Global Talk

by Francis Bao   

I found an interesting blog post by Hui Zhu on “Top 7 Tips for Effective Chinese copywriting.”  The author describes the structure of sentences, how to communicate with implied meaning, how idioms can affect content of the language, legal issues, trade name translation for foreign products, and current trends in Chinese language.    

Chinese idioms and proverbs have existed for at least 2,000 years, and they play a very significant role in both Chinese culture and language. Idiomatic expressions have been used in all kinds of communications, such as daily life, marketing campaigns, and political activities. They significantly enhance the meaning of the language.  

When translating into Chinese from English, we have to rewrite English idiomatic expressions. For example, the English idiom, “win-win situation” in Chinese might be translated as “parties are winning” or “all choices are good”. “Thinking outside of box” could be translated as ”thinking in a creative way”, and “Give 110% might be “making extra effort”, “tie for both parties”, “making your own invention”, and “working diligently beyond the limit”.   

When writing for translation, keep in mind that if we translate idiomatic expressions in a word-for-word manner, they will not make any sense in either language.

Francis Bao is a senior member of the STC and the STC Chicago Chapter, as well as the STC-ITC. He is an award-winning technical writer and translator.

ITC SIG News Chinese, Localization, Marketing, Translation

Note:  The next meeting has been rescheduled to Tuesday, 26 March.  It’s at 17:00-18:00 CET (GMT +0100) / 12.00pm-01.00pm EST (Daylight saving time is in effect for the US time shown).

STC’s Europe SIG holds a monthly Watercooler Chat, an informal SIG meeting with no speaker or presentation. The chat is moderated, and free and open to members of the Europe SIG. Join the Europe SIG of STC to participate, bringing your experience, ideas and questions to share and discuss with fellow communicators located around the world.

The March 19 meeting focuses on localisation style guides. Topics for possible discussion are: What is a localisation style guide? If you get your work translated, do you have one? Who uses the guide? What should such a guide contain? Who writes it? What problems have you had when writing or maintaining one? Do translation agencies always create one for their client documentation? What’s the minimum information you need to include?

The SIG has provided links to some well-known localization style guides, by Microsoft, the World Bank (French guide), and the European Commission.

Details of the chat are available from the Europe SIG manager, Jennifer O’Neill.

STC News, Tech Comm News Event, Localization

Localization World is announcing the 2013 Conferences and Exhibits.

• Localization World Singapore April 10 to 12 2013
• Localization World London June 12 to 14 2013
• Localization World Silicon Valley October 9 to 11 2013 (Call for Papers)

In addition, the Localization Institute is currently conducting the Localization Project Management (LPM) Certification Program, with its workshop, in Singapore. This program is intended for people with three to five years of experience as a localization project manager for either the vendor or the buyer. Register before 18 March 2013 to be included in this session.

Related organizations Education, Event, Localization

In an effort to assist the GALA Standards Initiative with the Model Service Elements project, the ITC SIG posts this announcement/request for survey participation. The project aims to define standard service descriptions for the localization industry. We believe that this effort will help promote transparency and best practice for the industry and lead to better quality and satisfaction rates.

We have three easy ways you can help this project move along:
Survey. Take a short survey on how you obtain or provide quotes for localization services. This survey will help us identify what information language service providers ask for to provide bids and what information buyers of services typically include in RFPs.
To take this survey, follow one of these two links:
For Translation Service Providers: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CWB9D5J
For Buyers of Translation Services: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSLN2L9

Localization process documentation. If you have any sort of documentation of your localization processes that you can share with us (either online or in an off-line document), please send me a mail with information on how to obtain it. This information can be kept confidential if required and will help us determine how the variety of process models relate to one another.

Guidelines for localization services. If you have prepared any guidelines for buyers of localization services or educational materials you use internally for educating staff about localization issues that you can share, we would like to see how companies present this information to their prospective clients or internal stakeholders. If you can share anything of these sorts of materials, please respond and let me know what you can share.

If you can assist us with any (or all) of these requests, it will help us prepare first drafts of the model service elements. Note that we will credit all contributors (except those who wish to remain anonymous) in the Model Service Elements results (to be delivered in Q1 2012).

If you would like to get more closely involved with this project, we encourage you to visit http://gala.mymemberfuse.com/groups/profile/view/groupid/1790 and sign up for the group. Instructions on how to join the group appear at the end of this message.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions about this project or the GALA Standards Initiative.

Best regards,

Arle Lommel
GALA Standards Coordinator
alommel@gala-global.org

Related organizations Localization

Decisions made during content development impact the quality and consistency of the translated versions of the content. In this certificate course, you will learn the difference between Translation, Localization, and Internationalization; learn best practices with writing methods and content management; and learn about the tools of the translation industry. Through best practices, tools, and building a dynamic knowledge base, participants will learn how to make their companies’ localization process more efficient and achieve consistently higher quality translations.

