One out of 35 people in the world is an immigrant, and in virtually every country, different languages, beliefs and cultures coexist. In this context, promoting mental health requires incorporating cultural sensitivity into mental health services and programs, experts said today at a special event held to observe World Mental Health Day 2007.
“Culture and diversity are central to the everyday perceptions, behavior, and interactions of individuals,” said Dr. Carissa Etienne, Assistant Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). “It is no wonder therefore that culture and diversity influence the way that mental illness manifests itself, how individuals and communities perceive and cope with this illness, and how health care providers diagnose, treat, and care for persons with mental illness.”
Led by the World Federation for Mental Health and supported by PAHO and other institutions, this year’s World Mental Health Day focuses on the growing importance of cultural competency and sensitivity in ensuring effective mental health programs and services around the world.
Multilingual Search has released the latest “Global Search Report,” an annual compilation of search engine usage and PPC statistics from countries around the world. The aim of the report is to raise the profile of markets outside the usual well reported US/UK sphere and should provide essential information to those interested in multilingual marketing.
Each report also provides a snapshot of search engine usage and activity around the world, which can be compared against for the following year. This should help identify growth or decline for the search engines in each local market.
Internet users who don’t speak languages that are written using the Roman alphabet can now test web addresses in their native tongues.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is responsible for governing top-level domain names such as .com and .net, has created a test that allows users to visit web pages with URLs in 11 additional languages. The languages are Arabic, Persian, simplified and traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.
A US company merges with a Mexican firm, a software manufacturer establishes an office abroad, a bank opens a branch in a Portuguese-speaking community: For one reason or another, employees are finding out they had better acquire a second language.
“Just English” is not a good answer when prospective employers ask what languages you speak, said Jim Smith, executive director of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. “With globalization an increasing phenomenon, if someone only understands English, to an employer, they’re less and less useful to the world,” he said.
A new paper represents a first attempt to apply Bourdieu’s theory of linguistic markets to the practice of interculturalcommunication within multilingual organisations. The background to the discussion is the extensive internationalisation of business and higher education, which over the past ten years has established English as an official corporate and teaching medium in Denmark. This has inspired a lively debate amongst intellectuals and politicians, who are concerned about the future balance between the national language of Danish and English as the global lingua franca. Yet few have addressed the topic from the perspective of individual language users, which is the motivation behind the current inquiry.
Drawing on data collected within Danish business and education organisations, the author (Hanne Tang) compares the trends towards a normalisation of standard British and American within the areas of linguistics, language education and business studies to the communicative behaviours encountered among non-professional users of English. The three practices of language clustering, localisation and dilute communication reveal intercultural communication to be a heavily localised activity, which suggests that language producers are ultimately responsible for the evaluation of linguistic performances. This calls into question the normative principles of language management and policy-making, asking whether indeed there is such a thing as ‘global’ English.
Arsene Wenger has responded to claims English players are alienated by the lack of English spoken in the Gunners’ squad.
Cheryl Cole, wife of former Arsenal left-back Ashley, recently revealed her other half was left feeling paranoid that his team-mates were talking about him during his final months at the club because they spoke in foreign lingos.
But Le Boss is having none of it. He insists when he speaks to the squad, he does so in English. He also cited his own experiences in Japan, where he managed Grampus Eight prior to his arrival in England, as an example of how he too has been left lost in translation.
“Don’t forget I was in Japan where I understood nothing,” he said. “You sit there, and I know what it is not to understand what people speak about. It is good not to be paranoid!”
Six Market Forces That Drive Website Globalization
Before global businesses dive into website globalization and translation, research firm Common Sense Advisory recommends focusing on the nations or languages that provide the most likely return on investment (ROI). For example, only 10 mega-languages - including Chinese, Portuguese, and French - account for 76 percent of the people on the web. The firm’s latest research report, and the first in its 2007 series on website globalization, “On the Web, Some Countries Matter More Than Others,” identifies the countries and languages companies need to focus on to capture the business of the more than 1.2 billion internet users worldwide.
