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I'm Rachel, the new Project Coordinator at Web-Translations. I'm really excited to join the team and experience the world of translation from this end, having worked as a French and German freelance translator for a year. Prior to this, I completed an MA in Audiovisual Translation at the University of Leeds and a BA in French and German at University College London (UCL). My master's in Audiovisual Translation focused on the creation of interlingual subtitles and also intralingual subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. I also learnt a lot about CAT tools and localisation strategies, which has prepared me well for life as a project coordinator. (more…)
We've all heard that keeping your brain active is good prevention for dementia. There is conflicting research about this; some scientists feel that the benefit comes from learning new things, as opposed to processing information you previously learnt. If this is the case, doing the crossword won't be as beneficial as learning to knit.
Learning a new language is a fantastic option for anyone trying to keep those neurons firing, as it combines novelty, challenge and effort for an effective brain workout. (more…)
Women in Translation month is an intiative developed by The Reading Agency in order to appreciate women writers, including the writers whose works are translated, and the translators and publishers who transfer them into different languages. August was full of events and discussions around this theme, and our Client Services Director, Jasmine, attended an event in Sheffield arranged by Tilted Axis Press. The event featured Korean and Japanese authors, along with English translators who had worked with them. Some of the points raised left an impression and as a team with a real love for languages, it's worth shining a light on them. (more…)
Hi everyone,
I have recently joined the Web-Translations team as a Project Coordinator, having just finished my Masters in Applied Translation Studies at the University of Leeds. Prior to this I graduated with a first in Russian and Spanish, again from the University of Leeds. During my MA we studied a module on CAT tools which was geared towards preparing us for the world of translation and the language services industry. I particularly enjoyed this module; especially when we took part in simulated localisation projects which allowed us to mimic a 'real life' translation project and workflow. It was these projects which actually introduced me to the role of a project manager and piqued my interest in wanting to pursue a career as one. (more…)
Happy New Year! We have had a great start to 2017, and would like to announce
Web-Translations' Most Valuable Translators for 2016.
We're extremely grateful to our network of linguists, whose extensive talents allow us to offer translation services across a wide range of industries. We're privileged to work with many exceptional translators;
our MVT awards showcase just some of these. (more…)
When it comes to project work, it's important that we're on the same page as our linguists every step of the way. Our supplier guidelines can be found here. They outline examples of best practice at every stage of the process, as well as detailing cases of infraction. Communicating ideals to those that we work with is important for maintaining a trusting and respectful collaborative environment. Any queries regarding our guidelines can be directed to our Project Managers.
How many companies out there don't have a sales team? Probably not many…
It has now been over a year since Web-Translations employed a salesperson, so when you contact us, you will speak directly to an experienced Project Manager.
Our Project Managers all hold Masters degrees in translation, and are website experts to boot! We can help you to work out what is needed, and the best way to go about it, right from the start. All members of our team provide vital consultancy to help your business thrive in today's global economy.
We understand translation. We understand websites. We can help.
20% Off Orders at Web-Translations!
For a limited time only, we are offering 20% off all translation projects. If you've been thinking about translating any type of file, document or web content, get in touch with us today for a free, no-obligation quotation!
What can we offer you?
• A Dedicated Project Manager – one point of contact
• CMS Expertise (EPiServer, WordPress, OpenCms, Drupal… & more)
• Preferential translation rates
• Flexible payment terms
We've got a great track record working for clients in a wide range of industries. Please visit our Portfolio for further details.
Get in touch with our experienced team and find out what we could do for you.
I have recently joined the Web-Translations team as a Project Coordinator, having just finished a Masters in Applied Translation Studies at the University of Leeds. During my Masters I particularly enjoyed the modules relating to CAT tools and Machine Translation, and it was in these fields that I focused a lot of my time. Working as part of a PM team during our CAT module's team projects lead to an interest in this part of the translation industry, so the vacancy I found at Web-Translations seemed an ideal starting point for my career. (more…)
Managing a successful international web strategy would be much simpler if one hosting company
could host multiple local domains on local servers through a single control panel. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
If you have purchased unique domains for the different languages of your website, you can:
At Web-Translations our translators are our partners and most-valued asset. With their help we make every effort to provide our clients with the highest-quality service.
Each year we acknowledge our finest and brightest translators from around the world with our "Most Valuable Translator" award. These exceptional translators come from a wide-range of backgrounds and actively share their high-quality, real-world expertise with Web-Translations. With the MVT Award, we thank these inspiring individuals for the powerful and independent translations they give us, and for helping us provide the quality service that our customers have come to know us for.
The Web-Translations award for Most Valuable Translator 2013 goes to:
|Adriana de Araújo Sobota
|Alessandra Martelli
|Aurélie Barbe
|Birgit Nakielski
|Clarice Yik
|Echo Wu
|Hermine Slootweg
|Jay Kwak
|Juliana Damia
|Karin Seelhof
|Karl Bergstrom
|Kerstin Drexler
|Laura Mussutto
|Maciej Andrzejczak
|Mónica Soler Monzonís
|Nanda Weiland
|Noriko Miwa
|Octavio Martínez
|Olga Dorofeeva
|Sabine Sur
|Sachiko Torii
|Sharlene Yu
|Tine Wanning
|Viola Isokallio
|Yukie Nakamura
Thank you to all our translators for your hard work during 2013, and we look forward to a successful year ahead!
Guests included staff members both old and new, clients, and translators, with some dedicated party-goers travelling from Germany and Spain to join the celebrations!
Everyone enjoyed the impressive buffet, and while the bubbly flowed, Daniel gave a speech thanking all those who have helped the business reach this impressive milestone, to loud cheers from the crowd. We look forward to reaching 20 years in business and beyond!
Saint Jerome, best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin, is the patron saint of translators. In 1991, the International Federation of Translators selected 30 September, Saint Jerome's day, as International Translation Day, with the goal of bringing together the global translation community once a year to celebrate the art of translation.
This year, the British Library is holding its fourth International Translation Day symposium, with a programme full of interesting-sounding seminars. One topic concerns how translated literature is reported in the press. Translated literature receives little attention in the press, and when it does, the translator's contribution is generally either ignored or mentioned only very briefly. This is also often the case with the book itself; whereas the author is frequently lauded with a page detailing their life and previous works, the translator is usually just listed on the title page and that is it!
Is this really fair? Translation is an art, and translators should be recognised for the work they do. Translating an entire book takes months of research, creativity and hard work. The final translated book's style, tone and how interesting it is to read, depend largely on the translator. Different translators will produce incredibly different books, directly affecting popularity and sales. Let's take today to reflect on the efforts of talented translators around the world. Thank you to all of the Web-Translations translators – we appreciate what you do for us!
Following its 2007 launch, our International Blast! service has proved popular with companies looking to test a foreign market. This low-cost packaged service has helped a wide range of companies to launch internationally. We are very proud of the results we have achieved for these clients, including Baker Perkins, a bakery equipment specialist who localised their English site into Spanish following a successful International Blast, and also Quiet PC, who localised their ecommerce site into German after the success of an International Blast.
Glenn Garrett from Quiet PC commented that "the results of localising the key pages into 11 languages have been excellent; the traffic to the French, German and Dutch has been especially good and equates to a cost of 2p per visitor – that's fantastic value compared to pay-per-click advertising in a competitive industry like ours!"
It is with a touch of sadness that we announce the retirement of this service to make way for a new range of localisation services, which we trust will be even more successful.
One of our final International Blast projects, 10 languages for Byretech Limited, has now launched. With subdomains for Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish and Turkish, Byretech's landing pages will welcome foreign visitors and lead them to the English site, where visitors can learn more about the bathroom water damage prevention products available, and proceed to make a purchase.
Watch this space for an announcement about our new localisation service levels – launching soon!
If you want a multilingual website for your business, contact us about the new localisation packages we offer.
Hi all,
I recently joined the Web-Translations team as a Project Coordinator, after studying a Masters in Translation Studies at the University of Sheffield. Prior to this, I graduated with a First in Hispanic Studies (also at the University of Sheffield), where I studied both Portuguese and Spanish. During my MA, I was instructed in the use of CAT tools and studied a module on Localisation. This piqued my interest in the field and led to my subsequent focus on the translation of Social Media and Crowdsourced Translation for my dissertation.
Being from the 'Steel City' of Sheffield, outside work I like to make the most of all that Yorkshire has to offer, particularly at the local theatres and music venues. In 2012, I was lucky enough to play a part in Olympics volunteering, working alongside Sheffield City Council to support a group of Brazilian Judo and Boxing athletes training in the city during the Games. This was a truly special experience, not only giving me the opportunity to use my Portuguese skills, but also to meet a lot of talented people and watch 7 of the athletes that I was assisting go on to win medals!
There has always been a friendly business rivalry between Leeds and Sheffield, understandable when you consider that the two cities are only 40 miles apart, and happen to be the 3rd and 5th largest cities in the UK (I'll let you fight it out among yourselves which one is which!).
It's common practice for businesses anywhere to look close to home when seeking a partner to deliver a project that may be outside their own remit, or involve a highly specialised area, such as translation. Leeds-based Web-Translations was therefore delighted to be approached by Sheffield company SwitchstanceIT, who had a client in need of a multilingual website.
After many years of working exclusively with SDL's Trados software, in January we purchased memoQ, a new type of translation software. The purchase was primarily to aid the provision of a new site for Party Delights, a UK e-tailer selling party products. With nearly a million words to translate to French, we needed software that could handle such a large word count. memoQ quickly handled large Excel files that Trados often took over a day to analyse, making it much more suitable for the project. It also correctly handled the .resx files we needed to translate.
memoQ was also selected for this particular project because of how it aids our QA processes. With 13 translators each working on multiple files, we needed to be able to review multiple files at once in order to ensure consistency. With memoQ, we could open all of the files for a particular product type, checking for consistency and running various functions across large amounts of text in disparate files. The user interface improves the QA process, with many features which help Project Managers to ensure consistent and accurate translations.
The Jewellery Channel first came onto our television screens in April 2006, and in the UK and Republic of Ireland alone, TJC broadcasts to more than 30 million homes, making them a well-known household name. Since 2006, TJC's online shop has also grown from strength to strength. After establishing itself as an affordable quality online retailer based in the UK, TJC continues to broaden its horizons by reaching out to its global audience, creating landing pages for French, German, Italian and Spanish customers.
Web-Translations' International Blast service helps The Jewellery Channel to welcome visitors from other European markets, with the localised pages acting as portals to the English ecommerce site. We find that conversions increase when there are products on the localised microsites linking to the English site, so we made sure to include some of TJC's top tanzanite products.
GHM (General Hotel Management Ltd.) is known for conceptualising, developing and operating an exclusive group of hotels and resorts. With an expansive portfolio and more projects in the pipeline, GHM prides itself in providing guests with a distinctive lifestyle experience that is unrivalled. To maximise their presence in the Japanese and Chinese markets, GHM selected Web-Translations to localise their corporate site and the sites of 8 of their luxury hotels. A full localisation of the website into these two languages was undertaken to attract traffic from those key markets. GHM is currently opening a new location in Switzerland, and the website for that hotel will be available in German, Italian and Russian. Read more…
"We've been working with Web Translations since early 2012 when we launched our Japanese website. We've since localised our website into Chinese as well. The Project Managers are prompt, communicative, responsive and accommodating to our needs. Finding a suitable linguist to suit the GHM-style is often a challenge, due to the travel-editorial-style nature of the website copy, however the Web-Translations team were able to cater to our needs by overcome this by sourcing an excellent panel of linguists for the languages featured on our website."
Liza Latif-Grossinsky, Digital Marketing Manager – GHM
Established in 1989, Kid's Cavern is the UK's largest independent retailer of children's clothing and shoes. In addition to their flagship Liverpool store, Kid's Cavern offers their extensive range of designer children's wear online. To reach out to customers in other markets, the company has launched microsites in Danish, German, Japanese, Russian and French. Kid's Cavern also intends to use our traffic reports as market research to gain further insight into these markets, with a view to localising the rest of their site into the languages which perform well.
Kid's Cavern used our International Blast service, which offers the creation of a bespoke microsite for £295 +VAT per language. After consultation with the team at Kid's Cavern, our Project Managers advised on target markets and carried out keyword research to select the best terms for optimising the site. Kid's Cavern can also use this keyword insight in PPC campaigns to boost traffic. After the launch, our team copywrote, translated and published press releases announcing the launch of the foreign language pages in order to generate inbound links.
Web-Translations is proud to announce that our collaboration with Julian Hall, entrepreneur and digital media expert, has gone global!
Julian's book "Entrepreneur to Ultrapreneur – 100 Ways To Up Your Game" is an Amazon "Best Seller on Kindle" and contains 100 inspirational, original sayings for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.
The translation was funded through rebuildingsociety.com, a peer-to-peer lending platform which allows individuals to invest in business loans.
Web-Translations helped to create Spanish, French, Italian and German editions of the book, providing translations and typesetting to create print-ready files. Kindle versions are now available from Amazon, and paperbacks will be available later this week.
