Blogs

COVID-19 continues to impact communities across the world. Both private and public sectors are forced to make significant budget revisions in response to recent drops in revenue and the changing needs of the people they serve. Having a limited budget doesn’t mean you can’t communicate effectively with immigrant and LEP communities. Many organizations may be tempted to turn to machine translation due to budget cuts, which may compromise the quality of their translation projects. In our blog dated Jan 9, 2020, we highlighted “The Many Ways Human Translation Benefits Your Organization”.  Through our research, we came across with a study “Analysis of human versus machine translation accuracy” completed by Montana Technological University, Butte (Montana Tech) After many procedures and analysis, Montana Tech concluded: “Machine Translation (MT) is a fast way to obtain a domain-specific translation but is not recommended for literary translation… Based on the results of this study it is clear that human translators, with at least a moderate exposure to a non-native language, are more accurate than translation carried out using freely available MT tools… In the long run, mistranslation produced by machines could continue to be culturally offensive; cause harm in high-risk situations; and negatively affect a company’s brand, reputation, and revenues. The results of this research strongly indicate that international companies should adopt human translation resources as opposed to relying on cheaper, but considerably less effective and less accurate MT. Additionally, it is recommended that companies employ team translation where more than one person is involved in the translation process, which would further increase the accuracy of translation as a result of involving multiple individuals with variable interpretations of linguistic connotation and cultural meaning.” What are the alternatives? Whether you’re working on a large or small project, know your milestones and deadlines. Leverage translation best practices with your LSP.  Identify your needs and define your scope Knowing your immediate and future language needs helps your LSP to make necessary accommodations and facilitates planning. It’s of benefit to your organization and your project to determine which content will best reach your target audience. If you don’t know where to start, you can work with your Language Service Provider to help make that determination.  Gather your brand assets for design purposes Before starting your project, gather your logo, stock photos, downloads, and any other content that you’ll want to be used for the project. If you have the native, editable files (from InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.), those are among the most useful assets to give to your LSP. Make use of linguistic assets Translation Memory reuses past translations to increase translation efficiency. When your translation project is completed, the language from the original (or source) document is stored along with the language from its translated counterpart in a secure database. This occurs with every project as you begin to build a translation memory. Glossaries, another linguistic asset, include a set of key terms and their approved translations. They’re particularly useful for indicating approved translations of industry-specific terms, and terms you want consistently translated across your documents.  Style guides, the third of these vital tools, inform your LSP and translators about your organization’s look, voice, and general identity. This is also a great place to address practical questions for your translators, such as how to handle translating acronyms and what words should be left in English. Translation style guides and glossaries are some of the most critical components of your project. They will positively help to increase the consistency of your translated terms across all your material.  Keep open communication with your LSP Your needs may change over time: you may need your LSP to add their Desktop Publishing process, a new language, or even a new language service. Be sure to communicate your plans, initiatives, and vision effectively to your LSP. At Avantpage, we create a culture of warmth, belonging, and approach every partnership with Empathy Beyond Words. Working on your translation projects during and after a pandemic such as COVID-19 needn’t be stressful. Thousands of customers trust us for our language services expertise combined with decades of experience. We have the courage to shape a better future for you and the immigrant communities you serve. Call us at 530-750-2040 or request a free quote today.

