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Video Translation – Keeping Up With Multilingual Content in 2022

It’s no secret that videos have become the most popular choice for content consumption today. Barely a day will go by without you watching a video, whether it’s on your smartphone when commuting to work, or on your laptop at home.

YouTube has over two billion users with more than one billion videos watched per day, so it’s no surprise we are bombarded with content. 86% of online marketers rely on videos to promote their content, while according to Hubspot, 61% of businesses used video as a marketing tool in 2016, but that number has now increased to 86% in 2022.

Multilingual content

With all this content being created, it’s no wonder that the demand for video translation is also rising. There’s no point in having great video marketing content about your company if the people in your target market can’t understand what you’re saying!

Video translation is quite a complex process that differs from simple text translation, and normally requires a team of experts. First and foremost, you need professional translators, one for each language you want to translate your video into. As with all professional translation projects, you’ll want people translating into their mother tongues.

For most online uses, subtitles or closed captions at the bottom of the video is the preferred option. According to Facebook, 85% of the videos viewed on its site are watched without sound, so captions are crucial for being able to follow what is said (subtitles assume the audience can hear the audio, while closed captioning assumes the audience cannot hear the audio).

How does it work?

There are various steps to the video translation process:

  • Transcription: first you have to transcribe the dialogue as well as any other relevant on-screen text in your video.
  • Timestamping: when your transcribed file is ready, you need to timestamp the text to make sure it appears at the right time in your video.
  • Translation: the transcribed text is then translated into your target language, and adjusted to make sure the target text also appears at the right time in your video.
  • Subtitle/caption files: once you have the text in the target language, it needs to be put into subtitle files so that the text can be displayed on the screen as the video plays.
  • Video editing: the last step is to integrate the translated files into your video file.

This is quite a simple overview of the video translation process, but it shows that there is quite a significant difference between this and a simple text translation. And we haven’t even delved into voice-overs either!

In an earlier blog post, we talked about transcreation, and with promotional texts or adverts in video format, you may find that this is what you need to get the message across, adding another facet to the translation process.

Whatever your requirements, if you want to broaden the reach of your video content, get in touch with us at EDMF to see how we can help you conquer those foreign markets.

Transcreation – How Cross-Market Copywriting Helps Businesses Globally

Transcreation – How Cross-Market Copywriting Helps Businesses Globally

Industries evolve over time. It’s a must, because if you don’t, or can’t, you find yourself left by the wayside.

While transcreation isn’t a new concept in global business, it is certainly now much more in demand by our clients at EDMF. Let’s take a look at why.

What is transcreation?

Coined from the words “translation” and “creation”, transcreation could be construed to mean creative translation, or perhaps cross-market copywriting. In reality, you have translation on the one side, transcreation on the other, and between the two you will find marketing translation.

Sometimes, just translating the words you see in front of you is the right idea. This can be the best approach when translating a technical manual, when what matters is that the reader understands what the exact equivalent of a particular component is in their language.

Yet other times, opting to translate like this will bring you up very short indeed. It’s not only the meaning that needs conveyed, you have to take into account cultural differences and harness them for mostly marketing purposes. It is no surprise that this is often required mostly with advertising or promotional texts, and also with websites. A complex website translation, for example, may well require translation, marketing translation and transcreation, and can involve several translators working together.

Why do I need it?

When you ask for a text to be translated, you obviously want it to have the same impact on your target-reader audience as it does with your original audience. That’s a given. But sometimes finding the equivalent word is not enough. Transcreation digs that bit further and looks at the emotional reaction triggered by a text, with a view to eliciting the same response in the translated language.

This is where the language professional is given freer rein than they might with conventional translations. Since it’s not so much the words and their literal meaning that count, but what effect they have on the reader, the transcreator is able to stray from the original text in order to achieve that goal, possibly even recreating everything if need be.

Transcreation in practice

One good example of transcreation is Intel, who changed its English slogan, “Intel: Sponsors of Tomorrow”, to “Intel: In Love with the Future” for its slogan in Brazil, because they had realised that in Portuguese this would otherwise imply the company would not deliver promptly as promised.

Transcreation in websites can also involve using different colour schemes or layouts, and sometimes it can even impact on the product. Red Bull, for example, changed the colours of its energy drink when entering the Chinese market. It switched to red and gold because these colours are deemed to bring good fortune in China.

I need transcreation. Where should I go?

There are many examples of companies who failed to do their research and had to rebrand newly launched products as a result, throwing money out of the window in the process. But with a bit of forethought, and the right partner, you can avoid the pitfalls with taking your product or service to other countries.

Contact EDMF today to find out more about how we can help promote your brand in today’s global market.

Untrained Translation Businesses Dilute Busy Market

Untrained Translation Businesses Dilute Busy Market

If you’re interested in the current state of the translation businesses in Hungary then we recommend you read this article published by the Budapest Business Journal, where our managing director Douglas Arnott also gives his professional views on the business.

Untrained Businesses Dilute Busy Market
Read more:

EDMF-Translation-Interpreting - GDPR

15% discount on privacy policies and other GDPR-related translations

The looming deadline for GDPR compliance, 25 May, has come and gone.

