Vol. 60 December, 2005 |
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Staying Close Through
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McElroy September ‘05 Survey ResultsTaking Action — What Better Way To Thank Clients For Participating? Lisa Siciliani — Marketing Manager We recently asked you to participate in a brief survey to learn how to serve you better. We know how busy our clients are, so we appreciate that those of you who could take the time to complete the survey. Out of 701 surveys sent, we received 163 responses, a rate of 23 percent, making the results statistically significant. Here are highlights of the survey results:
Translation agencies typically develop reputations for stressing quality, price or turnaround time. While competitive in our pricing, we know that McElroy is not always the least expensive choice when prospective clients are selecting a translation vendor. This response, however, tells us that even as we consistently strive to improve other factors critically important to clients, the market we serve depends upon our commitment to providing a very high-quality product.
McElroy respects the expectations these two statistics require. A large part of our success derives from offering solutions, care and stress relief to our clients who consider translation a complicated add-on to an already busy week. Your responses have spurred us to place an even higher priority on particular client-focused technology developments underway, such as improving the readability of online orders, creating the easiest possible online job status and history checking and providing customized client reports. Making translation/localization easier and even more streamlined will further minimize client resources used for oversight.
Nearly all 163 respondents entered a comment into the suggestions field. 102 either had no suggestions for improvement or complimented our service/product, often with specifics. Not only do we appreciate these compliments, but they are an important source of information. Knowing what clients think our strengths are tells us what we are doing right. Read more... |
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Have a December Feast and Help Feed a FamilyThis month, we are giving away two prizes, our traditional HoneyBaked Ham® feast, and a unique gift to help fight hunger, a milk goat. Click here to enter the promotional drawing. Read below for descriptions of the prizes.
Everyone knows the diets don’t start until January — enjoy the bounty of the holidays now! Take a break from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the ease of this meal delivered to your door from HoneyBaked Ham®. We think their “Southern Hospitality” option is an enticing choice. Share a little Southern charm this season. This complete family meal combines traditional favorites — like The Authentic HoneyBaked Ham® — with ol’ fashioned Southern specialities like plump corn muffins and a tastes-like-homemade pecan pie. You don’t have to live “down South” to sample that signature Southern style. Goats are Good for Families
Goat’s milk is the only milk known to half the world’s people, but 80 percent of mothers and children in rural areas do not have any type of milk or milk products. The gift of a dairy goat is a lasting, meaningful way to help a struggling family on the other side of the world. Goats can thrive in extreme climates and on poor, dry land by eating grass and leaves. Your gift of a dairy goat can supply a family with up to several quarts of nutritious milk a day — a ton of milk a year. Extra milk can be sold or used to make cheese, butter or yogurt. Families use goat manure to fertilize gardens. And because goats often have two or three kids a year, Heifer partners can start small dairies that pay for food, health care and education. It’s no wonder the gentle nanny goat is often called the “foster mother to the human race!”