Last week I had the honour of being part of the UK Delegation selected to attend the G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance (YEA) Summit in Moscow. The Summit brought together over 400 entrepreneurs representing 20 of the world's most powerful economies, to discuss and try to solve many of the challenges facing Small Businesses in the current economic situation. The UK delegation led by Alex Mitchell of Young Brits and Helen Gale of YBI, were represented by 12 young entrepreneurs – the largest UK delegation to attend any YEA Summit to date.
The Summit took the form of a combination of panel discussions, breakout sessions and guest speakers. Ernst and Young presented their findings on their 'Entrepreneurship Barometer' and Accenture presented on 'Innovation as a major factor of growth and employment', there was also a very interesting panel discussion on doing business in Russia. It was discussed how Russia's strong telecommunications infrastructure, balance of labour cost vs. skills and above average education levels continue to make it a prime target for international investment and trade.
Established in 2004 to offer independent reviews of hotels and travel locations to a Swiss audience, HolidayCheck is now the largest online travel portal in Europe. HolidayCheck launched an English language .com site in 2006, and is currently available in 10 languages. With 20-30 million visits to the sites each month, and more than 10 million independent reviews, Holiday Check is the market leader in Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Poland. To increase website visitors in other markets, HolidayCheck turned to Web-Translations for assistance with search engine marketing. In addition to copywriting optimised website content, our experienced team researched and copywrote articles to assist with link building as part of an eMarketing strategy. Read more…
"We've worked with Web-Translations for over 18 months now and have been very pleased with the off-page optimisation work they have been doing. We check the quality of the work regularly and always find it to be very good. They are responsive to feedback and always reliable. We look forward to developing our working relationship further in the future, as we know we can trust them to work on multilingual SEO."
Flavio Longato, Marketing – HolidayCheck
This month, Google has announced it has plans to axe its free external Keyword Tool. A yellow box at the top of the Keyword Tool page warns, "In the coming months, the external Keyword Tool will no longer be available. To get keyword ideas, sign in to your AdWords account and try Keyword Planner." Essentially, an AdWords account will need to be created before accessing keyword statistics, presumably so that Google will be better able to track people's research, since it can no longer be done anonymously.
While it is entirely possible to create an AdWords account and not actually create any ads, solely to access keyword insight, it just adds another step and another password to remember! The external Keyword Tool and Keyword Planner don't work in exactly the same way, but both provide data about keyword searches on Google.
In addition to supplying data for pay-per-click campaigns, keyword statistics are invaluable for optimising existing websites. The change won't really impact us here at Web-Translations – we will simply log into our account – but it does make the information less accessible. Interesting, as Google's mission statement reads "Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."<!–:–
We like to stay in nice hotels, which is one reason we work with so many of the world's top hotels…we keep our fingers crossed for a discount or free spa treatment!
With websites for Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice in Paris, as well as for The Dorchester Collection and General Hotel Management Ltd in our portfolio, Web-Translations has localised quite a few top hotel sites into various languages, such as French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
We are happy to announce that we will be working with The Nadler in London to localise key pages of their website into 10 languages.
Our Sales Director, Jonathan Power, recently had the pleasure of staying at The Nadler, which offers affordable luxury within the heart of London. Jonathan enjoyed the added extras The Nadler has to offer, including a Nespresso coffee machine, GHD hairdryer and the best shower he has ever been in!
"I'm pleased we have been instructed to carry out the translation of The Nadler Group – I'm sure the concept of which will prove a huge success with international visitors" – Jonathan Power, Sales Director
We love Queen Square so much that when we needed to move office, we simply moved to the other side of the square!
Together with our neighbours, Rebuilding Society, we sponsored the addition of new rose beds in each corner of the square. Rebuilding Society is a peer-to-business lending platform that connects UK businesses looking for a loan with individuals prepared to lend their own money.
In addition to improving the view for al fresco business meetings, hopefully the office will smell nice when the flowers are in full bloom!
With 22 retail stores across the UK and Ireland, and also a thriving e-commerce business, Snow+Rock are testing different markets abroad with new microsites in French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Italian and Danish.
The UK's top ski clothing & equipment retailer, Snow+Rock stock high quality performance products from the world's best snowsports & outdoor brands. Their range includes ski gear, snowboard equipment, walking boots, climbing equipment, and much more.
Snow+Rock chose our International Blast service, and now have well-optimised bespoke microsites targeting seven different European countries. The International Blast service is available in 18 different languages. We recommend choosing a range of languages to get the most accurate picture about international interest in your product or service, and as such we offer discounts for multiple languages: 5% for 5 – 9 languages | 10% for 10 – 15 languages | 20% for all 18.
We are certain the visitor traffic information reports we provide will help Snow+Rock to take an informed decision as to which mountains to tackle next – whether these are the French Pyrenées, the Italian Alps or the Spanish Sierra Nevada.
World Environment Day was started in 1972 by the United Nations General Assembly, and is commemorated every year on the 5th of June. The aim is to increase awareness of environmental issues on a global scale, and to promote and encourage action that can be taken to safeguard the planet's future.
At Web-Translations, we take our commitment to the environment seriously. Of the staff in our Leeds headquarters,
This totals 100% !
We also have permanent staff who telework, and every year we work with hundreds of freelance linguists from around the globe – most of whom work from home. Technology allows us to collaborate virtually, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels for transportation.
E-merchant Pushka Knobs offers unique door and cupboard furniture through their .com e-commerce site. After four years of successful online retailing in the UK, Pushka chose to work with Web-Translations to promote their online boutique in the Netherlands. We created a microsite for the Dutch-language marketplace which acts as portal allowing overseas customers to purchase items directly from the UK shop.
Pushka Knobs opted for our International Blast service, which offers a bespoke microsite, including on page and off page search engine optimisation, all for only £295+VAT. After launching less than a week ago, the Dutch site already appears on the first page of Google.nl results for the keyword 'kristallen knoppen' (crystal knobs) and on the second page for 'glazen knoppen' (glass knobs). With such amazing results after less than a week, we can't wait to see how the Dutch Pushka Knobs site performs over the next few months!
With the help of Web-Translations' skilled web project managers and SEO team, BananaFingers have just launched new microsites in Swedish, Japanese, Italian, French and German.
Acting as portals to their English e-commerce site, the localised pages will target visitors in foreign markets looking to purchase climbing equipment.
BananaFingers opted for Web-Translations' International Blast service as an opportunity to test different markets, and thanks to our helpful follow-up reports, they will be able to track numbers and locales of visitors. This service will help to determine the most profitable international markets for BananaFingers so that when they decide to expand into new markets, they do this with an understanding of the demand for their products.
If only Tesco had used our market testing services, they might not have had to pull their operations from the US market after deciding that America wasn't ready for them!
I joined Web-Translations as a Project Coordinator in April 2013. I am a recent graduate of languages and translation, and was looking for a career either within the translation field or within administration/project management, in particular with an international outlook. It was for that reason that I applied for the position as it matched perfectly with my aspirations, as well as with my skills and qualifications.
Originally from the East Riding of Yorkshire, I graduated from the University of Leeds in 2011 with an MA in Applied Translation Studies, having received a BA Hons (2:1) in French and German from the University of Hull in 2011. I also hold a Certificate of Higher Education in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Leeds and 4 A-Levels. During my undergraduate studies, I participated in the University of Hull's Year Abroad programme, living in Osnabrück, Germany and Lyon, France. In addition to improving my linguistic competence, it also greatly improved my self-confidence and enhanced my cultural awareness and sensitivity.
Prior to joining the team, I had been working as a freelance translator, translating most text types, including but not limited to: legal, business, technical and administrative texts. I also worked in retail for nearly 8 years, during which time I rose to a supervisory role. This allowed me the opportunity to deal with both customers and clients, to resolve their enquiries and to fulfil their requests, all of which taught me how to adapt my conduct to suit the situation.
I was delighted to be accepted onto the University of Leeds's Applied Translation Studies course, one of the most prestigious Master's courses in translation and one which provides training on a vast number of CAT tools as well as training in localisation. During my postgraduate studies, I gained significant experience working within various multicultural teams and took on the responsibility of being the project manager for one of the assessments. In this role, I was responsible for the successful completion of a multilingual translation project involving seven translators. I was also able to pursue my interest in business by attending the Managing Business across Cultures module, through which I learned about business etiquette across cultures, the use of culture in advertising, business ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.
The MA was the prefect training ground for my role here at the company, and I look forward to working with my fellow team members and hope to continue developing my skill set during my future career at Web-Translations.
We are looking forward to moving into our new office later this month. We won't have far to go – only across the square from number 20 to number 16! If you find yourself in central Leeds, feel free to stop by and say hello.
At Web-Translations our translators are our partners and most valued asset. With their help we make every effort to provide our clients the highest quality service.
Each year we acknowledge 20 of the finest and brightest of translators from around the world with our "Most Valuable Translator" award. These exceptional translators come from a wide range of backgrounds and actively share their high-quality, real-world expertise with Web-Translations. With the MVT Award, we thank these inspiring individuals for the powerful and independent translations they give us, and for helping us provide the quality service that our customers have come to know us for.
2012 has been a hugely exciting year for Web-Translations. We've continued to deliver global web solutions for a vast range of businesses, all while growing our team's linguistic, commercial and technological expertise.
In February, we welcomed the newest Web-Translations baby. The delightful Abigail was well worth the wait, arriving 17 days late weighing 8lbs 7oz, and her immensely proud Mommy Jenn has recently returned to work following her maternity leave. Welcome back, Jenn – we've missed you!
Dominic McGrath joined the team as Project Coordinator in October 2011. His excellent customer service and drive to deliver high-quality projects proved him to be a great team leader, and he took on Project Manager responsibilities in April of this year.
Our September recruitment drive saw us welcome to the team a New Business Consultant in the form of Joe Hamilton, who has already contributed to our expanding portfolio of projects. The strategic growth of Web-Translations resulted in the introduction of an e-Marketing team headed up by e-Marketing Project Manager Rehan Sajid, who brings a wealth of SEO and commercial experience. He is joined by a new e-Marketing Project Co-ordinator, the talented Adam Knott, who certainly proved his worth during his internship.
In October, Beatrice Martinelli became a Project Coordinator, after working as an intern during the summer months.
Our Managing Director, Daniel Rajkumar, slipped in a trip to Mauritius before Christmas. It wasn't just for palm trees and cocktails, mind – whilst there, he secured a promising new partnership; we welcome Lux Island Resorts to our client base, and can't wait to get to work on their exciting project.
We are looking forward to a sunny international 2013, and would like to wish everyone a fantastic year ahead, full of growth, opportunity, and – most importantly – success!
What's to come in 2013?…
A stunning year of international celebration and sport, including the Olympic Games, the Paralympic Games, and the Diamond Jubilee, have transformed Britain's global reputation and opened new opportunities for international dialogues, business and co-operation.
Still not finished your Christmas shopping? We're here to help! Skip the icy high street with its mad crowds, and shop online this year – great selection from around the world, at your fingertips! Here are our top 10 suggestions for filling those Christmas stockings:
|Black Pearl Bracelet from Zenzhu
With a silver rose clasp detail, the sumptuous ebony pearls in this classic black pearl bracelet are sure to make someone on your list happy! Available for £80 from Zenzhu's freshwater pearls.
|Champagne Tea at The Dorchester
Champagne and French pastries? Yes, please! Treat her to Champagne Tea at The Dorchester in London. From £57.38, The Dorchester's Champagne Tea packages include a chilled glass of Dorchester Rose champagne served in the stunning surrounds of The Promenade. This also includes a choice of delicious finger sandwiches, freshly baked scones and French pastries, accompanied by your choice of tea or coffee.
|Childrens' Batman Dark Knight costume from Party Delights
Does your little superhero want to be Captain America or Batman? Santa will be very popular when he delivers a Batman Dark Knight costume, £19.99 at Party Delights.
|Exotic South African holiday from South African Airways
Today's weather in Leeds: icy and 3°C. Today's weather in Cape Town: sunny and 32°C. Give the gift of sunshine! South African Airways offers daily non-stop night flights to Johannesburg and other cities in South Africa. With special tariffs for groups in Economy as well as in Business Class, treat your family to a South Africa holiday. Or, leave the kids with Grandma and enjoy a comfortable night in Business Class' 61 cm wide completely flat skybed with excellent cuisine and wine, as well high-tech on-board entertainment.
|Vintage Cognac from Brandy Classics
Earn that thank you note with a Cognac Hermitage 1975 Chez Richon Grande Champagne, on special offer for £143.70 throughout the Christmas & New Year season from Brandy Classics. With flavours of pineapple syrup, walnuts and spices, this cognac is a holiday treat.
|Barts Kamikaze hat from Snow+Rock
It's cold enough outside to wear your duvet as a coat, but an even better idea is the Barts Kamikaze hat from Snow+Rock, at £34.99. It's available in lots of different colours and patterns, so there's sure to be one that he will like!
|Turquoise Necklace from The Jewellery Channel
The 2012 Christmas Premiere Turquoise Necklace from The Jewellery Channel is beautiful, and incredible value for only £32.99. With 3 strands of pearls, and 500ct of turquoise, it will be her favourite present.
|Luxury hotel stay in Oman from General Hotel Management Ltd
Dolphin watching. Need we say more? At the stunning Chedi Muscat, a luxury hotel in Oman, enjoy an "Explore in Style" package that includes two nights' accommodation, a city tour of Muscat and a dolphin watching trip in the Gulf of Oman. Treat her to a Deluxe Club room and it even includes airport transfers in a limousine! Packages start at OMR 470. General Hotel Management, Ltd (GHM) offers "Explore in Style" packages across the range of luxury boutique hotels.
|Silent Computer from Quiet PC
Treat someone special to the A43 IcePipe Silent Computer, a 100% silent PC with revolutionary IcePipe cooling technology from Quiet PC (£855 inc VAT). This high-specification machine doesn't compromise on performance and comes with a two-year fully inclusive warranty.
|Nike Golf Glove from Golf Online
For the golfer on your list, how about a new glove? The Nike Mens Tech Xtreme IV Golf Glove 2012 combines mastered comfort fit with incredible grip. Available in a range of colours for £9.95 from Golf Online.
