Category Archives: Guest Articles

Which Country; Which Language?

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Guest Article:
By John Greenwood
InterPro Translation Solutions

There are choices you must consider when translating for some countries with multiple languages and into some languages that are used in multiple countries.

English is English, Spanish is Spanish, Portuguese is Portuguese, Belgian is Belgian, Swiss is Swiss and Chinese is Chinese — true? Well not quite. For starters, two of the six are not languages (but describe great chocolates!).

This article explains some of the choices you must consider when translating for some countries with multiple languages and into some languages that are used in multiple countries.

I will make some generalizations, but especially if you are taking products into different countries, do seek advice from your local subsidiary or distributor — a consumer-oriented environment is likely to be more sensitive to language variants than business to business.

Most countries have multiple languages and some languages are spoken in many countries. My native United Kingdom counts as native languages English, Welsh, Gaelic (Scottish and Irish), Cornish (in part of the southwest), Manx (on the Isle of Man between England, Scotland and Ireland) and others. However, English is the dominant language understood by just about the entire population and although the Welsh and Scots may disagree, there is little practical need to translate into other UK languages.

The same is not true for some other countries.

Belgium is a relatively “new” country formed in 1830. Dutch (Flemish) is spoken in the north, and French in the south. Although I have worked for a company that translated Belgian French and Dutch separately from the standard French and Dutch varieties, generally, Belgians understand their neighbors’ languages. Belgian Dutch tends to retain traditional Dutch words whereas the more liberal Netherlands Dutch more readily adopts English words. Belgian French and “standard” French are very similar to each other and standard French (for France) generally serves both.

Switzerland has four languages: German (spoken by the majority), then French, then Italian, and about 1% Romansh. Although the spoken Swiss-German is quite different from that spoken in Germany and Austria, it has no written equivalent and the variants of all languages for Germany, France, and Italy work fine in Switzerland; there is no need to generate separate Swiss variants.

Some languages are common to many countries, especially English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

To be culturally sensitive, especially at a consumer level, British and American English should be treated as separate locales. However, if you are going to pick just one, American English would be the variant of choice as Brits are more used to American English spelling and terminology and generally accept it (sometimes through grated teeth!), but the same is not true vice-versa. Canada probably has a preference for British English, but is more used to American than their transatlantic counterparts. Other English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa also probably have a preference for British English, but American English will be understood and generally accepted.

European French differs from Canadian French in terms of some terminological and stylistic preferences, however the more technical the subject matter, the fewer the differences. European French also tends to more readily adopt certain English words than Canadian French. If your product or service target markets are Quebec and France, it would be advisable to localize your product into the appropriate language for each market (Canadian French for Quebec and “standard” French for France). The similarity between the two variances of French lends itself to being a “make-from” language: once content has been translated into one or the other versions of French, it is feasible to edit the translation in order to be acceptable in the alternate geography (as opposed to translating from scratch).

Spanish needs additional consideration. Each Spanish-speaking country has its own variant and use of words. So Spain is different from Mexico is different from Peru is different from Argentina is different from … well you get the picture! However, especially at a business level, it is possible to translate into “Latin American Spanish”that will be generally accepted throughout Central and South America. European Spanish is your choice if your target is Spain.

One may also translate into a “Universal Spanish” that is generally acceptable worldwide. However, there will be some compromises the “higher” you go and if you are targeting just one or two countries, and have no plans in the near term to expand elsewhere, you would be generally advised to pick the Spanish that most closely matches your target audience.

Portuguese is a different story! Brazilian and European Portuguese have drifted far enough away from each other that you should translate for one or the other; there is no “Universal Portuguese.” So if you are targeting Brazil and Europe, you require two separate Portuguese translations.

China has numerous spoken languages and dialects, Mandarin being the most universal and common. However, there are two modern written versions of Chinese: Traditional and Simplified. Traditional Chinese was the written Chinese prior to the formation of the People’s Republic of China (a.k.a. PRC or Mainland China) in 1949. Simplified Chinese was derived from Traditional Chinese by the PRC in order to simplify many of the ideographic characters and promote literacy.

Traditional Chinese is used in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Even though the dialect spoken in Hong Kong and Macau is Cantonese, Traditional Chinese is used for print media, but with a few differences as Cantonese requires a few characters that are not used in Mandarin. Singapore has adopted Simplified Chinese and although Hong Kong has seen more Simplified Chinese since its re-incorporation into PRC in 1997, Traditional Chinese still dominates.

