples show that languages like Bemba will not become extinct anytime soon if ever, there are many other languages where even fewer than 10 people are able to communicate. Languages like Kuuku Ya’u an aboriginal language now spoken by only 9 people is classified as critically endangered on its way to extinction (Source: UNESCO).

Causes

Before finding a solution to any problem you first have to look at the cause. For many languages the causes of them being extinct are varied and these causes include a lack of incentive to learn the language where learning another language brings more benefits both economically and socially. History has taught us this through colonialism by the British and French Empire where those languages combined are now the official languages of over 100 countries worldwide which has not always been the case. Other causes for language endangerment include natural disasters famine and diseases. War and famine have also in the past contributed to languages becoming extinct.

Effects

The loss of languages can have negative effects in a people’s culture as some may experience a loss of identity. Speaking a language specific to your region brings a sense of identity for many people and that is why when a community loses its language it often loses part of its culture e.g. it may lose its songs, poetry and teachings which may not necessarily translate well into another language. Other effects may be a loss of political legitimacy for example in some African and Asian countries traditional leaders may lose their voice in favour of political leaders which could potentially have negative consequences for their own people.

Solutions

As far as solutions go there are several parties concerned and actively working towards the prevention of language extinction. Governements, NGO’s and international bodies such as the EU and UNESCO as well as for profit companies are all working in one way or another for this cause.

For example a new start-up Tribalingual which aims to teach endangered languages in order to prevent them from extinction has started with 3 dialects; “Ojibwe, an endangered musical language in North America; Tulu, a South Indian language that is passed down orally only and doesn’t have a writing system; and Ainu, the language of a marginalised indigenous tribe in Japan, with less than 10 speakers worldwide”. Read more at Cambridge News.

What are your thoughts? how do you think languages can be prevented from extinction?

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This is because as we know an estimated 55% of start-ups in the UK fail to make it past the 5 year mark let alone find any success. But this leaves you at the very awkward and uncharted stage of whether you want to carry on being a stable business maybe looking to grow a little more or find a new strategy or market to expand or grow you current business? Maybe you want to attract new customers or maybe you just want to please your existing customers for the loyalty they have shown you. Well one much overlooked tool that you could utilise to help your business is none other than professional translation services.

Growth

The growth of a business is seen as a key stage in a business’s life span. Growth serves as a motivation for any entrepreneur who has ambitions to live off of their own earnings which is one of the main reasons behind starting a business in the first place, for the growth of one’s business does financially translate. With the help of translation services your business could discover new markets with a whole new customer base which could potentially bring more success to your business in the long run. This is a very risky strategy which requires a lot of research and consideration but from those big risks you could reap the big rewards.

Localisation

Different countries and regions have different customs and varied ways of doing things. This is why localisation services are of the utmost importance when considering setting up business operations in not only just other markets with different languages but also countries and regions who communicate through the same dialect. For example you might find success in the way you promote your business in the UK but it won’t necessarily translate across the pond in the US because there are even significant differences in UK and US English which is why it is crucial to localise your content.

Localisation is even more vital when you translate into different languages because it is not enough to just get a professional translation but it is also important to get help in what colours and images to use as well as type of products to sell. So if you are a BBQ restaurant who is looking for Hebrew translation services to set up operations in Israel it would best that pork ribs are a left off the menu.

Professional image

Having your existing website or advertisements available in numerous languages just smacks of professionalism as it shows evidence that the business is reliable enough to be run in several different countries. It could give a potential new customer the confidence to go with you rather than somewhere else, because sometimes even if they have no prior knowledge of your business just seeing you have an English, French, Spanish and Italian translation of your website could mean the difference between a sale and no sale, because a business appearing to operate in many countries must be doing something right?

Image: Colby Stopa

The post 3 ways you didn’t know how translation services could help your business appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

With that being said British corporations have capitalised on the influx of foreign workers in many ways including skills and also language. With even the smallest of SME’s doing business with people from different countries who speak languages they cannot even understand it is no wonder why the demand for foreign languages workers has been on the rise and you can see this in many job advertisements often stating a second language skill as ‘desirable’. After all it is not always that one will be able to use professional translation services or to give a specific example French translation services to close a trade deal with a vendor in France. For this a company might decide to hire a French speaking salesperson to negotiate and close such deals after all selling is most successfully done after a good relationship and trust has been built between two individuals.

A recent post by Business Insider highlighted the top 9 languages which can earn you the most in Britain. The data was derived from Job search engine giant Adzuna who analysed over 1 million job postings on their website and below was what was found.

9. Mandarin – £28,268. The study found there to be around 1,246 job opportunities for the Mandarin Language.

8. Italian – £28,723. The beautiful romance language of Italy came in 8^th and with an average salary of over 28K you sure will have enough to treat yourself to a cheeky pizza on a regular.

7. Russian – £28,858. The most popular industries that favour Russian bilingual speakers in Britain is the financial industries sector. Adzuna reported a total of 1,237 job postings on their Website requiring a Russian speaker.

6. Japanese – £28,954. Although the number of job postings was the lowest amongst this list the earnings for Japanese managed to put the language up in 6^th place beating 3 others.

5. Spanish – £29,262. With currently 3,106 jobs available on Adzuna which favour Spanish speaking candidates it is no surprise as Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. This language can be used not only around Europe mostly Spain but also in the USA and South American markets, a big advantage for Spanish speakers.

4. Dutch – £29,423. May come as a surprise to some but the Dutch language had a multitude of 1,865 job postings.

3. French – £32,646. Of course French would be nearer to the top with a record number of job postings on Adzuna’s website amounting to 6,149. Anyone who is business fluent in French and needs a job better get stuck in.

2. Arabic – £34,122. The language of multiple continents most prominently spoken in the Middle East and Africa made it into the top 2 list of highest earning jobs in Britain for anyone who speaks and can do business in Arabic.

1. German – £34,534. Well with Germany’s close business ties with Britain it is no wonder why this Indo-European language tops the list. From manufacturing to financial services, the most traded European country for UK exports in terms of goods and services is Germany. Germany is also the most traded country worldwide for UK imports according to a latest report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This as a result has boasted good pay checks for Britons who have mastered the German language. Perhaps it’s time to use that Babbel language learning voucher you got last Christmas and get yourself learning German.

Photo Credit: Charles Clegg

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Now when we are talking about tiny differences between languages which share some same words, we are not talking about similar language pairs like Spanish to Portuguese translation, which both share the Iberian branch of the Romance language group or even languages that originate from the same country such as a Mandarin translation of a Cantonese word or phrase.

The Daily Mail, in actual fact has provided a sort of translation service for the language pair of…….English to English! You would be right to think that they might be going mad here but in truth the two types of English languages we are talking about is the UK Standard and American Standard English which you’ll find out has quite a few differences in which certain words do not match or translate over the other side of the pond.

Thanks to the mass ‘Americanisation’ (or US spelling ‘Americanization’) of the UK through Hollywood movies and US television programs, music and retail translations; Brits are more likely to be clued on certain American lingo than the Americans on UK terms, concluding that it is American English that holds a bigger dominance over UK English. This comes after airline giant British Airways conducted a survey of 2,000 individuals which were split 50% British and 50% Americans to see whether they could decipher each other’s common words or expressions.

British words and phrases that Americans found it hard to grasp where things like ‘brew’ (drink) where 60% had no idea what it meant and ‘titchy’ in which a massive 94% did not know meant ‘small’. Over a third also had an idea about what the cockney term ‘knees up’ (celebration) meant, albeit the wrong and x rated adult description. Where on the other hand majority of Brits understood what Americans meant by ‘zip code’ (post code) and ‘eggplant’ (aubergine) although almost 75% of Brits did not know what ‘broil’ (cook) had meant as well as a massive 93% not knowing Americans use ‘arugula’ for salad rocket.

The survey also found the words we do share often have different pronunciations with Americans finding the British pronunciations of ‘vase’ (varse), ‘schedule’ (sked-ule) and ‘vitamin’ (vit-a-min) the most irritating; Whereas British people found the American pronunciations of ‘aluminium’ (alu-mi-num) and ‘math’ the most annoying.

Although it isn’t all bad having a British accent as it seems to make you more attractive to Americans who associate Brits with ‘class’ but, however they also think of Brits as ‘having bad teeth’. But all in all this hasn’t affected our relationships as both Brits and Americans mutually agreed that each cultures have had a positive effect on each other’s despite the minor language barrier.

The post Can these two ‘languages’ really get lost in translation? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

This comes after the news that on 2^nd August a 32 year old man from Beijing named Luo Zhen who had recently purchased a Model S had a minor accident with a parked car because he had been told and shown by the sales manager who sold him the car that the Model S was a self-driving car and that he could drive with no hands. Lou took his eyes off the road and hands off the wheel which resulted in the crash. Lou criticised the sales tactic stating that “They did not clarify the risks” and “It can easily mislead people to overuse the function.” The accident resulted in no injuries with only a scratch to the Model S. But Tesla has reacted quickly though with a fast translation alteration.

The original Mandarin translation had read the car was had a ‘self-driving system’ which has now been changed to a ‘driver-assistance system’ to clear up the confusion. Gary Tao, Tesla’s Beijing spokesman aimed a statement on their website towards this incident to clear it all up. Tao explained “We hope to clarify that it is a driving-assisting function and hope people can use it in a correct way,” he also said he did not know about Lou’s test drive. All in all, this incident should not disrupt Tesla’s innovation in which many see them as the future of automobiles.

Whether it’s bad localisation services or just a simple error what are your thoughts on this miscommunication?

