Articles and tips about the translation industry

Almost 50 years ago Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance. Since then several countries have either created their own versions of OSHA or they have adopted similar rules and regulations used in the USA. The rules deal with asbestos, fall protection, cotton dust, trenching, machine guarding, benzene, lead and blood-borne pathogens, among other work related issues.

Some of our earliest work at TSI was translating OSHA documents 25 years ago for American based companies who had employees who were not native English speakers. The first job was Latin American Spanish, then Haitian Creole and French Canadian. Later on the number of languages expanded as companies with affiliates worldwide decided to offer the same information and training to their employees living and working abroad.

Many of the topics needing translation were and continue to be related to Construction, General Industry, Maritime and Agriculture standards that protect workers from a wide range of serious hazards. Examples of OSHA standards include requirements for employers to:

Provide fall protection; prevent trenching cave-ins; prevent exposure to some infectious diseases; ensure the safety of workers who enter confined spaces; prevent exposure to harmful chemicals; put guards on dangerous machines; provide respirators or other safety equipment; and provide training for certain dangerous jobs in a language and vocabulary workers can understand.

A common misconception amongst employers is that if they do not have a warehouse or manual labor workers, OSHA does not apply to them and their business. This is not only false, but also opens up business owners to federal government fines and possible revocation of business licenses. It also puts them at risk because employees can file lawsuits against them for failure to follow OSHA regulations.
The US Department of Labor has a number of posters in various languages for you to hang in your workplace. While these documents are very helpful, there may be others that only exist in english. If you need OSHA documents translated, here at TSI, we have extensive experience working with this documentation and can help make sure your business is in compliance with federal regulations. Our experienced translators’ familiarity with OSHA language ensures that there’s no confusion for your foreign language speaking employers.

Please reach out to us if you’re in need of document translation. Here at TSI, we would love to add you to our robust portfolio of happy clients. Contact us for a consultation or a quote.

If you don’t work in medicine, you probably don’t know the exact term to use when describing the specific instrument needed to perform a certain step of a complicated procedure. There are more than ten thousand tools and instruments in the medical field, and hundreds more are being created and introduced every year. Consider the following short list of medical tool terms:

• Curettes
• Forceps
• Circumcision Clamps (ouch)
• Excavators
• Dissectors
• Burnishers
• Cervical Cups
• Biopsy Valves
• Endoscopic Litigators
• Proforma Cannulas
• Periosteal Elevators
• Laparoscopic Electrodes
• Hyfrecator Electrode Starters
• Beveled Tip Triple Papillotomes
• Positrace Diaphoretic Foam ECG Electrodes
  

The list goes on, and on, and on.

If all of this isn’t already making your head spin, let’s ask the real question: How do we deal with these extremely complicated and technical terms in foreign languages? More often than not, in many languages there are no official translations for a large majority of these instruments.

So, how do you deal with this language barrier?

When in doubt, an inexperienced translator or one who isn’t familiar with the industry might consult a medical dictionary in his or her native language, only to find that there is no suitable word. Without a grasp of exactly what he or she is translating, it may be impossible to accurately convey the meaning and purpose of the word at hand.

In an even worse scenario, he or she might use a translation that is just plain wrong. For example, there is a dental tool called a “burnisher” that’s used for smoothing amalgam, and looks like a small metal pick.

However, if a translator looks for the same word in a basic dictionary, a “burnisher” might look like a huge vaccum cleaner. Try fitting that into somebody’s mouth!

Enter the term “transcreation,” whereby translators take it upon themselves to invent a word that adapts meaning and intent when no other source is available. This approach might work in marketing or advertising, but not necessarily in medical or technical situations where precision is crucial.

The only suitable solution to translating these complex and particular terms is to utilize the skills of a translator who is a tried-and-true expert in the topic at hand. When the language is this complex, and the stakes involve discerning the correct tool for an important procedure on a patient, it’s simply too high of a risk to go to someone who relies on a dictionary. In critical situations like these, it is imperative to trust your source.