What to do if you want one of these goodies for yourself? If you like something we've listed and you have been good this year, here are some hints: leave the webpage up on your screen, tweet it, like it on facebook and cross your fingers that someone will buy it for you!
From left to right: Jennifer Rodgers, Malcolm South, Dominic McGrath, Daniel Rajkumar, Adam Knott, Rehan Sajid, Jonathan Power, Joseph Hamilton, Beatrice Martinelli
Thank you for making 2012 a great one – best wishes to all for a successful 2013.
How many mince pies can Santa eat before he gets frozen by an evil snowflake? The more he eats, the fatter he gets, so the harder it is to escape from the snowflakes! Only carrots offer the weight loss solution that poor old Santa is looking for…
Click on the image below to play. Good luck and Happy Holidays from Web-Translations!
Chinese e-commerce grew by 66% in 2011, representing a turnover of 93 billion euros.
With more than 513 million Internet users and 356 million mobile Internet users, according to the 29th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China by the China Internet Network Information Center, China is the world's largest online market, and this population is continuing to grow.
With rapid improvements in the technological infrastructure there, use of the Internet is continuously evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Combine this with China's growing middle class who have more buying power than ever before, and you can see why online shopping has become so huge there so quickly. A 2011 study of online buyers worldwide conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 86% of China's nearly 200 million online shoppers considered themselves experts at ecommerce, compared to 70% in the UK and 72% in the USA.
With an average of 8.4 online purchases per month by online buyers, China makes developed Western Internet economies look like ecommerce newcomers. For comparison, online buyers in the US made an average of 5.2 purchases and 4.3 in the UK, while in France and Netherlands just 2.6. In Germany, Europe's largest and strongest economy, this figure was 2.9 purchases. Who are you considering selling online to at the moment? Germany? France? Or maybe China?
Only 42 million people in China (8.2% of Internet users) used travel booking services in the last year. However, the Chinese travel market is predictably seeing fast-paced growth in the coming years so online travel booking businesses are expected to experience higher growth there. South African Airways Simplified Chinese website for mainland China is an example of a full Chinese site translated by Web-Translations.
China's scale, combined with its online population's embrace of online shopping, present an important opportunity for businesses wanting to "go international". However, setting up a business and subsequently succeeding in this country where almost everything is different can prove challenging. Consumer tastes, strict regulations, government involvement, Internet censorship, cultural differences and bureaucratic processes are some of the issues companies need to examine when entering China's online market, yet the potential seems to outweigh the obstacles bearing in mind the current economic situation we find ourselves in in the West.
Recently we have completed International Blasts for China for some of our clients who aren't afraid to begin facing this challenge: Brandy Classics and Click Meeting by Implix. This service is a great first step for companies interested in China by setting up a microsite and optimising it so you can begin to see the traffic to your site and interest in your product over there.
To find out how to launch a Chinese version of your website to start selling to China, please contact Web-Translations: sales[at]web-translations.co.uk / +44 (0) 113 815 0460.
As the liberalisation of global commerce continues, more and more companies are joining the international market every year. Exporting has traditionally been seen as one of the most risky, and expensive ways to grow a business. While there are many pitfalls and challenges when trading internationally, the Internet offers an excellent way for you to reach out and grow your market share, without investing millions.
Global trade has never been so easy with the First time Exporters Guide. By working with Web-Translations you will have a partner to help you at every stage in your journey. We combine years of experience, with top-quality language and web skills to offer a hand-held, strategic approach to boosting your global trade.
The 2012 London Olympics represents a great sales opportunity. Visitors from all over the world will be visiting UK this year, some businesses are seizing this opportunity to maximise their slice of the action.
The Olympic Gold Website Package was launched this month by Web-Translations to Get Businesses Fit for London 2012.
By giving customers extra peace of mind when offering translated information, you'll win their trust, and ultimately their custom.
Get Fit for London 2012 with the recently launched Olympic Gold Website Package by Web-Translations.
The 2012 London Olympics represents a great sales opportunity. As mentioned in the Getting Fit for the Olympics blog post published last week not everyone is capitalising on this sales opportunity. Do you want to go for Gold in the 2012 London Olympics?
Last year the largest ever campaign by a national tourist board was launched by VisitBritain; the £100 million GREAT Britain You're Invited campaign. Primarily fronted by five major global celebrities who agreed to film TV ads and help promote Britain overseas.
As VisitBritain's Mark Di-Toro says, "Now is the time to wave the British flag". Thanks to the GREAT campaign a global audience of billions will have their eyes firmly set on Britain like never before. Will you be profiting from this interest?
For hotel and tourism businesses, the 2012 Olympics represent a great sales opportunity. Visitors from all over the world will need places to stay, and things to do when they're not busy at the sporting events.
In last place…
However, with 87% of hospitality businesses saying they have not taken any steps to prepare their business, and a further 63% claiming they do not intend to take any steps nearer the time, are we really ready for the onslaught? Why are businesses not seizing this opportunity to maximise their slice of the action? Why sit back and wait to see what happens, when this could be the opportunity of a lifetime?
As Visit London's chief executive, Sally Chatterjee, says: "London is the world's most visited destination by foreign travellers, and one of the most accessible cities in the world."
It's estimated that 350,000 foreign visitors will come to London each day during 2012, with around 5.5 million "day visitors" in total between the end of July and mid-August.
If these predicted visitor numbers prove to be accurate, then the UK's tourism and hospitality sector is woefully unprepared for the influx of foreign tourists who will arrive this year.
Emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil have been identified as key targets, and have therefore been the focus of the international Olympic marketing campaign.
E-commerce is booming in Brazil. Supported by a growing middle class, Brazil's e-commerce total revenue for 2011 was over $11 billion; that's an increase of 26% compared to 2010 ($8.4 bn). In total, 32 million consumers in Brazil bought at least once via the web in 2011, and the eCommerce market is estimated to be worth around $12.7 billion this year.
So what do Brazilians buy online? The most popular categories reflect the needs of Brazil's new middle class:
Despite this steady growth, many Brazilians still avoid shopping on the internet out of concern about the security of online transactions. The same goes for Internet banking. 26% of Brazilians don't use online banking, according to a recent survey, and 58% gave the reason that it felt unsafe. The next few years should see a shift in this perception, as banks and etailers work together to improve security and ease of use, and consumers become more familiar with ecommerce and online banking.
Meanwhile, Brazil has developed solutions to overcome these obstacles. One of them is the boleto bancario, a small slip like a proforma invoice that customers can print out and pay at a bank. This is a very common option, which helps to solve the problem that most Brazilians don't have a credit card. In fact, 55% of the population still receive their salaries in cash, especially those in manual jobs such as housekeeping and construction workers.
All in all, this adds up to a market with huge potential for those companies willing to adapt and make the necessary concessions to make Brazilian consumers feel at ease.
To find out how to launch your website in Brazil and other overseas markets, contact Web-Translations: sales[at]web-translations.co.uk / +44 (0) 113 8150460.
WordPress (WP) has evolved a long way from the journalist-loving blogging platform it once was to becoming a powerful CMS of choice for many SME's. What it lacks in out-of-the-box functionality is compensated for with the vast selection of user-contributed plugins, which evolve practically at the pace of the web itself.
Matt Mullenweg (all hail) & the team beautifully balance the division between core functionality and community contributed functional extension, making it elegantly simple to learn. Making a platform so usable means that marketers can use it in as much anger as the journo' types.
Web-Translations will once again be exhibiting at this year's Internet Retailing Expo (IRX) at the Birmingham NEC next week, on 21st & 22nd March.
Now in its second year, IRX brings together leading marketing, software and service providers to help multichannel online retailers grow and succeed.
IRX is designed to show etailers the next steps in building their business now that the web has matured, and includes a jam-packed workshop and multiple-track conference programme. With around 5,000 visitors expected over the two-day event, it will no doubt be a great source of new opportunities for exhibitors and delegates alike.
We're combining our 3 lead web services to help your website launch in international markets with a bang.
All good things come in threes – that's certainly true when it comes to launching your website in a new language and country. Follow these 3 key steps to start seeing results from your website:
Web-Translations has been commissioned to implement the Leeds City College online rebrand and help engage new audiences as part of the college's commitment to Entrepreneurs.
In a move that will see the college opening up a whole host of creative services to entrepreneurs in and around the area, from screen printing and laser cutting, to retail and office units, Leeds City College is to streamline its web presence to help illustrate more clearly what they have to offer and engage with young businesses from around the region.
Bringing together the current offerings of Factory4, The Unit and The Workshop, the new website will see all 3 current offerings sit under a new brand called 'Inc', with a strapline of 'Inspiring Enterprise'. The sub-brands will then be Inc Enterprise (formerly The Unit), Inc Creative (formerly The Workshop) and Inc Workshop (formerly Factory4).
Although Web Translations are primarily specialists in helping organisations do business internationally online, and do not specialise in web design projects, Leeds City College felt the experience of the company's M.D, Daniel Rajkumar, aligned the company with the college's target audience. Daniel's previous experience as Commercial Director for web design company Clever Clover will stand him in good stead for this project.
Rifat Bashir, Business Incubation Manager at Leeds City College (shown above on the right) said: "It was important for us to choose an agency who really understood our core values. The fact that Daniel set up Web-Translations straight from Leeds University Business School, is a member of many entrepreneurship organisations, and has won several awards for entrepreneurship over the last 9 years convinced us that he and his team would understand our audience".
The website will provide information for those who are interested in renting office space, or in undertaking creative workshops, as well as information about mentoring services available. It will also have full social media integration to enable entrepreneurs from around the region to share knowledge, advice and experiences through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Daniel Rajkumar said: "We are delighted to be working with Leeds City College on this project as I think the services they are offering are fantastic resources for people starting out in business. I've always found Leeds to be a great place for business people being supportive of each other and I hope our work on this project provides a further resource to bring entrepreneurs together".
To speak to Web-Translations about your website or international brand strategy, call +44 (0) 113 8150460 or email sales[at]web-translations[dot]co[dot]uk.
With the recent changes in Spain comes new opportunities and a new office for Web-Translations in Madrid. Spain may be going through some economic pain, but the fact remains it is the best placed European country for helping businesses to make the most of the fast emerging markets of Latin America, or any of the 27 countries for which Spanish is an official language.
Ignacio de Pablo, an experienced localisation consultant, will head up the Madrid office and spreading the word about Web-Translations among local contacts and partners who recognised the need to export as a strategy to grow. (more…)
I'm Fiona Henderson and I have just joined the Web-Translations team as a Project Coordinator.
I was born in Edinburgh and grew up in the nearby seaside town of North Berwick. After studying Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Glasgow, I moved to Leeds to study towards an MA in Applied Translation Studies at the University of Leeds.
I'm delighted to have found a position which allows me to engage with my knowledge of languages on a daily basis, whilst learning new skills and building on my experience in this exciting and constantly evolving industry.
Other facts about me: I am extremely musical and love going to the theatre to watch an opera or ballet, or to listen to some classical music. I am not very sporty but I do enjoy horse riding, ice skating and dancing. My dream is to take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok!
We've expanded Web-Translations and opened an office in Bath to meet the needs of our growing portfolio.
Andrew Carter (pictured right, below) who has been with us for over 2 years as a freelancer, has now become a full-time employee, and is heading up the new satellite office with his latest recruit, Jonathan Power (pictured left).
Andrew says: "I worked with Web-Translations on a freelance basis for 2 years, and became a full-time employee just a few months ago. I enjoy working with a wide variety of clients, and love knowing that whatever their aims are we have a product in our multilingual website "toolkit" that will help them succeed in international markets." (more…)
I've recently joined the Web-Translations team as a project coordinator. I am originally from Bradford but familiar with the local area and went on to University of Manchester where I graduated in 2009 with a BA in German and Business Management.
Since graduating I have worked in a couple of different industries – finance and logistics – but always with the view to these jobs being short-term. I have been on the lookout for a role that could essentially combine my knowledge of another language with my innate passion for business, and have found a perfect match with Web-Translations. I furthermore believe I have found somewhere with the right tools to enable me to develop and to launch a successful career.
