News & Blog
‘Everyone Speaks English’ – should you bother translating your marketing materials?
14th April 2019
Last week I was talking with a friend who is setting up a business selling gourmet foods. We were talking about websites and marketing materials, because he wants to sell both in the UK and abroad. He said ‘Everyone speaks English these days so I won’t bother translating this stuff.’ I nearly fell off my […]
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Bank translation error muddies communication
24th February 2019
On Thursday Banco de Mexico – Mexico’s Central Bank – found a translation error in the minutes of its interest rate-setting meeting. Since 2017 the bank has provided an English translation alongside its Spanish minutes to improve its communication. Rather than improving communication the mistranslation could have had the unfortunate consequence of muddying communication with […]
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Poor translation embarrasses Coca-Cola
13th November 2018
‘Hello, Death': Coca-Cola’s New Slogan? Gareth Seymour was passing through Auckland International Airport in New Zealand when he noticed a Coca-Cola vending machine that said “Kia Ora, mate”. ‘I read with Māori language eyes and thought – they haven’t had this checked by a Māori’. He had spotted the poor translation (actually a half translation), […]
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Website Translation and Design
18th October 2018
Get the right website translation and design Most of us know that at the top or bottom of a web page in another language there is a button labelled ‘EN’. Click and the language will switch to English, thanks to machine-based tools such as Google Translate. But if you do this you will also know […]
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Localisation – or Localization?
27th September 2018
Our economy may be global but that doesn’t mean we are an homogenised world. There are still — and thankfully will always be — many differences especially in terms of languages and cultural norms. Even today’s key word ‘localisation’ is spelled a little differently by our cousins in the US. We’ll use them interchangeably in this post, […]
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Menu translation makes money for chip shop
3rd September 2018
This story which was in the media a couple of weeks ago about a chippy’s menu translation into Chinese may have escaped your attention. But if you run any sort of business, then this might give you food for thought. Scotts’ Fish and Chip shop near York now serves more than 100 Chinese holidaymakers a […]
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