Intercultural Communication and Translation News

What are LapJacks™?

LapJacks™ are made from a high quality vinyl and laminate composite which you apply to the laptop lid to personalise and protect your notebook computer. The Lapjack uses a durable and re-usable adhesive which leaves no traces of residue glue.

Why did LapJacks™ come to Kwintessential?

The success of LapJacks™ in the UK market, demonstrated the potential global potential of this product and, as such, a decision was made to translate the website into languages other than just English.

What role did Kwintessential play?

The process was very simple and straightforward. LapJacks™ sent the text which needed to be translated (from English to Danish) to the Kwintessential translation team.  Kwintessential then translated the text and returned it to LapJacks™.  The team, responsible for internet management at LapJacks™, then uploaded the language accordingly into the new Danish version internet site.

Following this, LapJacks™ then sent the link to Kwintessential and one of Kwintessential’s translators went through the whole site with a fine toothcomb to ensure that there were no language / spelling inaccuracies and to ensure that the language read well and flowed effectively.

What was the Outcome?

LapJacks™ are now ready to launch their product within the Danish market, hence opening their market wider and growing their business further.

Find our more about Kwintessential’s Website Translation Service.

Oban Multilingual, the international search, SEO online marketing specialist, has completed its experiment to measure differences in responses to websites between different cultures.

The research showed a number of differences between French and German web surfers when responding to a website promoting tourism in Jordan.

The test site used Oban’s multivariate testing software which allows a website to automatically serve up variations in content, and then track user reactions to the changes, giving insight into web design elements in a live environment.

The experiment used a site promoting tourism in Jordan, in French and German, with elements such as text size and colour changed automatically. The text of the site was also provided in straightforward translated format and in a ‘localized’ version that had been rewritten specifically in the native language of the site visitor.

Read more > Oban

Google Inc has developed a Cross-Language Search feature for its Google Enterprise Search Appliance that should let businesses with a diverse and multi-national workforce to seek out and read corporate content in any one of 34 languages.

The cross-language tool is currently under test. It uses Google’s machine translation technology to translate the document on the fly, and is said to be capable of finding any relevant internal documents written in any language, no matter what language was used to create the query.

The Google Search Appliance is a rack-mounted device which bundles Google software that crawls enterprise content to create a master index of documents, so that they can be searched and retrieved whenever an employee types in a search query.

Its security features ensure that users can only access the information that they have permission to view.

Read more >> Google

We have just uploaded some new games testing your knowledge of worldwide domain names. So if you know your .ru from your .ae then put yourself to the test.

• Domain names of Africa
• Domain names of Asia
• Domain names of Europe
• Domain namesof North America
• Domain names of Oceania
• Domain names of South America

When the world’s best known web search engine found a translation of “Wales” for its map site, it failed to realise it was in the wrong language.

So Google Maps labelled Wales “An Bhreatain Bheag”, the Irish for Wales, which translates as “Little Britain”.

The Irish consul-general to Wales, Gearoid McNamara, said he was a “little surprised” to see Irish on the map.

Google, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, the Irish Republic’s capital, said: “Oops, our mistake”.

The Irish translation appears all along the Welsh side of the border, from just beyond the Severn bridge into north Wales.

Read more >> Google

Example of Spanish Web Page

At Kwintessential where possible we love to give real life examples of our work as well as how businesses are tackling international markets. We recently teamed up with a very forward thinking company by the name of Armadillo ScooterWear.

As the name suggests Armadillo sell clothing and accessories for scooter riders and thus have a very niche market. Realising that the niche spans borders the company embarked upon a project to translate its website. “We wanted trade in bigger markets,” explains Tim Hebden, the company’s CEO. “We looked at the countries we had distributors in and targeted them as this was the logical next step.”

The ambitious project went about translating everything from descriptions of clothing, ordering instructions and most importantly script (or ‘strings’) used in the background of the website to generate auto-responses and the like.

Read more > Armadillo Scooter Wear

Microsoft has announced the addition of new translation technology to its search and instant messaging services.

Users can now access Microsoft’s translation offerings through the Live Search, Internet Explorer 8, the Windows Live Toolbar and Windows Live Messenger applications, the company said in a post on the Live Search blog.

Read more > Microsoft

Google looks set to launch a beta test of a document translation service, a new move in the company’s efforts to break down language barriers.

With the service, the company will connect people who need documents translated with humans who will be paid to do so, according to the Google Translation Center information page. The site was spotted by sharp eyes at the Google Blogoscoped blog.

“Google Translation Center is the fast and easy way to get translations for your content. Simply upload your document, choose your translation language, and choose from our registry of professional and volunteer translators. If a translator accepts, you should receive your translated content back as soon as it’s ready,” the site said.

Google prefers to rely on computer algorithms rather than humans, so at first glance the Google Translation Center looks somewhat anomalous, even though Google is only playing a middleman role. But it’s possible that the human translators might be gradually improving Google’s machine translation technology as they work, in effect helping to put themselves out of a job.

Read more > Google

One of Google’s goals is to give people the information they want, wherever they are, in whatever language they speak, and through whatever device they’re using. A huge part of that goal is making their services available in as many languages as possible.

The efforts to make Google products available in as many languages as possible dates to 2001, when they started “Google in Your Language”, which lets volunteers translate and edit translations of Google products in their native languages.

As more and more users, advertisers, and partners interact with Google across the world, the need for local products has become even more obvious. In 2007, they undertook a company-wide initiative to increase the availability of their products in multiple languages. They picked the 40 languages read by over 98% of Internet users and got going, relying heavily on open source libraries such as ICU and other internationalization technologies to design products. Do you need web search in Chinese or AdWords online support in Spanish? Perhaps Google News in Hindi or Google Scholar in Korean? Not a problem.

Here’s a taste of how far they’ve come:

* 30 in 30: Today Google has more than 30 products in more than 30 languages, up from 5 products in 30 languages just a year ago.
* In 2004, they had 150 local-language versions of various products (e.g. a product local to the UK, not just the English-speaking world); today they’re at more than 1500.
* From January to March of 2008, they launched 256 local-language versions of various products, compared to 55 in the same period of 2007.
* They’ve upgraded to Unicode 5.1 to make sure that they can handle any characters people read or write in.

Baidu.com, the largest Chinese Internet search service provider in China and even the world, officially rolled out on July 10 its online translation service to compete head-to-head with the well-received similar service that was launched by Google.

From Internet search to online advertising, now the two search giants once again are in direct competition in the online translation service sector.

The online translation service of the Chinese search service provider offers Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese translation and English dictionary. The service supports translation of 1,000 Chinese characters at most.

Read more >> Baidu