I am highly driven to achieve goals and to deliver for our customers as the business looks set to grow and expand into new markets, and what's more, I look forward to helping other businesses do exactly the same.
Outside work I'm passionate about sport, in particular football, and have never wavered in my support of a team going through dire straits at the moment. I also love to travel and experience different cultures and meet people from different nationalities. Building on the time I spent living in Frankfurt, I travelled around Central and South America during the summer of 2010, and am certainly keen to do more of this! I got to go on the recent trip to the dmexco event in Cologne with my new colleagues Lynn and Cassandra, and am looking forward to putting my skills and newfound knowledge into practise.
I look forward to the challenge the future holds.
Yes, it's a bit early to mention Christmas, I know, but savvy online retailers are already in the midst of preparing for the festive period.
Success stories such as Amazon and ASOS have shown that international sales can have a huge impact on an ecommerce business, so it's hardly surprising that more retailers are jumping on this bandwagon and localising their websites to open up shop to international customers.
Before jumping in with both feet, however, there are a few things you can do to ensure your international online sales go smoothly ahead of the festive season: (more…)
We had a great night last Thursday at our first Friends of Web-Translations event, so a big thank you to all those who were able to make it.
We decided that our latest acquisition needed a new look, so commissioned a fresh, new design to make the professional translation site easier to navigate and use. Take a look and let us know what you think!
New features we've added include:
Sign up now for your free account.
Live Translation is "powered by people", so if you're a translator looking for more work, please register here.
If you already use Live Translation for a job, for example to translate English to French, tell us why you like it! We'd love to hear your comments.
Don't forget, you can also follow us on Twitter: @LiveTransLtd
Daniel Rajkumar of Web-Translations and Altug Inci of The Related Group discuss their partnership, the latest innovations in technology, and the international trade opportunities available in Turkey.
The Related Group is a digital marketing company based in Turkey aimed at businesses who need to apply technology in the most up-to-date and innovative ways.
The company is composed of several brands:
euro.message, the flagship brand, primarily offers a comprehensive email and mobile marketing system; Made by Cats, a digital agency specialising in website projects for blue-chip and corporate clients; Brandmail provides database marketing services; The Related also represents Omniture analytics and optimisation services in Turkey.
Web-Translations has partnered with The Related Group to offer an extended portfolio of services to all our clients.
For more information on multilingual email marketing campaigns and managing international digital marketing, please email sales[at]web-translations.co.uk or call +44 (0) 113 8150460.
A few customers have recently asked me if they should host their multilingual sites locally for the market they are targeting, while others with locally hosted sites have asked me about the implications of moving to the cloud.
Reading between the lines, the premise of such questions tends to centre around SEO and so my post is somewhat more marketing-oriented than IT. All comments are welcome.
Our blog has once again been nominated as one of the Top 100 language blogs – renamed this year as the "Top 100 Language Lovers" – in the Language Professionals category.
We are honoured to be part of this list for the 3rd year running – if you like reading our blog, please vote using the button below, or use this link.
Thanks for your support, we'll let you know the results!
Live Translation is now integrated with popular WordPress plugin qtranslate. qtranslate is a multilingual content management plugin for WordPress that allows you to manage multilingual versions of your blog and facilitates the translation process.
With the combination of Live Translation and qtranslate you can now choose to have your blog posts undergo professional translation in a matter of hours.
qtranslate comes with several key languages already configured, and is really user-friendly, making it the plugin of choice for many international bloggers.
For more information, contact sales[at]web-translations.co.uk.
Web-Translations is pleased to announce its partnership with Istanbul-based e-marketing company euro.message.
euro.message is one of the 50 fastest-growing technology companies, and the largest e-marketing service provider in Turkey. (more…)
Real-time online translation service Live Translation has a new improvement – you can also now upload files to get a free quote and buy your translation at any time of day or night.
The file upload feature can handle any common document file type: Word, PDF (with selectable text), txt file, Excel…
Your file will be returned to you in your chosen format, usually within just a few hours.
Register for a free account now and we'll give you the first 50 words for free:
"Web-Translations offers the full range of services I need for producing our multilingual brochures, email campaigns and website copy, and at a competitive price, so I don't need to shop around.
The staff are helpful and knowledgeable – our account manager was able to advise me on the best languages to choose for the countries we wanted to target, which was a great help.
All round, the service I get from them is outstanding. I'd definitely recommend Web-Translations."
Emma Shailer, Head of International Marketing – UCreative (University for the Creative Arts)
Web-Translations is looking to recruit a Personnel, Partner & Agent Manager to help recruit, manage, and train our team.
The successful candidate will recruit and manage a team of freelance sales agents, recruit and manage partner companies to our affiliate scheme, and recruit new team members to the office.
A large part of the role involves training, motivating sales people and holding people to account for their performance.
More details about the role and what we're looking for are available on our website, but if you feel you've reached the 'glass ceiling' in your current role, and that your potential is not being exploited, this is an excellent opportunity for you to shine.
If you've got 5 years or more of sales management experience (especially in the recruitment or translation industry), and have a proven record of being able to drive team performance, we'd love to hear from you!
To apply for this vacancy, please email your CV with a covering email stating why you wish to work with us to: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Web-Translations is pleased to announce its acquisition of Batley-based company Live Translation.
www.livetranslation.com is the world's first real-time translation service powered by human translators. It offers professional translation in minutes as well as a fully managed document and website translation service, making it the ideal complement to Web-Translations' existing portfolio of services.
With prices starting from as little as £1.99, Live Translation is ideal for translation of emails, text messages, and blog posts.
Managing Director of Web-Translations Daniel Rajkumar is naturally thrilled about the takeover:
"This is a great opportunity for us, as we can now cover both ends of the market: the corporate and SME clients who have planned budgets to spend on their translation needs, and the smaller businesses and individuals who are looking for a more economical service, but still demand a certain level of quality."
The next step will be to localise the website into different languages, then integrate Live Translation with email-translations.com, and other services such as blog translation that Web-Translations is already offering. The service will also be expanded to include additional language pairs.
Sign up for your free Live Translation account here to try it for yourself!
Web-Translations will be exhibiting at this year's Internet Retailing Expo at the Birmingham NEC from 23rd-24th March.
The expo brings together leading marketing, software and service providers to help all kinds of companies involved in online retail to grow and succeed.
Our Managing Director Daniel will be presenting as part of the Jumpstart programme:
Increasing export sales to foreign markets
While the UK leads the way in ecommerce, relatively few etailers profit from exploiting foreign markets. In his presentation, Daniel Rajkumar will explain how a multi-market, multi domestic approach to ecommerce helps increase visitor confidence to drive up conversion rates. In addition to best practice, Daniel will divulge secrets and practical tools for your multilingual eMarketing strategy, including the use of Social Media, SEO, PR and local affiliate networks to drive traffic and revenues.
Whether you're a global company operating in many markets or a domestic business looking to export for the first time, Daniel's presentation is pitched to cover the basics as well as some advanced practices, useful to strategic decision makers and practical implementers alike, you are sure to come away with ideas and inspiration that will open your eyes to the lucrative potential of non-English markets.
View the presentation schedule online
Register online free at http://www.internetretailingexpo.com/
We hope to see you there!
The Web-Translations team were the proud winners of the first "Peak of the Week" pub quiz held at The Midnight Bell in Holbeck on Wednesday.
It was a really fun night, with a choice of delicious curries and free poppadums on offer – what more could we have asked for? We'll definitely be going back to see if we can retain the champions title!
Check out our prize – we would have saved it to share with the boss, but hey…we were thirsty after all that hard work! Sorry Dan, you'll have to help us to victory next time…
Join Web-Translations and a host of other international business experts at the betterbusiness Going Global Workshop, next Wednesday (9th March) at Lacon House, London.
This event will focus on how to take your business global. With growing populations across the globe and the rise of the developing nations, can your business afford to miss out on these lucrative markets? (more…)
Here's another instalment of our Meet the Team series..and what better day to introduce you all to Ronak than on his birthday! Many Happy Returns…
Ronak joined Web-Translations in June 2010, after completing an MBA at Cardiff University. Originally from Ahmedabad in the Gujarat region of India, he spent several years working as a software engineer before specialising in online marketing.
Ronak is part of the production team, and is responsible for the final stage of our website localisation projects. When we translate a website, it's important that we optimise and promote it so that our clients gain traffic from non-English markets. This involves a range of tactics, including search engine optimisation, paid advertising, and link building. Ronak's keen ability for learning is really important, as Search Engine Marketing is a field that is constantly changing.
Impressively, Ronak also recently gained his Google Adwords Professional accreditation, the results of months of hard work.
When not hard at work making websites perform for our clients, Ronak enjoys bowling, watching films and eating out.
On Friday I had the opportunity to have lunch with Lord Stephen Green of Hurstpierpoint, Minister for Trade & Investment.
Entrepreneurs from businesses across Yorkshire attended a lunch event hosted by Angloco in their Batley premises. Angloco manufactures fire engines for all kinds of organisations around the world, and exports to over 45 countries. (more…)
We are pleased to announce that our Search Engine Marketing Manager, Ronak Thakkar, has been awarded Google Adwords Certified Professional status.
Adwords certification is a globally recognized stamp of approval which showcases knowledge of the latest AdWords tools, best practice techniques, and demonstrates the ability to effectively manage pay-per-click campaigns. (more…)
In an effort to do what we can to help Haiti one year on from the devastating earthquake that claimed more than 100,000 lives and left 2 million people homeless in January 2010, we're cutting the cost of our translation service.
We're offering translation into Haitian Creole and French (the nation's two official languages) at cost for organisations involved in helping Haiti rebuild its infrastructure and economy. This includes charities, aid organisations, those working on healthcare programmes, education programmes, and so on. We can translate any type of document: medical, legal, public information,
If you are working with an organisation involved in the Haiti recovery effort, please get in touch to discuss your translation needs – we'll charge any translation undertaken at cost, so the price won't be marked-up. All we'll add is a 10% project management fee to cover our administration costs.
Let's hope that 2011 is a safer and better year for all Haitians.
Hi, I'm Malcolm! I'm 23 and I've just started work at Web-Translations as a Project Coordinator. I was born in Leeds and grew up here before going to the University of Nottingham for a degree in Hispanic Studies.
On my year abroad as part of my degree I studied in Santa Maria, Brazil and Granada, Spain. I really enjoyed it and found the time to discover Argentina, Uruguay and Chile as well. I speak Spanish and Portuguese and I'm learning French in an evening class at Leeds Met.
Before working here I worked as a waiter – you'd be surprised how much you can learn about communication that way! I also worked as a personal Spanish tutor.
I enjoy learning about other languages and cultures, listening to music (especially live!) and caving.
I love the challenge of working at Web-Translations and it feel great to know that I'm playing my part in helping people communicate across the world.
I look forward to working with you if I haven't already!
You can read Malcolm's first Web-Translations blog post here: http://blog.web-translations.com/2011/01/what-makes-wordreferencecom-so-good/
I joined Web-Translations in January 2011 as a project coordinator after graduating with a degree in Spanish and business administration from the University Of Kent in July 2010.
I'm new to Leeds, having recently moved here from my hometown of Sychdyn – for those of you with no idea where that is, it's in North Wales, not far from Chester.
I've lived, studied, worked and travelled overseas fairly extensively, including a five-year stint attending an international school in Sri Lanka, a gap year (which I spent on a work placement, a volunteering programme and generally travelling) and also a year abroad at a university in Spain. In fact, many of my closest family members and friends still reside abroad; the main advantage of which being that should I fancy a trip away I have lots of options for where to stay! Other languages and cultures are therefore inevitably of great interest to me.
I've had some varied and interesting jobs in the past – museum guide and dog groomer to name but two – and I'm sure Web-Translations will become another example of a varied and interesting job if the past couple of weeks are any indication! I certainly do relish a challenge and always strive to set myself goals for personal development.
Apart from the usual things like spending time with my friends and family and pets, in my spare time I like going to the cinema, visiting museums and art exhibitions, long walks in the countryside, reading, singing and writing poetry.
* * * * * * * * *
Welcome to the team, Geraldine, and keep up the good work!
You can read Geraldine's first blog post here:http://blog.web-translations.com/2011/01/the-relevance-of-online-translation/
This is the first post in our new Meet the Team section – we'll be profiling each member of the Web-Translations team with a short introduction, so you can learn a bit more about the people behind your project.
* * * * * * * * *
Hi everyone!
Just a quick post to introduce myself. My name's Sunita Persad, I'm 22, I'm from Hull and I've just started at Web-Translations in Leeds as a Sales Executive. I studied International Business and Spanish at Aston University in Birmingham and graduated last summer.
I've just moved to Leeds, and am enjoying having my own place and getting to know the city. I'm certainly not missing the daily commute from Hull, getting up at 6am and getting back home at 8pm!
I've previously worked in a Market Research company in Hull, and as an assistant in a Morroccan-style spa while I lived in Barcelona. When I'm not at work I enjoy reading, watching films and socialising with friends. I've also recently started trying to brush up on my French language skills, as that will come in handy at work!
