Google today launched a new Help Forum dedicated to SMEs who are managing their own AdWord campaigns:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords

Google has lots of other support forums to discuss how to get the best from your online spends :

http://www.google.com/support/forum

STAR helps clients do more international business by providing the language services, support and advice for developing international websites.

STAR sponsor formula 3

STAR Group is proud to announce its involvement in the Formula 3 Euro Series by sponsoring the young driver Christopher Zanella.

The young Swiss racing talent is racing for the Motopark Academy supported by Volkswagen. He also competes in the Italian F3 championship with team JD-Motorsport.

Christopher has a fantastic dynamism, vigor and ambition. We wish him all the best for the upcoming championship.

For more information on the Formula 3 Euro Series visit:

Formula 3 Euro Series

STAR provides specialist translation services to the automotive industry.

If you’re not sure which to use, a good rule of thumb is that effect is more often used as a noun and affect as a verb. This holds true for almost all situations in Standard English.

The two more common words
-Effect (Noun): A result or impact, something caused by something else.
“The new teacher had a positive effect (impact) on the school.”

-Affect (Verb): To alter or change (or have an effect on)
“The new teacher affected (altered) the way the school was run.”

The two less common words
-Effect (Verb): To cause something to happen or occur.
“The new teacher effected (brought about) curricular and disciplinary change.”

-Affect (Noun): A psychology term for an external display of emotion.
“The new teacher noticed that the boy had flat affect (showed no emotion).”

Google works hard to show users the best possible search results. Often those are going to be pages that are localised for the user’s location and/or in the user’s language.

If you’re planning to take the time to create and maintain a localised version of your website, making it easy to recognise and find is a logical part of that process.

Google Webmasters post series takes a look at what is involved with multi-regional and multi-lingual websites from a search engine point of view. A multi-regional website is one that explicitly targets users in various regions (generally different countries); we call it multilingual when it is available in multiple languages, and sometimes, the website targets both multiple regions and is in multiple languages.

Visit Googles WebMasters page for complete information

STAR Translation helps our clients do more international business by providing website translation services and support in over 40 languages.

Damian is interviewed by Paul Lanigan of Sandler Institute

In the Mind of the Buyer is a regular slot hosted by Paul to discuss professional sales processes.  Here both he and Damian discuss the challenges that face clients when they approach translation for the first time.

Packed with snippets of real-life information, this will give you plenty of food for thought if you are looking at purchasing technical translation services

Listen here:  http://www.star-ts.com/audio/motb25thmay.mp3

Here are some general guidelines on how to use inverted commas.

Direct Speech

Quotation marks must be used to enclose direct speech or a direct quote:

-The teacher said, “Class is dismissed.”

They are not used for indirect speech, where what someone said is paraphrased:

-The teacher said that the class was dismissed.

If quoted text is interrupted, a closing quotation mark is used before the interruption, and an opening quotation mark after. Commas are also usually used before and after the interruption.

-“Please sit down,” the teacher said, “the class has not ended.”

Titles

Inverted commas are usually used for the titles of shorter works such as the titles of songs, short stories, essays, articles and poems. Whether these are single or double is a matter of style, although single quotation marks are often preferred for poetry.
Italics are generally used for the titles of books, magazines or newspapers.

Quotations within Quotations

Depending on whether the original quotation is enclosed in single or double quotation marks, use the other form to enclose a title, piece of dialogue or direct quote that appears within the quotation:

-“I overheard him shout, ‘Please close the door.’” Michael said.

The end of the sentence has two separate sets of inverted commas: a single mark to end the quotation and a double mark to close the quoted speech.

Marks of Punctuation used with Quotation Marks

British and US usage of punctuation with inverted commas is the same for question marks, exclamation marks, colons and semicolons but varies for commas and full stops.

When a semicolon or a colon appears at the end of a quotation, put it outside the quotation mark:

-I heard the assistant say, “The customer service desk is on the 1st floor”; however, I didn’t hear him say, “The desk is currently closed.”

When a question mark or an exclamation mark appears at the end of a quotation, put it inside the quotation mark if it belongs to the quotation:

-Claire said, “I’d like to watch Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

If it does not belong to the quotation, put it outside the quotation mark:

-Did you sing, “Happy Birthday”?