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In this day in age many of us communicate with one another via technology and the most common being the smartphone. The smartphone allows us to create spreadsheets, record videos and even perform language translation whether that is French translation or Spanish translation. Virtually all adults today own or have access to a smartphone at any given time. Our smartphones have somewhat become like our best friend who carries out our every thought out action in a virtual sense (apart from when your phone crashes). People would risk breaking their hand or leg to save their precious iPhone in a tumble. Our smartphones are used as alarms to wake us up in the morning and sometime put us to bed via listening to soothing music on apps such as YouTube and Soundcloud. Our smartphones virtually do anything we tell or ask them to and even speak back to us via extensions such as Ok Google or Siri.

With new smartphones being released every 6 months or so, there seems to be an increasing wave of different communication tools which have and are making big impacts on how we communicate whether that is the development of language translation apps or speech assisted messaging the latest wave of virtual communication is via emoji’s (emoticons). For those of you who do not know what emoji’s are which the majority of you will, they are the little images you find on your smartphone that help you to describe your mood in the form of an image. If you own an iPhone or Android phone you will notice hundreds of emoji’s to choose from ranging from facia expressions whether happy or sad to birthday balloons and cake. 

Emoji’s are so big right now that even todays celebrities have gone to the extent of cashing in on the craze by creating their own emoji’s. Take Kim Kardashian for example who recently “broke the apple app store” with the release of her ‘Kimoji’ emoji’s in late 2015 which she most likely made a few million $ from and most recently the comedian Kevin hart announced he is to release his own emoji’s on the app store stating “My Emoji App will be the Emoji App of all Emoji Apps”.

Facial expression and body language can overcome any language barriers and that is exactly what emojis have done. Nowadays when you text you almost feel obliged to use some type of emoji to describe how you feel and this has led to some campaigners proposing emojis that reflect women in more professional roles which in the current ‘emoji world’ is dominated by men. The Google employees who backed this stated that “We believe this will empower young women (the heaviest emoji users), and better reflect the pivotal roles women play in the world.“

With the emoji craze now being just a normal everyday thing to use, will the need for translation services be gone. Well probably not but they sure will continue to play a big part on how we communicate.

Here’s an emoji filled song that you may recognise. Comment below if you do.

Image Source: Reddit user kelseyog via Imgur

The post Are Emoji’s replacing languages? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

One of the main driving factors of this massive need for global communication is really the financial translation of profit for both large and small companies in global markets. Like any industry, it pays to keep ahead of the pack and with this high need for language communications coupled with the advances in technology has enabled some professional translation agencies and other major corporations to produce products such as ‘real-time’ translation devices and app based translations that could help people who don’t necessarily have a grasp on a particular language in a foreign land.

At this early stage these advancements are capable of helping people just about get through everyday problems but in the professional world only human translations will do, the retail industry is still going to seek specialised retail translation services for example.

With all this competition for real time translation products and apps, one company has broken the mould recently with their ground breaking technology. Could it be a new way that will change language translations for kids such as German translation services babies? An alien translation app? Well it’s sort of along those lines, well maybe not as Temptations cat treats along with ad agency adam&eveDDB have come out with a cat to human translation device called ‘Catterbox’ that cat lovers all around the world will hopefully soon be able to get their claws on. (Bad joke I know)

Cat lovers rejoice as now you will be able to tell what your cat really wants instead of you asking “what’s wrong?” and expecting an answer like the cat is going to all of a sudden start speaking your language. Rather than getting a blank look from your cat followed by another “Meow” the Temptation Catterbox aims to translate your cats’ cries into human language thanks to research carried out looking into an adult cat’s communication with humans.

The 3-D printed prototype has been released in the USA as well as New Zealand. The device itself is a rubber collar and inside contains a microphone and a speaker whilst it also includes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. Although it will not be completely accurate, it would be interesting to see what your cat actually wants as they are never happy unless they are sleeping or eating which is probably all they will say.

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With the help of translation services Disney are able to have an impact on generations or young children around the world. Whether you are young or old you will know at least a few of the Disney films, characters and songs to go with the films.

Whether you grew up watching the first feature film released by Disney in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s main character Micky Mouse who made his first appearance in ‘Fantasia’ (1940), or other iconic characters both new and old such as Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Mulan, Minnie Mouse, Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin, the list just goes on and on. All of the movies that have starred these Disney characters have been viewed and translated across the globe from French, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Hebrew and even a Romanian translation!

So it is good news for the generation of 20 and 30 somethings that one of the movies of ‘their time’ has finally had a translation, albeit not a very fast translation as it comes a whole 22 years after its initial release. The film in question is none other than the timeless classic The Lion King which takes place in a kingdom of lions in Africa, details the story a lion named Simba who is the son of the king Mufasa who is murdered by his brother to succeed him as king, basically a lion version of Hamlet. The story features many elements amongst others are a love story, coming of age, betrayal, and a song from Elton John.

However one of the most popular takeaways of the film is the start of the song ‘The Circle of Life’. Most of us don’t even know or thought about what the words are but the direct English translation has now been revealed. Rather than most of our renditions of the start which resemble a shouting rambles of a madman, the words are actually of the Zulu language “Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba / Sithi uhm ingonyama” (you definitely tried to sing it whilst reading) and the translation of this familiar line is not what you would expect but after 22 years waiting we can finally reveal the translation to be *drum roll* “There comes a lion. Oh yes, it’s a lion.”

Pretty underwhelming and absolutely sounds better in Zulu but those who were having sleepless nights trying to figure out what it meant can now rest easy at night.

Image: Pedro Plassen Lopes

The post You won’t believe what this famous Disney line’s English translation is appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The new automatic translation software is able to help Facebook users all around the world post profile updates and posts in multiple languages at the same time. This would make the post at the very least readable in another language depending on your language settings and location. For example if you are based in the UK and your Facebook settings are set to English and you were to update your Facebook status saying [with the typical mundane drivel associated with Facebook updates] something like “I like pizza” or “on the toilet” in English, when your Italian friend from Rome, Italy logs on to his account, he would read your toilet based update in an Italian translation as his language account settings would most likely be set to his native Italian.

The software is also developed to ‘learn’ more with the data that Facebook receives from these translations and Facebook are hoping for the translation software to become better and more accurate as time progresses, they even hope to translate slang and other informal speech from language to language. For example a post wishing someone a happy birthday where most people are too lazy to actually write that and often opt for the easy ‘HBD’, Facebook’s software actually recognises that this means ‘happy birthday’ and translates accordingly which in comparison to Google translate which leaves that as is makes the Facebook software pretty impressive.

The leader of this initiative Fazil Ayan states that the software was ‘inspired’ by users that already have written multilingual updates but had no option other than to write the same status multiple times in their desired languages. Now you can create your post choose for Facebook to generate into multiple languages including Spanish, French, German translation etc.

University of Ottawa professor, Diana Inkpen and Stanford University professor, Christopher Manning both agree that Facebook’s translation software offers a ‘unique’ chance to develop slang translation software as opposed to the usual formal translations software out there. Manning acknowledges that although user data is not going to be 100% accurate it is the best chance to learn how to translate slang from language to language.

Of course this will never be a substitute for old fashioned human translations and localisation services but it has to be said it is an impressive idea and something that could see Facebook bring people from various different countries speaking different languages and dialects even closer than before.

What are your thoughts?

The post How Facebook’s new translation software will translate slang appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

1. Is it profitable

The main reason that most people start a business is to make a profit. Yes even charities need to be profitable in order to run. After all the current world we live in is majorly driven by the value of money from the financial institutions to your everyday corner shop. The aim for these establishments is to provide an income for one self and earn a profit. When you are in your initial stages of business planning it is helpful to understand when you are likely to make a profit and how much you could make as this will help you to allocate resources appropriately. This will also help you with budgeting which is imperative when setting up a business.

2. What resources do you need

When deciding to start a business you cannot simply go into it blindly expecting to do things as they come along. Yes there is uncertainty in business all the time, however carefully listing the resources you for not only the initial start-up stages but as you grow will help you see clearly how much investment is required and also help you decide which means of investment is best suited for your business, be it bank loans or venture capitalist investment. For example if your business is not expected to make a profit until year 3 you may favour investment by means of selling shares as opposed to bank loans with high yearly interests. Another point to think about is whether your business is likely to go global as in knowing so your will be able to allocate resource’s such as legal costs for trading internationally or translation services to help market your business to international markets.

3. What are you trying to achieve (personally and professionally)

This point is very important in a sense that it will drive you in the direction where you will be most happy. The whole point of starting a business is to do something you enjoy doing that doesn’t feel like you are working all the time even though you will have to at the beginning. Otherwise you can easily settle for a 9-5 and switch off at the end of the day and collect your salary at the end of the month. Know and understand the ‘real’ reason why you are starting a business and where you want to be in the future as this will help maintain your drive and energy during hard times.

4. What help do you need

As the famous saying “no man is an island” goes, business is also that. Whatever your business you will need people’s help along the way whether that is starting a business with a business partner or going at it alone. The relationships you build with people will help determine your success. This applies to all aspects from how you manage your employees, how you deal with your suppliers and how you communicate with your clients.  All these stakeholders will play a key role in how successful your business will be.

5. What is your plan B

Many people start a business without having a plan b. Now others may argue that having a plan B can sometimes deter you from your main focus which is your current business and not having a plan B will drive you even more to be successful in your present business. Although that may be the case, in some ways having a plan B is imperative as it will enable you to bounce back quicker when things don’t go to plan. Before you launch your business know your exit strategy, when it is time to sell or close down the business and have an idea as to what you will do next, after all life does not stop when your business stops.

