STAR TS Translation Services Blog

When it comes to communication in any language – context is really important. For good translation it is important to always let your translators know the context of the text you have provided for translation. When I talk about “arms” are the connected to people or bullets?

The Two Ronnies where masters in understanding English usage and context in comedy. The famous 4 candles sketch is simply about context.  It is a clear illustration of how the context is important when translating. Machine translation (free translation on the internet) still delivers bad translations because of its inability to identify context; this is the reason why most mistakes made by machine translation are so funny.

Why is the context important?

Context- The context influences the meaning of a phrase or a sentence. It is linked to the environment in which the communication takes place. In translation the context is very important. One word may mean a different thing depending the context in which it is used.

Understanding- To translate you need to understand the text. A good understanding is the key to an efficient translation. A sentence or a text is composed of words and phrases  – but it requires thought, comparing the sentences around it to fully understand its meaning.

Translation- Translation has to take into account the industry or field the document is used and with what it deals with. Translation/language can be different related to specific fields. The context can be technical, medical, legislative etc.

Specialization- Being able to translate specialized documentation means the translator has to have specific skills in order to understand the context and how to phrase a translation. That means that translators need to be specialized in a specific field to translate correctly. You need to understand engines for example to describe them. Knowing an engine is power by combustion and a motor by electrical power – would mean you would automatically use different words to describe how power is supplied to them.

STAR Translation Services

Building Brics

Our newsletter this month focuses on our core business of translation.

During Seachtain na Gaeilge we promoted our Irish translation services on social media like YouTube and Facebook. Meanwhile we are also focusing on expanding markets in the BRIC countries. STAR already has a BRIC presence supporting Brazil, Russia, India and China so we can share our knowledge on these expanding countries.  Finally we’ve been recognised for our quality and hard work by being nominated for 2 separate awards.

BRIC : Brazil, Russia, India and China are the hot topic of discussion in translation and export markets right now. According to the Goldman Sachs’ report, China and India will become the dominant global supplier for manufactured goods and services. Meanwhile, Brazil and Russia will become the dominant players for raw materials and energy.

STAR helps clients who do business in BRIC countries by providing translation services for Documents, Websites and Manuals. If you’re doing business in any BRIC country – STAR can assist you with your language requirements.

Want More BRIC?

What are the best languages to translate into? As a translation company we provide translation in over 45 languages including Irish from our offices here in Dublin 3. We analyzed all our translation for 2011 and are happy to publish the results for our global readers. The top 3 are:

1. German

2. French

3. Irish

As you might imagine our closest international neighbors are top with German and French being the most popular languages we translated last year. Irish was the 3rd most popular language being our native language.

For more results visit out top 10 languages page.

STAR spoke Irish for Language Week – with the launch of our “Irish Word of The Day” Videos . The short video series taught people how to speak a number of Irish words and sentences. You can watch the videos here on http://www.youtube.com/startranslation

What is the correct abbreviation for Doctor?

This week we are having a big debate about this one and we’re still not decided who won. There are multiple camps in this space.
Share your point of view with us – Which abbreviation do you use and why?

Follow the Dr. discussion here:

Budget 2012s finer details were released recently in the Finance Bill 2012 which contains a significant number of items that favour Foreign Direct Investments into Ireland such as:

• Research & Development (R&D) relief
• Foreign Earnings Deduction (FED)
• Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP)
• 0% corporation tax rate for new companies.

For further information, see Finance Bill 2012

We’re delighted to tell you we’ve been nominated for 2 separate awards for our service and social media work.

Bord Gáis Social Media Awards 2012
Our Social media work has been recognized by the fact that we are nominated in 4 separate categories. You can see all the nominations here: socialmediaawards.com

Entrepreneurial Business Awards (EBA) 2012:
For our customer services and entrepreneurial drive building our business over the last few years STAR has been shortlisted for the Dublin Entrepreneurial Business Awards!

It is fantastic to have our hard work recognized by the market and our customers so thank you all for your continued support and business.

We’re delighted to tell you that STAR has been nominated for the Bord Gáis Energy Social Media Awards 2012. Our followers will know over the last 6 months we’ve been blogging, facebooking and twittering like mad to tell everyone about translation and language. Its been really hard work, but great fun too.

Videos: We’ve a couple of great videos we produced including our learn to speak Irish videos. See our Youtube Channel.

The culmination of all the hard work is that we are nominated in 4 separate categories in the Bord Gáis Energy awards.

• Online PR Campaign
• Blog of a Business
• Video/ Video Campaign (Non-Broadcast)
• Best Business Twitter account – marketing, sales sponsored

The competition will be tough. We’re up against Jedward in one of them!

So wish us Good Luck! You can see the entire nomination list on Social Media Award 2012.