Lead report analyst Donald A. DePalma adds, “Our advice on how to pick markets takes several different tacks. We factor in gross domestic product (GDP), the total online population of a given country or language, and the cost of translating or localizing a website. We also propose a new measure called ‘e-GDP’ as a proxy for internet-addressable buying power.” The Report, which is available to Common Sense Advisory subscribers, details:
- Where to best expend online resources by focusing budget or staff on the countries or languages that can profitably cover the costs of translation plus adapting site logic, shipping, customer service, and other costly elements of website globalization.
- Recommendations for maximizing return and the number of economically active people online who are able to understand and purchase at a company’s website, including: translating the website into the top 10 languages spoken by internet denizens.
- “Online GDP” or “e-GDP” by language and a clear indication of which languages make the most sense for website globalization. Specifically, the report details the six languages that make up 88 percent of the addressable online market. Using this model, Common Sense Advisory suggests starting with English and then moving on to Japanese with its 13.2 percent (US$2.96 trillion) of world e-GDP.
- Budgeting scenarios for website globalization, including processes, technology, staff, and translation considerations.
According to DePalma, the changing demographics of internet users and the absolute necessity of targeting the countries with the highest ROI for website globalization is the catalyst behind the research series. “Ten years ago the U.S. stood at the epicenter of the web universe, English dominated the airwaves, and the dollar stood supreme. Today the U.S. is sixteenth worldwide in the percentage of its residents with broadband access to the internet and falling way behind in connection speed, China is coming on strong, and the dollar threatens to be supplanted by the euro as the world’s favorite currency.”
The internet continues to expand and has now become the automatic point of reference point for businesses and individuals searching for goods, services or information. However, along with this growth there has been a move away from English users of the internet. Businesses wishing to get that competitive advantage now must have a multilingualwebsite. In response to this need, Kwintessential, a provider of interculturalcommunication services, has launched a new free website translation tool.
An internet dominated by the English language is a thing of the past. Multilingual websites will continue to become a necessity for businesses and organisations as the process of internationalization unfolds. However not all businesses appreciate the need to translate websites and not all understand why.
Kwintessential, a firm at the forefront of encouraging businesses to think beyond their national and cultural borders, have compiled a list of 10 good reasons why webmasters must look to website translations:
Foreign Language Users
The internet began as an English speaker’s invention and as a result was dominated by English speaking users. However, times are changing. With the accessibility to both PCs and internet connections people from Morocco to Malaysia are surfing the net.
As far back as 2005 Nielsen-Netratings described foreign internet markets as “low hanging fruit,” i.e. if you have the will and foresight there are massive revenues to be found for relatively little effort.
Research demonstrates that usage in traditional internet strong holds such as the USA, Germany, the UK and Sweden is flat lining. On the other hand countries such as France, Hong Kong, Italy and Japan are seeing substantial growth in internet usage.
A Cost Effective Marketing Tool
Being able to communicate to a whole new international audience in their own language undoubtedly yields results; these are not only financial but also in terms of marketing and creating awareness of your brand, service or product.
A website translation is probably one of the most cost effective ways of marketing your company, capturing new users, building relationships with new clients and giving your brand an international outlook.
Get New Clients
Ultimately what a multilingual website can do is bring in new customers. By having your website accessible in foreign languages you are potentially showcasing your company across the globe.
Increase Sales
If a website is translated into only a handful of the major world languages, i.e. Spanish, French, German and Italian there is a huge potential increase in sales. There are few other ways to get such an increase for such little investment.
Customer-Focused
A website that speaks customers’ languages demonstrates you are thinking about the customer. That little extra effort shows you have thought and cared enough about them. As with anything in business, if the customer thinks you care, they will want to do business with you.