Image by: Nana B Agyei

The post 5 crucial points to consider before you start a business appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Tasks such as asking for directions would take you maybe 10 minutes just to get through to someone whilst using a tremendous amount of hand gestures as though you were in an aerobics class. Well in 2016 this is a thing of the past. With the ever improving technology we have access to and the ability to access internet even in the most remote parts of the world has helped decrease language barriers which has benefited travellers in many ways. Below are some of the best language translation apps on the market.

1. Google Translate

Rated 4.4 stars on the android Google play store with over 4 million downloads on the Android play store, Google Translate app must be doing something right in helping people interpret their message from one language to another. Whether it is a Spanish translation you require whilst you visit Spain or South America or perhaps you need to translate your English to Russian, the Google Translate app is easy to use and most importantly free to download on the play store. Google translate is also available to download on the apple app store.

Top features:

• Translate between 103 languages
• Translate 52 languages when you have no internet
• Two way instant speech translation in 32 languages
• Take a picture and have it translated to text instantly in 29 languages

2. Lexiphone

Lexiphone is like having your very own interpreter in your mobile phone. The app developers claim it to be the “world’s first automated phone interpreter”.

Key points:

• The app supports Chinese translation, French translation and Polish interpreti
  ng to name a few.
• This app however does not come free but for a fee you can easily call more than 100 countries and translate your conversations into 16 different languages in real time.
• The app is available both on Google play store and the Apple App Store.

3. Trip Lingo

Their motto says it all “helping international travellers stay safe, productive and savvy during trips abroad”.

Key features:

• The app has a voice translator feature so you don’t have to always type what you are looking for
• The app also includes safety tools such as how to call emergency services when you are abroad or how to tell someone you have a particular food allergy
  
• Included in Trip Lingo is the ‘phrasebook feature that includes slang, formal and slang options for over 2000 phrases per language.
• Not only does the app help you to translate between languages its cool Wi-Fi Dialer feature allows you to make free international calls when connected to Wi-Fi.
• Having only been around for about 2 years this app is promising and is worth to keep an eye on to see how many other cool features arise.
• Trip lingo can be downloaded on both Google play store and the Apple App Store.

4. iTranslate Voice

This app is handy especially for travellers who require a fast and easily accessible translation feature.

Key features:

• iTranslate Voice allows you to speak into the app which automatically translates your speech and reads it out in one of the 42 languages compatible with the app. This allows you to get the real pronunciation if words in different languages.
• Includes a dictionary feature so you can understand the meaning of each word.

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You do not need to be of Romanian descent, speak the Romanian language or to even have stepped foot in the country so there would be no need for a professional translation agency or their translation services if you were to emigrate.

“Why?!” I hear you gasp, well a daily online newspaper in Romania’s capital Bucharest called Gândul (Romanian to English translation: The thought) with the help of local advertising agency GMP Advertising have launched a campaign to re-home disgruntled remain voters who accounted for a massive 48% or just over 16 million British citizens.

The cleverly titled campaign “Romanians adopt Remanians” aims to attract the remainers by promising a chance to leave the “Brexiters” behind with the bad weather in hope to start a new life in Romania which is very much a part of the EU.

The way in which the campaign works via a Facebook app is to pair up the unhappy Brits with “loving Romanian families” to adopt them in order to apply for a Romanian ID.

As well as having the section for the British remain citizens there is also a section for local Romanian volunteers to sign up to aid “the good people” of the UK who casted their votes to remain part of the EU as they “share European values deserve to be our relatives” (TheGuardian). Although there is no mention for those who voted to leave initially but have since had a change of heart, they are known as ‘Regrexiters’.

This initiative is largely the reverse considering that immigration into the UK has been a massive talking point amongst a relatively large section of the British population and media outlets. Gândul had previously run a campaign at the peak of these fears of mass immigrations in 2014 when restrictions were lifted for Romanians and Bulgarians to come in and out the UK. The campaign called #WhyDontYouComeOver was a counter campaign aimed at Britons to immigrate the other way with offers of jobs and accommodation amongst other things.

Tell us your thoughts, fancy moving to Romania?

Image: Jeff Djevdet

The post What is the Romanian translation for ‘Brexit?’ appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Luckily for you we are here to help and have put together just some of the current trending French lingo surrounding the UEFA European Championships 2016. Here is a list of French to English translations of some of the most trending general French footballing terms.

Let’s start with an obvious one ‘Les Bleus’ or ‘Allez les Bleus’ which is the most popular chant or saying when it comes to roaring on the French national team. The English translation is ‘The Blues’ or ‘Come on the Blues’, so England fans should use the term ‘Allez les Anglais/Angleterre’ which in French would be ‘Come on the English/England’ but in all honesty you are better off getting Italian translation services and backing Italy this tournament but, we still believe!

Another catchphrase the French are using in support of the national team is ‘fiers d’être bleu’ which means ‘proud to be Blue’ something that immediately sends out positive French patriotic signals. Now how can a proud Englishman respond to this? Shout back ‘Allez les trois lions!’ or ‘Come the three lions!’

Now one thing that has been so successful about these Euros, other than the late drama and intense matches has been the fanzone or ‘le fanzone’. Fairly simple to remember you just put ‘le’ instead of ‘the’ and your best but none the less dodgy French accent and that’s how you say the fanzone. The most popular fanzone is based in the French capital Paris which is free of charge and open to the public. With the commercial success of this tournament resulting in a very positive financial translation so far, these free-to-use fanzones have been a major success.

Last but not least the French use the term ‘Le 12ème homme’ or the English translation, ‘The 12^th man’ something that we use already to liken the fans to an extra player on the pitch. There are many more footballing terms but these should see you up to England’s usual final stage, the quarter finals. But you never know with Jamie Vardy on the team.

Who do you think will win the Euros?

Image: Patrice CALATAYU

The post How to support England in ‘French’ at Euro 2016 appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In this post we are looking at how a Brexit or a leave vote could impact language service providers such as Translation agencies in UK or individual translators and interpreters. This can also apply to small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) who operate not only in Britain but conduct trade within the EU.

The impact on currency and tax

For translators who deal with businesses across multiple countries Britain leaving the EU will include new tax laws which could result in accounting becoming more complex especially for those who deal with their own legal affairs in the form of annual accounts.  

Many translation companies in the UK trade in different currencies including the Euro and Dollar. The pound is currently the strongest of the three and will most likely continue to be, however the pound has recently fallen leading up to the Brexit vote and if it continues to drop this ultimately means higher costs for UK translation agencies.

On the other hand many leave campaigners have attributed a major benefit to the leave campaign as a benefit for businesses as Britain will not have to contribute to the EU budget which will mean an “immediate cost reduction of around €180 per person in the UK, raising the prospect of tax reductions”.

The impact on free movement and free trade

Being part of the EU has enabled many UK businesses to trade freely within the EU. This has eliminated trade barriers such as high import and export tax. 

When it comes to the translation industry it is imperative that the translation is completed by a native translator in order to maintain the highest quality translations. For example if a document needs translating from English to French, the most effective way is to use a professional French translator who is a French native and has fluency in English. In such cases you find that many such linguists are French natives who have come to the UK to study and work. Another benefit related to free movement for members if the EU is that this allows British translation agencies to travel to other European countries to attend events and conferences in order to secure business.  

The impact on education and language learning

Many translation companies take advantage of the use of translators and interns that come to the UK to learn the English language often on their assignments for university degrees. Voting to leave will reduce the ability to study abroad. While the UK does pay fees to the EU some sources have stated that the return universities receive is a financial profit.

Another point is that British workers lose out on a potential £48 billion a year due to not having non-English language skills and leaving the EU will only add to that as the incentives to learn other European languages reduce. 

Frankly the vote leave or remain will affect different groups of people in different ways and many people will vote based on how Brexit will directly affect them in the near future. Take for example the multinational airline owners like Richard Branson who has gone as far as saying that “Brexit would be ‘worst decision Britain could ever make” whose business Virgin Airlines relies and benefits heavily on European trade or Ryan Air who heavily take advantage of the tax benefits of the less restricted trade the EU allows them to have. Clearly Brexit would be a huge blow to their business ventures. Not only that, there are languages service providers who work with these companies providing translation services who will also be negatively affected in one way or another.

Should Britain remain in the EU or leave? Let us know your thoughts below.

Image: Descrier

The post How could the Brexit vote affect Language Service Providers and SME’s? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Translations in football is no more evident than at a major tournament, be it the biggest stage in football which is The World cup; the pinnacle of European national football, the European championships which features a plethora of languages across Europe; the Copa America which consists of mostly Spanish countries from South America as well as Brazilian Portuguese and English (If USA and Jamaica are invited); the African cup of Nations which includes diverse nations from the whole African continent; the AFC Asia Cup which includes Asia and Australia and the European Champions League final which is probably the world’s biggest club football final. 

So with football being such a global event, the need for language to language translations is prevalent and essential. It would have not been possible to stage The FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany without some form of German translation services.

The same goes for The European Championships of 2004 which was hosted by the nation of Portugal so therefore good Portuguese translation services were needed in order to make the event run smoothly for everyone involved. Of course without these services how would fans know how to get around from place to place if the language is not familiar to them?

So with translation services being utilised so much in these big events it is bound to produce a fail now and again. This is exactly what happened to England manager Roy Hodgson ahead of England’s Euro 2016 first group stage clash against Russia. After comments from the Russian manager Leonid Slutsky about Wayne Rooney not being the same player he once was, the Manchester United striker and England captain was answering some tense questions alongside Hodgson at a pre-game press conference.

