Transhorsa

Summary: What’s the relationship between a pack of assorted beans and multilingual translation? We are supply well-meaning services in the public and creating private companies, constructing thickets of bamboozling artifice and stifling offers to serve the people.

I speak three different languages with various degrees of proficiency —- Chinese, my mother tongue, pretty English, and enough French to get into a discussion with the French teacher in my college about our cultural differences. I have also dabbled a little in Japanese. As a part-time translator, I have never done any work on multilingual translation, but I am clearly acknowledging the absurdity that the modern translation industry takes multilingual translation as a derivative of bilingual translation.

Any kind of translation is a process to paraphrase one language into another, while multilingual translation is the same process done by a translator whose native language is neither the source language nor the target one. The fact that the clients or translation companies prefer the multilingual translation relies on not only the mutual trust, but also the operational cost and risk.

Due to lack of international communication and cooperation in translation industry, customers’ fossilization results in. The customers will prefer the same translation company in whatever conditions after they have fulfilled the company’s work for several times. As a duckling will imprint the first thing that feeds it, and thereafter follow around, so do the loyal customers who imprint their long-term cooperator. When the clients want a multilingual translation, they may prefer an old translation company in China, instead of a new one in Europe whose native language is either the source language or the target one.

Some Chinese translation companies do not possess multilingual ability, but still take multilingual translation as their special service. They use Chinese as a medium, i.e. to translate the source language into Chinese, and then translate the Chinese into the target language. Due to the language and culture diversity, the accuracy of this kind of multilingual translation is much lower.

The other reason for the existence of multilingual translation maybe is the cost. The exchange rate of Yuan against foreign currencies is so high that clients abroad prefer domestic translation services, which is breeding the soil of multilingual translation. Due to the globalization, the language skills of domestic and international translators are becoming compatible with internationally accepted practices. Therefore, in China, it is economically available. I wonder whether it is an element of the socialism with Chinese characteristics or not.

Despite the optimistic predictions, the development of the translation industry will not be an easy flight. Great challenges loom ahead, including fiercer competition from within and outside the country, cost control, technology bottlenecks and further deregulation of the market. Then, fierce competition contributes to multilingual translation in China, which is spread as a publicity and stunts to help expend business or to attract clients.

Last week, in a local Carrefour, I did encounter one tiny object that seemed to epitomize the absurdity of the domestic modern translation industry. It was a pack of assorted beans, which contains soybean, mung bean, pea, etc. On the brilliantly sparkling plastic package, there was a price tag with an impressive printing — 20 Yuan. The current price of any kind of beans in it is only one tenth of that price. Several beans can be revalued after being mingled together, but in my eyes, beans are still beans. Such items are no more than naked commercial promotion aimed at attracting eyeballs. And so does multilingual transition.

Industry News Chinese translation company, multilingual translation, translation company

    The article proposes an indirect way for multilingual translation with English language serving as a bridge between Chinese and the target language.

China’s economy has been building momentum for three decades since it opened up to the outside world, with its foreign trade volume registering a year-on-year increase. As more global companies enter into the vast Chinese market, feeling that they cannot afford to miss out on the opportunity to get a share of this tempting “cake”, multilingual translation business, as a byproduct of prosperous economy, is also thriving at a rate that has never been seen before. However, despite its bright prospects, multilingual translation in China now is not immune from problems, resulting from the unique local circumstances here.

For one thing, in a translation company which conducts multilingual translation business, there has to be a number of translators who master other languages beside Chinese. The fact is, nearly every university in China offers English courses, but as for other foreign languages of less popularity, there are not a number of learners enough to meet the demand for multilingual translation in these languages. Without such translators, the direct translation between Chinese and the target language renders impossible.

There is a simple solution to this problem being faced by multilingual translation venders. Considering large numbers of English speaking people, we may take English language as a go-between for translation from Chinese to the target language. English has long been considered as a universal language. It has been adopted as the official language by 75 countries and the people taking it as their second language are the largest in number. Therefore in case that direct translation of Chinese to a particular target language cannot be managed, we may resort to a round-about way, that is, via Chinese-to-English, English-to-target-language.

Of course inevitably there will be more information lost this way than direct multilingual translation. To minimize the information loss, translation quality in both Chinese-English translation and the English-to-the-target-language translation should be guaranteed at high levels.