Build Trust
For many cultures there is an issue of trust when it comes to buying over the internet, especially if they feel it is in a language they are not fully proficient in. Offering them a language alternative allows the customers to feel secure in the fact they know what they are buying, how and who from.
Culturally Sensitive
A multilingual website, if designed properly, overcomes potential cultural barriers through allowing access in a native language. This automatically puts the user in a ‘cultural comfort zone’ due to their being able to navigate, understand and interact with the website.
Get the Competitive Edge
To get the competitive advantage in today’s environment you need to think outside the box. Look at your competitors - if they have multilingual websites then why don’t you? If they don’t, then why not lead the marketplace and establish your company or brand abroad before they do.
Shows an International Frame of Mind
Image is everything. A multilingual website demonstrates you think, work and deal globally.
Improve Search Engine Rankings
Search engines lead people to websites. In countries such as China, Japan and France, Google, Yahoo and MSN are not the default search engines. Home grown search engines are emerging and they are proving successful because they work in native languages and are focused on the habits and needs of their users. Such search engines are a key to tapping those markets and unless they have access to a particular language through your multilingual website then you will not be found.
In addition, key search engines, especially Google, are developing the capacity to run searches in foreign languages and to translate between languages. Having pages of your website available in foreign languages ensures your site being picked up in searches.
The multilingual internet is the future; as a result businesses need to start thinking multilingual for their websites.
As a way of encouraging businesses and webmasters to adopt a multilingual approach, a new free website translation tool has been developed by Kwintessential. A simple bit of HTML coding is used on a website page which allows users to choose a language to view the page in. With one simple click the website is translated.
“We appreciate that there is nothing better than a proper and through translation and localization of a website,” explains Nicola Johnson, the company’s Business Development Manager. “Our tool is more about giving people a taste of what it is like to have speakers of foreign languages access their website. The translation can be rough at times but the reader will always be able to understand what is being said. Users will also appreciate the ability to view pages in their own language. All in all this is a positive move designed to get people thinking about the localization of their websites.”
Cultural Diversity Forum - Call for the fourth thematic e-Conference
Deadline: 31st October 2007
This is the call for the launch of the fourth thematic e-Conference in the Cultural Diversity Forum.
The Cultural Diversity Forum is part of the network of excellence SUS.DIV, “Sustainable Development in a Diverse World”, 2005-2010, www.susdiv.org . SUS.DIV focuses on cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development. It integrates European research capabilities across disciplines and countries to provide our society and polity with the instruments for managing it. The network is co-ordinated by Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) under the scientific lead of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven).
The Cultural Diversity Forum aims at creating enduring dialogue between actors interested in cultural diversity at different levels. Actors from varying geographical locations and professional backgrounds are brought together in dedicated virtual spaces called “E-Conferences”.
Each e-Conference is issue-specific and is designed to create room for lively interaction on a topic linked to sustainable development in a diverse world. The fourth E-Conference should investigate about cultural dialogue and its role as a mechanism leading to knowledge creation and social capital and as a process promoting social cohesion.
How to propose your topic. If you are interested in proposing a topic for the fourth e-Conference, please send an e-mail to elena.lanza@feem.it by 31st October 2007 (subject: SUS.DIV Cultural Diversity Forum - Fourth thematic e-Conference) specifying your name and affiliation and providing a short description of your topic (max length: 500 words). Academics, stakeholders, NGOs, local authorities and governmental audiences, students and lay people all over the world are welcome to contribute.
The final decision will be taken by SUS.DIV Executive Committee by 15th November 2007, when the fourth e-Conference will also be launched on the web site.
We have all seen them before; that hilariously poor translation on a sign in a foreign country. Now we have collected some gems from the “lost in translation” genre of world signs for your pleasure!
1> Those poor animals….
2> They must really want you to remove your clothes!
3> Who said eating foreign food isn’t exciting?
4> These guys sound cruel. Why prevent us eating our favourite dish?
Entries (RSS)