A Russian journalist started to direct a question at the pair in his native Russian tongue. It was at this point Hodgson reached for his headphones in order to get a Russian to English translation only to be bamboozled by the headphones in which he then claimed didn’t cover his ears. Rooney then began to laugh at his manager’s misfortune which cut the tension at the conference. Hodgson managed to get himself sorted whilst looking a bit embarrassed by the whole commotion.

The post How translation services failed Roy Hodgson ahead of Euro 2016 clash appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Another day another story of big brands simply producing non-thoughtful content (sighs)! Now in this case it wasn’t your typical lack of well researched information or a lack of professional translation services to translate content from one language to another, it instead was almost a ride back to the past where misogyny was very prevalent in advertising and mainstream media.  The topic in question relates to the car giant that is Fiat and specifically its Argentinian base.

The topic in question relates to a pamphlet Fiat handed out alongside its official handbook to new customers who purchased a car. What is in the pamphlet is what is shocking and has outraged many people specifically a women’s groups in Argentina with one  specific group called ‘Ni una menos’ of which the Spanish to English translation means ‘Not one less’ taking to Facebook to summarise the blatant misogynistic content that was found in the pamphlet.

Some of the content that was written reads:

“If a lady’s skirt is too short, we recommend that she travel in the backseat to keep our concentration.”

It also reads; “if the skirt is not that short but you tend to have a wandering hand, she should also travel behind.”

The booklet which seems to give advice to the male buyer also seemed to address the male driver as ‘driver with love’ and the female companion as ‘co-pilot’.

The pamphlet which referred to women as “co-pilot” stated that “any woman who aspires to become a co-pilot must at least have nice legs”.

Image: Agustina Altman Facebook

Many people have taken to Twitter to air their frustrations towards the Italian company which has led to Fiat Argentina’s representative issuing an apology on their official twitter account stating that they had never intended any “disrespect”.

Fiat has also withdrawn their car pamphlet amid the backlash received.

Let us know your thoughts.

Fiat image source: nick@

The post Backlash for Fiat Argentina due to misogynistic car manual appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The advert in question was one commissioned by the Shanghai Leishang Cosmetics Ltd for their Qiaobi laundry detergent. There are no words spoken in the video so there was no need for retail translations services as mostly comical music and sound effects were used.

It features a young Asian actress and a black actor, the actor who has paint marks on his face from working, eyes the woman who is assumed to be the homeowner who smiles back at the man whilst standing beside a washing machine. He ‘wolf-whistles’ the woman then approaches her and puts his hands on her waist and goes in for a kiss, the woman at this point stuffs a washing tablet into his mouth and throws him into the washing machine where you hear comical screams as the lady sits on top of the lid to keep it shut, let’s be honest in reality that would be brutal and lead to a prison sentence. After the cycle has finished and most shockingly a fair-skinned Asian man emerges from the washing machine much to the woman’s adulation. He then holds the brands product to the screen and winks.

Now you don’t need Mandarin translation services to tell you what is going on here, in fact this advert will translate into any language in the world as a massive mistake.

After all this global condemning and outrage of the advert Leishang Cosmetics have apologised for any ‘harm’ they caused to African people and expressed their condemnation of racial discrimination. They also went on further to say that they take full responsibility of the content and that the media have ‘over-amplified’ the situation. Make of that what you will.

What are your thoughts on this? Have they gone too far or is this simply naivety?

The post Is this the most racist advert ever? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Learning a language is not simply about memorising words and their meanings but it involves using those words in practical everyday life situations and this takes time to master especially as adults who are used to doing things in a particular way compared to children who are more free as their brains are not yet as conditioned to do things in a certain way.

Recently a study conducted at the University of Edinburgh where a sample of 76 students aged between 18 to 78 (33 of the students were participating in a one week intensive Gaelic language course and were compared with 16 other students who were taking part in a comparable course but not involving foreign language learning) showed evidence that the language learners had in fact increased their attention span. The non-language learners who were taking park in a similar intense programme did also increase their attention spans however when compared to those that did not take part in a one week learning program, results showed that the Gaelic language learners had a more significant change in their attention spans.

Image: Tulane Public Relations

Within the Gaelic language learners group a study was conducted to see whether age had an effect on performance. Having split the students into 3 groups (18-40, 41-60 and 61-78), results showed that the lower age group scored the highest in the subtests testing everyday attention. In second place was the learners aged 41-60 and in third the students aged between 61-78.

The results also showed that those that practiced 5 hours or more per week had improved performance 9 months after the initial study in comparison with students who practiced for 4 hours per week whose results were inconsistent.

Lead researcher on the study Dr. Thomas Bak stated that “I think there are three important messages from our study: firstly, it is never too late to start a novel mental activity such as learning a new language. Secondly, even a short intensive course can show beneficial effects on some cognitive functions. Thirdly, this effect can be maintained through practice”.

The full results were published in the Journal PLOS ONE.

Image source: Neil Conway

Leave a comment below. We would like to hear your take on this theory.

The post Learning a new language can advance brain power in just one week appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

But there are many reasons that this type of global release has not been done before with one major and very obvious reason being the language barriers that are prevalent. Imagine the issues of trying to get a Hebrew translation of “There are two kinds of people I don’t trust: people who don’t drink and people who collect stickers.” That is an example, a rather pre-watershed example of Chelsea Handler’s joke; would that even translate well into another language?

That’s not the only problem that Netflix have had to deal with. There is the issue of getting each translated version of the show done in time and ready for release as well as localised for different variations of the languages. That is the precise reason that they have assembled a team of 200 linguists selected from a pool of 5000 to provide translations and localisation services to make sure that the jokes are understood worldwide. Amongst the linguists includes ‘dirty’ words specialist for Handler’s unconventional humour.

The show is recorded live 34 hours before it is released on Netflix. To help make the translations quicker and smoother, Netflix creates a live transcript in English which someone then reiterates into voice recognition software for the waiting translators and language experts who sift through the transcript to highlight any non-formal English words or idioms that might be a problem to localise. This then leaves the translators with just a 12 hour turnaround time to translate the show into the 20 languages that Netflix are aiming for it to be available in, then a 90 minute safety cushion in case anything goes wrong. This massive operation is all done so you could have the Portuguese translation of the show exactly at the same time as the English version.

The post Fast translation services like no other appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Soccer?

The name football has many variations as to how it is pronounced or even what it is called around the world. In Germany it is ‘Fussball’ (Fußball ), in the Netherlands ‘Voetbal’, and you don’t need Romanian translation services to tell you what ‘Fotbal’ means. Nearly everywhere the term football has translated well except one place, the USA. The US refers to the beautiful game as ‘soccer’ much to the annoyance of the rest of the world. The reason for this was because America caught on to football relatively late and had already created their own game called American football, which in fact is mostly played through carrying the ball so they had to distinguish between the two games. The term soccer actually comes from Britain but usage of the word declined after the Americans caught on to it.

Lee Chung gone?

A recent story involving Premier League side Crystal Palace and their South Korean left-back Lee Chung-yong. Lee was quoted in the Korean media stating that Palace boss Alan Pardew was too ‘hot tempered’ during a match that he would forget how many substitutes he had made. Although Lee pleaded his innocence that his comments had been misinterpreted and lost in translation, Alan Pardew did not accept that as an excuse and fined him a week’s wages, reportedly £30k. Now you don’t need a professional translation agency to tell you Lee’s thoughts on that.

Rafa the Gaffer

Also recently former Liverpool, Valencia, Real Madrid and Napoli manager Rafa Benitez was given the task to keep Newcastle United in the Premier League. He narrowly failed in doing so but was also given little time to achieve his goals. Spaniard Benitez who is tri-lingual in English, Italian and Spanish admitted that he had to brush up on his French language as a vast majority of United’s players are French speakers and that instances such as half-time team talks proved somewhat of a challenge as he could not get his message across even in English due to some players not being able to understand the language very well. This just highlights how important the language barrier is in football where a manager might not be able to get his message across properly. The fact that Benitez had little time and not being able to get a fast translation across to his French players could have contributed towards their downfalls, thus leading to his tactics somewhat getting lost in translation.

Image Source: joshjdss

The post When Football gets lost in translation appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

An example of this would be when looking for a holiday package, you would either visit a travel agency at their local office or call one over the phone to find out what was available. Now with sites like lastminute.com it is easy to see exactly what is on offer and compare in order to achieve the best deal and simply book at the click of a button.

The ability to reach a wider audience has posed a challenge for businesses to communicate effectively with all key target audiences as language barriers surface. With research including a survey conducted by Common Sense Advisory showing that consumers substantially prefer to view and digest information about products and services in their mother tongues. Findings like these are extremely imperative to businesses that provide services or are looking to grow in areas such as France, China or South America where native languages are used primarily before the English language. With that being said it is clear to see that using a professional English to French translation service or English to Chinese translation will ultimately increase your exposure and as a result have a positive impact on your sales as well as brand awareness.

Another benefit to using professional translation services for your business is that the end user feels valued that you have taken the time to communicate to them in their own language in which they communicate best.

For many businesses especially SME’s the value of time and resources is very crucial in determining efficiency. In cases where your company is too small to hire in-house translators an alternative solution is to use a professional translation agency which can manage the entire translation process for you from sourcing a suitable linguist to perform the translation, to performing quality checks ensuring that your message is portrayed in the way in which you intended.

It is tempting to use free translation tools when it comes to administering your message in other languages. When you decide to use free translation tools you must consider this; firstly the content translated by machines is a literal translation of the source language. Now as humans we do not process information in quite the same way as machines and different languages and cultures communicate differently so what might make sense in English may not in Italian when translated word for word. This is where the use of qualified and experienced translators comes into effect. Investing In website localisation services in clearly would achieve more benefits to you and your business than the costs incurred.