At TSI, we work with reliable, expert translators with deep knowledge of, and background in, specific industries. We work closely with our clients to understand the unique needs, concerns, and scope of a job, and then go through a meticulous vetting process to identify the best translator for it. We pride ourselves in delivering perfection to our clients, and we have done so for significant companies in many specialized industries, including healthcare, finance, heavy machinery, hospitality, petroleum, and beyond, for over 28 years.

Who is doing your translations? Contact us to discuss your next translation project. Trust TSI.

Equifax. Anthem Blue Cross. T-Mobile.  Every day it seems like there’s a new online privacy breach that leaks our personal data to elusive hackers. Who is protecting your personal information: name, age, social security number, home address, email address, medical information, net worth, etc.? So much of it is in the hands of the companies with whom we, as consumers, use for business.

As we have recently seen with concerns over Facebook’s privacy issues, most major companies that have international offices are dealing with similar problems and are creating or updating privacy policies to protect their employees’ personal data.  

In an effort to counter issues arising from the increase of leaked personal information, the European Union recently added new regulations for companies all over the world: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR “aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.” It’s integral for business owners to understand how this relates to their industry. In most of these cases the companies are having these documents translated only into the languages of the countries where they operate.  

Here at Translation Services International, we recently translated a privacy policy for a major US based company with offices in India into Hindi. Within a week, employees in different locations requested that the same policies be translated into Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati, other languages commonly spoken in India. The company graciously agreed and a few days later we delivered the requested translations.
Why are these privacy policies so important? What could happen if your private information were to be leaked to hackers, or even legally shared with others without your permission? This happens more frequently than you would think.

Here is an article outlining some of the dangers involved.

In order to maintain legal standing with international laws and also ensure trust between you as a business and your clients, properly translating these documents is essential.  While our experience at TSI transcends beyond legal documents, this is a particular area in which we have extensive knowledge. We hire only the most skilled native human translators to helm some of these very specific niche topics and ultimately deliver flawless translations to help keep your international business running smoothly.

Do your privacy policies need updating or translations?  Contact us for a translation consultation or a quote. We are more than happy to share our expertise in this area to make the process smooth and seamless for you and your business.

At TSI, many of our clients need translations of website related content- particularly their company websites or web portals that employees or customers use to conduct business.  Translating websites, particularly HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), adds an additional level of difficulty to the project.  But why?

Translating websites requires an understanding of HTML, which is a set of markup symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a browser page. Each individual markup element is referred to as a tag.While some tags are self-closing, such as the <mg >; and <input > tags, most require code to denote the beginning and end of the tag (i.e. <p>My paragraph content<p>). In those cases, text or copy is inserted between tags. Think of the pulldown menu on a site as an example.  What we see as someone browsing the site may only say “HOME” or “PORTFOLIO”, but there’s an entire list of words and symbols that are not visible to us.

It is also common for there to be nested tags:
(i.e. <p>Some regular text with a word I want <b>emphasized</b></p>).

Every web browser has default "styles" for standard tags that dictate how the tag content will display. For example, <h1> tag content will be bold by default, and <p> tag content will not. Inline style properties on tags or CSS properties set in a <style> block or imported via an external CSS file can be used suggest to web browser how the copy appears on a page, what the color of the text will be, the size and type of font, whether it is bold, italic, etc., and whether it is indented, justified, left-aligned, centered or right-aligned, etc.

A translator has to be careful not to inadvertently delete, move or otherwise disturb the tags, which would result in misalignment of the copy and the introduction of unintentional modifications to the visual language of the website, or even worse- rendering pages of the website unusable.

When it comes to jobs requiring HTML translation, we have a talented team of native language translators who are not only proficient in language translation, but in code and HTML.  This helps keeps translated websites free of any errors. If you’re interested in expanding your business abroad, HTML translation is a great place to start because in this day and age, most consumers use the internet to search for businesses. Don’t hesitate to reach out for a quote and consultation.

The following are examples of HTML translations in several languages.
 
