Blogs

Spanish is Avantpage’s most-requested language for translation services, but believe it or not, we have never done a language spotlight on this language before!  This month, we thought we’d take a closer look at this Romance language, spoken by close to 500 million native speakers worldwide. Spanish is the official or one of the official languages of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Uruguay and Venezuela.  It is the third most spoken language in the world by total number of speakers, after Mandarin and English. Spanish is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and is the most popular second language learned by native speakers of American English. When Christopher Columbus journeyed from the coast of Spain and landed in the Americas, his inadvertent discovery would lead to the spread of the Spanish language throughout the New World. In the following century, as Spanish conquistadors explored and conquered new territories, they brought their language with them.  During the conquest of South and Central America, new forms of Spanish emerged, unique to these new regions. Today, the impact of Spain’s relentless colonization is seen in the many versions and dialects of Spanish that are spoken throughout the Americas. Modern Spanish has a variety of different dialects, and for example, the dialect spoken in Spain (known as Catalan) differs grammatically, phonologically and lexically from the Spanish spoken in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Central America. Mexican Spanish is the most widely spoken version of this language, and is spoken by more than twenty percent of the world's Spanish speakers, approximately 107 million people. Vocabulary differs from country to country, with certain everyday words used in Spain translating into rude or obscene words in parts of Latin America and Puerto Rico.  Spanish is also very closely related to the Portuguese language, but while most Portuguese speakers can understand spoken Spanish with little difficulty, Spanish speakers have a harder time understanding spoken Portuguese. Avantpage’s team of translators can translate into every Spanish dialect – from Catalan (spoken in Spain), to Mexican Spanish, to the Spanish spoken in Central and Latin America, to dialects spoken in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Avantpage has a team of expert translators in place to handle documents, media, localization requests and more. For information about our translation, click here.

We’d like to take a closer look at the Armenian language this month, and examine its history, origins and cultural influences. We are definitely seeing more requests for Armenian-English translation, and thought Armenian would be a perfect fit for our August Language Spotlight. Present-day Armenia is a small republic nestled in the mountainous region bordered by Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan-Naxçivan, the Republic of Georgia, Iran, and Turkey. Approximately 3 million people live within the Armenian Republic, and another 3 million Armenians live in various countries of the ex-Soviet Union.  One and a half million Armenians live in the Americas, one million live in Europe, and a half million live in the Middle East and Africa. Armenia’s history is tumultuous and tragic, marked by invasion, bloody wars during the Ottoman Empire, massacres at the hands of Turkish authorities during the early twentieth century, Soviet invasion and occupation, and finally, independence from Soviet rule in 1991. Armenian is spoken by 6.7 million people worldwide, and according to 2009 U.S. Census figures, there are 300,000 Americans who speak Armenian at home. Speakers live throughout the United States, Canada and Latin America, with concentrated populations in New York City, Glendale, California, Los Angeles, California and Detroit, Michigan. The Armenian language’s history dates back to a fifth century Bible translation as its oldest surviving text, and the modern language shows influences of Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Turkish and other languages. The Armenian alphabet has 36 characters, allowing for a complex and sophisticated spoken and written language. Today, Armenians speak either Western Armenian, based on the speech of Istanbul Armenians, or Eastern Armenian, based on the speech of Transcaucasian Armenians, and the two dialects are mutually intelligible. Eastern Armenian is the language of the present-day Republic of Armenia. Armenia has a nearly 100% literacy rate, and education is greatly valued.  Agriculture, technology, mining, textiles, and brandy production are all components of Armenia’s economic picture. Armenia has a rich tradition of musical folk dance, art, costume and tapestry, passed down through the generations. Historically, Armenian art has been associated with architecture, stone engravings, rug weaving and illuminated manuscripts. Armenian people take great pride in their history, culture, religion, arts, and cuisine. Museums, centuries-old architecture, theaters, opera, restaurants, open cafes, clubs, and of course, the natural splendor of the surrounding mountains, lakes and forests make Armenia a unique and wonderful destination for those wishing to explore an exciting country rich in historical significance and  great beauty. For more information on our language capabilities, call 877-ANY-LANG or email sales@avantpage.com today!

Machine Translation is the process of using computer software to translate between languages. Currently, these programs can be grouped into three main categories: Does Avantpage Use Machine Translation?
There is no part of our process in which we submit text into a computer program and then get a translated document back. We use humans to translate our clients’ documents — human linguistic experts who are native speakers, understand cultural sensitivity, know industry terms, and know local dialects. Because we treat every document that we produce with the utmost care, we choose not to use machine translation tools at this time. What about Google Translate?
Google’s free Translate application is now able to handle 52 modern languages. This is extremely impressive, considering the fact that it has taken Google only a short time to do this compared to other machine translation companies. Instead of using a billion words to model the English language, Google accesses several hundred billion words. The result is a translation engine that is excellent if you need to get a fast, rough translation (such as reading a news article from another country) to simply understand the gist of a document. *** Should you have any questions at anytime about your quote, your project, or process, please feel free to ask your project manager or email us at sales@avantpage.com. We want to consistently provide you the service and product quality that meets your specific translation needs.