Image Source: Corbis

The post How the benefits of using professional translation services far outweigh the costs appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Even though there is a huge dominance from Disney and a big demand for their films in China when it comes to ‘imported’ movies, there is also an opposition from parts of the Chinese population. A Chinese military newspaper was quoted that America were using “invisible propaganda” within their films which prompted a People’s Liberation Army academy professor to state “Hollywood has long been an effective propaganda machine for the U.S. by using blockbuster films to promote U.S. values and global strategy,” then going on to say “In a world of cruel reality, it is always a wolf that eats a sheep instead of the other way round. Such a fundamental concept that even a child could understand was easily turned around by Hollywood.”

These comments are not just from a few people, the Chinese authorities do not agree with Western values and have been making efforts to clamp down on them in films, television, the internet and textbooks whilst even going as far as releasing guidelines to protect the national identity. Although there are a lot of Chinese people on social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo who have ridiculed the newspaper as “overthinking” the whole issue.

Although there is a Chinese backlash to ‘American ways’ surprisingly Disney actually have decided to keep the direct Mandarin translation of Captain America instead of having it changed for political reasons, a move which had been taken in other countries such as South Korea and Russia.

Captain America had been rebranded in Russia and South Korea to a rather less American glorifying “First Avenger” in an attempt at the localisation of the film to audiences who, let’s just say might not be the biggest fans of the USA, although the name still fits as it is often referred to as The Avengers 2.5.

The post Captain America set to keep Mandarin translation appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

It turns out that the Tekitanka was performed not by the actual Milan players but rather actors which were made to look like the players and that this was in fact all a big publicity stunt by the clubs sponsor the skincare company Nivea. The words “uomini questo e il vostro ritual” was seen across the stadiums advertisement boards, the English translation is “Men, this is your ritual” with the players acting out washing their faces and applying the cream instead of the actual battle cry. The Haka is a traditional war cry or dance performed by the Maori’s of New Zealand. The dance was usually performed by warriors before battle and has been used and made famous worldwide by the New Zealand national rugby team the All Blacks who perform it before a match to strike fear into their opponents.

Here’s how the AC Milan ‘actors’ performed:

Image: YouTube

Image: YouTube

As you could imagine there has been a major backlash to both Nivea and AC Milan which has seen people on social media declare the stunt as a ‘cheap rip-off’, ‘fake’ and ‘culturally insensitive’ amongst others which has led Nivea to issue an apology. A statement from Nivea’s parent company Beiersdorf sent to Mashable Australia read “NIVEA Men has organized a one off activity before the match AC Milan – Carpi on April 21. Actors were wearing the shirts of AC Milan and have performed a dance – inspired by the HAKA Maori dance. It was never our intention to offend anyone. We are truly sorry if this has happened.”

Maybe they should have sought professional localisation services first or maybe not done it at all.

Here’s how the ‘real’ Haka is done performed by the All Blacks.

The post What’s the Italian translation for ‘Haka’? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

What can this product be? I hear you frantically ask. Well it is a T-shirt, yes a normal printed T-shirt. The Iconspeak T-shirt is simple but yet effective and is perfect for anyone on their travels around the word who have not yet mastered or bother to learn any of the language or languages they might come across on their foreign encounter. The Iconspeak T-shirt is designed to help you get through basic situations as the shirt has printed on it 40 universal icons in a grid format. From a telephone to a toilet, from bed to wi-fi, all you would have to do is point to the specific icon you require in order to convey your message across the language barriers. Clever stuff?

Say you were in Germany and had no idea what the German word for nightclub is and had no access to German translation services and not one person around you knew what you were talking about, well all you would have to do with the Iconspeak T-shirt would be to point to the music sign and do a little one-two step then problem solved.

Alternatively if you were in Portugal and had no access to Portuguese translation services and needed to us a toilet, you would simply point out the toilet sign on the T-shirt and you can probably guess what happens next. It just goes to show that despite all these technological advances in recent years, you might not always get an internet connection which many of these heavily rely on, your battery could run out or you might not have access to electrical supply. So you might save a lot of time and money by just pointing out a picture of what you want to help you in a variety of situations.

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment below.

The post Has this new creation changed translation services forever? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Their invention which is called ‘SignAloud’ is designed to translate sign language in a simultaneous way as if professional translation services were being used minus a human interpreter which aims to help break communication barriers between sign language users and non-sign language users. As the University of Washington reports; ‘each glove contains sensors that record hand position and movement and send data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a central computer’. If the data matches a hand gesture then the related phrase or word is vocalised through the computer. The gloves are currently targeted to American Sign Language (ASL) users or learners of ASL but could also be commercialised to work in other fields such as medical technology to monitor stroke patients during rehabilitation as well as provide support to the ever growing world of virtual reality as the University of Washington reports.

As a result of their efforts Pryor and Azodi won $10,000 for the 2016 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize from a pool of students from over 77 universities in the US.

Watch the video below to see the SignAloud gloves in action.

The post Forget Iron Man, Student’s smart gloves translates sign language into speech appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

But one other big issue they face is the sheer fact that the Chinese culture has many differences when compared to western cultures. This means that the way they market their products and services will differ from say the US market. That is why for years big businesses have been producing products and promotions specifically for the Chinese markets with the help of good Localisation services to pinpoint Chinese culture.

But this tactic has not always been seen as successful; in fact sometimes theses localisation attempts have been near disaster and some to comical effect. Some of these products and promotions backfired and were mocked amongst Chinese people. A popular Chinese fashion blogger on Weibo called ‘Gogoboi’ shared these localisation fails amongst his 5 million followers. Business Insider, with the help of a global brand consulting firm, Landor managed to compile a list of top five times global brands absolutely failed in China.

5. Nike

This is truly a case of retail translation services gone wrong when Nike had an idea to release special edition trainers with Mandarin characters sewn into the pair. On the left trainer was “Fa” which means “Getting Rich” and on the right trainer was “Fu” which translates as “Fortune arrives,” which doesn’t sound too bad. But when you put them together it means “Getting fat” definitely not what the biggest sportswear company should be promoting.

4. Louis Vuitton

The high-end fashion house Louis Vuitton is the next culprit in these localisation faux pas. Maybe with good intentions or maybe naivety decided to honour the Chinese year of the Monkey by releasing a special edition necklace, which can only be described as an odd looking, gold finished necklace vaguely resembling  a monkey. In which Gogoboi’s followers described as “creepy,” “like an alien,” and ironically a “knock-off” considering it retailed at $2,450 (£1,720). Ouch!

Image via: Louis Vuitton

3. Dior

Dior, another massive French brand of luxury goods committed a near enough exact offence as Louis Vuitton. Dior also saw fit to release a monkey-inspired piece of jewellery to celebrate the year of the monkey but the limited edition “Diorelita” was rather underwhelmingly likened to a ‘piece of red rope’, probably not the type of response Dior where looking for.

2. Givenchy

Another Chinese year of the monkey inspired product fail, another French fashion brand behind the failure. This time it is Givenchy had used images of not so much your typical chimpanzee looking monkeys but rather images of orangutans, which needless to say left Gogoboi’s followers largely unimpressed. Fail!

1. Burberry

Last but not least comes another fail celebrating the Chinese New Year, this time from up-market UK brand Burberry. They had made a different error to the rest; they decide to release their classic print scarf in a special edition with the Mandarin character “Fu” which as previously mentioned means “fortune arrives” printed in red which didn’t go down well as a design with Gogoboi’s following. But the main error was that when worn “Fu” was displayed upright which in Chinese culture “Fu” needs to be upside down to actually carry its meaning which is “beckoning in fortune.” As the special edition scarf retails $215 (£150) more at $925 (£649) that unsurprisingly left people totally bemused.

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Reports by Russia’s News state news agency RIA Navosti stated that words relating to Russia and one of its politicians were improperly translated from Ukrainian to Russian. The words that were interpreted were insulting and demeaning to Russia and its people. The words in question include the phrase Russian Federation which translated into Russian as Mordor when inserted into Google translate. Mordor is a fictional place in the world created by writer J. R. R. Tolkien which is most known for its depiction the Lord of the Rings as an evil place where cruelties such as torture are an occurrence. Newsweek reported that Pro-Ukranian groups took to the term when referring to Russia. Newsweek also reported that when translating the last name of Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the machine translation interpreted his name as ‘sad-little-horse’. Another glitch which was spotted was the word Russians which when translated from Ukrainian read as ‘occupiers’ in the Russian language.

Whether or not this was a result of successful hacking or perhaps just a machine error, Google did respond by saying that Google Translate “worked by looking for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents but translation remained difficult as the meaning of words was tied to the context in which they were used”. “This means that not all translations are perfect, and there will sometimes be mistakes or mistranslations”.

Such happenings always create a debate as to whether platforms such as google translate are reliable when it comes to website content translation or even Russian financial document translation to be specific. Google has stated that ‘although translations are conducted automatically it is possible for users to suggest alternative translations manually’ which can sometimes leave room for biased results. The best way to be sure to receive an accurate translation is to use translation services by human translators especially when you are translating for work, legal or educational purposes.

Have a comment about this? Let us know your thoughts below.

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The advert in question was a radio advert that aired on Australian radio to promote Aldi’s whiskey range. The advert features a Scotsman who announces himself as the head distiller for Aldi’s own-brand whisky accompanied by the unmistakable sound of bagpipes whilst an Englishwoman supplies a voiceover for the Scotsman for a fast translation into ‘English’ despite the Scot’s objections that he is already speaking English.