More information and registration

Instructor: Lisa Pietrangeli is a managing partner and director of client solutions at ThirtySix Software. At ThirtySix, Lisa specializes in working with clients to develop customized content development strategies. Lisa brings over 11 years of experience to ThirtySix Software, having worked extensively with companies around the world, helping them to streamline their content development and localization processes.

STC News Localization

Please review the extensive STC_GATF_report by STC’s Globalization Audit Committee.

From the Executive Summary:
“As one of the largest international associations for technical communicators, STC has a unique opportunity to lead the way toward a more globally aware and culturally considerate workforce. In the past several years, STC has come a long way in this regard, and having a global approach is one of the behaviors we highlight in our strategic plan. However, we have never formally assessed how we are doing in regard to globalization, but rather have reacted to issues as they have arisen. The results of this audit will help us prioritize and become more proactive in our approach to globalization, particularly as it relates to member communication.”

Features, ITC SIG News, STC News Communication, global, globalization, Localization, strategic plan

For lively discussion and valuable information about localization, join the Localization Professional Linkedin group, http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=44105&trk=anet_ug_hm

Today’s discussion yields extensive information about the meaning of color in various cultures, to build on the chart in “Color Meanings by Culture” posted at http://www.globalization-group.com/edge/resources/color-meanings-by-culture/

Features, Tech Comm News Color in various cultures, Cross-cultural communication, Forums, Localization, Resource

A Localization World conference will be held October 6-8, 2010 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle, Washington. For details visit  http://www.localizationworld.com/

Related organizations, Tech Comm News Event, Internationalization, Localization

If you are new to localization, you may want to join SimulTrans for the “Introduction to Localization” webinar on Tuesday, April 27 or Thursday, May 19. 

This is an educational event. Details are:

SimulTrans Webinar – Introduction to Localization
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
2 p.m. EDT / 1 p.m. CDT / Noon MDT / 11 a.m. PDT
OR
Thursday, May 19, 2010
4 p.m. EDT / 3 p.m. CDT / 2 p.m. MDT / 1 p.m. PDT 
Free of charge   
Register at http://www.simultrans.com/register.cfm 
Contact: SimulTrans
education@simultrans.com
+1-512-670-8988 

Description: Introduction to Localization
This session addresses the basics:

• What is all this “-zation” language?
• How should you prepare a localization kit and request a proposal? 
• What factors should you consider in choosing a localization partner?
• How long does localization take? How much does it cost?
•  How can you ensure high linguistic quality?
• What are translation memory tools?

Presenter
Adam Jones, Chief Operating Officer, SimulTrans

Adam oversees SimulTrans’ worldwide operations, including project management, translation, engineering, testing, multilingual publishing, account management, and marketing. Adam has spent over 16 years directing the company’s customer outreach efforts, internal production groups, and other operations. He regularly gives training presentations at conferences of the Society for Technical Communications, the American Translators Association, the Software & Information Industry Association, and other groups. Adam previously worked as an International Strategic Account Specialist at Oracle Corporation and a high school English teacher.  He holds a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, in Public Policy and Education.  

To learn more about the company, visit SimulTrans’ website at http://www.simultrans.com.

Tech Comm News Event, Localization

The challenges of selling stories for youth in many parts of the world and successsful techniques are the subject of an April 14, 2010 feature in Publishing Perspectives, “Selling Amanda Abroad.” This is a series of books and an interactive website.

Features Internationalization, Localization, Translation

Localization World will be held in Berlin in June 2010.  Details about the five tracks are posted:  Global Business Best Practices, Managing Global Websites, Advanced Localization Management, Localization Core Competencies, and Know-How for Global Success.

Related organizations Business, Event, Internationalization, Localization, Web

The Globalization and Localization Association, GALA, has published its full April, 2010 schedule of webinars. Topics covered are:

• Taking Stock of Your Business
• Global Sight Overview and Demonstration
• Effective Localization Workforce Management
• Plunet BusinessManager Version 5.0

Related organizations, Tech Comm News Business, Event, Localization

LocalizationCareers.net is an employment site focused on jobs in the localization industry. You can post jobs, post your resume, and browse jobs anonymously.

Tech Comm News Employment, Jobs, Localization

“If you’re going to localize, make it visible in the search results,” advises Google in the March 19 post on the company’s Webmaster Central Blog. The post is “Working with multilingual websites.”

Features Localization, Web

The Localisation Research Centre (LRC) has announced the LRC XV Conference – Brave New World: The Future of Localisation Services, September 23-24, 2010 in Limerick, Ireland.

The First International XLIFF Symposium (XML Localisation Interchange File Format) will be held on September 22, 2010 in Limerick, preceding the LRC conference.

This is an opportunity to present your work with XLIFF and to discuss XLIFF’s future development. Submissions for presentations are due by May 15. Details are posted on the LRC site.

Tech Comm News Event, Localization, XML