Technical Translation

March 24, 2018

A.I. On The Mind

Across the United States today English to Spanish and Spanish to English are the dominant language pairs in business translation. Experienced translators are kept busy working on Employee Manuals, Benefit Guides, Settlement Documents, product labels and Workplace Safety Manuals. But lately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted machine translation is being promoted as being the next best alternative in getting the job done. Machine translation, which has been around since just after World War II, is getting better and better with each iteration, and in the end may prove to be the breakthrough that we all, in this industry, fear. But, fear […]
May 2, 2016
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A Symbol that Needs No Translation: the @ Sign

History of the @ Symbol On typewriters, @ was a seldom used key, but throughout the years, this character has become one that symbolizes modern electronic communication across the globe. Did you know the first documented use of @ was in 1536, but was not really used again until 1971? Over the years, the @ sign has been used for many specific purposes, but its importance was never fully understood until it became used in the information technology realm.   How the @ Sign Translates in Other Languages In English, we know that this sign, @, means at, but what is it referred to in […]
April 19, 2016

Translating Animal Metaphors into Spanish and Other Languages

Idioms are an important part of any language. Thanks to our intimate relationship with animals, there are a large amount of animal-related metaphors in most languages. For example, humans tend to express different emotions by referencing animals. As a result, most of the idioms which include animals are terse but concise, short but comprehensive. A lot of animal idioms are found in English, Spanish, and other languages. However, since there are great differences in history, culture, geographical environment, literature, customs, religion, and ways of thinking between, for example, Mexico and China, people who speak Spanish would not relate to some […]
March 7, 2016
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Translation of Employee Handbooks & Safety Manuals

What is an Employee Handbook? An employee handbook is the most important communication tool between an employer and its workforce. It’s a statement of the policies of the business and how the employees are expected to comply with these policies. Regardless of how small or large an organization may be, running an organization without policies and guidelines is very challenging and could have legal consequences. As a business owner, you’re required to inform employees of certain rights and obligations as mandated by Federal and State regulations.  Verbally informing employees of these rights and obligations is not sufficient; the employer must […]
February 29, 2016
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Strategies for Technical Translations

It is important to carefully choose who you want to do your technical translation jobs. A good technical translator will already have experience working with technical documents — either from a variety of industries, or better yet, specialize in one industry such as legal, medlegal, medical, or academia. Experience is an invaluable asset when it comes to looking for someone to do a technical translation and this experience shows in the quality of the translation document produced. The right kind of translator should be able to tell when there is an error in the original document, for example, because they […]