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Checking the Status of Your Translation OnlineDid you know that you can check the status of your translation online whenever you want to? When your translation is logged into our system, the system sends an automatic TRANSLATION ORDER NOTIFICATION e-mail message to the person who submitted the translation request. This e-mail message contains a link you can use to check the real time status of your translation. The message also includes the job number we have assigned to your translation and other important information about your translation order. If you prefer, you are always welcome to call or e-mail us for status or questions about your translations! Carol Moya, Customer Service Coordinator customerservice@ 800-531-9977, ext. 122 Cybershorthand and Chinese vocabulary
Beijing, China (Globe & Mail): In the new age of hip, young, Web-savvy Chinese, you don’t say goodbye with an old-fashioned Chinese word. You sign off your messages with a cheery “88” — a phrase that baffles parents and horrifies conservative language guardians. Industry Leadership McElroy Translation Manager Patricia Bown organized and moderated a session entitled “Translators as Editors” at the American Translators Association national conference held in Seattle, WA on November 10-12, 2005. The session was in panel discussion format and included such topics as the tasks assumed to be included in the editing process, tips for editing under ideal circumstances, the warning signs of potential problems and strategies for making the best of a difficult situation. Serving on the panel with Patricia were Miki Allen, Gerhard Preisser and Thelma Sabim, all translators-editors with successful editing experience. For more information, please visit: www.eweek.com
Tech TalkMcElroy Webmaster Evan Norman regularly dives into technical research as McElroy encounters new challenges and explores new opportunities. This year he has moved toward a more active role in direct communication with clients who appreciate the depth of technical understanding that Evan brings to their projects. Evan suggested a “Tech Talk” E-Buzz feature that he will author every other month. Thanks Evan! Since May, I’ve watched my role here at McElroy become increasingly people-oriented. I am meeting prospects at conferences, talking directly to clients and discussing potential projects with prospects. For this first article on localization technology, I thought it would be useful to provide a general overview of the technology landscape as it exists in the minds of non-localization industry businesspeople I’ve spoken to since getting out from behind my computer. Read more... |
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Italian |
aqua |
Spanish |
agua |
Portuguese |
agua |
What if the ancestral language left no records?
The case with Romance languages is unusually easy because their common ancestor—Latin—left many written documents. In most cases, however, the ancestral language was not written. As a result, linguists look at similarities among the modern descendants to establish common origins. Take a look at these examples:
English |
water |
German |
wasser |
Danish |
vand |
Russian |
voda |
Polish |
woda |
Czech |
voda |
It is clear that the word for ‘water’ looks very similar within each group, but not so similar across groups. Languages in the first group belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Languages in the second group belong to the Slavic branch. Although there are no written records of the ancestral languages of the Germanic or Slavic languages, we have to assume that these two ancestral languages must have existed, just like Latin. We call them Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic.
Where do these mystery languages belong?
Here is the word for ‘water’ in two more languages. Do you think these languages belong to any of the three groups above?
Albanian |
uje |
Latvian |
udens |
Well, as it turns out, Albanian has no close relatives and does not belong to any group, but Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family.
Proto-Indo-European
Further back in time, all these ancestral languages descended, in turn, from one common ancestor. We call this ancestor Proto-Indo-European. This method of grouping languages by using written records and/or similarities among them was very successful in Europe.
What if there are no records, and we know little about the languages?
In many parts of the world, there are no written records, and we don’t know enough about the languages themselves. Consequently, we have to resort to grouping languages on the basis of geography. This is the case with the aboriginal languages of Australia, the native Indian languages of the Americas, the tribal languages of Africa and countless other languages all over the world.
How many language families are there?
It is estimated that there are some 120 language families. This figure is probably an overestimate because of our limited knowledge about the languages of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. For example, the Austronesian family (Pacific area) has 1262 languages, many of them little known. So the actual number of families, once these languages are studied, is probably smaller.
Read about McElroy’s localization services.
McElroy September ‘05 Survey Results
McElroy staff reviewed the remaining suggestions very carefully to determine what clarification of processes or improvements in services will provide the greatest positive benefits for our clients. Most of these suggestions are categorized as follows, and WE ARE LISTENING:
- 21 concerned communication including a) improving online job status reporting, b) advising of all turnaround options or customizing the way turnaround is stated, c) clarifying the McElroy point of contact, d) simplifying or clarifying order confirmation and e) making sure all clients are aware of online ordering availability
ACTION: Some changes to the automated job notification tracking link have been made. It is more concise, and it now lists not just target language but also the target country when relevant to dialect choice. Account Representatives Aletta Banks and Olga Pechnenko Kopp have drafted “introductions” and are busy calling and e-mailing their clients. Many clients place orders and make estimate requests through our website, but we can also provide a customized order link for our desktop to make the ordering process and painless as possible. Click here if you want to know more. - 10 requested faster turnaround times
ACTION: Turnaround times for minimum size jobs were cut to 5 working days. McElroy is very responsive to turnaround demands. Account Managers will carry the message that McElroy will do what it takes to meet mission critical deadlines. For “impossible” projects we will build teams of translators and editors. Translation team size is contingent on deadline requirements. - 8 suggested lower cost; 2 of these noted that our pricing was in line with other vendors
ACTION: We instituted systematic follow-up on estimates. We want to know if there are any specific areas where we need to sharpen the pencil and re-negotiate the cost basis for our work.