The advert received a complaint of racism from an expat Scottish national which prompted the Australian Advertising Board to investigate. The complainant who was not impressed, explained how the advert depicts the stereotype that Scots are hard to understand and insisted if it were an aboriginal who received a translation service there would be an ‘uproar’ and question why it was ok to be ‘racist’ towards the Scottish.

The complaint however was rejected by the board who stipulated that the promotion was intended to be more humorous rather than racist. The board ruled that the advert suggest that the Scottish man’s accent is likely to be harder to understand to the average person but is in fact completely clear and the use of a translator adds to the humour of the advert. They also state it is not acceptable to make fun of a person’s accent regardless of nationality but in this case it is the translator that is the one that looks ‘silly’ because there is no need for her translation whilst the Scotsman is not presented with a negative stereotype at all.

Aldi had commented to the board saying that this is just one of a series of light-hearted advertisements which will see other accents such as the French and New Zealand accents used in the same way.

Photo credit: Mike Mozart

What are your thoughts?

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These translators would more often than not be fluent in the source language as well as being a native speaker of the target language. This is so that the text could be translated into another language so that it makes complete sense rather than just random words put together. It is majorly important to have a readable translation but there is another step that can be taken specifically if the translation were to be aimed at different markets where it may need to be made as though one is speaking to the “locales”. This process is a vital one and is known as localisation or localisation services.

The localisation of a language is something businesses would use in order to target their products to ‘local’ markets where the general language may differ slightly such as French Canadian, Brazilian Portuguese and Mexican Spanish, to name a few. Localisation services are generally used for websites, software, videos games, audio voiceovers and other forms of multimedia. In addition to a translation from one language to another (making sense, grammar, correct spelling etc.) localisation will adapt the translation for the local market they intend to target, taking into account the proper formatting of letters and numbers, currencies, times, dates, as well as other details such as local customs and sensitivities towards certain images, phrases, graphics and colour schemes.

This is why your business needs to take into account localisation when looking to expand overseas, do not assume you can take a ‘one size fits all’ approach when marketing to different countries. One thing that works in Spain may not necessarily be successful in Spanish-speaking Argentina.

Let us know your thoughts?

Photo Credit: Nick Richards

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A language such as the Ho-Chunk language of the Winnebago tribe of Wisconsin and Nebraska which is only spoken by a total of 11 people in the world or the Tinigua language of Colombia which is said to derive from no other language and is only fluently spoken by 2 people! Yes only 2 people left are known to speak Tinigua. Although these languages are translatable I highly doubt you would require a service such as Tinigua financial translation services, but you get the point.

Now one other obscure language has finally been given a translation, this time a German translation service. Is it a rare Amazonian tribal language from a tribe that has only just made contact with the modern world; a lost African language only spoken by the elders; or something with an exotic back-story along those lines? Nope! Not even close.

The language in question is none other than the Merseyside dialect of the Scouse community. Yes that’s right you can now finally get a Scouse to German translation service. All our prayers have been answered! We could thank God but it was German football team FC Augsburg who rather comically provided their traveling fans with a German translation of known Scouse sayings ahead of their trip to Anfield for the first leg of the Europa League’s last 32 round. The Scouse phrases included “Lad” (Boy/Man) which translated into “Alter” and “Mi head’s chocka” (???) in German “Ich kann nicht klar denken”. FC Augsburg eventually lost 1-0 to Liverpool over two legs to end their cup run, but at least the Germans can now feel comfortable knowing what a “Bevvie” is.

See the full list of translations below.

A little something to help our @LFC friends out & about in Augsburg, and perhaps even #Klopp back at home ???? #FCALFC pic.twitter.com/6YtdBLJdss

— FC Augsburg English (@FCA_World) 17 February 2016

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The word in question used by the eight year old was “petaloso” which is a word he uses to describe a blooming flower. Petaloso would be the Italian translation of explaining that the flower is “full of petals” which actually makes complete grammatical sense as it is the combination of the Italian word for petal “petalo” with the suffix “-oso” which is translated into “full of”. Although the word is functional there was no official meaning to it in the Italian dictionary.

There does exist a direct English translation for the word “petaloso”, “petalous” is the direct and fast translation, a word that has been used from the 18^th century. The absence of this word from the Italian dictionary gave Margherita the idea that her student Matteo had invented a new word. With the help and encouragement of Margherita, Matteo wrote to the Accademia della Crusca, an Italian language institute created in 1583, to get their opinion about the word.

They got a positive reply from one of the Crusca’s top language experts who replied, “The word you invented is well formed and could be used in the Italian language,” and “It is beautiful and clear.” But also warned that in order to be considered an official word of the Italian language, a number of the population must first need to understand it and use the word “petaloso”, the word must be spread and only then could it be considered and official Italian word.

Margherita was so moved by the Crusca’s linguist replay that she shared the images of the letter accompanied with the caption “this is worth more than a thousand Italian lessons” on Facebook which rather unexpectedly triggered a campaign to make “petaloso” an official word. This post has been shared more than 80,000 times on Facebook and on Twitter #petaloso has been used more than 40,000 times which saw it become a trending topic in Italy and briefly made an appearance in the top worldwide trend.

The Crusca joined the campaign by retweeting the word as well as the Zanichelli publishing house who are the publishers of Italy’s most used dictionaries, they even talked about the possibility of “petaloso” being included in the next edition. Also Rome’s tourist authorities advertised the city’s rose garden as the “petaloso” rose garden. Even the Italian Prime Minister recognised Matteo’s efforts and congratulated him.

This story just goes to show the importance of social media, that one eight year olds imaginative word could now be close to being considered as an official word.

Let us know your thoughts?

The post How an eight year old with the help of social media invented a new word appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

As Disney is one of the most popular brands of all time and their timeless films have seen many generations grown up with them over time, everyone is likely to have a favourite. With the release of each movie comes a new star and for some a new favourite and due to the massive influence Disney has around the world multiple different translations are released for everyone to interpret.

You can watch all your favourite Disney princesses sing their songs in the way that nature intended it. You can actually hear Mulan who is Chinese sing “Reflection” in the Mandarin translation; you can see the Norwegian rendition of the massive hit “Let it go” by Elsa from Frozen. Also there are other classic tunes like the Arabic version of “A whole new world” sung by Jasmine from Aladdin and Snow White from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs singing German.

There are many more languages in each of the princess’s native tongue such as Belle from beauty and the Beast in French, The little Mermaid, Ariel in Danish, Megara from Hercules in Greek, Rapunzel from Tangled in German  and many more, all of which just further add to the beauty of each song. Check them out for yourself below.

Part 1:

Part 2:

What do you think of these versions? Let us know below.

The post Ever wondered what Disney princesses sound like in their native language? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

The only problem is he wants a kiss, a move which has seen the advert and the actor himself widely criticised and been branded as ‘creepy’ and claims that the actor in the video is ‘sexually harassing’ the local women. This is after it appears in the video that some of the women did not react well to his advances with one even running away and another hitting him with her hand bag. Although not all the women seen in the video were afraid some actually responded well with giggles and one even reciprocating his advances and gives him a quick kiss in the final scene.

But all this outcry of harassment of these unsuspecting women have been shut down by the translation gadgets CEO who told BBC trending it was all an act and in fact all of the women involved in this video, seen as tasteless by some were all in on the act and were all paid actresses. The pressure of the negative reaction has seen the video now have a disclaimer saying everyone involved in the video are all paid actors. That however hasn’t stopped criticism of the advert to which some think is very low brow and degrading to oriental women and some even claiming that it adds to the stereotype that if you are European in Asia you can do as you like.

Whatever your views on this advert you cannot deny the fact that it has garnered much attention albeit which has seen it go viral and received more than five million views online. As the saying goes ‘All publicity is good publicity.’

What are your views?

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Now you would think that if you were in the position of the Romanian migrants, you would like to establish some form of contact when you need to speak to the Swedish authorities or health care staff and this is exactly what the Helsingborg council tried to do in order to cater to the migrants. They did this by providing translators and interpreters but there was one huge error. According to Helsingborg’s newspaper ‘Dagblad’ the translators and interpreters provided spoke a completely different language to that of the Romanians. Instead of offering Romanian translation services they had mistakenly chose Romany translators, an Indo-Aryan language which is known as a ‘gipsy’ language whereas Romanian has its roots in Latin.

The difference between the two languages was highlighted by an expert Romanian linguist, Lucian Bagiu who explained “Romanians don’t understand Romany any more than a Swede does, you could say that there are more similarities between Romanian and Swedish than between those two languages and Romany.”

It is understandable how the mix up could have come about, through the similarities of the names of the languages. One of the Romanian immigrants commented saying that they “did not understand anything, not a word” before the actual Romanian translators were brought in. Although Per Pehrsson, a Helsingborg official explained that there were no problems faced in communicating with the Romanians regardless of the mix up, he stated “We haven’t had any problem communicating with these people with the assistance of the interpreters we have.”

What are your thoughts on this?

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The translation and interpreters will be partially supplemented by the MLB with $65,000 given to each team to help with costs. The money will come from the penalties incurred by the teams that had preceded the international signing bonus limit, according to documents acquired by The New York Times and ESPN.

It comes after an incident which took place in April 2014 when Beltran’s teammate, New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda’s game was cut short as he was ejected for having pine tar on his neck as it helps the pitcher manipulate the flight of the ball. Once the game was over Pineda was grilled by the press but due to his limited English he was not able to communicate properly. Beltran was unhappy with this event, as he said at the time “It’s a problem, of course, because he can’t express himself the way he wants to.”

