STAR TS Translation Services Blog

Call for Papers
Localisation Focus
The International Journal of Localisation

Deadline for submissions for VOL 12. Issue 1 is 01 July 2013

Submissions (full papers) are now being invited for the 2013 issue of Localisation Focus-The International Journal of Localisation.

Localisation Focus provides a forum for professionals and researchers, in localisation and related fields, to discuss and present their work. The journal covers all aspects of this multi-disciplinary field, including software engineering and HCI, tools and technology development, cultural aspects, translation studies, human language technologies (including machine and machine assisted translation), project management, workflow and process automation, education and training, and details of new developments in the localisation industry.

Proposed contributions are peer-reviewed thereby ensuring a high standard of published material.

If you would like to submit a paper on any of the above topics or other topics related to localisation, internationalisation or globalisation, please email LRC@ul.ie

View previous articles online at www.localisation.ie
Submission guidelines and a template are available on request by emailing LRC@ul.ie or visiting www.localisation.ie

Localisation Research Centre,
CSIS Department,
University of Limerick,
Limerick, IRELAND

Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language in business after english

Mandarin is the official spoken language in China. It is spoken by 845 million people. According to Bloomberg Rankings, it is now scored highest in a ranking of languages for business usefulness, excluding English.

The Rankings takes into account:

-the number of speakers,

-the number of countries where the language is official,

-economical rates,

-educational rates…

Doing business in Asia will call more and more for language abilities to be successful in non-English-speaking countries. It provides advantages by being closer to the culture and habits and it also favors connections in a faster and more complex business environment.

French with 68 million speakers and Arabic with 221 speakers are ranked second and third. Spanish came in fourth ranking with 329 speakers worldwide.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Mandarin and Cantonese are often confused when people request translation services for China. It is easy to confuse them as the written form can be different depending on the country you are in. We’ve produced a simple table explaining the differences between Chinese languages and dialects for you.

by STAR Translation Services

Finance Bill 2012

The Budget 2012 finer details have been released in the Finance Bill 2012 and contains a significant number of items that favour Foreign Direct Investments. The Finance Bill 2012 contains major incentives for companies investing in Ireland. The main points are:

-       Research & Development (R&D) relief

Key employees, excluding directors and certain others, can avail of a reduction in their income tax liability where their employer surrenders their R&D tax credit to the employee in question.

-       Foreign Earnings Deduction (FED)

Support for companies expanding into certain emerging markets by giving employees tax relief

-       Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP)

Intent to encourage the relocation of key talents within organizations to Ireland; further improvements have been made as well as many restrictions have been removed.

For instance, the Budget 2012 will keep:

-       12.50% Corporate Tax Rate applicable to Irish trading.

-       0% rate for new companies for the first three years of trading which were incorporated and started trading in 2009 (with profit up to 320,000 per annum).

-       Ireland keep holding and negotiating a network of double taxation treaties. It avoids the need to pay tax twice on the same income or gains for international companies. Currently, 55 countries are concerned and 46 countries already applied it – including BRIC countries.

Those incentives should attract talent and create jobs. Indeed it supports export by helping companies willing to expand their business into emerging markets. It also would grant a special deduction for an individual spending at least 60 days a year in developing market for BRIC countries.

For further information, please follow the link below:

Finance Bill 2012

by STAR Translation Services

STAR Translation has been shortlisted for the Dublin Entrepreneurial Business Awards! So we are delighted to share the good news.

The EBA Gala Night will take place in Kildare on May18th. This is the first year for the EBA Awards and it’s great opportunity to celebrate Irish Entrepreneurs at all levels. The awards have regional awards per county and an overall All Ireland award for the best companies. We are shortlisted for our customer service and technology development for our clients. It great to hear good news about so many companies doing well, supporting our country and growing Ireland’s new business culture.

Wish us luck for the National Entrepreneurial Business Awards.

For more information visit the National Entrepreneurial Business Awards website.

By STAR Translation Services.

In an ever-changing networked global economy, there is a growing demand to stay on top of international business and technology trends and practices. The Executive Online Certificate in Web Globalization Management offered by the John Cook School of Business at Saint Louis University offers professionals the opportunity to learn cutting edge skills to conduct international e-business in a networked global economy.

It is an ideal program for anyone looking to gain valuable web globalization management skills to succeed in a dynamic global economy.

Designed for professionals involved in international business, information technology, e-commerce, marketing, communications, translation and general e-business, the program provides the skills necessary to improve capabilities for achieving global success through culturally consistent global communications, as well as the skills needed to plan, develop and maintain multilingual and multinational websites.

Get ahead by taking your web globalization management skills to the next level in this new program designed by top academics and experts.

To learn more about the program that allows you to earn an executive certificate from your own home, at your own convenience, please visit www.globalizationexecutive.com.

Following our article Writing to buyers – An analysis of Gobbledygook, here is a small follow-up taken from the same book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, by David Meerman Scott, about the overuse of words in news releases and company-authored articles.

Dave Schmidt, VP for Public Relations Services at Smith-Winchester, Inc., has conducted a survey about the overused words and phrases he’s seen, and wanted to find out if editors agreed that these phrases were actually overused. Here are the three main results he found:

• “Leading” (used as an adjective): 94% of editors think this adjective is overused. “Since everybody wants to be the leading something, there are no longer any true leaders.”
• “We’re excited about/pleased/thrilled”: 76% think this phrase is overused, and not very appropriate for a company’s spokesman quote. “You need to quote your spokespeople with words that you would like to see in print”.
• “Solutions”:  68%. It is now probably best avoided.

Every time you write, you have the opportunity to communicate and to convince people. At each stage of the sales process, well-written material combined with effective marketing programs will lead your buyers to understand how your company can help them.

This article has been inspired by David Meerman Scott’s excellent book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, which we recently had the pleasure of reading, and strongly recommend.

Do the phrases scalable, world class, robust, easy to use, flexible, next generation sound familiar to you? Have you ever gotten bored of these redundant and extremely standardized phrases? If so, it’s hardly surprising, as these adjectives are likely to be found in most marketing websites nowadays. David Meerman, with the help of Factivia (from Dow Jones), conducted an analysis on approximately 388,000 news releases in a nine month period, and found out that  over a fifth of them contained at least one of these words (the winner being “next generation”, which had been used 9,895 times).

Meerman invented a name for these boring adjectives:  gobbledygook.

How did we get to such poor writing?

To Meerman, it can be summed up in a few words:

“Marketers don’t understand buyers, the problems buyers face, or how their product helps solve these problems. That’s where the gobbledygook happens.”

By not using a closer approach to the buyer, these companies deprive themselves of the opportunity to convince people that their product is the right thing to buy. Also, it doesn’t make any of them stand out from the crowd.

The phrases above denote the vocabulary used by a certain kind of business. But the lesson is for all types of companies:

“Avoid the insular jargon of your company and your industry. Instead, write for your buyers.”