English
"Out of {{totalSelected}} line(s) selected, {{totalAdded}} added to the order list successfully!",

"Process No. <b>{{processNo}}</b> for customer no. <b>{{customerNo}}</b> has been approved successfully with order no. ",

"Showing <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> match for serial number <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>",
===============================================================================

Russian
"Из общего числа выбранных строк ({{totalSelected}}) в список заказов было успешно добавлено {{totalAdded}}!",

"Процесс № <b>{{processNo}}</b> для заказчика № <b>{{customerNo}}</b> был успешно утвержден с присвоением номера заказа",

"Отображается <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> совпадение(ий) для серийного номера <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>",
===============================================================================

Simplified Chinese
"已选择的 {{totalSelected}} 行中有 {{totalAdded}} 行已成功添加到订单列表！",

"客户号 <b>{{customerNo}}</b> 的处理号 <b>{{processNo}}</b> 已成功核准，订单号为 ",

"显示流水号 <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b> 的 <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> 个匹配项",
===============================================================================

Portuguese
"De {{totalSelected}} linha(s) selecionada, {{totalAdded}} foram adicionadas à lista de pedidos com sucesso!",

"O processo n.º <b>{{processNo}}</b> para o cliente n.º <b>{{customerNo}}</b> foi aprovado com sucesso com o n.º do pedido ”,

"Mostrando <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> correspondências para o número de série <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>",
===============================================================================

German
"Von {{totalSelected}} ausgewählte(n) Zeile(n) wurden {{totalAdded}} erfolgreich zur Bestellliste hinzugefügt!",

"Die Prozessnr. <b>{{processNo}}</b> für Kunde Nr. <b>{{customerNo}}</b> wurde erfolgreich mit Bestellnr. bestätigt. ",

"Es wird das <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> Gegenstück für die Seriennummer <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>" angezeigt,
===============================================================================

Latin American Spanish
"Fuera de {{totalSelected}} línea (s) seleccionada (s), {{totalAdded}} agregado a la lista de órdenes con éxito!",

"Nº de proceso <b> {{procesoNo}} </ b> para el Nº de cliente <B> {{clienteNo}} </ b> se aprobó con éxito con Nº de orden",

"Mostrando <b> {{RESULTCOUNT}} </ b> coincidencia para el número de serie <b> \" {{PARTNUMBER}} \ "</ b>",
===============================================================================

European French
" Du{{totalSelected}} de la (des) ligne(s) sélectionnée(s), {totalAdded}}} ajoutées à la liste des commandes avec succès. !",

" Le nº de processus <b>{{{{processNo}}}</b> pour le n° de client. <b>{{{{customerNo}}}</b> a été approuvé avec succès avec le numéro de commande.. ",

" Afficher <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}}</b> correspondant au numéro de série. <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>",
===============================================================================

French Canadian

"Sur un total de {{totalSelected}} ligne(s) sélectionnée(s), {{totalAdded}} ont été ajoutées à la liste de commande avec succès !",

"Le no. de traitement <b>{{processNo}}</b> pour le client no. <b>{{customerNo}}</b> a correctement été approuvé avec le no. de commande ",

"Affichage de <b>{{RESULTCOUNT}}</b> correspondances pour le numéro de série <b>\"{{PARTNUMBER}}\"</b>",

Business, like a good movie, inevitably involves some sort of conflict. It could be a disagreement between co-workers, board members and executives not seeing eye to eye, or even with a third party vendor. While conflict makes for excellent entertainment, it’s never fun in the workplace and innevitably leads to headaches for the human resources and legal departments.

In a few words, conflict of interest is a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible.

We translate policies regarding conflict of interest for companies with employees within the USA and abroad. In the USA the translations are generally in Spanish for workers in the restaurant, food and agricultural industries. They might be cooks, dishwashers, servers, hosts, managers, field workers, equipment operators and anyone who might not yet have a good command of English. These workers often come from different Spanish speaking countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc. In fact, there are 20 countries in the world where Spanish is the official language. In order to accommodate this broad range of dialects, we offer a generic Spanish translation that everyone will understand. In most cases it would be financially prohibitive for a company to provide 20 different translations for their employees.

Another language we have translated for USA based employees is Haitian Creole, which is common in Florida and a few of the other southern states.