Let me know what you think of my first blog post for Web-Translations, I'd appreciate your comments. You can read it here: http://blog.web-translations.com/2011/01/the-rise-in-non-english-internet-communication
I look forward to speaking to you over the phone or via email in the coming months.
The Web-Translations team has expanded! We'd like to introduce 3 new members of staff here in the Leeds office.
We are happy to announce that two new Project Coordinators, Geraldine McCarry and Malcolm South, have joined the company, starting this week.
Also joining the team as New Business Consultant is Sunita Persad.
Welcome to the team!
All three are currently undergoing a comprehensive training and induction programme, you may encounter one or more of them in due course so we ask you to please bear with them and be kind! We were all new once too…
We are really looking forward to getting to know Malcolm, Geraldine and Sunita and working with them as they get up to speed with their new roles. 2011 is already shaping up to be a busy year for Web-Translations!
Coming soon – watch this space…
We'll be posting a longer introduction to each new member of staff as part of our new "Meet the Team" section on this blog.
We'd like to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
Web-Translations will be closed from 12 noon on Friday 24th until Wednesday 29th December.
On the 29th, we will have limited staff cover, so please bear with us.
We will be back to full working capacity on Tuesday 4th January.
If you have any urgent translations, please get in quick – our hard-working translators and project managers deserve a holiday too!
Season's Greetings, and all the best for 2011!
Web-Translations is pleased to be part of the Goldman Sachs Business Growth programme. This unique business education scheme has been organised by Goldman Sachs to support small businesses throughout Yorkshire and the Humber. It is run by the Business Schools of Leeds and Oxford Universities, who also devised the programme.
Our founder and managing director, Daniel Rajkumar, is one of the 25 entrepreneurs selected from 150 applicants to be invited to attend business management courses and receive mentoring and support from a senior member at Goldman Sachs.
The idea behind the project is to help small businesses in the region achieve their maximum potential, and also to help create job opportunities, in order to alleviate the effects of the current economic crisis. As the main focus of the programme, the entrepreneurs will undertake a four-month business and management course which will have an emphasis on real-life practical experience, allowing the participants to implement the ideas and strategies they learn as they go.
Daniel says of the scheme: "The Business Growth Programme has been excellent so far. The topics covered have given me a better strategic understanding and practical skills to aid the decisions I make in the business. I'm learning to step back from the day-to-day activities of running the business, which allows me to work on my overall business vision and direction. I've had the chance to learn from the experience of 24 other successful entrepreneurs, and have met inspirational leaders and been taught by some leading business lecturers. I would recommend it to other business owners."
We all look forward to seeing Web-Translations expand and flourish thanks to the support of Goldman Sachs.
We at Web-Translations are experts in the language industry.
Regular readers of this blog may remember our proud announcement that we had become members of the Association of Translation Companies back in March of this year.
We've also won an impressive collection of prestigious awards, right from the beginning of the company… (more…)
Web-Translations is currently looking to recruit two new Project Coordinators to join our ever-expanding team.
We are very excited to have a stand next Wednesday, 17th November, from 11am – 3pm, at the University of Leeds Expo' 10.
Two of our employees, Project Managers Claire Schofield and Eleanor Montgomery, will be there representing the company, explaining what exactly goes on in the Web-Translations office on a day to day basis.
In case you can't make it to the Expo, Eleanor has made a short video describing what it's like to work at Web-Translations – take a look:
If you are interested in applying for the role, please come along and bring your CV and a covering letter. We welcome reapplications.
Please have a look at our careers page for more information: http://www.web-translations.co.uk/Company/careers/Project_Coordinator_2010.html.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Wouldn't it be great if there was a rating system to identify the best translation agency?
Buying translation is a daunting prospect for those who have no prior experience of commissioning this type of service, and if the buyer has little or no knowledge of languages, then it's hard for them to have a point of reference on what is needed to produce a good translation; specifically: the level of skill, and the combination of education and experience that qualifies one person as a translator rather than simply a native speaker of a language.
Consequently many fall into the trap of buying translation as a commodity; as if buying rice or cotton; and go about comparing quotes on the basis of cost and/or speed of delivery. Translation is a service, however, and like all services, it is performed by people whose education, skills and time all contribute to delivering the final 'product' (for want of a better expression).
While it's logical that you would want a service to be performed by the best people, it's actually quite alien to most of us to buy a service from a) someone you don't know b) aren't ever likely to meet and c) where you as a buyer do not actually consume or experience the service first-hand.
Every now and then I take a peek at what our translators are saying about us on the Proz Blue board, the litmus test with contented suppliers – we are well on the way to being the best translation agency.
|Rating over last 12 months
|Overall rating
|Lingo 24
|Applied Language
|SDL International
* Note: The links are to the corresponding blueboard page used by translators to rate each agency for likeliness to work again on a scale of 0-5. The scores in the table above are accurate as of the 29th October 2014.
You might have had your car serviced, or maybe you had your hair cut in a salon/barber's, perhaps you've visited the dentist recently? These are all personal examples that everyone can relate to. It's easy to pay more for a service when you're the direct beneficiary, the experience you go through and the interaction with the person providing the service can easily and quickly justify the value. Personally I get my haircut on the corner of Leeds city train station, not for its location, I just like the guy that does it and he does a great job.
It gets harder to gauge the value on a service where you have no idea what has been done – we place the trust in our car mechanic when they say there's a split in a pipe and it needs to be replaced, or when your dentist explains that although there's no pain, its important you have a filling. This is where trust is important, but because you are personally involved you can quiz the person directly; there is something comforting about looking in the whites of the eyes of a person asking you to buy a service from them.
Unless you need a haircut, don't drive or need to see the dentist you should be able to relate to the personal examples, however business services are different in that they tend to fall into the rather broad categories of: Legal, Financial, Web or IT. When you choose a lawyer or solicitor you might go by recommendation or you might have looked someone up for a particular skill. The natural thing to do is arrange to meet. Once you get to know someone's background, invested the time to communicate your situation (giving rise to the need for the service) you have some comfort factor in knowing that you now have a relationship with a person you will entrust to do a good job. You feel confident, you like the person, and so you buy the service.
You need a document in another language so that someone can understand it. There isn't any desirability in this purchase; -it's not something that will 'happen' to you personally (like a haircut), neither is it likely to be an on-going business need so you don't feel the need to establish a relationship (in the way that you might with a lawyer or an accountant). You don't speak the language, so feel uneasy that you can't even tell if what you are getting back is excellent, good, average or worse. You weren't the person who wrote the text in the first place. You just want a document in another language, surely that's pretty standard right?!..
Conveying something in another language in a way that reads naturally is actually quite hard. When a text needs only to inform, the reader needs to understand. When a text needs to sell or influence, the reader needs to be motivated and compelled. Achieving the desired outcome isn't easy.
Web-Translations understand that delivering good quality translation can be a pretty thankless task to the many millions of freelance translators out there. If it wasn't an art from which people derived satisfaction it would be on a par with legal and accounting services, which (as I understand it) are not quite as much fun in providing. But translators can't just work for the love of it. They need agencies that fight their corner, justifying better prices, upholding greater values, raising standards.
Ultimately it is our freelance translators that provide our service, so in keeping them happy; we are in the best position to pass on a great service. We use highly skilled, educated project managers to develop and nurture great working relationships with suppliers in the same way that we do with clients.
Take a look at our Translation Buying Guide for more tips on how to buy translation.
Help us get the word out…translation quality is worth paying for!
There has recently been a further sign of recovery in Europe's biggest economy – German exports were up more than 3% in June, and the country has experienced unprecendented growth of 2.2% from April to June this year.
A weakening of the Euro in recent months coupled with a strong demand for German goods in Asia has helped to boost exports. (more…)
Have a look at some of the recent projects we've been working on:
If you'd like to be featured as one of our success stories, get in touch!
Yorkshire companies are "well-positioned to sell into Scandinavia", according to Danish business expert and former diplomat, Benny Sørensen.
At a recent event to inform businesses in the region about opportunities in Scandinavia, the organisers (Import-Export consultants SØRENSEN, and Denmark's inward investment organisation Copenhagen Capacity, teamed with the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce International Department) experienced unprecedented demand from Yorkshire businesses wishing to attend, and have urged companies who are interested in trading with Scandinavian countries to act quickly to make the most of the opportunities available. (more…)
We did it again! Thanks to your eager voting, we were ranked in the Top 100 Language Blogs this year for the second year running!
See the full list…
Thanks to all of you who voted for us, we really appreciate your support!
We've added a new feature to our website, so that you can ask us to call you back, just by completing a short form.
When you're browsing our services and portfolio pages, you'll see a "Please Call me" link at the bottom of the introductory paragraph:
The link will take you to the following form – simply complete a few details about who you are, and give us a number to call you back on, along with your email address.
One of our Sales team will call you back as soon as they are free.
"The results of localizing our website have been phenomenal. Our brand is now well-established in Germany and we've received lots of positive feedback from our German customers."
Russell Morris, European Director – Warehouse Express
Our MD, Daniel Rajkumar, will be speaking at this year's Internet World!
His seminar – entitled: Global eMarketing: How to make your website an international selling tool will take place at 15:45 on Wednesday 28th April.
Daniel's session will take delegates through the why, what & how of website localisation, and introduce the benefits of being multilingual, giving a step-by-step guide to the localisation process, illustrated by a client case study, then highlighting some important dos & don'ts before summarising how to make the most of your global potential.
To get a free pass into Internet World and catch Daniel's talk, as well as saving yourself £20, register here: http://www.internetworld.co.uk/page.cfm/Action=PreReg/PreRegID=1/t=m
We look forward to seeing you there!
We're proud to announce that Web-Translations has become a member of the Association of Translation Companies.
As one of the oldest and most respected professional bodies in the translation industry, members of the ATC are carefully vetted before admission into membership, adhere to a strict code of professional conduct, are subject to the rulings of a professional ethics committee and carry full professional indemnity insurance cover to safeguard the interests of the translation purchaser.
Membership bestows upon Web-Translations some well-earned recognition of the excellent service we offer – it's great to hear from an independent party how great a job we're doing!
"We were unsure of the best way to present translations of key information on our website – we'd always used PDFs before.
The Wéb-Tränslatiôns team was very knowledgeable – I was impressed by the way they talked me through what was best for us and how their International Blast service could achieve this."
Paul Hutton, Web Editor – ZSL (London Zoo)
Windows 7 includes over 40 new fonts which expand the script and language support the system can offer. Far from simply being a means of displaying text, different fonts can change the way we read text, and even how we feel about what we are reading.
As well as allowing much more versatility for people using languages already supported by Windows, such as Japanese, Arabic, Hindi, Tamil and other Indic languages, the new fonts also expand the flexibility of the system for languages such as Khmer, Vai (a Mande language of Liberia) and Lao, giving users more options for those languages.
The latest version of Click4Translation is now online, and we're inviting you to test it – please sign up at www.click4translation.com and get a quote for any translation project by uploading your documents, or submitting a website URL – it's as simple as that!
Click4translation makes it quick and easy to get a quote for your translation work, with a simple 5 stage process that takes about 2 minutes to get a price.
We're asking you to explore the system, try it out for yourselves and report back on any problems you encounter – all feedback helps us improve click4translation and make into the ideal instant quote system.
Help us to hone our new tool and have your say on features you'd like to see – please address all comments and suggestions to: firstname.lastname@example.com
Twitter is the latest company to use crowdsourcing to localise their website and interface – about time they localised it too, as in the arena of social networking, Twitter has been lagging behind other sites such as Facebook when it comes to reaching a multilingual audience…
So what is crowdsourcing exactly?
A recent article in New Scientist reports on the imminent release of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from U.S. national control. ICANN is responsible for maintaining the various technical standards that make the Internet possible on a low level.
Under an Affirmation agreement with the U.S. department of commerce ICANN will not be coordinated by any specific government, allowing representatives from many countries to take part. The likely offshoot is that Internet standards will become more inclusive of Internet users outside America. For instance, the article reports that we might reasonably expect domain names to be available in Chinese and Arabic characters in little more than a year. They also report that current browsers cannot access domain names written in these scripts, which is quite right, but a reasonably small change I cannot see any major browser manufacturer delaying in releasing to their customers.
International eMarketing 12th November, 13.00 – 17.00
The Source, Meadowhall, Sheffield (£35)
Learn about ebusiness strategies to promote your business in non-English markets using the Internet.
The Web-Translations blog is part of The Daily Reviewer's list of top 100 blogs!
The Daily Reviewer selects only the world's top blogs, sifting through thousands of blogs daily to present the world's best writers. The blogs that feature on the Daily Reviewer website are authoritative on their respective niche topics and are widely read. To be included in the Top 100 blogs list is a mark of excellence – for the full list of linguistic blogs, click here.
We are very proud to be recognised in this list – it's great to know that so many people out there read and value what we're writing.
Keep reading, and remember: we welcome your comments!
According to a recent EU report, 2 of the main obstacles faced by UK businesses who are exporting for the first time are language and cultural barriers, and how best to promote their websites using SEO and online advertising.