Exercising our civic duty to vote could become challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. What can we expect for the next election?  While there is uncertainty around how states will prepare for it, a move towards increased vote-by-mail seems inevitable. Western states’ residents have long participated in their elections from afar. Before COVID-19 pandemic Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado already led in vote-by-mail.  States that already mastered massive vote-by-mail systems are serving as informal information clearinghouses for others, dispensing advice on everything from how to line up the best vendors for printing and distributing paper ballots to setting up drive-by or other drop-off points for voters. However, for states that don’t have a history of vote-by-mail, it's not an easy endeavor. The logistics of transitioning to vote-by-mail is a big undertaking and they have to take into consideration everyone, including their Limited English Proficient (LEP) communities. Are all registered voters going to receive a vote-by-mail ballot?   On May 8, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his state will mail a ballot to all registered voters for the November general election. This is a significant decision as California and many states seek to protect both voting rights and public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. As mentioned above, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah already mail out ballots to all registered voters. For all other states that have not taken this initiative, registered voters must apply to vote by mail.  What type of challenges could states face when deploying vote-by-mail? The CARES Act, passed in late March, included $400 million to help states run elections during the pandemic, but some states have raised concerns that they may not be able to access the funds because of restrictions. To address the restriction concerns, $4 billion has been identified to be set aside for voting by mail upon approval by lawmakers as the fourth COVID-19 stimulus package. Funding is not the only challenge. In New York City, the Board of Elections will begin mailing 3.6 million absentee ballot applications to voters, but with the national envelope shortage and requirement to provide prepaid postage so voters can return their ballot for free, there are real challenges for everyone.  Additionally, there are myriad additional risks and hazards that could affect the elections such as power outages, wildfires, cyber-attacks, and even regular influenza that may occur at the same time.  Are the risks greater for states’ LEP communities? While it is difficult to predict, there are legitimate feelings of fear and risks that there won’t be enough resources to care for all aspects concerning LEP communities. Translating outreach materials into all languages won’t be feasible. State and County officials will have to focus on the highest demand - from one county to another, the needs in translation could look very different. Unfortunately, some languages won’t make the cut as officials will have to prioritize due to their tight budgets.  What will happen to poll workers (bilingual or other)? Even with increased vote-by-mail options, it is likely that many states will see some kind of in-person voting. Poll workers are essential, but are they putting themselves at risk? And in the lead up to the election, what will happen to their scheduled in-person training? In the event that a poll worker becomes ill due to the COVID-19 virus during training, for example, the entire team may have to be quarantined, leaving a staffing shortage. Poll worker understanding of language access rights on Election Day is essential, and this topic is just one part of the critical in-person training that counties carry out each cycle. There are concerns that online training may not be sufficient as a substitution.   For states and counties where vote-by-mail ballot use is already high, the financial impact will be less significant than for those with low historical vote-by-mail numbers. Montana for example, with 63% historical vote-by-mail, will not see costs as high as North Dakota, where only 29% of voters voted by mail in 2018.  Another consideration is the use of facsimile ballots in polling stations. We talked to one of our CA county partners, who laminates facsimile (sample) ballots for voters to take to the booth for comparison. While this solution may work for in-person voting, to provide this for an absentee ballot would mean printing and mailing the facsimile as well. This comes with additional cost, but also a huge risk that a voter might fill out the wrong version, and so additional measures must be taken to lower this risk. To assist states with the upcoming election, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission regularly updates its website with new election management resources. States planning to mail a ballot to all registered voters for the November general election may find this Vote By Mail Project Timeline useful. At Avantpage, we take tremendous pride in meeting your translation needs with outstanding service, quality, and Empathy Beyond Words. We currently partner with counties and states across the nation to provide election translation solutions. Contact us today to find out how we can help you too!