With the help of Internet, geographic restriction for multilingual translation cooperation is no longer a problem. However distant the two companies are from each other, the communication between them can virtually be just a click of the mouse. Information exchange is quick and convenient on Internet. Right now many translation companies have already set up translation platforms on Internet which can be accessible by more people.

If translation companies from all countries can be combined into a multilingual translation network, then theoretically any translation from one language to another can be made available. There is another element that may hinder the implementation of this bold promising strategy-cost. This indirect translation method certainly involves more people and resources in the process, thus making costs rise. Unless we can keep the cost at a reasonably low rate which can be accepted by our clients, we cannot survive the fierce competition in the market.  

The whole world has already become a “global village” via Internet; let us hope in the future that such a multilingual translation network will be established as soon as possible. Exchanges across all areas will become even more active and efficient at that time when language barriers are overcome.

Industry News high quality translation service, multilingual translation, multilingual translation companies

Every translation blog on our shrinking planet, our treasured home, our precious blue waterworld, possesses a living soul unique to itself and to its readers.

The uniqueness of each translation blog informs a substantial part of what we call “individual character” and, together with the obvious arrangement differences, plainly differentiates one language from another one.

Critical choices are available to everyone as the new century begins to unfold. Upon the wisdom of big power hangs the fate of all life on this planet. Mutual understanding is crucial and language, not only several major languages, but all languages, holds the key, .And translation blog offers an alternative choice for international communication.

Common interests, enticements and rewards of trade, technology and cultural exchange have brought the great societies into a smaller world now named Global Village. Inevitable that as the trade barriers began to fall, the language barriers would follow. Therefore, translation blog will be a pioneer bridge between languages.

Translation bloggers are destined to be major players in the affairs of Planet Earth during the twenty-first century. They form a symbiont circle: what happens to the one will bear directly on what happens to others, and, by extension, to the entire globe.

It is an optimistic beginning. Translators and interpreters have seized the initiative with determination and good will, beginning with the hot passion for language usage. With the Internet technology, translation bloggers are building a great bridge to link all languages whose role is more crucial than the Tower of Babel. As a Chinese, I am glad to see more “Confucius Institutes” are set up around the world, and Chinese language learning is booming followed by the English language fashion.

We are all the beneficiaries of the international program to teach every child and most adults foreign language. The approachable virtual technology can fulfil every desire for language learning and cultural communication. And more and more bilingual links are from translation blogs, which exemplifies the values, thinking patterns, imagination and cultural awareness of a nation. They provide visitors a window into a unique intangible cultural heritage as a result of its long history.

Many translators or interpreters are indulging in demonstrating their language abilities on their translation blogs, which boosts the language developments and international communications. In doing so, they have put forward a challenge and clarion call for us in China to join in.

At the dawning of a new century and a new millennium, our world is at a turning point. A golden dream of deliverance, a dream of global unity, prosperity and responsibility, looms before a planet wearied of terror, wars, and environmental devastation. It is a remarkable moment fraught with opportunity, but the hour is late, very late. The dream must be realized, otherwise we will be lost. Therefore, we translation bloggers in China should find ourselves in a unique position, feel privileged and honoured to be “in the right place at the right time”. We humbly accept the challenge to contribute, in whatever way, to the realization of this dream. 

Author Information:

Albert Lau 

Marketing Manager of  Transhorsa Translation Co.,LTD.,Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native translator & proofreading

Global Business Strategy multilingual DTP services, multilingual manual translation, multilingual translation, professional translation team, translation blog, translation outsourcing

 Once translation is considered as a kind of business, the force of commercialization will show its prowess in many ways. Translation quality has now become a hot topic. In this paper we will first cast a sight on real problems that determine the translation quality in today’s translation industry. The ISO9000 and 14000 quality standards are recommended and regulation of the translation industry needs to be launched forcefully. Finally, some personal viewpoints are suggested to formulate guidelines for translation services.

English has always been the international language as an information vehicle despite the world language had been formulated for decades. Now the translation market is broadening its horizon at an amazing speed, bringing about more opportunities as well as generating more challenges like any other booming industry. At present, the gross global translation production has reached over $13 billion dollars annually. The translation industry therefore can be called one of the hottest industries in the world.

It is ideal for any customer that the price and the quality could go with a cost- effective principle and the translation process could be an automatic plug-in one in a shortest waiting time. But the human translation working is under such a high pressure that it becomes so dear resulting in high quality. Early in the 1990’s, Lixianlin, a linguistic master deemed the translation crises are caused by many reasons; one of the most important was the increasingly declined translation quality. It is undoubted that the translation quality is a problem that we can not obviate any more.