The first step in trading internationally is to localise your website. This way, you can gain enquiries and orders from overseas customers with only a small investment – with even just one or two pages translated into foreign languages you can use your website to "test the water" in a number of countries at once, and see which ones gain you the most web traffic.
By monitoring the visitors to your localised webpages, you can choose the countries which warrant extra investment and focus on marketing your product or service there.
If you are interested in learning a new language or improving your existing skills, there are many free online resources that can help. A number of schools, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Utah State University, have begun to offer free foreign language courses online. Free lessons can also be found through the BBC and the many foreign language learning networks that have cropped up on the web. This article provides a list of 15 places to find free foreign language lessons online:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers over 60 courses in foreign languages and literature. Users can find courses in Spanish, Chinese, Spanish, German, and Japanese.
The Open University – The Open University's modern language unit features courses for Spanish, German, English, and French. Courses are available for beginner, intermediate, and advanced level language learners.
Utah State University – Utah State University offers several free online courses in languages, philosophy, and speech communication. Two courses that are particularly popular are the Chinese I and Chinese II language courses.
As e-tailers prepare for another record Christmas period they should consider the changing trends in consumer confidence across Europe for new opportunities. Consumers are buying more frequently in every country in Europe, but as the pace of growth slows in the UK and competition stiffens, smart businesses will look to serve multilingual markets where consumerism grows faster and is less competitive.
We did it! Thanks to your eager voting, we not only came in at no. 49 in the Top 100 Language Blogs overall this year, but also made it into the Top 10 Language Professionals blogs.
See the full list here: http://en.bab.la/news/top-100-language-blogs-2009.html
Thanks to everyone who voted for your support, and let's look forward to climbing the chart even further next year!
The .eu domain is exclusively for residents of the European union. It offers a single European identity on the Internet for 500 million Europeans in 27 different countries.
Why choose a.eu domain?
To show you are European – using a .eu domain states that you are located in Europe
Broaden your market – .eu domains widen your potential customer base. We at Web-Translations have found that just by localising a few key pages of our client's websites, they gain significant traffic and enquiries. Imagine that extended across the whole of Europe!
Attract customers – a .eu website tells your customers that you are open for business within Europe – that's 27 different countries. It also combines the traffic of all your separate country websites into one – all those visitors will come to a single website.
Streamline your website – creates one location or hub for all the information about your company, products and services that is relevant to EU customers. It can make managing your multilingual website much easier.
Increase the visibility of your website – .eu domains attract attention, and therefore traffic!
Create a good impression – be taken seriously as a global company
Leaves scope for future development – even if you only have one or two European languages on your website now, if you choose to add any more at a later date, these can be based on your .eu domain.
Many global companies have already taken advantage of this opportunity – Hyundai, Pioneer, Versace, Ricoh, Lexus and Estate Agents Century21, to name but a few.
We at Web-Translations are proud to announce that we won the Wakefield First eBusiness award last night – in recognition of our work in pioneering new technology in the field of language services.
Web-Translations has always sought to bring innovation to the language services industry by making services easy for clients to buy and use – for any type of business.
Managing Director Daniel said " We are so proud to win this award – it gives us invaluable recognition of the hard work we've been putting in to our latest technologies. The team have done a great job."
For more information about our email and blog translation services, or to arrange a demo, please contact us at firstname.lastname@example.com or call +44 (0) 1924 360460.
We're always being asked "why can't I just use Google Translate/Babelfish/[insert name of machine translation tool here] instead? It's free!" Where do I start?…
Well, it's true of translation as much as of anything else: you do get what you pay for. So if you are paying nothing for your translation, you can guess how good (or not) it's likely to be.
The free automated translation tools can sometimes be very useful for getting an understanding of the text. But if you intend on publishing the text, this is the last thing you would want to use as the automated translations are very literal.
For example, there's nothing French about french fries, but a translation machine doesn't know that and you could end up with a very odd text! (more…)
This – the second guest posting on our company blog – comes from Spanish translator Carlos Montilla. Unsurprisingly, given the subject of his post, tourism is one of his specialisms but here he recounts a tale from his recent trip to Peru in near native English: cheers Carlos!
Spanish from Peru
Puno is a city in south Peru located on the shore of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake. Puno's access to the lake is surrounded by some 40 man-made floating islands inhabited by the Uros people. The Uros people live on these islands and depend on the lake and tourism for their survival. We took a boat with members of a Chivay Cultural Association and their families and disembarked at one of the islands, where part of the Uros community welcomed us.
Daniel Rajkumar will be presenting a seminar on 8th July, as part of a programme organised by Regional Language Network Yorkshire & Humber
Businesses proactive in their use of foreign languages achieve on average 45% more export sales.
Web Translation was proud to be involved in the first ever European SME week in Brussels last week.
Here's a video including Cassandra Oliver talking about multilingualism in Europe:
Cassandra was one of 5 people from SMEs across Europe invited to participate in a series of events as part of the first European SME week. This included a round-table discussion on how important languages are to businesses in the EU, opportunities and obstacles created by a multilingual Europe, and what can be done to improve the way that small businesses handle such issues,web or blog translation.
The panel discussion in the video above was the culmination of the event, which also featured a gallery of successful EU entrepreneurs, and an art installation entitled "How it feels to be an entrepreneur", created by Dieter Michael Grohmann- blog translation specialist.
Unless you've been sleeping under a rock in the last few months you'll know that the big thing in development right now is the iPhone Application store. Apps such as iPint, BubbleWrap (yes, you can actually pop bubbles with your fingers!), and flatulence games have helped push Apple's App Store over the billion-mark in just nine months.
There are now over 25, 000 unique apps – making it very difficult to stand out from the crowd – but Web Translation think that localization is the way forward. To get familiar with the Software Development Kit (SDK) Web Translations developers have created a useful application of their own, and have aptly named it 'Premail'.
Premail allows a user to quickly create email or blog using prewritten templates. It uses the normal mail application and so doesn't need any configuring: simply choose a template, input some variables, make any final ammends and send. Simple. It's great when you're on the go and just want to quickly say thanks or recognise someone's effort.
Web-Translations will be exhibiting at Internet World next week – from 28-30 April.
Alongside all the expertise and information you'd usually get by speaking to our staff, we'll also be running some demonstrations, and showcasing recent work that we're proud of.
Come and see us at stand E3001, just to the left of the main Earl's Court 2 entrance.
You can register online to attend Internet World for free at www.internetworld.co.uk/register
See you there! It's going to be a great show…
Having shelled out money, time, and other resources on getting a web translation done, it's important to choose the right person to review it if this step is part of your process. An inexperienced or overzealous reviewer can change the meaning of the text entirely, or introduce errors if they are rushed or their written skills in that language are inadequate.
There's a delicate balance that must be struck between the translator's knowledge of their language, and the client reviewer's knowledge of their company and products. So who is the best choice as a reviewer? (more…)
This month in Yorkshire's Insider magazine, Daniel Rajkumar, managing director of Web-Translations answered readers' questions about web translation and emails, and setting up internationally usable websites.
Q: I have set up a new arm of my company in France as a base for drawing in business from across Europe. As I am looking at a lot of different countries do I need translation of the whole of my website or blog into all the possible European languages? Won't English do?
A: "If you are serious about drawing business in from Europe you will have to have the website or blog professionally translated for the main language of each country you are targeting. People use the web for research and they search in their native language, so if your website is not multilingual, it will simply not be found.
Trade figures have recently shown an improvement in business exports – partly due to the weakened value of our currency. According to research, companies which trade internationally are more likely to stay in business longer and are usually more profitable than those which choose to concentrate only on domestic sales.
Exporting is a great way to expand your business – those who trade internationally grow faster and fail less often than companies that don't, and the current weak curerncy makes our prices much more competitive, so there's no time like the present.
Machinery, engineering products and consultancy, vehicles, aircraft, plastics, crude oil, chemicals, plastic and rubber, metals, foodstuffs, beverages, textiles & clothing are all in demand throughout the Eurozone, and a little effort in approaching a potential client in their own language can go a long way. Even something as small as localising key pages of your website for a foreign market show that you are interested in foreign customers, and are a forward-thinking company.
The main exports to China are electrical/mechanical equipment, precision instruments (medical, optical, photo, technical), plastics, iron & steel, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and Automotive , Biotechnology & pharmaceuticals, Construction, Engineering, Financial services & ICT are all industries which have experienced growth there. As for India, there is a similar focus on engineering, sciences and technology, but in fact opportunities exist there for most sectors.
Emerging markets have been identified in Poland, Vietnam, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Singapore, and Argentina. Opportunities exist in various sectors in these countries, notably design, consultancy and engineering – the sectors that are most commonly successful for overseas trade.
Brazil and Russia will also continue to be key areas for companies trading internationally.
One of our clients, Personal Projector, have today announced that they are to be the first company in the world to sell the Logic Bolt, the world's first Projector Phone. Though strictly not the sort of thing we would usually announce on our blog, we thought this world exclusive deal to be rather exciting!
The Logic Wireless phone is famed for its ability to project content directly from the phone on to any surface, with the projected image being up to 64 inches. The phone itself is unlocked and has all the features you would expect of a great mobile including: touch screen, video recorder, 3 mega pixel camera and, most importantly, a great suite of business tools which allow you to project your emails, PowerPoint presentations, Excel files, Word documents or anything else from your phone on to any surface!
The projector phone is available exclusively at Personal Projector and can be shipped to almost anywhere in the world. The phone will cost £450 (€499) and will be shipped in May on a first come first serve basis to those who have pre-registered.
Web-Translations are continuing to work on French and Russian versions of personalprojector.co.uk, and with this new and exclusive product being added to the site, it's likely with all the demand that yet more languages will soon be added.
It's an all too common problem: How do you maintain the multilingual pages of your website as changes are made to the English? To what extent do you allow local input, while retaining central control?
Joomla has been the web's favourite open source CMS since its separation from Mambo September, 2005, boasting some 4 million downloads in 2008, making it the most popular CMS of last year.
The Nooku story germinated from a conversation between Joomla!'s Johan Janssens and government and NGO stakeholders who wanted multi-lingual management, better than Joomfish.
Thanks to Johan, Pete and Mathias, webmasters the world over will have access to the plugin that is expected to go down a storm. As Phillipe Chabot, ICT Coordinator of the United Nations Regional Information Centre put it:"If you are thinking multi-language; Nooku is a must have! Our website needs to drive 13 different languages, so for us this made a giant step forward to improve our web presence. It's just brilliant!"
As a partner Web-Translations has the source code and can assist with implementation. By integrating Nooku with Web-Translations' Pay-As-You-Go Translation service, users have the perfect solution for maintaining multilingual websites. Web-Translations is the UK's only full service Nooku integrator.
Cassandra Oliver, Marketing Manager at Web-Translations had the chance to test-drive Nooku last week: "What struck me first of all is that the interface is so simple. Nooku is easy to use and seamlessly integrates with Joomla. It's miles better than Joomfish and an ideal tool for many of our clients."
Web professionals and laymen alike are singing Nooku's praises across Europe:
"If you need to build multi-lingual sites that are easy to manage…you'll simply love Nooku. Customizable, elegant and so well-designed it fits Joomla! like a glove, this is a professional solution for multi-lingual content that will rock the community!"
Paul Delbar – delius, Belgium
The name Nooku is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word "Nuku" meaning "to translate". It follows the spirit of the name Joomla! derived from the Swahili "Jumla" meaning "all together". Nooku website
Having deployed several multilingual ecommerce websites using OS Commerce and Magento, Web-Translations are now helping businesses to save thousands by switching from proprietary CMS solutions such as Tridian, to mature Open Source alternatives such as Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.
In April 2007, SDL Trados acquired Tridion (a CMS company) for €69 million, that investment is recovered in the form of license fees, development and translation services. An implementation can cost anything from US$ 80,000 to … sky is the limit.
At a time when businesses are looking to cut costs, we're advising clients to review expensive license fees and the cost of running their CMS. Open Source has come of age and matured in the area of ecommerce and CMS. Enterprises looking to save can do so quickly by embracing Joomla! + Nooku with Web-Translations, where there are no license fees and a vibrant community means support and development is plentiful and inexpensive.
Web Translations sees Open Source technologies as a key growth area of its business strategy, with plans to release multilingual professional translation plugins for WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and Open Office in 2009.
Knowing what people search for allows you to know how best to optimise your site. In addition, Keyword Research allows us to identify how competitive a keyword is and, consequently, the work involved to achieve a top 10 result on any Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Linguists around the world have nominated words which they would like to see banned as part of a survey by an American University.
Words and phrases mooted for removal from our lexicon include 'bailout, going green, friendly fire, brainstorming' and 'dude' (a personal favourite, as it happens).
I agree with 'going green' but principally because of how terms such as that one, and others like 'carbon footprint' or 'credit crunch,' become buzz words. Flashed around by people who don't really care for the semantics of the word, but rather seek adoration for banding around trendy phonetics.
This post is just to point both new and regular readers in the direction of our updated Industry Glossary.