Data science is the process of using algorithms, methods, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from data. In simple words, it means that executives and professionals use data and analytics to make predictions, to enhance optimization, and to improve operations and decision making. As it is constantly growing, it enables businesses to become more data-driven with better insights and knowledge. Like many organizations, Avantpage’s primary mission is to serve its customers. But at Avantpage, we go beyond the level of expectations of our customers. We vowed ourselves to help immigrant and LEP communities achieve their American Dream through translation services. With Empathy Beyond Words, we deliver the best translation and localization services to our partners and their end-users, while ensuring the happiness of our employees and providers through growth and opportunity. How do we do it? We leverage what we know... Faster. Better and More… with the end goal of being productive, obviously! Our success is no longer measured exclusively by how fast we can deliver error-free translations of high volume correspondence and other written materials. Nowadays, it depends on a holistic partnership with our clients. They want better organization and tracking of their projects, simple yet robust CRM tools, and a friction-free connectivity between them. Having visibility in what matters to our customers gives us an opportunity to improve the way we deliver our services. Everything our partners do leaves a data trail. This information is then used to optimize processes to increase the overall efficiency of our business. Why does it matter? We believe data is the currency of the future. Harnessing data enables us to craft proactive solutions of value, to stay relevant and aligned with our customers, to maximize our cross-functional team’s time and to have intelligible insights, better planning, and forecasting. Like many organizations operating in today’s metrics-driven environment, data is key to justify a business case or to validate the need for a change. But what type of data is the most critical to gather? For us and for many LSPs, the relevance of the data depends on the questions requiring answers. What are we trying to learn from it? Data enables us to gain visibility to the unknown. By soliciting and capturing the right information through the use of online forms or customer portals, we are able to anticipate the workload, the type of project requests, the language distribution before engaging in a conversation with our prospects and clients. We reduce risks by systematically tracking our on-time delivery records. Our teams consistently strive to increase efficiency gains through better and more effective processes, leveraging translation memory best practices to shorten delivery cycles and increase quality. Supporting the compliance needs of our clients, listening to how they want to see their data being reported, and ensuring their files and projects are managed according to their regulatory guidelines, helps us to build stronger partnerships.  Such information helps us to be relevant, to communicate effectively to our partners and to help them with their immediate and future needs. It also provides us with insights into relationships that can be used to improve our business decision making. It transforms the way we do business and drives innovation.  We needed a solid foundation, infrastructure, and processes to utilize the data we garnered, so we created AvantData. It was developed and implemented internally based on the cost-effective but highly skilled talents of our Systems Team. Our leadership team is invested and committed to its success, and the members have been instrumental in its inception and on-going development. Our first applications focused on creating dashboards for internal information, workflows for project optimization, and a portal to service our customers. Efficiency, productivity, and sense of urgency are some of our outstanding strengths and we were able to optimize them by leveraging AvantData. For example, thanks to the data, we were able to systematize our projects with optimized workflows. Our system is prompted every 10 minutes, it triggers the creation of a new workflow, automatically builds a project, retrieves respective files and notifies the relevant teams.  Our teams leverage AvantData’s insights for decision making and planning. We focus on areas that add the most value for our customers as well as for our business. Thanks to the data, our teams are able to perform targeted Marketing activities, effective account optimization, as well as outstanding proactive account planning and growth. Using data to understand trends at the client level allows us to foresee peaks in project requests and scale accordingly.  AvantData also empowers our employee career paths and opportunities. Finally it helps to organize our data for a future AI implementation roadmap.  Gathering and managing data is essential for our productivity, customer relevance, and sales effectiveness. A data science strategy requires resources, expertise, and financial investment but it is essential for a company of any size. Whether it’s a startup, SMB, or an established corporation, it will help to serve customers faster and better while keeping employees happy and productive. We find that people, processes, and technology can be combined powerfully, even within a small structure like ours.  Interested in finding out how we implemented our data science strategy? Register to watch Luis Miguel and Jessica Rathke's free webinar. 