Simplified and Traditional Chinese have many similarities, and those accustomed to Traditional Chinese can read Simplified Chinese more easily than the other way around. However, for the People’s Republic of China, translations should be done into Simplified Chinese. Although a PRC native may be able to read Traditional Chinese, they most likely would not be able to write it as well. Thus, the traditional axiom of using a native translator of the target language still applies.

Somewhat strangely you may think, it is easier to translate English into both Simplified and Traditional Chinese than it is translating one into the other. There is a character set issue (Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters do not co-exist in most computer codepages) and translators generally find it easier using English as the source.

So, if your target is PRC (Mainland China) or Singapore, Simplified Chinese is your language of choice. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau require Traditional Chinese (with a few differences for Hong Kong and Macau).

I apologize that I have over-generalized to some extent and oversimplified some cultural issues. I am not suggesting that language variants (Belgian French and Dutch) and less common languages (Welsh, Gaelic) are unimportant or insignificant. I have tried to take a practical approach to the localization effort required to take products internationally, and while the Belgian French might prefer their French, they would prefer standard French to English!

About the Author
John Greenwood is Vice President of Business Development for Lombard, Ill.-based InterPro Translation Solutions, which provides translation, software localization, multilingual desktop publishing and project management solutions. He can be reached at (858)486-1848 or jgreenwood@interproinc.com.

The Globalization of PR: Myth or Reality

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Guest Article:
By Harris Diamond, CEO
Weber Shandwick

The question of whether the globalization of PR is a myth or reality is easily answered: it is definitely a reality. The key question is what kind of reality is it? And two further questions: what does it mean for us? And where is it headed?

Any concept of globalization that attempts to airbrush out the importance of local, national, or regional dynamics is not going to take us very far. It is no longer acceptable to rely on the watchwords, “Think Global, Act Local.” Perhaps closer to the mark is a line by Tip O’Neill, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who once said, “All politics is local.” In some important senses, all PR is local, too.

I will return to this theme later, but first let me discuss the idea of globalization itself. Just as the Depression, the Cold War, the Space Age, or the Roaring 20′s are used to describe different historical periods, the Era of Globalization encapsulates the political, economic and cultural atmosphere of today.

Yet, as one or two academics have pointed out, globalization is not a new concept. While the term, “globalization,” was coined only in the1980′s, the concept originated much earlier than that.

Consider for a moment that the Roman Empire once extended from Scotland in the north to Tunisia and Egypt in the south and from Portugal in the west to Turkey in the east. Within that vast region, there was one currency, one banking system, one legal system, one trading system, and one official language for matters of state and commerce. No wonder, then, that there were revolts and street riots protesting the imposition of Roman rule on local life. This isn’t much different from a meeting of the World Trade Organization today.

In considering the reality of global PR, we should remember that it is complex, not simple. The tension and balance between the power of international and the power of local is an old theme. One lesson is clear: global and local always coexist and have always been intertwined. History shows that one does not necessarily lead to the demise of the other. Globalization is complex and multilayered and it is perilous to forget that.

If the 19th and the first half of the 20th century were dominated — sometimes tragically — by nation states, the last 50 years have seen the emergence of a new global player: the multinational organization, or as some experts prefer to say more accurately and neutrally: “the transnational organization.”

Transnationals may be based within a particular country and carry strong cultural associations from that home country. Coca-Cola, for example, has long been regarded as American as apple pie. The historic brand essence of Mercedes or Peugeot was quintessentially German or French. But increasingly, the country of origin is becoming less central to the DNA of these organizations. They think and act internationally; they have intellectual property and operations around the world; and their culture becomes global, not national or local.

People often assume that transnationals are only multinational businesses, such as Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, Nokia, or Sony. However, one of the key points about understanding the globalization of PR is that we aren’t just referring to businesses, but to many other types of global players, as well.

Transnationals may be political, such as the European Commission, UNICEF or the World Health Organization. They may be NGOs, such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth. They may be economic, such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and they may be cultural, such as CNN, BBC World and Al Jazeera. These disparate organizations all demonstrate the willingness and ability to think and act on a global or regional basis, rather than on just a national basis.