This glossary gladly serves to save you the hassle and embarrasment of asking your resident techno-geek for an overly convoluted explanation of any industry terms, by providing simple, jargon-free definitions of the terms below…
If you would like to add to the exisiting definitions, or have a fantastic industry term that you can't wait to define, let me know and I'll add it to our list.
Many major Brazilian newspapers are finally implementing a new spelling reform. The reform was to include all Portuguese speaking countries and aimed to unify spelling but only Brazil, Cape Verde, and Portugal signed up initially in 1990, with Brazil, only now, actually implementing the changes.
It is believed that 0.5 percent of words used in Brazil will be affected, against the 1.6 percent of Portuguese words. Furthermore, around 98 percent of the spelling discrepancies between the two countries will be eliminated once Portugal implements the agreement. They have until 2014 and are not likely to act before that time given the resistance to it of the people. The reason? Many common usage words will be effected whereas Brazilians must only become accustomed to a few missing accents, for example in idéia and vôo (which are now spelled ideia and voo), and also to new hyphenation rules.
We've already given our dos and don'ts for clients who want to buy translation services, but what about those selling them? Yes, I'm talking about translators – the missing link in our business equation. Those who help us make it happen for each and every one of our clients.
Here is an early Christmas gift – just a few pointers for translators who are looking to increase their client base (and in the current economic climate, who isn't?) by applying to agencies.
1. Your CV: Cast a critical eye over your CV. The same rules generally apply for translators as they do for anyone applying for work: anything over 2 pages is just too long. Two pages is ample to give an overview of your relevant experience, qualificiations and specialist subjects – you can keep a list of translation projects you've worked on separately, then it's ready to provide should someone ask for it. Doesn't belong in your CV!
'A single 30 minute lesson' would probably be the answer to that questions from many of my collegiate peers past, but are we really, scientifically, limited by anything other than apathy?
It is true that there is a critical period for learning one's native language as a child: feral children raised in solitude without any linguistic stimuli (or 'negative feedback' as it's technically called) prove this when they are returned to society in their teens, yet remain unable to string together even a simple sentence. But what about the acquisition of a second, third, fourth or even fifth language?
Now, the unwritten rules of this company blog (which, post-ironically, have been written down), clearly state that any self, or client slanted, promotion is punishable by death: we have a website for such things. Having said that, and at the risk of corporate punishment, two projects deserve to have at least a little digital ink spent on them…
Most summers are remembered by an effeminate pop song, the social slaughter that is Big Brother and, in this country at least, an ongoing disappointment at the crude and rainy weather. Not so for Jenn, though, Chief Project Manager here at Web-Translations, who was pinned down with the task of coordinating the translation, localisation and launch of over 2000 products and 500, 000 words into German for online camera specialists, Warehouse Express.
User Generated Content exploded on the web with blogging and social networking phenomenon, but User Generated News (UGN) is a relatively new phenomenon. Whereas European newspapers and broadcasters have been slow to adopt UGN, American newscasters have coined the term 'Citizen Journalism' with CNN's IReport.com, MSNBC's NewsVine.com and even Al Gore has Current.com. Enter YouReportTV.com.
People need a voice. The BBC gets an average of 10,000 e-mails or posts in a day to its 'Have Your Say' site and that can soar on big news days. Although that may sound an enormous number, some 5 million visit the BBC News website in a single day.
Unfortunately, that lovely does not work for Web-Translations, but was at Online Marketing, Dusseldorf (OMD), along with three representatives from our company: Boss, Daniel; Marketing Manager, Cassie; and New Business Consultant, Andy.
The end of September saw them pack a box of service sheets, Web-Translations brochures, a few crisp shirts and a German phrase book, and jet off to the multi-football pitched sized exhibition centre, Messe (which, true to form for the deadpan Germans, means simply 'Tradeshow'!).
Further to my inaugural post on this blog, a colleague, Marianna, has decided to flesh out some of the details, and they go like this…
"Preparing a document for translation may be, sometimes, a tricky and potentially overwhelming job, depending on how important the project is, and how vital, say, specific terminology or marketing flair is to this particular translation. We realize that you may need a little guidance from a professional translation company, as our mission is to make translation as hassle free as possible for everyone, leaving you to concentrate on your main business affairs.
Bien sur, this is not an exhaustive list. So, if you want to send us any of your own tips, leave a comment here or email us.
Introducing Mr Jack Dunwell, one of Web-Translations' prized French to English legal translators, and his abstract, poetic thoughts on being a freelancer…
Free At Last, Debbie
When did I lose my autonomy?
To this 5 am drive
I can't even find my trouser legs
Without falling over
My socks
Without gasping?
At the night walk
The night walk
Oh, sorry, that title is probably a shade misleading: PM refers, of course, to Project Manager, rather than Prime Minister. We all know what a Prime Minister does anyway, right? Not much…unlike a Project Manager.
My ears are often pricked when someone talks of their day-to-day toils, be that out of nosiness, out of insecurity – their job's not better than mine, is it? – or simply out of narcissistic wanton to confirm that my job is the only job worth doing. (Which of course, boss, it is.) And so I find myself detailing a day in my life, for any one of you who is curious as to what I do between replying to your emails.
The day begins at nine, and with a heavy inbox.
Web-Translations' MD, Daniel Rajkumar, chatted with Normanton MP, Ed Balls, last month in a meeting that was part of an event organised by Make Your Mark: The Wakefield campaign aims to to unlock the UK's untapped enterprise potential.
Daniel, and two other young business people from the region, spoke with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families about the challenging practice of setting up and running a company from scratch, without the experiences and confidence that comes with age. The exchanges were recorded and are to be used in universities and schools in an attempt to light an initial spark of awareness or ambition amongst the next generation of go-getters.
Now, that may seem like a bizarre post title – I mean, how hard can it be…'make this text Spanish, would you?' – but there will hopefully be things to learn for everyone in this article, be you a translation purchasing virgin, or a seasoned pro'. The aim here is to help you to help us which, in turn, will hopefully result in more satisfying project outcomes for you. Let's begin…
Firstly, let me outline to you what we at Web-Translations consider to be quality. We understand that you only want to pay for what is of use to you, and that's it; nothing else in our world constitutes quality.
The whole process is quick and efficient. I would definitely recommend Web-Translations to other companies; in fact, I already have!"
"Iconography chose Wéb-Tränslatiôns for a number of projects involving major international brands and clients. They offered rapid turnaround times on translation, including projects on tight deadlines and for multiple markets. I would not hesitate to recommend them to others."
Wayne Robbins, Business Development Manager – Iconography
"Web-Translations are always very friendly and responsive.
They're a great help, and I would recommend them – our project manager (Cassandra) was able to advise us on which sections of the website to include in the localisation, and worked directly with our web designers, which made it so much easier for us."
James Tupper, Marketing & IT Systems – BGB Engineering
"Totesport chose Wéb-Tränslatiôns for their ability to meet our requirements for fast turnaround times on website and email translation as we look to move into the European market."
Josh Darby, Casino Operations Manager – Totesport
"Mobile Fun was looking for a long term relationship with a credible, capable and committed translation partner. Web-Translations has met this requirement by providing a consistently high quality of service and superb account management. We are confident that WT will meet our growing needs as we develop our offering further in existing and new territories."
Simon Joseph, Head of Sales & Marketing – Mobile Fun
"We chose Web-Translations for a number of reasons. They are competitive on price and we have an excellent relationship dealing directly each time, which gives me confidence projects are being completed professionally.
For me, it is the simplicity of working with the team. When given complex projects, only sensible questions are asked and I don't face the hassle of unimportant details. "
"Polar Instruments chose Wéb-Tränslatiôns as a one-stop shop for maintaining the international side of our website.
Wéb-Tränslatiôns' ability to work alongside our international sales organisation is key in having professionally localised content in a highly specialised market segment."
Martyn Gaudion, CEO – Polar Instruments Ltd.
Finalists for the inaugural Wakefield Business Awards, organised by First, the Wakefield District Development Agency, have just been announced and Web-Translations are proud to say we are in the running for not one, not two but three categories!
Web-Translations are the only company to be shortlisted in three categories, including recognition for international business, online business and business leadership.
The awards are designed to highlight the increasingly diverse and confident nature of businesses in the Wakefield District. Just this year, OMIS recognised Wakefield as Britain's 'Best Small City for Business' and the shortlist for each award shows just that! Web-Translations is up against real competition!
Helping other businesses trade successfully across the world is just one of our missions here of Web-Translations. To be shortlisted for the International Business Award which recognises companies who are successfully translating international strategy into business growth really underlines the positive impact Web-Translations' strategy is having on our own growth and that of other businesses in the area.
The e-Business Award is the second category Web-Translations have been shortlisted for. Without the internet our company simply could not exist! Thanks to the expert knowledge of Web-Translations staff who make sure e-business is a reality, Web-Translations have gone from strength to strength in the past twelve months, breaking sales targets and witnessing growth month after month.
Last, but not least, Web-Translations Managing Director, Daniel Rajkumar is a finalist for The Business Entrepreneur of the Year Award. This award looks for the business leader with the character, leadership skills and vision to ensure the business really drives forth-and encourages others in the area to follow its lead.
The awards are backed by some of the region's most recognised business names including CTP St James, Paragon Business Village, Rockware Glass, Simons Developments, Wakefield College, Wakefield Council, and The Wakefield Express. The ceremony will take place on the 23rd November at the Cedar Court Hotel.
Speaking on behalf of Web-Translations, Catherine McTeigue, Project Manager said, "We are extremely pleased to be shortlisted amongst other businesses in the area. As a young business getting your foot on the ladder and building your way up can sometimes be a slow process, but Wakefield and its business community have welcomed Web-Translations with open arms. We are proud to represent such a vibrant city and look forward to celebrating the success of every business in the area on the 23rd November".
Web-Translations Limited offers website localisation and document translation in over 140 languages for Asian, African, European, Middle Eastern and American languages and marketplaces. Web-Translations employ only professional native speaking in-country translators.
For more information contact a member of the Web-Translations team on +44 (0) 1924 360 460.
Web-Translations revolutionary email translation system has been shortlisted in the Technology in Business category at the Real Business and the CBI Growing Business Awards 2006. The awards are described by the Chancellor Gordon Brown as "the business equivalent of The Oscars" and see companies of all shapes, sizes and turnover nominated.
The awards are designed to highlight the increasingly diverse and confident nature of businesses in the Wakefield District. Just this year, OMIS recognised Wakefield as Britain's 'Best Small City for Business' and the shortlist for each award shows just that! Web-Translations is up against real competition!
Web-Translations was established in 2003, following the dot.com boom. Web-Translations' Managing Director Daniel Rajkumar recognised the need for website localisation as business in the 20th Century became increasingly globalised. For businesses to compete with the lower cost products and services flooding in from growing markets, seeking new markets for products is the only solution. A localised website offers companies the opportunity to sell to new markets and Web-Translations' email translation system enables businesses to communicate with customers in their own language.
The e-Business Award is the second category Web-Translations have been shortlisted for. Without the internet our company simply could not exist! Thanks to the expert knowledge of Web-Translations staff who make sure e-business is a reality, Web-Translations have gone from strength to strength in the past twelve months, breaking sales targets and witnessing growth month after month.
Early November will see a business roundtable held at Claridges, London, with finalists in the Technology category and key personnel from Dell. The winner of the 'Technology in Business' award will be announced at the Growing Business Awards ceremony which will be held at the Hilton in London on the 30th November.
Catherine McTeigue, Project Manager said, "This recognition is fantastic for a young company like Web-Translations. The national recognition we have already achieved at the awards is a brilliant motivator for everyone at Web-Translations and underlines that companies of all sizes are building successful enterprises within the British business community".
Web-Translations Limited offers website localisation and document translation in over 140 languages for Asian, African, European, Middle Eastern and American languages and marketplaces. Web-Translations employ only professional native speaking in-country translators.
For more information contact a member of the Web-Translations team on +44 (0) 1924 360 460.
"Web-Translations provides EXCELLENT client service, one to one interaction, meets tight timetables and is very cost-effective!"
Scott Maguire, CEO – Lipoxen
The project management team has grown again at Web-Translations with the arrival of Jennifer Rodgers, who joins the team as Project Manager.
Jennifer, from Texas, adds another international face to the firm. Jennifer has worked in France for three years and recently moved to the UK. With degrees in Biology and French from the University of Texas at Austin, she will be involved in coordinating medical and scientific translation projects.
"Jennifer is an excellent addition to the Project Management team, bringing language skills and tons of enthusiasm as well as a great eye for detail," says Project Manager, Catherine McTeigue.
For Jennifer, joining Web-Translations means that, "my contributions can make a real difference. I'm eager to use my language skills to help Web-Translations provide quality translation to customers around the world."
Web-Translations Limited offers website localisation and document translation in over 140 languages for Asian, African, European, Middle Eastern and American languages and marketplaces. Web-Translations employ only professional native speaking in-country translators.
Web-Translations received regional recognition at the Digital Yorkshire Internet Awards dinner held at the Queen's Hotel in Leeds on Thursday 27th April.
Web-Translations is pleased to announce their recently confirmed membership of the Institute of Export.
