Legal translation: finding a lifebuoy when the sea gets rough

There are people in this world who are capable of juggling laws and clauses for their own benefits in order to achieve what they want, or in order to avoid worst possible scenarios. Not me, though. I’m ashamed to say that bureaucracy scares me. The last time I got a letter from a lawyer’s office telling me I was unknowingly involved in a court case, I almost had a heart attack. It wasn’t my territory, it wasn’t my cup of tea… And as I was in a foreign country, it wasn’t my language, either.

I can think of few situations more frustrating and overwhelming than trying to cope with the laws in a language you don’t speak. Legal jargon is a language of its own, and even when it’s written in one’s mother tongue, chances are, you are not going to understand it fully. It has this annoying tendency to go around in circles, use fancy words that hide crushing consequences if you don’t realize what they mean, and don't even get me started on fine prints.

The other day I was told an anecdote about a court summons where the main text said something like “you are kindly encouraged to attend the court session”, but the fine print said “if you are not present at the time the trial starts, you will receive a fine of $5,000”. Inviting, isn’t it?

So go figure if you cannot maneuver all of these linguistic traps properly due to a language barrier. Moreover, we are talking about delicate topics, here. You cannot just go to anyone and ask for help. You need professional assistance from someone who not only understands the language, but also understands the abstract world of legal procedures, and most importantly, someone who understands you. Someone to whom you can convey your need of help, and who can reassure you, no matter how dire the situation is.

Pipe dream? Not so much. inWhatLanguage provides first-rate, experienced legal translators that can offer you personalized assistance during these tough times. We pride ourselves on the quality of the translations we deliver to our clients and understand that this cannot be achieved without our talented and meticulous legal translators.

Our teams consists of in-country expert translators who not only understand legal terminology, but also have knowledge of their country's legal system, understand the meaning of the articles being used, and have a strong amount of experience translating legal content. Not only that: they can also explain it to you, in words that you can understand. That way, the feeling of being slowly but surely dragged by the current into the uncharted seas that we call “bureaucracy” can be replaced by a comforting sensation of actually being in control.

Because it is possible. It is easy. You just have to know  whom to call.

Love for and from Goal Zero!

Joy all around! inWhatLanguage recently received a new testimonial video from one of our regular clients: Goal Zero. We are particularly proud to work with this company, as it is young, ambitious and very committed to the environment.

They think outside the box, they don’t settle with what there already is, but they create new things; they see a need and they go for it, despite the fact that it might look difficult or far-fetched.

And in that respect, we do feel identified with them. We try to push the envelope when it comes to translation services, be it by being closer to the clients, by being up to date on the latest multimedia trends and adapting to all formats or by providing a service that not only is reliable, but also fast and punctual.

All of these qualities are what makes awesome companies like Goal Zero choose us and, best of all, stick with us.

But hey, enough of my musings, let the clients do the talking!

I mean, wow. What else is there to say after that? Thank you so much, Goal Zero, for your kind words. We hope to keep working with you for a better and cleaner future! 

Coping with mistakes in translation

As a translator myself, I always harbor a subconscious fear of finding silly mistakes in the texts that I write, or even worse, of receiving bad feedback from a client saying that the translation was not up to his/her standards. This is not a good thing; anxiety and stress are not going to solve anything. And even though I know that, I cannot help it. Probably because I know that I can do better. I expect more from myself. And, in my perception, others do as well.

Unfortunately, mistakes are common. And one of the wisest things that we can do about them is not only learn from them, but also learn how to cope with them. A mistake is not the end of the world. It is but a hurdle on your way to self improvement. It can turn into an advantage, if used correctly.

I was blessed with some enlightenment on this matter not long ago. I made quite a grave mistake in a text that I had worked on, the kind of mistake that can spark unwanted heat among the high spheres. When one of my bosses called me, asking for a chat on the subject, I felt my stomach turn. But contrary to what I was expecting, my boss didn’t yell at me. Turns out that in her youth - back when she was a greenhorn - the exact same thing happened to her. She got over it, learnt her lesson and came out stronger, more experienced and ready to face similar situations with her chin up high. And she encouraged me to do the same. Because we are humans.

What we do, what we write, what we translate, has a soul, a personality of its own, because it has been done by a human hand. A machine cannot create a document with a soul, no matter how technically correct it might be. It will not feel the same. If someone wants a job done with a certain degree of emotion and heart, it has to be done by a human, with its advantages and its flaws. And that means that there is a possibility that it might contain mistakes.

If you find a mistake in a text you have delivered, there are some things that might help you cope with it.

• Don’t try to cover it up. Why should you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, deal with it with pride. You are human, and you are not perfect, but admitting your own mistakes makes you a better person.
• Be humble. Adopting an attitude of arrogance is most probably not going to take you anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you are highly qualified, if you speak 40 languages or if you think that your expertise in the matter is far more superior to the client’s. A mistake is a mistake – make your peace with it, it is not going to undermine your worth as a professional.
• You might feel like you need to explain why you have made that mistake, but be mindful that if others haven’t told you about the problems in their private life, they probably don’t expect you to do so. We all have our issues, and you don’t need to garner sympathy in order to come out of a situation like this unscathed. More often than not, people are implicitly understanding.
• If the client hasn’t found out, don’t just wait and cross your fingers, hoping that he/she never will. Take the initiative and admit it – there is a part of the text that needs a change. That will make you shine asan honest, humble, hard-working person who will not settle for a mediocre job. Which, in fact, is true, and the sooner they realize, the better, right?
• Learn from your mistakes, but don’t let them hold you back or turn you paranoid. You will try not to repeat your mistakes in the future, but if you do, it will not be the end of the world. In the field of translation nothing is set in stone, and texts can be corrected in a second nowadays.
• And of course, leaving your texts in the hands of a trustworthy proofreader is always a good way to avoid typos, grammar and syntax mistakes. That does take a load off your shoulders, doesn’t it?