Read our new case study profiling Alameda Alliance for Health, and discover how Avantpage  delivered a complex project in two languages swiftly, smoothly and  within budget and timeframe through the use of Translation Memory.

Translation Memory (TM) is a database of all previous translations that were created specifically for a client. Think of a TM as a long list of A = B, where A is a sentence from the source document and B is the same sentence translated. When you submit a new document, the document is uploaded into the Avantpage online translation system and is analyzed against the TM. What this means is that all sentences that have been previously translated are automatically pulled up and inserted into the corresponding “B” field. This is called a 100% match because the new sentence matches 100% with another sentence that has been previously translated. If the new sentence matches only a portion of a previously translated sentence, it is called a Fuzzy Match. Fuzzy Matches are useful because during the translation process the translator can see how the similar sentence from a previous document was translated and base the new translation on that. This assures an added level of consistency across documents and preserves the client’s style and tone. Finally, there are the Untranslated segments, which are sentences that have never been translated before and will be translated “from scratch.”The usage of a TM increases the quality of the translated document as well as assures stylistic consistency across documents. Also, all sentences in the document are reviewed by a translator to ensure that everything is correct and accurate. *** Should you have any questions at anytime about your quote, your project, or process, please feel free to ask your project manager or email us at sales@avantpage.com. We want to consistently provide you the service and product quality that meets your specific translation needs.

Don’t miss our new Process Insight piece on 2012 Elections, which details step-by-step how Avantpage meets the unique challenges of translating the government documents required  during an election year.

As defined by the translation industry, glossaries are client-specific guidelines created to be used across all projects generated by a particular client. For instance, a glossary for a health care client might contain such items as: agency names, health plan names, program names, job titles and key words. All of these items need to be translated the exact same way no matter where in the document they are. It becomes even more important if we are talking about a website and the translation of navigation buttons.
To create a client glossary, our team of specialists will go through a sample set of your files and select terms that would need to be translated consistently for all your documents. They will then create a list of suggested translations, and we would submit the list for your consideration. You would then have the option to review these terms and provide us with feedback. Once the terms are finalized, the glossary is uploaded to our online translation system and the terms are automatically highlighted so that the translators are aware that there is a “rule” in place about how to translate this particular item. Although creating a glossary requires some time on the part of the linguists and the client, in the end having an approved glossary in place assures that the translations are consistent and accurately reflect client preferences. *** Should you have any questions at anytime about your quote, your project, or process, please feel free to ask your project manager or email us at sales@avantpage.com. We want to consistently provide you the service and product quality that meets your specific translation needs.

Desktop Publishing (DTP) is an important component of Avantpage’s linguistic suite of services. Through DTP, we format and re-create foreign language page design/layouts both for print and Internet use, without compromising the message and feel of the original material.  We support more than 150 languages and a wide variety of software applications.  We handle every nuance of the process, thoroughly detailing documents and online materials to reflect a culturally accurate and appropriate message. Translating files into other languages can wreak all kinds of havoc on original layouts, graphics and formatting. Captions to photos, graphs or other illustrations may be inadvertently repositioned, truncated or even lost altogether. Because some languages take up more space than others when written, the ratio of text to white space can vary wildly from language to language.  Bulleted lists, hyphenation, paragraph breaks, spacing and other graphic design elements may all be negatively affected in the transition from one language to another. Our multilingual DTP services ensure that your translated file is completely aligned with the target language’s visual layout and design requirements.  Formatting, hyphenation, captions, graphic design elements – we ensure that every detail of your file will be reproduced accurately when presented in the target language.  You can be certain that our DTP services reflect local cultural norms, provide accurate text-to-white-space ratios, and ensure that order forms, feedback forms, client contact forms and hyperlinks are fully functioning in the new target language. For more information on our DTP capabilities, call 877-ANY-LANG or email sales@avantpage.com today!