As Americans settle into the new reality of life under shelter-in-place directives, questions abound about how and when life will return to normal. When will I next sit down at a favorite restaurant? When will I board a plane again? Will my kids be returning to the classroom in 2020? Not least of these questions - how will I vote when November rolls around? This is a question very much on our minds at Avantpage. With our mission of empowering immigrant populations through language access, we worry about the impact of a changed election process on limited English speaking populations. With elections partners in Washington, California, New York, and Florida, we see different barriers affecting teams around the country. In our home state of California, we are already witnessing an increase in vote by mail (VBM), as a number of counties implemented the Voters Choice Act in 2016 and 2018. The shift in those counties from polling stations to Vote Centers aimed to make voting more convenient and flexible, expanding early voting and ensuring that every eligible voter received a mail-in ballot. This makes California more prepared than some for a shift to remote voting, but we are far from ready to implement this model across the entire state. From the translation standpoint, Avantpage is in conversation with county officials, and looks forward to more information on the following areas. Voter outreach
How do states and counties plan to adequately inform LEP citizens of changes to voting? This could be in written form, but are there also plans to provide in-language TV ads, public service announcements, and radio segments? Avantpage is seeing increased demand for these alternative language services and is well positioned to help in a variety of media. File types
Will a broader range of ballot types require translation, to accommodate remote voting? This is a great thing to add to your planning process, as well as the time required to reformat after translation and to potentially print and mail a higher number of ballots and voter guides than normal. Funding
Will budgets be adjusted to allow for increased mailing of foreign language ballots? As always, working with your translation provider to streamline processes and identify areas for cost savings is key. After translation, Avantpage provides customized breakdowns of spend that allow counties to bill candidates as needed. Our advanced reporting could be useful for emergency funding or other financial purposes in light of these exceptional circumstances. Planning
We know that elections teams are inundated with work. An election period is busy enough, without the uncertainty and reorganization required during this pandemic. We can not stress enough the importance of planning and keeping your providers in the loop. Avantpage encourages team meetings as early as possible and looks forward to contributing ideas and best practices at this time. If you're looking for help creating a translation plan for the upcoming election, please fill out our Contact Us Form, or email [email protected]

As the COVID-19 public health crisis sweeps across the globe, organizations of all types find themselves needing to communicate urgent messaging at unprecedented rates. Whether it’s patient information, school notices, election postponements, or workplace health and safety practices, digital communication is an essential tool in the fight to contain the novel Coronavirus. And with huge portions of the population under shelter-in-place directives, accessible, culturally-appropriate, and timely communication is as important as ever for immigrant and LEP communities.  Public agencies and healthcare organizations likely have partnerships in place for translating this COVID-19 related messaging. For those new to translation, the thought of creating a localization program from scratch at a time like this is understandably daunting. With so many moving parts to the communications process and a huge volume of frequent updates, there is a risk that translation will fall to already overburdened bilingual employees. It may be handled through ad-hoc and disjointed requests to multiple LSPs (Language Services Providers). Worse still, it may not happen at all, leaving limited-English speakers with an information gap that could prove disastrous.  The good news is that the challenge is by no means insurmountable. In fact, the written translation industry is already well situated to adapt to a 100% remote working model without any interruption to business operations. The tools and technologies available mean that accurate, consistent translation is achievable in a very short amount of time. The right translation partner will take the pressure off your staff and ensure that communications are clear and accessible. Now is the time to rely on that partner for an efficient process. Avantpage has identified six areas of concern, with simple solutions for your team. Terminology management
Inconsistent terminology leads to confusion at a time when clear messaging is essential. Ask your LSP if they have built COVID-19 glossaries in your threshold languages. This should be used by their translators and your reviewers, if you have an internal review process in place. Using Translation Memory (a database of previously-translated content) also provides this consistency and greatly shortens delivery by reusing text from previous projects. Centralization
Take a moment to look at your translation request process. If your teams are making requests ad hoc, they may be using different LSPs or individual translators, resulting in duplicated efforts and inconsistencies. Consider centralizing through one person/team, and ask your LSP about best practices. Avantpage offers free consultation in this area. Turnaround Times
Ask your LSP how they are shortening delivery cycles and processing after-hours requests/deliveries. Be sure that your teams understand the different options and associated costs, and consult with your vendor on best practices to ensure streamlined processing. This streamlining is essential not only during COVID-19, but for all of your translation needs. Bilingual Employees
Now more than ever is the time to recognize the pitfalls of relying on bilingual employees. With teams working from home and handling increased workloads, be sure you have an external solution that you can trust for your multilingual messaging. LSPs have access to linguistic assets and specialist tools not always available to your staff members. Safe handling of PHI
If you handle sensitive data or private health information (PHI), then your LSP should already comply with regulations such as HIPAA (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act). Now is no exception. If you are concerned about this, ask how they are ensuring compliance while their teams work remotely.  Reporting
It may not seem a priority now, but in the future you may want to see separate or comparison reporting for COVID and non-COVID translation projects. This helps plan for future situations, and, depending on your emergency funding, could help with grants or other financial programs. Ask your LSP if they are storing this information and will be able to provide reports now or at a later point. Your team is working harder than ever to fulfill their roles while adjusting to new work environments, scheduling increased video calls, and juggling family responsibilities. Not to mention keeping themselves safe and well at this time. By asking the right questions when it comes to translation, you’ll ensure they have one less thing to worry about. Working with the right LSP will improve your process and your messaging. And improved messaging keeps your LEP community safe and informed.  If you are looking for more information about the translation process, or need multilingual messaging now, please visit our website or contact [email protected].