Happy International Women's Day to our female translators!

Today is March 8th, International Women’s Day. A day for women to congratulate each other on  fighting hard in order to get the same equal rights as men, and for doing a good job out of it. That applies to every industry and every business field, including, of course, languages and translation. And that is why this week’s blog post is dedicated to female translators and interpreters.

On this day, I always like to look back and evaluate the meaning of this celebration and how it has evolved throughout the years. It all started back in 1909, when the US Socialist Party suggested to celebrate Socialist Women’s Day on February 28th. The following  year, the movement reached Europe, and even though it wasn’t officially recognized by the UN until 1975, women kept growing conscious of their rights and celebrated their day every year, fueled by tragedies like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or their proactive role in the events that led up to the Russian Revolution.

From 1975 on, March 8th has been designated as the official International Women’s day, a day that in some countries still stirs a lot of political controversy and activism, and in others it has been toned down to a simple celebration in commemoration of women’s fight for their rights  in the past – and the present.

My views on it are not especially strong. I’ve never felt mistreated, I love my job and I do feel blessed to have family and friends that love me for who I am. I do think, however, that it’s nice to have a day when I can go out and tell my girl friends “congratulations for doing what you do”, because it is, as a matter of fact, a daily struggle to keep up with a life being a woman. We are workers, we are wives, we are mothers and daughters, we are teachers and we are pupils, we are bosses and subordinates, we always try to look our best even when we are crumbling down inside, we get to suffer the most terrible pains and feel the most rewarding happiness.

And if, added to all of that, we are also translators, then we do have quite the responsibility on our shoulders. We are in charge of breaking language barriers across the world. We try to soften cultural differences and get everybody to understand each other and commit to a mutual agreement in a language that we can all share. We get a piece of a puzzle that just doesn’t fit anywhere, we work on it, we file it and reshape it so that it matches the pieces around it and the puzzle can be complete. And all of that without forgetting the rest of our duties in daily life.

Some men might think that it is sort of unfair that on a day like today we get to praise ourselves like that without holding back, just because it was established that March 8th is a day dedicated to women, and maybe they are right. But there is no harm in raising our chins high every once in a while, smiling and feeling proud for being who we are, patting each other on the back and reminding ourselves that whatever happens, whatever comes our way, we are women, and we are powerful.

So congratulations to all female translators of the planet, for making this world a little better and more understandable every day. You deserve every praise you can get… Today, as well as every other day.

The language of Apps... And their translation

We live in an age where everything must be fast, convenient and get straight to the point. That includes software. Although perhaps that name might sound strange to some at this point, as what in the past used to be called “software” has now received a less generic, shorter name: “Apps”.

Who doesn’t love Apps nowadays? Seriously, we use them for everything. And I mean everything – just google up “weirdest Apps around”, and see if I’m right. They allow us to chat with our friends, to make sure we don’t burn the cake that is baking in the oven, to see whether it will rain during the trip you planned for the next weekend, even to check where you parked your car. An App can keep you fit, punctual and/or entertained during long periods of waiting.

PCmag.com defines App as the short form for “APPlication”: “The term has been shorthand for ‘Application’ in the IT community for a long time. However, it became popular with the consumer for mobile Applications on smartphones and tablets after Apple debuted the iPhone 3G in 2008. It is just as correct to say ‘iPhone Application’ as it is ‘desktop computer App’; although App is shorter, and computer people love to abbreviate.”

What we mean by “App” in common, everyday language, is usually definition number two. Only it’s not just something that can be installed on mobile devices, either. An “App” can fit in your computer just as well – as a matter of fact, PC Apps are gaining popularity by the day, and the newest Windows System, Windows 8, is largely based on them.

I found a very suitable definition for our current perception of Apps in the blog “A Designer Life”, by designer and developer Josh Lehman (@SwissLehman), founder of Texan software company Brightcraft Mobile: “A software tool or game — sometimes very specific in purpose — that’s quick and easy to acquire, learn, use, and to discard if it doesn’t meet a pretty immediate need or expectation.”

Following this definition, Lehman analyzes its implications, reaching the conclusion that “the ‘Age of the App’ in which we find ourselves is an age where the user expects to be able to pick up an App like they’d pick up a hammer. It’s function and supporting form should be immediately understood.” Of course, Lehman aims to make Apps understandable through an easy, intuitive design, but there is another aspect that can be decisive in making an App survive in this fast-paced, swirling world based on informatics that we live in: the language.

Translating an App into another language can seem easy, especially when we are talking about a small, mainly visual program, as most Apps are. However, here is the big irony: the less text there is, the more effective it has to be in order to work. Localization and creativity are of the essence; marketing and advertisement skills are a good plus, and having a translator who is able to “think outside the box” can mean the difference between making an App a fixed part of any cell phone main screen, or dooming it to a short life of quick uninstalling processes and an eventual death due to unpopularity.

All in all, an agency capable of delivering good, trustworthy App translation services is crucial.

With inWhatLanguage as your software translation partner, you can build, test, and deploy your software with confidence. We understand software localization demands total accuracy, expert cultural knowledge, and a high-level of orderliness, which is why our teams of software developers, programmers, GUI designers, and professional translators ensure total reintegration of the localized software content to the visual and user friendliness of the software application.

Our software localization engineers guarantee your final product is fully supported in the appropriate languages—from the user interface, to technical documentation, to online help files. inWhatLanguage is able to manage every aspect of your software localization needs and can accept all file formats.  The result? Cost-effective software localization services and exceptional language translation results. From engineering and translation, to reintegration, quality control, and testing software, inWhatLanguage is the best-choice for your software translation needs.