Books for everyone! - iWL organizes a Children Book Drive

Our iWL Cares monthly initiative has taken place a little later than usual this month, but the results are well worth it! This month, we decided to do a Children’s Book Drive – we collected all sorts of children’s books from the iWL team, friends, relatives and other people interested, and donated them to the non-profit organization Big Brothers Big Sisters of America!

Nearly two-thirds of low-income families in the U.S. own no books. As iWL Cares organizer Bodine discovered this shocking fact, she rushed to initiate one of our most successful iWL Cares campaign so far.

Road sign - donate here!

“I thought it would be awesome if we could provide more kids with books at their homes,” she says. “Many studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between how often children read/are read to at a young age and how well they will do in school. Children who start off behind with reading often stay behind. Reading is obviously a huge part of education and children's learning and development! Not to mention a big part of inWhatLanguage too!”

Yes! We gathered so many books that we
needed a forklift to carry them!!

As a company focused in translation, interpreting and transcription services, literature is definitely part of our everyday culture, and thankfully has been since a very young age. That is why it is our sincere conviction that everyone should enjoy a good book anytime – and especially children!

After doing some thorough research, Karlie Bodine was completely sure that a Book Drive was definitely a must for inWhatLanguage. “Reading expands vocabulary and writing skills, promotes healthy social and emotional development, helps build up longer attention spans that translates to better retention in school, and enhances imaginative and critical thinking skills and improves memory and concentration,” she explains.

Karlie, enjoying the success :)

“Growing up, I was constantly reading. At the dinner table, in the car, at recess, everywhere! I always had access to books” she adds. “I had never realized that it was something I was taking for granted and that not everyone has the same opportunity with something as simple as books.  Once I learned that many children in the U.S. don't have access to them, I immediately knew I had to do something about it.”

And the initiative was a resounding success! In fact, iWL gathered so many books that a forklift was needed to carry them all - seriously!!

Karlie admits that books were a huge part of her life as a child, and wishes nothing more than to give other children the opportunity to experience this special link with literature as well. With these ideas in mind, she organized a Book Drive in which we would then donate the books to the national non-profit organization Big Brother, Big Sister. “They were beyond excited and appreciative over there - they couldn't say ‘thank you’ enough,” Karlie remembers fondly.

The iWL team, celebrating another successful iWL Cares campaign! Congratulations!!

iWL goes on a sledding trip!

Exciting things happen every day at the inWhatLanguage offices, but sometimes we need to just take things slowly and relax in good company!

With this in mind, the inWhatLanguage team went on a sledding trip last week. Taking advantage of the last days of the winter season, the group enjoyed a day of fun and healthy exercise in this exciting, group bonding activity. 

No need to say much else – the pictures speak for themselves!

From left to right: Abel Atwater, Brian Palmer, Maurice van Zutphen, Naalie Herrera, Karlie Bodine and Veronica Johnson.

Montage Case Study

Copyright: Montage Kapalua Bay

Montage is a chain of luxury hotels and resorts “devoted to delivering an elevated guest experience”, as one can read in their official website. In their properties, “guests can expect impeccable hospitality, exceptional epicurean experiences, world class spas and an elegant yet welcoming ambiance with the goal of creating lasting and cherished memories.” They undoubtedly have some of the loveliest five-star hotels and resorts in the world in the some of the most beautiful spots of North America.

Montage came to us after recognizing our work in the Sunnylands website. They heard that we had taken care of that amazing project, and they needed their website translated to Asian languages: Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese. Since we had done such a great job at Sunnylands, our reputation preceded us. Montage knew they wanted to work with us.

Their website is heavily focused on properties, since they have so many different hotels and resorts. We translated the content for their hotels in Beverly Hills (California), for Los Angeles and for Park City (Utah). Three locations in three languages: Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese.

While they needed the project to be done quickly, it wasn’t a rush project. Quality was more important than anything in this case. They wanted a very high-quality translation. We are talking about hotels that charge between $400 and $1000 a night, aimed at clients with high levels of disposable income. They needed a translation that matched this degree of sophistication, following the style and tone of our work with Sunnylands.

Copyright: Montage Beverly Hills

They didn’t push us for a tight deadline because they knew that our level of quality was enough to make up for it, and we had a proven record of translating for other important hotel chains such as Hilton, Marriot, as well as travel agencies and hospitality companies. They knew we would do a great job.

From a technical standpoint, we had to work very closely with Montage to translate and input their content directly into Wordpress, the content management system that hosts their entire website. We had to adapt our own technology tools to integrate and work with this system: we had to archive all of their previous translations in order to make sure that our memory banks were accurate and that our translation was consistent with their previous content. Our technical team was in constant contact with the client to ensure that things were moving forwards in the right direction.

We translated and published the content, but not before three whole rounds of proofreading to make sure that the format was correct for the Asian languages, with their different scripts and writing directions.