Whether you’re starting a new translation journey, or you’re a seasoned veteran, finding the right Language Service Provider (LSP) who can meet your organization’s needs is key. When you’re in search of a partner for your language service needs, you need to be sure that the LSP you’re reaching out to will be able to reach your target audience(s) effectively.  There are a few key questions that can help you determine if the LSP you’re thinking of partnering with is the right LSP for your organization.  What industries do you work with?
Many industries are regulated for translation. If you’re in one of those industries, it’s likely that your potential LSP has experience in the industry. However, part of choosing a partner is ensuring they have the experience to translate documents for your industry effectively.  What are your standard turnaround times? How are rush projects handled?
Knowing the process of submitting a language project to your LSP can help you to plan ahead and be sure you’re prepared to work on a timeline that is appropriate for both your organization and your LSP. Having prior knowledge of turnaround times and rush projects can assist in ensuring that your language projects are completed on time, and that you’re submitting documents on a proper timeline. What languages do you work with?
If your LSP doesn’t work within your target language, they aren’t the right LSP for your organization. Identify which languages you’ll need language services for, and be sure to partner with an LSP who works with those languages and dialects.  What technologies do you leverage to make translation projects more successful?
Working with an LSP who uses language technologies like Translation Memory, and linguistic assets like style guides and glossaries, can help to ensure that your documents are translated consistently over time. Additionally, these technologies help to save your organization time and money in the long run.  Who will be on my translation team?
You should be aware of all the people that will have their hands on your language projects. From account managers and project managers, to translators and quality analysts. Ask about how translators are tested to work with the LSP and be sure that you’re comfortable with the process of how your LSP handles language projects.  If you’re looking for a new LSP, we can help! Give us a call at 530-750-2040, and we can walk you through our language service offerings. Or, if you’re ready to start a new translation project, request a free quote today.

While there are many industries that are regulated for language services, even those that aren’t can benefit from language projects. The language services industry continues to grow as more organizations recognize the need to translate, localize, or format their content for their Limited English Proficient (LEP) audiences. These industries aren’t regulated for translation, but they benefit from it all the same.  Marketing, advertising, and PR
Are you trying to break into a new market? Perhaps you’re thinking of taking your organization global? If so, you’ll want to look into translating or localizing your marketing, advertising, and PR content. The key to reaching new audiences is ensuring that your target audience can fully understand your product or service, and how it benefits them. Translating or localizing your marketing content can make all the difference when it comes to selling products or services to a new language market. Technology
The technology boom continues on, and language services greatly benefit your technology organization. If you’re looking to increase the availability of your services to a global audience, or you want to bring on more qualified candidates, translating your content can help you to achieve either. More LEP and non-English speaking organizations are likely to contract your technology services, and more qualified candidates will be able to apply for your open positions.  Tourism
If your hotel or other travel organization is located in a tourist destination, language services can help you to acquire more customers. Localizing or translating your website, booking information, and other related content can help tourists to better understand what you’re offering, and make them more likely to engage with the services you offer. Banking and finance
Banking and finance organizations can benefit from language services to help ensure clear and accurate messaging to all. If your financial organization works with multinational organizations, LEP populations, or non-English speaking populations, translating your messaging helps to ensure that your terms, expectations, and more are clear to those who are engaged in business with you. If you don’t see your organization on this list, your industry will still benefit from language services! These services can offer clarity to LEP and non-English speaking populations, while also attracting more customers or clients to your organization. If you want to discuss the benefits of translation for your industry, call us at 530-750-2040. If you’re ready to start your next translation project, request a free quote today.