The first step in understanding the reality of the globalization of PR is that some of the key players now are no longer capable of being understood within the confines of traditional national boundaries. It’s not just that they act internationally; they act supranationally. Their psychology, their thinking and even their cultures are becoming truly global.

The term globalization most simply refers to the growing interdependence and interconnectedness of the world — politically, militarily, economically, or technologically. Whether people view globalization as a liberating force for economic prosperity and world peace, or whether they fear it as a catastrophic form of tyranny and the nemesis of advanced capitalism, both supporters and opponents agree that globalization rests on our interconnectedness and interdependence. That’s true whether the issue is trade barriers, pornography on the Internet, climate change, or the spread of avian flu. Like it or not, we have never understood so keenly as now that we all inhabit the same planet.

Yet, there is a second idea that is often mistakenly linked to interconnectedness — an idea that is far more problematic for those of us facing the challenges of the globalization of PR.

It is the idea that globalization means not just international connectedness, but, also international homogenization. This notion holds that globalization inevitably moves toward uniformity in consumer behaviors, tastes, cultures and personalities. According to this view, whether we live in Malaysia or New York, Belgium or Bolivia, we all will eventually act in the same way, consume the same products, and have the same cultural reference points. Local differences will diminish over time as an inevitable result of globalization.

Understandably, this argument worries many people. Take the night skyline of many a major world city on any continent and see the familiar neon signs for Kodak, Panasonic or Foster’s. It does seem to indicate a world that looks increasingly alike.

It is also true that nearly the world over people can be seen drinking a Coke, taking their kids to McDonald’s, using Microsoft Windows, or clutching a Siemens cellphone. Does that mean that people around the world are all becoming the same? Does it mean that national, regional and local differences are slowly melding into a uniform, global consumer marketplace? Far from it.

The strongest evidence that globalization does not mean bland uniformity comes from the many corporations whose products and services penetrate scores of countries. These companies need to make their brands relevant in ways that are faithful to the core attributes of the brand, yet flexible enough to accommodate diverse trading patterns, differing consumer tastes and behavior, and a variety of businesses, media and political cultures. Take the work that we do for Siemens and MasterCard, representing both businesses in dozens of diverse markets. Of course, we help these clients drive a central global plan, based on core brand values. But the effectiveness of these programs comes from the huge creativity and intellectual property residing around the world.

The real challenge for PR is to help organizations bridge that which is global and that which is local. Unfortunately, there is no magic template for doing this. What there is, instead, is a steadily growing body of wisdom that comes from doing it, day in and day out, in numerous markets around the world.

I mentioned at the start of this article that old watchwords like ‘”Think Global, Act Local” are no longer relevant. With very few exceptions global campaigns that are designed, executed and controlled centrally have little place in today’s global PR market. “Think Global, Act Local” was an attempt to get beyond complete centralization by suggesting that execution, at least, needed to take place locally. But it still implied that corporate headquarters could establish a strategy that would resonate around the world as long as it had a little local interpretation in the execution phase.

Today, global campaigns do not come from some NASA-like Mission Control center. Instead they originate from any corner of the world. And once originated, they have to find differing expressions to be effective in different markets.

Our business is more and more about the quality of our ideas — strategic and creative ideas. By their nature, ideas can come from anywhere — especially if we are to avoid the charge of cultural imperialism. A model that has strategy and creativity at the center and execution at the local end is no longer adequate. Free-traveling, free-thinking ideas are the new lifeblood of global PR.

This brings me to my final point. We simplify people at our own risk. As a consumer, myself, I only have to look inside my own head to know that I have interests and allegiances that are global, national, and local. I am influenced by the ethnic and religious origins of my ancestors, by my family, and by people who share my intellectual interests. Much as I would love to believe I am especially complex, I think most of you would be the same. If we can hold different notions of “global” and “local” in our heads and live life anyway, then it is incumbent upon global PR programs to do the same. It may not be as simple, but it’s much more interesting.

And that’s great news for PR.

About the Author
Harris Diamond is Chief Executive Officer of Weber Shandwick, one of the world’s leading public relations firm. Weber Shandwick offers a full spectrum of communications services – corporate consulting, public relations, investor/financial relations, marketing communications, public affairs, government relations, attitudinal research and advocacy advertising. PRWeek has selected Mr. Diamond as “PR Professional of the Year, 2000″ and one of the “100 most influential PR people in the 20th century.”

Just How Literal Do You Want That Translation?