Pineda (Left) and Beltran (Right)

Beltran had pushed and with the aid of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) the new policy has been introduced by the MLB.

Translators and interpreters have long been offered by MLB to Japanese and Asian players but has not been the same for the Latin American Spanish speaking players who make up nearly 25 percent of the MLB roster. It makes sense for these services to be offered pre and post games to help the Spanish speaking players communicate with the press as there are far more from Hispanics than there are Asians in the league.

“I am very happy about this, this is MLB we have a large Spanish-speaking contingent of players and coaches, and we need to be as professional as possible in everything we do.” Beltran told the Times after the decision had been agreed.

What are your thoughts on this?

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/sports/2016/01/14/no-longer-lost-in-translation-mlb-now-requires-translators-for-latino/

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To understand Habenn Girma’s story you first need to understand the term deafblindness. It is a condition where a person has little to no sight and little to no hearing. Different types of deafblindness exist and people affected by this use different tools/technology to communicate, for example someone who is born deaf and later in life develops blindness are most likely to use communication methods such as interpreting services including sign language interpreters. Other deafblindness forms of communication include braille equipment such as telebraille and graphic braille. With the continued advancement in technology for the deafblind Habenn manages to communicate effectively with the use of a digital braille device.

Haben was born in the US after her mother moved from Eritrea as a refugee with her brother who is also deafblind. Haben graduated from college in 2010 after studying a BA in Sociology/Anthropology. She then went on to study at the sought after Harvard Law School where she became the first deafblind student to graduate from the institution. Haben is now an attorney for the disabilities rights advocated in Berkeley California representing people with mobility disabilities and “Representing the National Federation of the Blind in an action seeking to render Scribd’s reading subscription service accessible”. Outside her work as an attorney Haben often attends speaking events as a guest speaker and has presented keynote speaches for Google and also delivered a TED speech at the TEDxBaltimore 2014. Haben is a keen surfer and was recently featured in the Washington post.

The post How a courageous deafblind woman became a Lawyer appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

1 – Cilla Black

The number one most searched topic of 2015 in Britain was the sad news of the passing of the widely adored TV and showbiz legend Cilla Black. The much loved Liverpudlian singer, real name Priscilla Maria Veronica White whose singing career spanned several generations passed away at her Spanish home earlier this year on 1^st August 2015 much to the nations shock, her untimely death was met with tributes from all walks of life, she was 72.

Credit: Andy Butterton/PA Archive/Press Association Images

2 – Lady Colin Campbell

She is one of the stars from the 2015 edition of the hit ITV show ‘I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out Of Here!’ But the Jamaican born socialite and royal family biographer was not popular amongst her campmates, but that did not stop our fascination of 66 year old as she was one of the most searched people by Britons in 2015. She exited the programme due to medical reasons.

3 – Rugby World Cup

There were many sporting highlights for us to salivate over this year, the premier league which saw this seasons relegation candidates Chelsea crowned as champions the season before, high profile boxing fights such as the long awaited Mayweather vs Pacquiao and a somewhat renaissance in British Boxing with the likes of Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Kell Brook all finding success. But even in a year where the England cricket team retained the Ashes, there was one sporting event that had Britain searching for that was The 2015 Rugby World Cup. Hosted in England for the first time since 1991, Stuart Lancaster’s men were humbled as they were knocked out in the group stages. Stuart Lancaster as well as some of his underperforming stars were axed from the squad thereafter.

4 – Jeremy Clarkson

The enigma that is Jeremy Clarkson, you either love him or you hate him but you can’t doubt his charisma. One of the most highly paid people of the BBC and the face of popular motor vehicle/entertainment program Top Gear, the often controversial Clarkson found himself briefly out of work for a period; why? The BBC decided against renewing his contract as he was embroiled in an incident in which a ‘punch’ was thrown by Clarkson which led to him being suspended, dropped then axed completely. This event subsequently led to co presenters Richard Hammond and James May also leaving the program before all three were signed by Amazon for a rival program. Chris Evans will present Top Gear next year.

5 – Paris

The final most trending topic was that of the Paris attacks in which 130 people lost their lives. The devastating attack on the French capital was the worst attack made on the European continent for 10 years. The news spread around the world so fast translations of the story were reported in a matter of minutes.

So there you have it these are the top five stories that spiked our interests in 2015 according to Google. What has 2016 got in store for us? Hopefully more positives, one thing left is to wish everyone a happy new year!

Let us know your thoughts

You can read more trending topics of 2015 Telegraph.

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So to celebrate the launch of the release of Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, here are 10 things about Star Wars you might not know; well those who are not die hard fans.

1. Created by George Lucas in the early 70’s, Star Wars (Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) was released in 1977 after many changes due to originally being rejected.

2. Many if the buildings that were built in Tunisia to depict the desert planet of Tatooine are in fact still standing and are in use by the locals. Coincidently the planet Tatooine was named after the city it was built in Tataouine, Tunisia.

3. The name Luke Skywalker which is synonymous with the Star Wars series might not have been. The name Luke Starkiller was originally intended right up until filming began.

4. Greedo’s language is actually a South American language called Quechua, not the only real language used in Star Wars as the language of the Jawas is actually based on a sped up version of Zulu, and the Ewoks speak a hybrid of Nepalese and Tibetan.

5. We all know what the wise Grand Master of the Jedi Order, trainer of Luke Skywalker Yoda looks like. Now imagine him as a cane carrying monkey with a mask because that was the original intended appearance of the wise one.

6. There is somewhat of a running gag in that the lines “I have a very bad feeling about this” or “I have a bad feeling about this” are uttered in every movie in the series.

7. The clone trooper attires you see in the movies are completely created with the use of CGI as there were no physical costumes produced.

8. The late 90’s/early 00’s pop group NSYNC actually made a cameo appearance before being cut from the final edit of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. Why? George Lucas had to keep his daughters happy.

9. Darth Vader aka Anakin Skywalker has been portrayed by a total of 6 different actors: Hayden Christensen, Jake Lloyd, Sebastian Shaw, Bob Anderson, James Earl Jones, and David Prowse whilst Harrison Ford might never have played Hans Solo as Burt Reynolds was considered first for the role.

10. Steven Spielberg’s E.T.’s race of aliens makes a cameo appearance in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

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1. Mandarin
Well this is an obvious one, the language spoken in China and also being one of the official languages of Singapore both booming economies, it is no surprise that the Mandarin language is at the top of the list. Over the years China become a global force to be reckoned with and is rapidly becoming one of the biggest economies in the world. With that being said it is important to note that learning mandarin is not an easy task for English speakers. The language itself has been classed as one of the hardest to learn with some schools in the UK making studying Mandarin compulsory for 13 year olds as reported by The Telegraph.

2. Portuguese
Portuguese is the official language of Portugal as well as Brazil. The language is not only spoken by over 200 million people in Brazil alone but it is also the first language for its inhabitants and official business language in the region. Alongside Portuguese, having a good grasp of the English language as well as Spanish (which is predominantly spoken by surrounding Latin nations) is sought after by Brazilian employers and is also likely to broaden your business prospects.

3. Japanese
Placed 3rd in the list of top 10 biggest economies in the world Japan is a global force to be reckoned with. Its profound influence in sectors such as automobile manufacturing and electronics has made Japan an attractive place for business and work. Its rich culture is also an attractive place for tourists with the reporting that an estimated 14 million people visited Japan between January and September 2015. A huge opportunity for English speakers to teach in japan has been around for years and has been a popular option for English degree holders. Average monthly salaries for teaching English in Japan are around 250,000 Japanese yen roughly 1,357 British pounds. This is a good way to earn money whilst you learn Japanese which can increase your work prospects once you get a good understanding of the language.

4. Russian
Russia has had somewhat of a rocky relationship with the UK with one contributing factor being the Russian-Ukraine conflict. Despite Russia’s ‘rocky’ relationship with the West, the country is among the top 10 biggest economies of the world. Not only that, Russia is listed amongst the biggest markets for exports of UK goods with around 600 U companies having a Physical presence in Russia according to UK Trade and Investment (UKTI).

5. Arabic
Arabic is predominantly spoken by countries of the Middle East and North Africa. The Middle East in particular possess huge opportunities for businesses to trade within this oil rich region of the world. Countries such as Qatar and Kuwait have attracted expats from all over the world to work within the oil industry which boats huge rewards. Learning Arabic will surely teach you valuable language skills which can be used to your advantage in over 20 countries. For students this could also help your scholarship horizons.

6. German
Germany has had a big influence on the UK economy in a sense that it is the biggest trade import partner by value according to UKTI. Germanys economy is a very attractive one for both job and business prospects. With the population of Germany estimated to be over 80 million of which for the majority of people living there German is their first language. Germany is one of the major languages sought after by graduate recruiters with speakers of both English and German having an advantage in the recruitment process. This applies heavily for multi-national corporations and is desirable for hiring investment banks as highlighted by Target Jobs.

What languages do you think are the most worth learning? Leave us a comment below.

The post What are the best languages to learn and why? appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

In a career that spans nearly 40 years Prince has made countless headlines, but why is he hitting the headlines now? Well not so much Prince himself but rather his work, more specifically the album and movie of the same name which was loosely based on Prince’s rise to the top had between them sold over 13 million copies in the US alone and spent 24 straights weeks at number 1 as well as winning an Academy Award and grossing over $80 million (£53m), the legendary ‘Purple Rain’. The reason being is that Purple Rain the movie is set to be remade. You would be forgiven to think the movie would have received a French, Spanish, German or even Hebrew translation! Not even close.