Elearning. It’s not just found at .edu websites. The industry is growing rapidly both in the education and corporate worlds. As the world increasingly turns to digital solutions, more students are finding it convenient to complete their courses of study online, just as more organizations are looking for cost-effective ways to complete their employees’ training requirements. This trend has also opened up a new need - Elearning translation. As more programs become available for students and workers, it’s imperative that all have equal access to these online learning opportunities, and that includes Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. If you’re looking to increase the availability of your Elearning courses, there are many different language services that can help.  Localizing your Elearning content from end-to-end can exceptionally increase the accessibility of your online learning platform. Localization will ensure that all of your content reads, looks, and feels as though it was originally created in the target language. All of your graphics, colors, and text will be adjusted to ensure that your LEP students can effectively interact with your learning platform.  Translating your Elearning content will ensure that the text provided to your students is understandable. Not only will this increase the number of students that will pursue learning on your platform, but those students will also be more able to engage with your written content on your learning platform. Elearning translation projects can open up education opportunities to students that wouldn’t otherwise have them if your organization doesn’t have the time or ability to start a localization project. Video captioning is another option for your Elearning platform. If your platform uses a variety of videos to engage your learners, providing captions in your target languages can help LEP students to more effectively understand the content. Easier than creating the same video in multiple languages, video captioning can help your students to learn the material and can help you to garner more interest in your program as a whole. There are many different documents, forms, and types of content that your organization may want to translate, localize, or caption. Some of these documents and content include:  IN EDUCATION:  IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR: The more content that your organization has undergo Elearning translation, the more LEP students and employees your online learning platform will serve. Not only is this positive for the students, as they’ll be better able to understand and learn from your platform, but this is also positive for your organization. By serving more LEP learners in-language,  you can help to increase your social image, increase the desirability of your programs, and more. If you want to get started on your next Elearning translation project, we can help. Call us at 530-750-2040, or request a free quote today. GET VALUABLE CONTENT DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER TODAY!
 

Social Services professionals are in a unique position to provide support to a variety of populations. Whether planning nutritional programs, after school programs, or coordinating family planning - Limited English Proficient (LEP) populations are touched by your work on a regular basis. Social Services translation helps to bridge the gap between what you’re offering and the populations that need your services.  All government-funded entities are regulated for translation, but the specific documents that must be translated are not referenced by regulations like Title VI and Executive Order 13166. The decision as to what documents must be translated for each office is individual to a point, but translating key documents across all social service providers can increase the ability for all to access the vital resources you offer. A vital document is one that contains critical information that needs to be understood in order for an LEP person to fully engage with the services you’re offering. These vital documents include, but are not limited to: If your native audience has access to the information and needs to fully understand it in order to actively participate in your programs, your LEP audience needs to have the same access.  There are other social service translation projects that your organization should consider, outside of vital documents. Translating these documents can benefit your LEP populations and make them feel more included in your community. Other translation projects include, but are not limited to: These social services translation projects benefit your populations by making your programs accessible to all, but they also benefit your organization. Taking on these projects can increase the overall image of your organization, and the public’s satisfaction with your organization. If you want to get started on your next social services translation project, we can help! Call us at 530-750-2040 or request a free quote today.