Recently, the federal government indicated that Sacramento County must print ballots and other voting materials in Chinese in time for the next election.  Only 15 other counties throughout America are required to print ballots in Chinese. New census data has shown that there are about 39,000 Chinese (all ages) living in Sacramento County, and of those, about 15,500 speak English “less than very well.”  The U.S. Voting Rights Act requires ballots to be translated into a foreign language when more than 10,000 voting age residents or 5% of a jurisdiction don’t speak English fluently. Currently, Spanish is the only other language voting materials are translated into in Sacramento County.
This election year, Chinese voters will be able to read ballot information in their first language, an important step in getting more Chinese Americans to visit the polls.  While many Chinese-speaking voters do read and speak English (albeit “less than very well”), they prefer to read and respond to voting information in their own language.  Sacramento County’s move to translate ballots into Chinese will give Chinese Americans a larger local political presence and voice –– something they may not have felt they possessed in previous election years. Avantpage’s team of highly skilled translators is ready to step in and deliver high-quality, accurate, affordable translation to meet ballot requirements in Sacramento County and elsewhere. We can translate voting information into Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Russian, Vietnamese, Hmong and many other languages. Read more about how our election translation services can help your county.

Russian is a language with a long and varied history, and today, approximately 147 million people speak Russian as their first language, and 113 million speak it as a secondary language. In the United States, large concentrations of Russian speakers make their homes in Alaska, New York, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Russian is the official language of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. It is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is one of three East Slavic languages, along with Ukrainian and Belarusian, although more people speak Russian than any other Slavic language. Standard Russian spoken today is called modern Literary Russian, and first appeared at the beginning of the 18th century. During the end of the 18th and into the 19th century, (the “Golden Age” of Russian literature), grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation were standardized. The Russian writing system is based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Today, in the United States, there are more than 90 Russian-language publications, more than a dozen Russian language radio stations and four Russian language television channels. There are approximately 4 million Russian speakers living in the United States. From ballet and painting to architecture and literature, Russians have made immense contributions to world culture and art. Russia has also produced some of the world’s top scientists, physicists and mathematicians (not to mention chess players). Russian literature, including works by such highly respected authors as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Nabokov, is taught in US high schools and colleges, and Russian ballet dancers and choreographers such as Baryshnikov, Nureyev and Balanchine have made their artistic mark on the US stage. Avantpage receives many requests for Russian translation, and we have a team of expert Russian translators in place to handle documents, media, localization requests and more.
For information about Russian translation, click here.

Recently, on their blog forum Room for Debate, The New York Times invited contributors to discuss strategies for educating immigrant children and helping them to meet rising academic standards.  The conversation stemmed from a report on Cecil D. Hylton High School, a school in Virginia that is separating immigrant children from the general student population in an effort to teach them English. The practice had mixed results:  many of the children did master English, as well as American history and other subjects required to meet high school test standards. However, some students felt isolated in their “school-within-a-school” –– unable to relate to or communicate effectively with their English-speaking peers, and hampered by so much daily contact with others like themselves who did not speak English fluently.  Contributors weighed in with their posts, and the result is a fascinating discussion of this hot-button topic. While there is no single answer to the question of how best to educate immigrant children in our country, educators nationwide are striving to discover what works, what doesn’t, and which methods provide the best hope for limited English speakers to eventually master English and go on to earn college degrees. As more immigrant children are educated within our school system and strive to create a life for themselves here in the United States, they are creating a generation of bilingual, educated achievers … people who are building a future for themselves, their families and future generations. At Avantpage, we strive for similar goals—to connect with other cultures through language, to make understanding and comprehension of key concepts easier and more intuitive through translation, and to offer ways for organizations to reach out more effectively to non-English speakers. Even though many children of non-English speakers are assimilating fully into U.S. culture and language mastery, their parents may still be struggling with language and communication issues. This is where Avantpage can offer expertise and assistance:  translating critical information into 150 languages, website localization, interpretation, linguistic engineering, and much more. Industries we specialize in include healthcare and life sciences, banking and finance, education, marketing and public relations, gaming, government, human resources, insurance, manufacturing, and technology.  When you choose Avantpage for your linguistic needs, you’re partnering with an industry leader with over 15 years of experience!

As you know, at Avantpage we take translation seriously, and pride ourselves on our unfailing attention to detail, our absolute dedication to our clients and their projects, and the incredible work ethic practiced by every member of our team. The flip side of that? We love the lighter side of language as well, and we'd love to share a book that recently came to the attention of the Avantpage team. It's called I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms from Around the World, by Jag Bhalla, published by National Geographic and available on Amazon.  You'll discover priceless sayings like, "To live like a maggot in bacon," (German for "to live in luxury"); "ant milker" (a miserly tightwad in Arabic); "When frogs grow hair," ("never" in Spanish); "Fine words don't feed cats," (Italian for "talk is cheap") and of course, "I'm not hanging noodles on your ears," (Russian for "I'm not pulling your leg"). Also fascinating was a chapter on how the meanings of English words have transformed over the centuries. Did you know that nice originally meant foolish, ignorant or senseless, bully meant darling or sweetheart, and silly meant happy or blessed? This book comes highly recommended by the Avantpage team, This fun collection of idioms is guaranteed to elicit a smile from linguists, writers, editors, translators, and language lovers from all walks of life.