When a translation work piece appears below the normal standard, the first idea strikes our mind is the translator is lack of required certificate or the ability of understanding a foreign language instead of pondering over something deeper.

In the second, the inadequate sense of social responsibility makes the poor translation quality. The translator should place the customers’ benefit above anything else. For example the overseas market effects of the products to be introduced in a language which is popular in the target area are largely determined by the translation quality. This is what translators or translation houses should make clear. Furthermore, a few translation companies run their business under such a situation in which the project manager himself is a layman in translation supervision!

The translation industry guideline has not been imposed to be executed by all translation service body and some illegal behaviors such as deceiving and big quote difference are making wormy sores in this industry structure, which makes the industry standardization rushing. Some ratfinks assign the projects they get and have no mind to pay for their contemporarily employed translators’ work. Some translation companies quote the lowest one can’t imagine in order to grab large amount of deals. After getting

They either employ unqualified translators or dissect the whole manuscript into small paragraphs of hundreds of word and get the free translation from hundreds of different translators in the guise for a trial. At last the customer becomes the biggest victim.

Translation Trend legal document translation, multilingual DTP services, multilingual manual translation, multilingual translation, professional translation team, translation outsourcing

Like many industries, translation industry has its own bio-system, which usually consists of translation service buyers, translation service providers, translation assistance tools, translation trade associations and translation skill-training organizations. Technical translation is becoming an ever-important part of our hi-tech business world, taking up larger share of the translation market and developing at ever-increasing speed. Let us shed some light on the first two components: the translation service buyers and translation service providers:

1. Translation Service Buyers

According to information from LISA Asia Globalization Resources Survey (2002-2003), most companies employ their own technical experts such as engineers with only mid-level target language ability to translate their product documents and also act as their only overseas market liaison communicators. Such companies could be described as technically oriented and production-cost oriented. They impose a higher responsibility on their experts to provide secondary services (language translations and communication channels) at the detriment of their actual technical duties not to mention the increased time demand on them. And only one third of these companies will entrust a third party translation institution with the target language edition and translation. However, if both an affordable quotation and professional, precise & accurate multi-language translation services are available, 50% of the companies are most likely to buy a full packaged translation service.

As to the spending on translations, the majority of companies will allocate from 2 to 5% of their gross income on project/product localization and from this, only 80% of the fund is paid for direct translations and linguistic maintenance with the rest 20% spent on electronic business services, network promotions, etc.

In terms of international languages market segment, English and Chinese are the two topmost target languages with market shares of 53% and 14% respectively, followed by Japanese of 11%, Korean of 7%, German 4% and French 3%.

2. Translation Service Providers

Currently translation language service providers can be classified into three main types: domestic translation companies, international localization institutions along with their affiliates located in the developed regions of the world and freelancers registered in a whole mass of translation platforms. The first conspicuous feature for the domestic translation companies is that a legion, supported by putting some words into the other ones, is being formed. The second feature is that most of their permanent staff although bilingual, are limited in technical knowledge and most will in turn contact and engage freelancers when a service order comes in. Their main customers are native companies who pay a moderately high bill for such hand-over service. Their target language business includes English, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Korean and Russian and their service catalogue covers the fields of trade, legal, electronic, telecommunications, computers, machinery, the chemical industry, oil, auto industry, medicine, food, textiles and sports. As a result of strong competition and wide industries coverage, such companies are exposed to one another and the quotations they put in have a tendency to outbid one another and the corresponding service levels they provide also drop.

The total number of elite (field specific) experts who are engaged in project/product localization is not more than 1,500 persons and they are usually hired by some of the reputable language service companies such as MLV and RLV. The translators working in these companies must possess strong welding ability from source to the target language and have high level of technical knowledge with preferred career experiences in related fields. Such localization companies also rarely use freelancers. Freelancers enjoy their full scale of freedom from the price they charge to the way they work. Bypassing the language agencies, having no referrals, they are free from paying the commission but they cannot guarantee their work outputs would be professional and accurate. They seem more welcomed by those smaller firms who have limited budget allocation and one of type of work. However, it must be said that the freelancer group is flooding the market overwhelmingly at an incredible speed with little guarantee of quality and timeliness.

Industry News language translation service, multilingual DTP services, multilingual manual translation, multilingual translation, professional translation team, translation outsourcing