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Guest Article:
By Dr. Mark Ritter
McElroy Translation Company

From time to time translation agencies receive requests for a “literal”translation. This seemingly inoffensive adjective is much like the term “obscene.” No one is quite sure how to define it, but we all know it when we see it. When a literal translation is explicitly specified, an agency specializing in intellectual property (IP) translation reacts somewhat like a minister who is asked to preach a religious sermon: “that’s the only kind I know.”

So what do clients mean when they ask for a literal translation?

Clearly one thing that “literal” means is “don’t embellish, don’t summarize,” a fundamental principle for IP translators. Translating everything in the source text, even at the risk of redundancy, is part of our standard instructions for translators. Before a translation reaches our client, we further check translations twice for completeness as part of our standard quality assurance process.

Sometimes “translating everything” provides too much information, however. A conscientious translator may feel bound to translate every word, no matter how peripheral to the basic subject matter. Did the requester really want the phone numbers and addresses of all 14 fourteen branch offices of that foreign patent office? The translator or editor may decide to eliminate those details and provide the reader with a parenthetical indication of the content: [phone numbers and addresses of branch offices].

Our translators and our editing staff seek a balance: provide our clients all the information necessary to understand the subject matter, but not so much that the reader gets lost in irrelevant detail.

Translators and editors also have to keep constantly in mind that “literal” does not mean “Give the reader a lesson in the structure of the original language.” To take a simple example, what is a literal translation of the French sentence “Je m’appelle François.” If one just transfers each of the words to English, one gets “I call myself François.” This captures the form but not the content. I can call myself François too, but my name is still Mark. What is “needed”and what our clients “need”is an exact translation.

An exact translation conveys all the meaning: “Je m’appelle” and “François” (in real texts, of course, units of meaning are often more than one word). If I render the French sentence as “My name is “François” I again have only three units of meaning, each corresponding to one of the units in French. The result means exactly what the French means and it is not ambiguous. This translation is as literal as anyone could wish.

Now, let’s consider a more realistic example. Here is a typical German sentence structure common in technical writing:

“Die Verbindung der zwei Stücke erfolgt vorzugsweise durch Schweißen.”

A slavishly literal rendering would read: “The joining of the two pieces is preferably done by welding.” If one eliminates words that only serve to hold the sentence together, there are only four units of meaning in the German, corresponding to “join,” “two pieces,” “preferably,” and “welding.” Therefore, no meaning is lost if we recast the sentence as “The two pieces are preferably joined by welding.” It’s really not important to anyone, and certainly not to our clients, that the German had a different sentence structure. This is what is meant when a statute, a regulation or a certification calls for a “true and complete translation.”

Can we simplify further and still have an exact translation? Since welding is a kind of joining, we could say “The two pieces are preferably welded,” which is only slightly narrower in its meaning. That would certainly be adequate for nontechnical translation, but in a patent it might be construed as limiting, so we generally would not delete “joined.” We certainly could not delete “preferably” without unduly restricting meaning. When in doubt, we opt for completeness rather than pithiness in our IP, legal and clinical work. This is what our clients want when they ask for a literal translation and what we do everything we can to make sure they receive.

About the Author
Since earning his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, Mark Ritter has been a teacher and translator of German for over 20 years. He joined McElroy Translation Company, Austin, Texas in February 1999 as Chief Editor, supervising a staff of 11 technical editors and proofreaders. He has been a member of the German language certification section of the American Translators Association since 1998. Spring 2007 will be the fifth straight year he has taught “Machine Translation and Translation Memory” in the Localization Certification program at Austin Community College.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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By guest author:
Marc Garnaut
Spark Media Lab

I’ve been sharing my morning coffee for the past year or two with the “yee-ha”s of corporate wagons circling and the “forward-ho”cries of entrepreneurial cowboys heading out to the great frontiers. Yes siree, rarely a day goes by without the newspaper reminding me that there’s a gold rush going on and those who hesitate will surely be lost.

The wild west is now the wild east and China and India promise fame and riches for brands that are fleet-of-foot. Or do they?

I don’t want to chat in this paper about the (many and varied) strategic issues involved in moving a brand into a new and linguistically different market. That could be the subject of a major brick of a book. But, I thought it might be interesting to look at just a microcosm, the logo or brandmark, and see what lessons can be learned from the brave pioneers who’ve established themselves in the China Market.