Ever since, they have had wonderful feedback about our translation, and they currently are a long-term client of ours. Thanks to this and other big projects, we already have a sizeable databank with their specific terminology and information that helps us work with them much faster and much more efficiently. Translation keeps getting better overtime, and costs go down.

For that and many other reasons, they keep sending us a lot of work, and we’ll surely translate content for other properties of this great chain of hotels and resorts!

Language Nerds: this is what we are at iWL!

Brian Palmer, Cody Broderick and our nerdy model. Looking good!

Ladies, gentlemen, it is about time we come clean. Yes, there comes a time when you just cannot deny your own nature anymore, and one has to admit what one is. And this is it.

We, the people at inWhatlanguage, are language nerds.

We love languages so much! We are so passionate about them that we pretty much live for them, we work with them, and we help others deal with them. Languages are in our everyday conversations, language jokes are our idea of sidesplitting comedy, and whenever we read or listen to a translation, our eyes are trained to check for quality and find typos at lightning speed. Nerdiness to the max.

We are language nerds – and we are so proud of it that we have created a whole website about the concept. Check it out: http://www.translationnerds.com/

Is that awesome or what?

A staff member at the conference
who couldn't resist the nerdy appeal!

Furthermore, language nerdiness is infectious! Last week, the iWL team brought the “Language Nerds” theme to a local networking event organized by the Utah Technology Council –an open house where they invited all of their members, about 400 people-, and guess what: people loved it!

“We had a small stand at the conference, we got a mannequin and dressed him up as an awesome nerd, with glasses and one of our T-shirt (Language Nerds, with the motto ‘talk nerdy to me’). We were also wearing the outfit, and giving out ‘nerd’ candy,” explains iWL CEO Cody Broderick.

David Kasteler and Cody Broderick, nerding out :)

The ‘nerdy’ bug didn’t take long to spread. “It was a fun conference,” says Broderick. “The idea was to have people walking by the booth and stopping to learn what we were on about – to grab their attention. There were other translation agencies, but they were kind of boring and non-descript in comparison. Our goal was to make people remember us, and it seems like it is working.”

The team took pictures with some of the attendants to the conference.

“The ‘nerd’ theme is good. People perceive ‘nerds’ as smart yet funny individuals, and it is definitely a good way to attract the audience, have them ask questions, laugh, break the ice, make them comfortable.”

And it just happens to suit the team so well. I mean, look at those pictures. Don’t they look just... Nerdorable?

Time and organization, the E-Learning Course translator’s best friends

(Image from http://bayyinah.com/)

E-Learning Courses are becoming increasingly popular. Thanks to the Internet and new technologies, education has never been more available to everyone. Ironically, now the only barrier that many find to study new fascinating subjects is the language. Generally speaking, E-Learning Courses are available worldwide, as they are located in the worldwide web. But the world is full of different languages and cultural contexts. That is why E-learning Course Translation is nowadays one of the most demanded, successful fields in any translation company that is up to date.

E-learning Course Translation is, however, a very special service that requires specific subject-matter expertise and high technical skills from all of the parties involved. From the translation company’s standpoint, there are certain practices that must be followed for a smooth completion of any E-learning Course translation service.

From the onset, there is one thing that must be crystal-clear about effective E-Learning Course Translation: it is a time-consuming process. It takes many different steps, and it cannot be rushed. Not unless you are willing to settle for a mediocre final result. It takes vast amounts of time to make sure that a final deliverable up to the client’s desires and expectations is produced - especially when the translation is done in many different languages.

It usually entails compression and expansion issues as well – for instance, a 100-word E-Learning Course in English usually ends up with a word count of 125 when translated to Spanish or any other Romance language.

An e-Learning course can include all sorts of materials and formats,
and all of that must be reflected in the final translation!
(Image from www.e-learningstudios.com)

It is thus important to remember that the original content in English will not have the same length as the resulting translation. This has to be factored into the final result in online displays, as well as the voiceover services that tend to go with these courses. If there is dubbing services included in the translation service, the audios must be adapted to the videos (or vice versa) in order to achieve exact synchronization between image and sound.

Overall, it is quite a long and tricky path that must be trodden carefully and methodically.

That is why an iterative, agile approach is the best option for this kind of translation:

• ·        Start with a testing phase to round up a pool of capable, fit linguists for the project. Text samples must be sent to the client for their consideration.
• ·        It is also important to gather any translation memory files from past translations that the client may have, as well as glossaries, style guides and terminology specifically related to the current project.
• ·        The real translation begins with a “pilot” segment –or a “proof of content”-, send it to the client and wait for feedback.
• ·        Once this initial step is done, the translation can proceed with a second segment based on the comments and suggestions from the client. This process will continue until the whole course is translated.
• ·        Once the translation is completed, the client must sign it off before moving on to the recording phase.
• ·        Start the next stage of the project with a testing phase to round up a pool of capable, fit voice talents for the project. Audio samples must be sent to the client for their consideration.
• ·        Get approval from the client on a specific number of voice artists, and record all the audio bits step by step, taking the feedback from the client as a guide at all times.
• ·        Insert the audio on the videos / presentations, adapting them for perfect synchronization.
• ·        If the client asks for it, the translation company can also take charge of the insertion of the translated and recorded material right into their online platform for a perfect, all-encompassing service. This involves text editing and formatting to achieve best online-viewing results, as well as other adjustments to make sure that audios and videos are in the right places and play when they are supposed to.