There are many moving pieces to your language projects, from the language services your organization needs to the linguists completing your projects. The key to accurate translations is ensuring that all of these moving pieces are working in harmony with each other. Getting these pieces to work together effectively doesn’t have to be challenging, you just need to follow these steps to ensure accurate translations. Identify your target audience and target language Before you begin the process of translating or localizing your content, you need to know your target audience and what language they speak. If there are different dialects of that language, you should also be sure to know what dialect your audience uses. Once you’ve identified this information, you’ll want to pass it onto your Language Service Provider (LSP) so they can effectively translate your documents. If you don’t have this information, you can work with your LSP to determine the language and dialect used by your target audience. Complete your source document before sending for translation Part of ensuring high-quality and accurate translations is knowing that your final file is complete before you send it for translation or localization. When you send an in-progress file to you LSP, the process of translating or localizing your documents will be drawn-out. You’ll need to go back-and-forth with the document and its edits, and having your LSP translate each iteration of the document will make your project lengthier and more expensive. Openly communicate with your LSP Keep an active line of communication with your LSP. If you aren’t sure what language service you need, what kind of content would best reach your target audience, or if you have any other questions - your LSP is likely to have the answer. They can help to ensure accurate translations by answering all of your questions, leading you on the path towards the right language projects, and more. Provide context for your projects Be sure that your LSP knows the reason why you’re translating the documents you’ve chosen. When you provide context, your LSP can be sure that the documents will meet the needs of your end-user much more effectively. Particularly if you’re submitting similar projects on a consistent basis, having that context can help your LSP to build a template for your translation, decreasing time and money spent on your projects over time. If you’re interested in starting your next translation project with an LSP who ensures accurate translations, we can help. Call us at 530-750-2040, or request a free quote today.

If you’re looking to globalize your business, you may be asking yourself what language service will best achieve your goals. While literal translation will adapt your content to meet the language requirements of your target audience, it could lead to misnomers, given that most words have more than one meaning. Localization projects will adapt all aspects of your content to suit the needs of your target audience, but your content may not contain graphics, colors, and other stylistic elements generally adapted in full localization.  This is where the service known as transcreation comes in.  Transcreation is the practice of shaping a message in one language to best convey its original meaning in another. Transcreation preserves the original intent, context, emotion, and tone of the source document. Ideally, with a transcreation project, your target audience will have no idea that a transcreation occurred, the content will read as if it were originally created in the target language. There are many different situations in which transcreation is beneficial over translation, but it is predominantly used for creative, marketing-centric content. Marketing content tends to be regionally targeted, including slogans, idioms, and jokes that may not resonate with other cultures or languages. Transcreating your marketing messaging can help to ensure that you’re appropriately presenting your brand personality to your new target audience. The goal of a transcreation project is to re-interpret your original content into messaging that conveys the same idea or feeling to your target audience. Transcreation projects can help your marketing messaging to be more impactful, and help to launch your business on a more global scale. Interested in starting a new transcreation project, or learning more about transcreation? Call us at 530-750-2040, or request a free quote today.

Localizing your content can help your organization to effectively reach new audiences. When you start a localization project, the many different aspects of your content that are adjusted allow your target audience to feel like your content was originally made for their language and culture. There are many ways that you can ensure your project goes smoothly, but if you don’t follow the best practices for localization you’ll find the project to be more challenging to complete. If you want a simple, easy process - you should absolutely avoid doing the following things! 1. Jump in without a plan
If you want your localization project to be completed on-time and in-budget, you need to plan your project beforehand. Know who will be involved, what content you want localized, who your target audience is, etc. Having this information before you start the project will help your Language Service Provider (LSP) to effectively localize the content for your new market. 2. Start your project without a style guide or glossary
Linguistic assets, like style guides and glossaries, streamline the localization process. They increase consistency throughout the project and allow your linguists to work within your organization’s preferences for all aspects of the project. The best practice for localization is to gather all of your linguistic assets and share them with your LSP before you start your localization project. 3. Write the source document in complicated language
If you really want to complicate your localization project, write the source document in complicated language. However, if you want your localization project to be easy for your organization and your LSP, following the best practices for localization means writing the source document following plain language principles. Also, stay aware of your target audience’s reading level, and write appropriately for that level.  4. Don’t provide your LSP with the original graphics
Withholding the original graphic files from your LSP will almost certainly increase the time your localization project takes. Part of your project is recreating graphics in a way that speaks to your target audience. If you want a much easier, shorter project, providing your LSP with the original graphics from your content is one of the best practices for localization.  Small things add up to create longer project times and more challenging localization projects. If you want a streamlined, efficient project, you should work to follow the best practices for localization and avoid following the above advice. If you want more information, or to start your next localization project, call us at 530-750-2040 or request a free quote today.