There are really two ways of rendering a foreign mark in another language. Transliteration, or phonetic translation is one. So, for example Louis Vuitton is branded in China as “lu yi wei deng.” Nokia is “nuo ji ya” and Harley-Davidson is “ha li.”

The other method is conceptual, where local characters are chosen to express a similar image. For example, in China, Shell Oil is known as “bei ke” (shell), Nestle is “que chao” (swallow’s nest) and Wrigley is “jian pai” (arrow brand).It sounds simple enough, but actually it’s a process so full of complexities that only the foolhardy would risk doing it without the expert support of an experienced globalisation team behind them. I say this with insider knowledge, because the staff of elionetwork, one of Singapore’s leading linguistic companies, share my office and fall under the same management as Spark Media Lab, the communications company I work for. Their ears are constantly to the ground, and they know some disaster stories that would curl your toes.

Globalisation is littered with “in hindsight it wasn’t such a great idea” stories, and often it’s from savvy multi-national companies who should know better. Funny to us as outsiders but not necessarily amusing to the companies at the time. KFC’s “finger-lickin’ good” slogan entered the China market as “eat your fingers off.” Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” spent a short time in Taiwan as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead” before the F&B giant went into damage control.

Logotypes can be equally tricky. Quaker Oats was lucky to be affectionately adopted by the Chinese market as “lao ren pai” (old man brand), but Polo Ralph Lauren’s polo player, signifying classic affluence in the West, was nicknamed “san jiao ma” (three-legged horse), carrying none of the prestige the company hoped it would.

May Chiang, elionetwork’s Business Manager, puts it this way: “You need to ask a lot of questions in localisation of brands for the China market. It’s an art and a science. Should they be read left to right or right to left? Should they be in simplified characters common in China and Singapore or traditional characters used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Does it work for all dialect groups? Are the meanings or emotions that are carried in the words and symbols aligned to the brand image?”

One of the most common misconceptions we deal with is that localisation is literal translation and that it can be judged by price per word like a commodity. That’s really not the case. A good localisation provider using expert native-speaking translators will understand the nuances of your communication and make sure that the meaning and emotion crosses cultures. They’ll safeguard your brand and get you to market faster and in exactly the way you’re intending. It’s an expert service, and getting the girl in accounting who speaks Chinese to do it might save you a little money, but the consequences could be serious damage to your brand.

The story of Coca-Cola’s entry into the market comes in a couple of different flavours, depending on who is doing the telling. Some tell of how the company paid heavily for being ill-prepared by having to quickly withdraw marketing material they’d distributed for their launch. The official Coca-Cola story is more flattering to their cross-cultural prowess.

According to Coca-Cola, they found prior to the launch of their localised brand identity that shopkeepers had made their own signage, approximating the phonetics of the name as best they could. Unfortunately, some signs translated to “female horse fastened with wax” while others invited customers to “bite the wax tadpole.”

The company’s own localisation team cleverly fused the transliteration and conceptual methods to come up with “ke kou ke le,”which translates in Mandarin to “permitting the mouth to rejoice.”

Other companies have not managed to find exact phonetic equivalents, but have encapsulated the feeling of positivity. Pepsi (undoubtedly much wiser after their initial Taiwan experience) is branded “bai shi ke le” (everything makes you happy), Kellogg is “jia le s” (family happiness), Heineken is “xi li” (the power of joy) and Xerox is “shi le” (offering happiness).

I think everyone who has travelled will have come across ads in English proudly exclaiming “It will become a fortunate feeling” or billboards for prestige products for “Ones who are on top of the others.” Imagine the re-branding gymnastics you’d have to perform if something that clumsy applied to your entire identity.

So maverick cowboy, by all means strike out into the wild frontier.

Just have a good posse by your side.

About the Author
Marc Garnaut is Creative Director of Spark Media Lab, Singapore. He is author of many published articles on a broad range of marketing and popular culture topics. Creative and strategic, eclectic and passionate, Marc describes himself as a person with 2 degrees and a passion for street photography, jazz and Takeshi Kitano films. He hopes that makes him an interesting and effective person to work with.

About Spark Media Lab
Spark Media Lab strives to move design beyond beautiful lay-out. We help identify the specific needs of our clients and develop creative strategies to achieve these goals. In this manner creative + tactical work together, giving our clients the most relevant and innovative solutions possible for effectively communicating with their audience.

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