As Web-Translations develops its international business horizons with a visit to the USA in March and the expansion of the sales team with offices in America the team is looking to establish its reputation for excellence abroad.
The Institute of Export encourages its members in their development of an international reputation for their professionalism and commitment to people development. Web-Translations' existing experience of working within a multicultural team and with professionals across the globe ties in perfectly with the Institute of Export's philosophy and the company is proud to be recognised for this.
Daniel Rajkumar, Managing Director at Web-Translations Ltd commenting upon the new membership said that being a Member of the Institute of Export offered Web-Translations, "an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to businesses seeking growth in international markets. With new business opportunities developing for Web-Translations in the US market in March, Web-Translations has the hands on experience of developing relations for ourselves and demonstrable past experience of helping our clients to do so with great success".
Web-Translations Limited offers website localisation and document translation in over 140 languages for Asian, African, European, Middle Eastern and American languages and marketplaces. Web-Translations employ only professional native speaking in-country translators.
For more information contact a member of the Web-Translations team on +44 (0) 1924 360 460.
As Wakefield based Web-Translations focuses its business development on the Asian markets, the partnership with Connect China, located in Batley, offers fantastic new opportunities to develop the number of services both companies offer together.
Gone are the times when 'Made in China' suggested poor quality, now businesses across the globe are clambering to get into the Chinese market, known for its high quality competitively priced goods and its never ending labour supply. Businesses realise that being successful in business in China just isn't the same as in the western hemisphere –this is where Connect China and Web-Translations can help.
The partnership offers excellent business opportunities for both Web-Translations and Connect China's clients within the rapidly growing Chinese economy. Sound business advice from Connect China will compliment Web-Translations' high quality service, further enhancing the already successful service Web-Translations offer.
Clients such as Guernsey based Polar Instruments and Essex based Phelan Barker have gained new clients and business opportunities from their localised Chinese websites both within the UK Chinese population and customers based in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Daniel Rajkumar, Managing Director of Web-Translations commented upon the partnership's opportunities saying that, "The Chinese online market presents a different set of challenges to the relationship based business environment, yet the two are merging in the 21st Century. The combination of a localised website to stimulate interest, brand awareness, and generate contacts, combined with Connect China's knowledge of the country's business etiquette offer fantastic opportunities for business success in the market.
"Batley based Connect China Ltd work with businesses and organisations across the UK to help them build their business opportunities with China. Companies looking to export, source or build their skills and contacts to trade with China, can contact Connect China in order to take advantage of their business potential in one of the world's fastest growing markets.
With an increasing number of business opportunities in the new member countries of the EU, Dorset based Scopevital decided to localise their website into Russian and Lithuanian. In addition to local languages spoken in each country of the former USSR, there remains a large number of Russian speakers across the region and the opportunities for business are growing.
Scopevital specialises in the field of bio dryer engineering and offers a large number of services and technical support for users of its products. As an industry leader in the growing Lithuanian and Russian speaking market offers opportunities for expansion into these marketplaces. Web-Translations' localisation of their existing English website offers customers and business partners the opportunity to trade successfully across the internet.
For more information on translating your website and marketing materials to attract customers and distributors in new markets call 01924 360 460 or email email@example.com
English content now only accounts for 31.6% of online material according to Internet World stats. With the internet removing geographical barriers to trade a multilingual website is becoming more imperative for success at international level. – Research from IDC states that visitors are four times more likely to buy from a multilingual website than on in English alone.
However, for many organisations, the cost of updating and maintaining translations on a multilingual website makes it prohibitively expensive. The administration, tracking, delegation, payments and of course the translation itself, all take a small amount of time that quickly adds up.
The majority of the cost is not from the translation itself, but the administration involved in coordinating the translation. Many organisations employ full time native linguists, but updates are always a 'low priority' task so there is often a great delay in keeping the foreign language versions in sync.
Another key problem is that many organisations that self-maintain their website do not benefit from their existing language asset because they are not using Computer Aided Translation (CAT) software. This has the advantage of maintaining terminology and suggesting similar or identically translated phrases, greatly increasing the speed at which the translator can work at, and ultimately reducing costs.
The new service launched by Web-Translations addresses the administrative costs by offering a contact that is based on word-count, clients effectively pre-pay for their translation needs. The price is uniform for all languages and entitles the to what is effectively a word-count credit that works on a pay-as-you-go basis.
The best part is that once setup, the service works seamlessly in the background. Clients simply work on the English version making as many or as few changes as necessary. There is no need to even notify Web-Translations of the changes made because they use specialist software to automatically monitor the site (which can even check every minute).
The service will be particularly useful to news rich websites, and subscription based sites that have a great deal of dynamic, changing content.
Web-Translations are very familiar with working to tight deadlines, working with several clients in the FMCG industry, speed has become a real USP for the business.
With costs lowering and specialist support available, there has never been a better time to invest in having a multilingual online presence. A monolingual website effectively means you are leaving half your money on the table.
Web-Translations is celebrating a successful start to their final quarter after securing additional work from the FMCG industry. Twinings, Cadbury-Schweppes, Tate & Lyle and Purina (a division of Nestlé) are among returning customers with a frequent need for professional translation services.
The FMCG industry is fast-paced and the speed at which Web-Translations can return a high-quality translation is absolutely critical. This is the key reason for choosing Web-Translations. Within 15 minutes of being confirmed, the project is initiated by a project manager. In the case of Cadbury-Schweppes this meant the careful coordination of 62 translators to cover 31 languages! Separate translators are used for proof-reading.
Cadbury-Schweppes and Purina chose Web-Translations after reading about the success story with Timberland, another major consumer brand among the growing portfolio of customers.
As the translation memory grows, Web-Translations is fast becoming the preferred supplier of translations services, as previously translated content can be used to discount future work. Highly repetitive translation is substantially discounted and after the clients assist with building a glossary of terms the consistency is applied automatically.
Web-Translations has an excellent reputation for the quality of translation, being positioned in the two fifths of the industry focused on translation 'for publication', its clients can be sure that they are receiving a different service to translation 'for information' which is three fifths of the translation industry.
Web-Translations are pleased to announce the establishment of a new partnership with Leeds based development company Chapter Eight. Chapter Eight specialise in web development, Search Engine optimization, web design and online promotion for clients working in a wide range of business areas.
With Chapter Eight's latest Content Management technology development and Web-Translations' language expertise the companies are working together to offer customers greater control of their language asset with the multilingual content management system which is now in place. The partnership enables both companies to offer extra services to clients who are targeting non-English speaking customers and who wish to embrace the global marketplace a multilingual website can access.
The combination of the technical expertise of Chapter Eight with the translation and international e business strategy provided by Web-Translations ensures business and communication can take place swiftly and efficiently with customers no matter what their native language is. For further information please contact Cassandra Oliver at email@example.com or 0113 8150460
Web-Translations are pleased to announce the establishment of a new partnership with Leeds based web development and design company, Bloom Media.
Bloom specialise in web development, Search Engine optimization, web design and online promotion for clients working in a wide range of business areas. Successful application of Search Engine optimization and promotion gets their clients to the top of UK search engines, but for international search engines, Bloom Media calls on Web-Translations to employ their freelance translator teams and ensure clients make headway in international markets.
The partnership enables both companies to offer extra services to clients who are looking to embrace the global marketplace across the internet through the use of multiple language website as a cost effective international development sales plan.
The combination of the technical and design expertise of Bloom Media, the search engine optimization and internet marketing expertise of Jump Higher with the translation and implementation services of Web Translations enable UK companies to set up virtual offices across the globe! With email translations, online promotion and search engine identification available clients will be able to succeed in an increasingly global marketplace addressing potential non-English speaking customers in their own language and increasing business opportunities for sales in foreign markets.
Web-Translations are pleased to announce that they are now working with Guernsey based company Polar Instruments, producers of testing equipment for printed circuit boards.
With an existing customer base in Asia, Polar Instruments wanted to improve their existing Asian websites in line with their English site, in order to keep Asian Pacific customers up to date with product developments from a constantly changing product base. With a customer base, and customer support available in 7 local languages, their website is a key marketing and sales tool, and Web-Translations are extremely happy to be working with Polar Instruments on the translation and search engine submission of their website to international search engines.
As well as website localization Web-Translations are working with Polar Instruments to localize software applications used by the company and its clients across the Asia Pacific region. Downloads of programs used by both Polar Instruments and its clients will soon be available in Asian languages.
The future is certainly proving to be bright for Web-Translations. After an award-winning 2003 we decided to give our best effort when entering the National Business Awards and are now finalists in the national final for the Best Use of Technology.
We won a number of awards in 2003 which recognised our innovation and success in delivering a product to help UK companies trade successfully abroad by translating and adapting their websites to make them suitable for non-English speaking visitors.
After giving a presentation to judges from all over the country the Web-Translations team are now through to the finals of the award with the North East Dinner to be held in Manchester in July.
Commenting on our success so far Daniel Rajkumar, Managing Director said, "We are delighted to have been nominated for such a prestigious award, especially as there are so many well established national companies involved. We are enjoying a successful 2005 and our recent promotions in Athens are demonstrating our desire to be as international as our clients."
Web Translations wins another prize!
Daniel Rajkumar, Managing Director and Catherine McTeigue, Business Development Manager, have scooped a prize in the University of Leeds category of the Joint Leeds Universities Business Concept Competition run by Spark, Yorkshire Forward and Business Start-UP @ Leeds Met.
Web-Translations Limited began as a small business when Daniel Rajkumar attended Leeds University with support from Spark, based in Leeds. The recognition of innovative ideas were reflected in judges' comments that they were impressed with the concept of translating websites to appeal to non-English speaking customers.
Our presentation showed that we can translate documents and websites to and from any language using highly tested freelance translators from all over the world. Businesses everywhere can use their services to demonstrate that their non-English speaking customers are as important as those that speak our mother tongue.
Commenting on our success Daniel said, "Taking part in this competition has demonstrated that students at university in Leeds have a number of fantastic ideas that can help contribute to the region's continued growth and development. For Web-Translations, winning this award has underlined further our belief that there is enormous potential for companies to communicate with their international customers in their language".
Web-Translations scooped two awards in recognition of their contribution towards helping businesses overcome linguistic and cultural barriers that restrict global trade.
Winning the regional award for best use of the National Language Standards, a process that ensures a high-quality service for each project. Along with the Merit Award in the New Technologies for Language.
Developing the Strategic Approach to Localization (SAL), the perfect service for small to medium sized businesses looking to go global, has been one of the turning points. The service allows businesses to profit from the Internet's growing popularity and accessibility to non-English users throughout the world. By creating mini websites to test foreign markets, businesses can find out where their sales potential abroad really is. After an initial test period, the performance can be analysed to recommend the best performing foreign markets, committing to the best market will ensure that businesses get the most profitable return on their investment.
Business Development Manager, Catherine McTeigue said, "We are thrilled to receive an award that not only recognises Yorkshire's businesses' efforts in raising the importance of languages for trade and industry, but that also underlines the importance of promoting languages for all. In the New Year we are looking to build on this success and further develop our products for an increasingly global society."
Following successful growth in recent months, Web-Translations has sought to recruit a new project manager to replace Ed Brewster. Ed has decided to travel the world before taking up Environmental Studies at Imperial College London. – We wish him a world of luck.
Keith Cheung, born in Hong Kong and holder of a masters degree in Chinese Translation, has joined the team. "Keith has excellent qualifications and is a hard worker," says his manager, Daniel Rajkumar.
For Keith, joining a small business means that "my contributions can make a real difference. I am keen to help develop Web-Translations, and keen to put my qualifications into practice, because this business has real potential."
Keith has played a key role on our localization project for American Softwoods, successfully coordinating a team of translators and proofreaders.
We received an award – our first ever, and hopefully not the last!
For recognition of outstanding innovation in using ADSL Broadband, Web-Translations has won the Area Final of the Broadband Britain Challenge. Hosted at Elland Rd, the event was a glamorous occasion with plenty of champagne and caviar as well as entertainers of all kinds.
The trophy was voluminous: Daniel Rajkumar was immortalised in polystyrene! A sculptor took measurements and created a life-size 6ft model, which now stands proudly in the corner of our office. "I had no idea we would win, there were some great entries, when I found out what the prize was I was gob-smacked!" says Daniel.
We are proud to be attending the grand final in London on September 12th. Who knows? We may even win again!
Web-Translations' clients not only request professional translation and localization services, but consultancy to determine their future presence in foreign markets. Committing resources to multiple markets is a decision one must not make without considering all risks. Web-Translations has developed a Strategic Approach to localization that allows customers to test foreign markets with micro sites.
Only after gathering intelligent information will the client need to make a decision . This approach reduces the risk factor and allows management to calculate a realistic return on investment.
So far, this service is proving to deliver a win-win scenario to Web-Translations and customers alike.
This step-by-step approach gives Web-Translations a competitive edge. "While many other agencies are mostly doing translation for information, 80% of the material we translate is for publication. We are rapidly developing a strong reputation for excellent quality," says Daniel Rajkumar, MD of Web-Translations Limited.
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