Conflict of interest becomes much more complicated for companies who have offices and businesses abroad. Behaviors that appear quite normal in foreign countries may conflict with company policy. We recently translated legal documents for an employee who was involved in a conflict of interest in the Asia. This case involved an executive working for an American company who hired a family member as manager of a prominent division. In his country of origin, this was common practice. A worker, who felt that he was next in line for the position, filed a formal complaint with the USA based company, whereby according to their official policy, the hiring was illegal.

Conflicts of interest vary from country to country and companies need to become aware of this when they are drafting their own policies. We offer guidance by giving examples of past situations when companies come to us asking for advice. Translations of these human resources issues helps get all parties on the same playing field in an effort to expedite the resolution process so that all parties can move on and refocus on working. If you are in need of conflict of interest document translation, do not hesitate to reach out for a consultation and a quote.

Many people love to write, but one aspect of writing whether creative or technical is the editing process; rarely is a first draft ever good enough. Anyone who has worked as a copywriter understands the amount of tedious reviews their work needs to go through before it hits the press (or the web). But there’s many times when the quality of writing isn’t up to par for translation. A solid source document is the first and most important part of the translation process. The following three tips are ones that we live by at Translation Services International and serve as a great guide to cleaning up your copy.

1. Purpose?

What is the purpose of the document, letter, brochure, manual, video, advertisement, training program, etc.? Typically it depends on the company’s division requesting a quote. Are you selling a product or service, describing the function of a computer program, training someone how to operate and maintain a compressor, informing employees about company policy, etc.?

2. Who is writing?

It has come to our attention that quite often, writing assignments are handed off to employees who might not have proper training or experience. This will be illustrated in the continuation of this section. The Internet has many sources to help understand the basics of most writing assignments. For help writing business letters check out this guide from Purdue.

Here’s a helpful scriptwriting guide from Column Five Media. There are obstacles involved in video scripts that will be explained in a future article.

If the company you work for sells products or services and you are writing the advertising copy, here are 5 helpful tips for advertising copy.

It is not uncommon for the documents we receive to have major spelling or grammatical errors. We also see this on company websites, which in turn create a negative image of the company. If they don’t care enough to exhibit high quality writing, a reader might wonder if they care enough about the products and services they are selling. Some errors are simple typos wherein the wrong key is inadvertently typed, while others are basic misspellings. Words that are commonly misspelled are loose for lose, it’s for its, recieve for receive, seperate for separate, embarrased for embarrassed, — — you get the picture. If you feel that spelling is one of the areas where you need help, here is a link to the most common misspelled English words.

3. How to review and proofread a document

Writers need to put themselves in the position of readers. A writer may have a vast amount of knowledge in the material they want to communicate. But this can be both a boon and a bane when it comes to communicating their thoughts. Because what seems to be quite clear or easy for them to understand might be totally misunderstood by a reader. Writing coaches suggest the following:

• After the document is completed, read the first sentence and pause. Think about what that sentence means. Imagine that you are the reader with no knowledge of the subject matter. Is there anything in that sentence that might not be clearly understood by the reader? If the answer is yes, revise it and then read it again until the information is clear and precise. Then go on to the next sentence and repeat the process. This may seem quite time consuming, but it’s worth the effort. When the document has been completely proofed and revised to your satisfaction it’s time for the final step. Have a co-worker or someone not familiar with the subject matter read the document and report back to you what exactly they understood. If there are issues, they will become apparent.
• Another interesting way to proofread a document is to read out of context. That is, read the very last sentence. Then read the penultimate sentence and so on until you reach the beginning of the document. Not only will this method help to recognize problems with content, but it will also help to identify spelling or grammar errors.
• As a final step, check the spelling and grammar using the spell checker on your computer. Although this is not perfect solution, eg. (form and from might look correct to a computer program) it will find those no so obvious errors that somehow escape human recognition.

When following these three tips, your copy will be primed and ready to pass of to our agency to commence the translation process. It will save you time, money and ultimately result in a greater experience with the reader.