In the US, commas and full stops are nearly always placed inside closing quotation marks. This is also used in British English in fiction and journalism:

-“Sometimes,” George replied, “I prefer to cycle to work.”

In British English, it is standard to include within quotation marks any punctuation marks that appeared in the quoted material, but to place other punctuation outside the closing quotation marks.

-“Sometimes”, Laura said, “I walk to work with a colleague.”

Sarcasm, irony and the non-standard use of words

A common use of inverted commas is to highlight ironic or sarcastic words in a sentence:

-He is wearing a very “fashionable” jacket.
-The secretary called in “sick” today.

Quotation marks can be used to indicate that the writer is using a word in a non-standard or unusual way:

-The study shows that the drug “knows” which cells to target.

They can also draw attention to slang, jargon or humorous usage.

-The police blamed the spate of attacks on the rise of “happy slapping”.

A writer can also use quotation marks to distances themselves from the terminology used, whether because the term is not correct or is controversial.

Incorrect Usage

Quotes are sometimes used incorrectly for emphasis where underlining or italics would be preferable. This can unwittingly alter the meaning of the text by suggesting that the word does not carry its true meaning:

-“Free” cookie with every child’s meal

-“Fresh” fish and chips

Compared to a similar study in 2009, intentions to buy airline tickets and make hotel or tour reservations online increased 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively – a sign that the global economy is improving.

Other products and services tagged for future online purchases include electronic equipment, cosmetics/nutrition supplies, event tickets, computer hardware, videos/DVDs/games and groceries. One third of online consumers say they primarily do their internet shopping from online-only retailers. As many as 79 percent of online Europeans plan to purchase products or services via the internet in the next six months.

In Ireland that figure rises to 83 percent, and in Great Britain it rises to almost 90 percent.

Source: Nielson.Com

Have you ever stopped to think where the terms originated?

Strangely enough most publishing terms actually come from the old print industry. When documents where originally put together for printing, all the letters had to be manually placed onto the press before the page was pressed.

All the characters were stored in the printers’ case of letters, which had an upper part of the case where capital letters were stored and a lower part of the case where the other letters were stored.

Thus was born the language of “upper case letters” and “lower case letters”.

Brought to you by STAR Translation Services

You may be working on your latest tender submission or updating your website for English readers and need your text checked for consistency or ease of understanding. Our English proofreading teams can help you.
We also provide proofreading in all the languages we translate into.

2.    US English and UK English Translation
Gasoline or Petrol, Zucchini or Courgette? We provide US English and UK English conversions and vice-versa on a regular basis for clients. Ecommerce providers often have different sites for their English-speaking customers around the globe.

Having your website checked for spelling mistakes can improve your online sales.

3.    Voiceovers
Need a video translated? We provide voiceover translation and actors for all our languages.

4.    Document Conversion
Paper, FrameMaker, InDesign, QuarkExpress, PDF, etc. From lost originals to just conversion to the latest document system, we can help you.

Occasionally you may have to translate a project where you have lost your original sources. STAR’s desktop publishing teams have the experience and expertise to recreate almost any document. Even if you only have a scanned image or PDF, we can recreate your documents for you.

You may also have decided to retire some older software and move your documents to the latest design package like InDesign. We can help make that transition easier for you.

5.    Software Localization
Whether you are developing a desktop application or an iPad app we can help you deliver your software in multiple languages.

STAR has its own software development teams. We are a developer of document and information technology ourselves, so we know the challenges of international software design.

We can give you advice on what the best steps are for your project, including enabling and software localization services.

Download our PDF document on first time Localization

Contact us today for a quote:

PHONE:
from USA/UK: +353 1 8365614
from Ireland: 01 8365614

Some clients encounter problems when they start translating as their designers won’t release the master files to the translation agency.

Agencies can offer two rates for design. The first is a flat rate for your work where you get the rights to print your artwork. The 2nd is for full ownership of all the creative sources.

It is a bit like photography. Nowadays if you have a professional photograph taken you get a print of the image that you can then hang in your office or home.  However, the photographer maintains ownership of the original photograph. If you wanted to use this photograph again commercially you need to purchase the rights from them.