- Other suggestions included 2 for machine translation, 2 regarding formatting, 2 about invoicing, and one to make Project Manager Tina Cargile president of the company (ok, maybe the latter fits into a levity category, along with the one about making translations free, but we take your point)
ACTION: McElroy does offer “Human Assisted Machine Translation” for a wide range of Japanese patents. Basically, our translators edit a machine translation product. The offer is for midrange quality at midrange price. Regarding the appointment of a new President, sorry, but Tina declined the offer!
FROM GENERAL MANAGER SHELLY PRIEBE
Again, thank you for your input. If you have more to share, don’t wait until the next survey. Click here and send your comments or pick up the phone and ask for me. 1-800-531-9977.
Back
Teck Talk
(continued)
Not every company that markets overseas needs their website translated, but most of them do, and would discover vastly improved relations with their buyers.
I hope that after you’ve finished reading this, if you’ve ever dismissed the idea of having your website localized, you will think about it again in a new light. If you know someone in your organization who would benefit from this article, I encourage you to pass it on. Here are a few statements that I have encountered during this period that seem to be the general consensus.
Website localization is too expensive.
First, website localization isn’t the same thing as translating your entire website. Let’s say you have a dozen pages (contact info, company background, basic product info, etc.) of light text, as well as 30,000 pages of technical product specs, and only a fraction of those specs are for products marketed in Taiwan. You wouldn’t, therefore, need to have the entire website translated into Traditional Chinese. When considering the cost of localization, common sense scalability of content to be localized for a particular audience is always paramount.
Second, if you have invested in a sales representative or distribution partnership in a country, leveraging that investment by localizing key portions of your website for that country is relatively small as an incremental additional expense. If you have the budget to maintain a professional website that has its English content regularly updated, the additional budgetary considerations (remembering scalability) are marginal.
Finally, what would you have said about a competitor in 1999 that had yet to create an English website because it was “too expensive”? After laughing hysterically at them for allowing so many prospects to slip past them and come to your business via search engines, you would have said “don’t bother putting up a website, the Yellow Pages will do.” A similar thing is happening right now with your competition in the global marketplace. The competition is thrilled if you haven’t bothered to localize your website, because if they have localized theirs, and they are getting all of the non-English search engine hits your website isn’t.
Website localization is just for the big guys.
This simply isn’t true for a number of reasons. Some of the big guys are not practicing localization yet (at least not to the degree that they could be)! Also, as I discussed above, localization can be scalable—not only to the needs of your target audience, but to be scalable in cost relative to the size of your company. If you are in an organization that is in the early stages of going global, take a look at some of your competitors, and see where they are at in terms of having their websites localized. You will probably be surprised by the number of companies similar in size to yours offering similar products and services that have their websites localized to some degree into major Asian and European languages.
Website localization is not in our budget at this time.
It was noted that one Fortune 500 company recently found it was spending more in its budget for toilet paper than on website localization. This seems to me to be an odd, yet not uncommon, state of priorities for many companies. For most companies, website localization doesn’t even make it into the budget as a line item, because the final cost is so inexpensive relative to many other budgetary considerations. Ask us for a free consultation and quote, and see if having key pages translated isn’t in line with the cost of, say, that full-color ad (with undetermined ROI) in a trade publication. This powerful tool drives traffic to your site outside the U.S. by telling prospective customers that you are definitely interested in their business.
Our site is already translated—you just couldn't find it.