For all of these steps to be taken seamlessly, careful organization and a strict plan are the best tools. A smart and efficient investment of time is vital to obtain the best possible E-Learning Course translation. Just like Aristotle said – “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”  

iWL Case Study - Sunnylands

The Sunnylands state. (Photo: Sunnylands.org)

Sunnylands, the former Annenberg Estate, located in Rancho Mirage, California, is a 200-acre estate currently run by The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a not-for-profit organization and Annenberg family trust. It is a beautiful, historical resort where the world’s most powerful leaders, CEOs and other people from the world’s most powerful and wealthiest families go to spend time together, talk about business, have dinners and other events.

Sunnylands came to us back in 2013 and said that they needed their website translated to simplified Chinese and Latin-American Spanish. They wanted it translated to Chinese because Chinese President Xi Jinping and American President Barack Obama were planning to meet at Sunnylands shortly, and before this big event, they needed their website, as well as many more content pieces translated to Simplified Chinese: marketing materials, information sheets, etcetera.

We worked closely with their development team to get the necessary clearance to translate their content. We needed approval because, essentially, it was practically as if we were translating on behalf of the Obama administration.

US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping
during their meeting at Sunnylands. (Photo: Sunnilands.org)

We translated the website, including information about the history of the relationship between both President Xi and President Obama, their encounters in the past, and all the content of the actual meetings between them, including recaps, overviews and follow-up notes. We worked with different formats as well, such as video and audio files.

From the process standpoint, it was fairly simple: they came to us, and they needed the translations done very quickly. We were selected among five different translation agencies for a simple reason: they needed an extremely accurate translation with the highest level of quality, befitting to the professionalism and the excellence that their website demands. Because of the quality requirements, we had to test seven linguists before the correct person was approved.

We did it quickly, accurately and within their budget. We actually weren’t the lowest price they were offered, but we were definitely the best overall value for them. We put in extra effort to make sure that the result would be up to their expectations. For instance, we made contact with some of their business acquaintances in China to make sure that the style, the word choices, the context and the general feel and tone of the message on the translated website were accurate and coherent with the additional materials as well.

The Sunnylands estate has hosted events for the most powerful
and influential people in the world.  (Photo: Sunnilands.org)

They were very happy with us. They held a meeting of great importance between two of the world’s most powerful leaders right now at their location, and we were fortunate enough to be of help to them in this noble endeavor. Now, in their website, if users click on the “Chinese” or “Spanish” links at the top right corner, they will see our work.

It has been one of the most high-profile projects we have ever done, and it has helped us attract many more customers: the second we appear in the Sunnylands website, which is visited daily by millions of people, and no one has anything negative to say about the translation, we gain business, and we gain reputation.

This was definitely a project that we are especially proud of!

To all of the linguists and translators working for inWhatLanguage... THANK YOU GUYS!!!

inWhatLanguage is growing very fast. That means new clients come to us literally every day with all sorts of different projects –short, long, documents, multimedia projects, in one, two or many more languages-, demanding the high-quality product that we are known for with quick turnaround times and low costs.

We, of course, are more than happy to oblige, and to keep growing and improving our reputation by delivering exactly what we promise: all of that, plus excellent customer support in the warmest of environments.

However, I think it is fair to step back for a second and let the spotlight shine on those people who really make all of this possible: our linguists and translators.

To find good, professional translators willing to work long-distance with such reliability and level of excellence is truly priceless. To have such talented people on the other side of the planet ready to give their all at any given project; to simply know that by calling out to them you are guaranteed to get the best translation a linguist can do – just how amazing is that?

Somehow, at inWhatLanguage we have managed to gather a wide pool of translators in a lot of different languages that fit that description, and that makes me wonder just how we could get so lucky.

To cover the translation needs of clients all over the world in more than 150 languages is by no means an easy task, and this is only possible with the best of teams. Our linguists are so good that not only we can manage this volume with ease – we can hardly wait to get more and more!

And that is not all: they are also capable of adapting to any type of text and deliver the best of work in any format. They accept the clients’ requests and don’t hesitate to ask the right questions or do extensive research for the sake of a more accurate translation, and that really shows at the end of the day.

And the clients notice it too, of course. It is not a coincidence that we have an ever-growing number of returning customers already.

For all of this -for their attention to detail, for their availability, for their hard work, for their expertise and support-, we want to send our linguists a very big fat sincere THANK YOU ALL message from the inWhatLanguage team.

Thank you guys, seriously. You make this company what it is, and help us improve every day!!