When you think of document translation, harassment is probably the last thing that comes to mind but in this day and age, it’s a delicate area that needs to be addressed not just for English speaking employees, but everyone. Thinking internationally, it’s also essential to make sure offices beyond the U.S. borders are dealt with properly. It’s rather common for us at TSI to translate anti-harassment human resources documentation for clients across the globe.

As of late the national news has been focusing on the issues of sexual harassment. However in the broad scope of employee relationships, anti-harassment covers a wide range of behaviors including all forms of discrimination and conduct that can be considered harassing, coercive, or disruptive.  The task at hand for companies at home in the USA, as well as abroad is to prohibit any actions, words, jokes, or comments based on a person's sex, race, color, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or any legally protected characteristic. The latter includes gender reassignment, belief, civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.

Specific examples of harassment include:

• Inappropriate language, including jokes, negative stereotyping, slurs, graffiti, cartoons, or other verbal or visual conduct, directed towards a person or a group based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender preference, age, mental or physical disability, or any legally protected status.
• Conduct showing hostility toward another or a group based on race, color, religion, national origin, mental or physical disability, or gender identity.
• Verbal abuse, offensive gestures, leering, sexually degrading words, offensive comments, jokes, innuendoes, or sexual content added to work related conversations, and other sexually oriented statements.
• Graphic, degrading, condescending, or suggestive comments about an individual's appearance.
• Unwanted flirtations, propositions, or physical contact or any threats of undesired contact such as repeated invitations in which the recipient has indicated that he or she is not interested.
• The display, downloading, or viewing of sexually suggestive or otherwise offensive materials, language, drawings, posters, or pictures produced physically or through computer e-mail.
• Improper questions about an employee's private life.
• Circulating, downloading, displaying or disseminating material (electronically or otherwise) which ridicules a gender or which is sexually suggestive, or otherwise offensive regardless of whether it is directed at specific individuals.
• Retaliation against an employee for complaining about prohibited behaviors.

The list above accounts for the majority of harassment issues in the USA, however what may be acceptable in this country may well be totally out-of-bounds elsewhere. It’s important for U.S. based companies to check with the proper authorities where they have offices abroad in order to tailor their anti-harassment policies to include behaviors that are not permitted in the host country. When a conflict occurs in this area the response “We didn’t know” is not an acceptable or appropriate answer.  Improper handling of sexual harassment accusations can lead to costly legal battles and sometimes public relations nightmares.

We have experience translating manuals and documentation dealing directly with human resources training for employees, and employee manuals relating to anti-harassment guidelines.  If your company has non-english speaking employees or international offices, feel free to contact us for a quote. Handling this now can avoid costly mistakes down the road.

Although we’ve been known for over a quarter century as a translation agency that specializes in technology, we also have a substantial amount of clients who require Human Resources translations. When people think of HR, they assume it’s the hiring and firing department, but in reality, human resources goes way beyond that. 

One unique area of human resources is anti-corruption in global business, which deals specifically with anti-bribery. Over the years we have translated documents of this nature for a variety of international corporations who are typically companies registered in the United States with employees in offices abroad. In most cases, the documents deal specifically with the anti-bribery laws enacted in the United States, but they also reflect similar issues and concerns of the host country.

As the business world grows internationally and employees find themselves in situations where they interact with a wide range of personnel, it is important for them to be aware of their personal conduct in order to avoid finding themselves in situations that border on corruption. This involves issues as blatant as bribery or even matters as seemingly innocuous as accepting gifts whereby the giver expects something in exchange for the favor. 

From a cultural standpoint, there’s many different ways to express gratitude and appreciation to clients, or to give gifts but due to anti-bribery regulations, it’s essential that there’s no confusion amongst all parties as a bribery or corruption charge can land your company in hot water. By ensuring these regulations are properly translated, it helps eliminate any confusion and gets all parties on the same page so that they can focus on the business at hand as opposed to worrying about regulatory snafus.

Having a talented human resources department is a great first step, but making sure their documents are translated properly really puts the icing on the cake. To take a deeper dive into the human resources translation services we offer, visit our human resources page.