I am not an amateur when it comes to trying to find a company’s website in another language. Sometimes, I have to drill deep into the site to find the localized versions accompanying overseas sales office contacts. Other times, I discover a few localized sites for Germany, Japan and China buried amongst a giant list of countries, most of which return simply the same English version of the site. I check for IP detect/redirect functions, by searching Google for the company name strictly within the domains of several countries. I try typing in the company’s name with other domain suffixes.
I have to say that 99% of the time, when someone tells me that his/her company’s website is already translated, but I couldn’t find it, it turns out that there were a handful of PDFs and product pages buried deep in the website translated from English into other languages. Now, if the “localized” version of your website is hidden from both search engines and the most intrepid of web users, how is your average customer going to find it? Many users who find your site by brand recognition will have to read through page after page of English to find the few pages that are in their language(s). A scaled down, localized version of the navigational system and some of the main pages, as well as the relevant PDFs and product specs, would go a long way to improving your company’s presence in a given country.
Our regional offices take care of it—they handle distribution of our product/services, have their own website, or translate our content for us.
A lot of localization vendors like to offer the “bite the wax tadpole” story as an example of why companies shouldn’t try to perform localization on their own. One version of the story goes like this. When Coke first introduced its product into China, it chose phonetic representations of Coca-cola in Chinese that accurately reflected the sound of the brand, but not the meaning. Apparently, Coke didn’t select the Chinese characters, but the Chinese storeowners who were selling the product did. The result was that very few Chinese people were interested in drinking an American soft drink whose letters, though phonetically accurate, meant “bite the wax tadpole.” This makes for a much more interesting and stronger case for not allowing your regional offices and distribution reps to handle the presentation of your corporate brand when localizing your website.
Obviously, the “bite the wax tadpole” anecdote is rather simplistic, and took place long before the Internet existed. However, imagine something more complex like a marketing-jargon-rich website being translated literally by native speakers who aren’t familiar with the original cultural context which bore the content. You certainly need native speakers to translate and review your website when localizing it into other languages. Translators are charged with building a bridge between your company’s origins and your new audience with one end firmly anchored to your company’s cultural identity, and the other effectively inviting the target audience to become customers.
Our global contacts speak English.
As mentioned above, this is sort of like saying in 1999 that your existing customers all knew you, and the rest could all find you in the Yellow Pages, so why bother with having a website?
It is certainly true that much of the business world outside of the U.S. is rapidly becoming bilingual, with English as its second language; however, the fact that 80 percent of Internet users shop and buy in their native languages should be enough to rethink this statement. Even if you aren’t selling your product or service directly to consumers online, think of what this implies in terms of the comfort levels potential clients have when they are seeking out new partnerships and opportunities from the U.S.
What about your existing overseas clients? Are they getting the level of satisfaction they deserve from the information and tools you currently provide in English on your website? How about the cost of a customer service phone call, where the question could have been answered in the customer’s native language inside a brief, one-page FAQ?
Your website should be helping you build sales rather than having non-native English customers buy from you in spite of your website.
We use machine translation, we don’t need a human translation.
There is a lot of research and money going into machine translation development these days, but with a few exceptions using very controlled authoring and extensive human-vetted glossaries, it isn’t ready for prime time in business websites.
I didn’t know you guys did localization.
Whether they’ve heard of McElroy Translation or not, vast scores of people are surprised to learn that a languages services provider knows a thing or two about text expansion, encoding issues, date/time formats, cultural appropriateness of text and graphics, overseas SEO, functionality Q/A, etc. The fact is, we don’t just take all of your English words and throw them back at you in other languages so you can attempt to jam them onto your existing website. We understand that a localization project is a tight, team effort that requires dedicated people and can often cause a lot of dedicated headaches. The business of coordinating a vast array of talents and backgrounds in order to help you provide the most effective corporate message overseas—that is our business, and the translation of words is only a part of it.
Would you like to know what other clients think of McElroy’s services?
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