By STAR Translation Services

In Matt Cutts latest video on Google search engine optimization he warns Google will penalize sites for over optimization.

The next generation of the Google Search Engine will analyze sites that have been heavily optimized. The idea is to level the playing field for all web users.

Listen to Matt and share your opinion with us.

What do you think? Good Move or Bad Move?

We were also in Kerrykeel’s for St Patrick’s Day. Enjoy the video and photos of the parade – It is always good to share  happy memories and fun.

STAR provides technical translation services, website translation and document translation services. We are an ISO 9001:2008 Certified provider of language services. We will be please to help you to make grow your business.

For a translation quote call us +353 1 8365614.

STAR Translation Services
http://www.star-ts.com

Happy St Patrick’s Day from STAR Translation services.

This is our special video for St Paddy’s Day.
Enjoy it and share it with all your friends in the world to spread the fun and happiness.

Subscribe and share.

Website: http://www.star-ts.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/StarTranslation
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/startranslation
Blog: http://www.star-ts.com/translation-blog/

STAR provides technical translation services, website translation and document translation services. We are an ISO 9001:2008 Certified provider of language services.

For a translation quote give us a call +353 1 8365614 or visit us online http://www.star-ts.com.

STAR Translation Services
http://www.star-ts.com

This the “Irish Word of the Day” series for Irish Week (Seachtain Na Gaeilge) by STAR Translation Services.

How to say “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish
Patrick’s Day is coming soon so those sentences will be useful to some of you.

Damian Scattergood teaches you common Irish words and sentences. In this video we learn how to say “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish.

Each day, spread your love of the language : learn and use a few irish words. It is always nice to hear – even if you can only say “Hello” and “Goodbye”.

Have a look at our other Irish Word of the Day on YouTube and share them:

How to Say “Hello” in Irish

How to say “Goodbye” in Irish

How to say “How are you?” in Irish

How to say “Excuse me” in Irish

How to say “I don’t understand” in Irish

How to say “Please” in Irish

How to say “Thank You” in Irish

How to say “You are Welcome” in Irish

How to say: “Can I have a pint of Beer please?” in Irish

STAR Translation Services
http://www.star-ts.com

Abair Leat!

How to Learn Irish (and other languages)

As part of Seachteann na Gaeilge you might want to revise your Irish. Here are a few good tips to learn Irish and any other language.

1. Become Familiar with the language and its pronunciation

The best way is to listen to the radio and watch TV. You will find good TV channels to support you when learning. Watching the news or series and listening to radio shows while you are doing your daily work is also a time saving way to practice if you don’t have much time. We recommend:

-The programme “Bernard Dunne’s Bród” Club on RTE1 Monday (7.90pm)

-”Radio Rí Rá” is an online radio Station for young people that uses Irish. It’s also available as a free application if you have a smartphone.

– Radio WDAR 98.fm with Cá Bhfuil an Obair? radio Program http://wdar.ie/

2. Learn the Vocabulary

The average number of necessary words to speak in everyday life is about 400 to 1000. So you will have to take a while to learn them so that you will be able to use them to talk with anyone. When you become fluent you should be able to use the idioms of a language. To make it easier use Mnemonics to link words.

Use your imagination. So when you learn a new word the best way to memorize it is to have visualized it or even to create a short story with it.

The word serendipity which can’t really be translated in French by the way -“heureux hasard” can be related to Newton discovering the law of gravity. This example of discovery is in fact serendipity.

3. Practice the language

Join or create a conversation group to talk with on a regular basis. Learning a language is easier when using it every day. You will be surprised to see how fast you learn without even noticing the effort.

As suggested by Eoin, it is also a good idea to search YouTube for Irish language covers of pop songs. Try to find the Irish versions of your favorite songs.

4. Using the Internet

The internet is a wonderful source of content to find tools that can help when learning a language. So here is a useful list of indispensable websites that can help you to practice and improve your Irish.

-http://abairleat.kontain.com/ : The website is in Irish and you can learn and chat in Irish with the other website users. Good way to practice and to find support.

- http://www.rte.ie/easyirish/ : Learn by listening to MP3 audio file and studying conversations.

-http://www.bbc.co.uk/irish/features/8/gaeilge/ : The website is in Irish and provides various contents to learn Irish whatever your level in Irish is.

-http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/features/learn-irish-with-liam-o-maonlai-692551.html : Learn Irish with Liam O Maonlai thanks to its MP3 file and written content.

- Bitesize Irish http://www.bitesizeirishgaelic.com/ : This website offers content to learn and improve your irish.

-You can also listen to our Irish Word of the day videos on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/startranslation. and if you like them >> Share them!

If you know someone interested in learning Irish or some other languages share this article. If you know any other good websites to learn and practice Irish leave us a comment so we can add it to the list.