The movie has been remade in none other than the Western African Saharan Republic of Niger. Yes that’s right, The Republic of Niger. Now you might consider that to be a bit odd or the fact that the remake is aimed at the Tuareg people of Niger who probably have no idea who Prince is, but what’s worse and even stranger is there is no direct translation for the word ‘purple’, instead of ‘Purple Rain’ the Tuareg version is ‘Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai’ which translates into a rather long-winded awkward title of ‘Rain the Colour of Blue with a Little Red in It’.

For those of you thinking this must be some sort of a joke, the low budget Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai or Rain the Colour of Blue with a Little Red in It has actually become quite popular in Niger as it follows real life musician Mdou Moctar’s rise to the top as he rides his purple or blue with a little bit of red bike around the city of Agadez.

But there is some truth in the idea that this remake is some sort of joke as Christopher Kirkley, the co-writer and director of the remake confirmed when speaking to The Guardian “It started out as a joke, the idea to take this cult film from the west and remake it in the Sahara. But we realised if we took the original story and modified it, the remake would reflect the lives of every guitarist in the Tuareg community.”

What are your thoughts?

A story originally reported on The Guardian.

The post Why musician Prince is hitting the headlines appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

When running a business as you grow you are more than likely to employ staff and the more you grow the more employees you will have. With this comes several challenges and when it comes to managing employees there are several pointers you should always have in the back of your mind in order to create a positive work environment and most of all keep them.

1. Pay them well – Some of you are wondering why this was listed first. Some yelling in their minds, pay is not the biggest motivator! Well let’s face it in this day in age with the current economic climate and the ever increasing cost of living especially in developed cities like London, pay is one of the biggest motivators for employees to stay in a company. However it is important to note that as much as you pay your employees well if you don’t treat them well they will eventually leave once they have achieved what they wanted (pay wise).
   

2. Mentor them – Mentoring is a good activity which benefits both the mentor and mentee. For the mentor it is a chance to listen to the needs of the employee and help guide them into achieving their goals. For the mentee it is a chance to learn from experience and get one to one help. Such activities have huge benefits for the organisation as employees and managers develop a better understanding of each other and as a result have a clearer understanding of the organisations needs which are critical for success.

3. Challenge them – As humans we have a tendency to want to solve problems. We want to feel as though we are the ‘man’ and this translates into the work place. As a species we easily get bored and when we feel we are not challenged enough we tend to look for a better opportunity where we can showcase our skills. It is however important for managers not to over-challenge their employees as this may backfire and result in a hostile working environment as well as a contributor to stress for the employee.

4. Promote them – When it comes to staying in a company for years you will notice that the majority of people who have stayed within the same company for more than 3 years have been promoted in one way or the other. You cannot simply expect your employees to stay long when you keep them in the same position without promotion.

5. Involve them in decision making (empower them) – This is very important as not only does this instil a great sense of authority within the employee but your business benefits from valuable insight from the people that are actually carrying out the day to day activities of the company. When employees feel they are involved in decision making they feel valued and who doesn’t want to feel valued?

6. Appreciate them – A simple thank you or acknowledgement goes a long way. When employees feel appreciated they feel a sense of belonging to the organisation and therefore are likely to stay. Simply recognising their efforts and giving credit where it’s due are ways of ensuring your employees feel valued. Incentives such as employee of the month and other benefits are a good way of showing appreciation.

7. Trust them – Trust! The word that makes or breaks relationships. Yes this also applies in work place relationships whether it is amongst employees or between an employee and a manager. If your workers do not trust you they are more than likely not thinking of staying in your company for the long run. When you show your employees you trust them and most of all you make them feel they can trust you, you create a sense of loyalty which will motivate them to stay.

What are your biggest motivators for staying in a company?

The post Seven ways to keep good employees appeared first on Exchange Lingo.

Dense Rainforest

Added to the environmental factors, the heat factor could have a hand in shaping how words and sounds travel as in warm climates; the sun creates pockets of warm air that can affect the sound waves. As Maddieson explains “You disrupt the way it was originally produced, and it becomes much harder to recognize what sound it was.”

Open cool environment

Maddieson backs up this theory by further illustrating that an open, cooler environment produces a consonant thick language such as the Georgian language whereby on the other hand, compared to a warm, dense ecosystem such as Hawaii a language consisting of very few consonants have occurred. “In a more open, temperate landscape, prairies in the Midwest of the United States [or in Georgia] for example, you wouldn’t have that. So the sound would be transmitted with fewer modifications.”

Tecumseh Fitch, a linguist of the University of Vienna, who was not part of this study, has put forward an argument using bird songs which could relate to human languages developed in forest habitats. Fitch suggests that when a bird in a forest sings “Stree! Stree! Stree!” due to the thick, humid environment, others interpret and learn the song as “Ree! Ree! Ree!” as the “St” has filtered out through the environment.

Fitch, although impressed and intrigued by Maddieson’s hypothesis, proposes that there are too many factors involved in a formation of a language and until more research is carried out it is hard to know exactly, thus the hypothesis remains unproven.

Sean Roberts, a researcher from the Netherlands at Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, also not involved in the study champions such research carried out by Maddieson and claims that Maddieson’s hypothesis is just the start of research into how nature shapes our languages. Roberts further concludes that he has found that dry, empty places are unlikely to ever have developed tonal languages such as Mandarin. He even studied decade’s worth of Larry King transcripts, claiming he matched the days for the humidity data and on the dry days, Larry King used more consonants.

A story originally reported on http://www.npr.org

What are your views on this interesting piece of research?

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With the aim to reach a global audience, businesses are sometimes faced with language barriers. Although English is deemed a universal language and also the premier language of the internet, it is not the first language in many countries which attract trade. Countries like Brazil, China and Portugal do not use English as a first language. Most people in those countries don’t even speak the English language. With that being said companies have to look for alternative ways to effectively reach these audiences and that is where translation services come in.

Businesses have had to use translation services such as marketing and website translation which can be tricky if you yourself do not speak the target language. As a result companies have turned to translation agencies who are able to assist them with ensuring their message is put across effectively in a different language. In doing so businesses have gone on to increase their audience engagement whether it is via their website or social media platforms, reach more customers and sell more products. In 2015 simply creating your website and expecting to reach the global market is simply just not enough! The need to not only translate but localise content is key in effectively communicating your message in another language. Not only does this attract more people to your business it helps build trust and customer loyalty as research Common Sense Advisory has found that people feel more confident making a purchase when information is in their own native language.

When it comes to translating your content be it your website or advertising campaign it is highly advised you do your research as to whether this is feasible. For example if you operate within the film industry just because a particular movie is successful in one market does not mean it will be in another. Research is key before making final decisions.

Examples of companies who have translated or localised their content and are highly successful include the likes of:

• Uber – translated into more than 30 langauges and predicted to boast profits in excess of 1.5billion according to Techinsider.
• Huffington Post available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Portuguese, Korean and Greek.

So if you are ever unsure of why you need to include the cost of translation services in your budget remember these points.

• Consumers prefer to use their own native language when making purchases
• Reach more customers
• Receive more enquiries
• Sell more products
• Build trust
• Increase engagement on your site

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So you want to be successful? Well you are not going to be successful by sleeping your days away. Successful individuals tend to get up early in order to start off their productive days before anyone else. The old saying goes “The early bird catches the worm” this couldn’t be any truer. As The US Centres for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report suggests that the more a person sleeps the better it translates financially for them. So if you want to be successful get some shut eye!

Plan/Goal setting

One of the surest ways to achieve anything or get anything done in life is to plan ahead or write down goals. Get into the habit of planning for the long term and short term, as goal setting will always give you a focus rather than just having nothing in mind and floating around in life. Your short term goals will always relate to your long term goals as they are the building blocks for your future plan. Without any plans or goal set it would be like walking around aimlessly with no destination in mind, you will be going nowhere and waste a hell of a lot of time and before you know it your life has past. So to be successful… Plan ahead! Prioritise! Start now!

Meditation

Meditation, you might be thinking, what has sitting in one spot, cross-legged and possibly chanting something have to do with being successful? Well the benefits that meditation could have on not only your success but on you as a person and your health in general is a whole article in itself. Just some of the benefits of meditation are improved focus, reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, clarity of the mind, emotional stability, increased creativity, and many more. Develop the habit of taking just 10 minutes out of your day to practice mediation or stillness will drastically improve your life and success. Successful individuals such as Oprah Winfrey, Sir Paul McCartney and Richard Branson are all advocates of meditation.

Stay Active

Most of us are lazy, its human nature to find the easiest way to do something. As time has gone on we have moved from brawn to brain, as we have gotten smarter we have also gotten weaker, but one thing we must have a habit of is exercise. Much like meditation, exercising and staying active has many benefits in life in general, too much to list. Staying active will also keep your mind active and increases serotonin levels which help ward off depression and helps keep you positive which will translate into success. Also being fit through exercise will boost confidence within you which is one of the most important things to have to be a success. When you look good, you feel good! So get exercising!

Read and Learn

Pick up a book and read! As simple as that, have the habit of always looking to expand your horizons, learn more, ask questions, anything you need to know? Increase your knowledge!

Balancing Act

Now what is life without balance? You will never be successful if all you do is play around and on the flip side you might be successful if you are a workaholic but what is the point of creating success if you never have time to enjoy it? So it is vitally important that you get into the habit of managing the workload with leisure time or in other words as you work hard you must also play hard!

Give back and have Gratitude

Never lose sight of where you have come from, always be grateful for everything you have in life and the journeys you have been through. Create time in your life to donate or volunteer time to help others, whether community, charities, or individuals every successful person knows that when you are grateful, you are truly successful.

Image by Roland

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