Judging by the flood of emails we have received in recent days and weeks it seems that everyone has been focusing on making sure they are as ready as they can be for the new European data protection law. We hope you made it through unscathed.

Does that signal the end of your preparations? Possibly. It really depends on your business. If you focus only on companies and clients in your own country then the likelihood is you can sit back and relax, you’re finished.

If, however, your clients, partners and employees come from different countries, the chances are you now need to get your privacy policy and many other GDPR-related documents translated. This will make sure that everyone understands exactly what data you use and for what purposes, regardless of where they are or what language they speak.

If we can help you with the languages you now need to complete your preparations, please send us a mail at contact@edmf.com.

Refer to this short article and we’ll give you a 15% summer discount as well until the end of August.

Expat-Press-Inter-Relocation-Expat-Support-Stuart-McAlister-new-vice-president-1

Business translations: a client’s perspective…

In our new series of interviews we ask company owners, senior executives and leaders how foreign language, translation and interpreting affect their daily lives and work.

Globalisation means that working with international clients, customers and partners is more common than ever before. But is it possible to work in a foreign market without the right tools? Are professional translation services important to businesses?

We sat down for a chat with Stuart McAlister, Managing Director of Inter Relocation, one of Hungary’s leading providers of relocation destination services, to find out what it’s like coming to a new country where you don’t understand a thing the locals are saying, and how knowledge of the language can impact on a business.

When you came to Hungary 23 years ago, can you remember your first impressions of the country?

Business Translation-Interview with Stuart McAlister owner of Inter Relocation

1995 and 2016 in Hungary

I moved to Hungary in the summer of 1995. My first impressions were a mix of amazement, excitement and probably a little fear as well. It was my first time living away from the north of England and to say that Hungary came as a shock is an understatement. Of course a shock to any system can have a positive influence and I think that is true in my case.

I think I know what you’re getting at, Hungarian has a reputation for being a difficult language to learn? How did you find it?

I certainly struggled at first. Back in those days it was far more difficult to be an expat without speaking Hungarian at least at a reasonable level. Nowadays almost every shop and business and certainly every restaurant and bar, has English speaking staff, but back in the mid-90s there were only limited and usually expensive options if one wanted to live an expat life without learning the language.

My good fortune was having a flatmate for 4 years who did not speak English. My American flatmate and I had a spare room and ended up letting it to a friend of a friend who only spoke Hungarian. Being forced to attempt communication with someone every day was an incredible experience and gave me the boost so that I could at least have conversations. Once I had the foundations of language knowledge, building on top of that was far easier.

Many people no doubt have had similar experiences to you. In your business you deal a lot with expats coming to Hungary from all round the world. How daunting can a lack of Hungarian be when living and working in Hungary?

I think it’s far easier now. Many or perhaps even most of our customers join international workplaces, so communication at work is easy. Likewise it is possible to shop, eat, drink and get a wide range of services in Budapest, without the need to speak Hungarian.

However, that also makes it far harder to learn Hungarian because there is far less motivation and frankly far fewer opportunities where an expat is forced to build a basic knowledge and then develop that.

I actually like to meet expats living in other parts of Hungary. They remind me of the struggles I went through in the early years and I admire their efforts to learn the language.

What about translation in your business? What kind of translations do you regularly need? Why is it important that these are done professionally?

Business Translation-Interview with Stuart McAlister owner of Inter Relocation

“This requires a far more complex set of skills and we know we can rely on EDMF for this kind of support.”

We have two types of translation requirement. Firstly, we are obliged to request official translations for any immigration application we make for a client.

Secondly, we generally need editorial content or marketing texts, some of which we commission for our sister publication, Expat Press Hungary. For this kind of work we turn to EDMF and for a very good reason. Any article that is written for Expat Press in Hungary must read as if it were originally written in English and for that to be possible, we need far more than a simple translation and copy editing service. The translator must actually feel what is trying to be communicated in the source language and change the editorial text in English so the message is the same but the words sound like they were originally written in English. This requires a far more complex set of skills and we know we can rely on EDMF for this kind of support.

That’s good to hear! Translation can be a tricky business, especially when you don’t understand the target language. Before working with EDMF did you ever have any bad experiences with translation for Inter Relocation, can you tell us what impact this had?

Absolutely. Several years ago, we decided that a German language version of our website would be good for business. We had an agency translate the text into German and I was told this had been copy edited as well. No one on our team spoke German at the time so I could not check it.

Whilst I trusted the agency I decided to get a second opinion on the text and asked a German friend to review the translation for me. That friend completed a quite extensive round of copy editing, which certainly raised concerns in my mind about how “German” the German language version of the site sounded.

My fears were confirmed when some time later a partner and friend from the relocation industry in Germany called to tell me that he had read through the German version of our site and to say the least, it needed a lot of work.

Biography:

Business Translation-Interview with Stuart McAlister owner of Inter RelocationStuart McAlister is a British citizen who has been based in Hungary for around 20 years. Stuart studied business at Sheffield Hallam University and worked as a government administrator, TEFL teacher and IT trainer/manager before discovering the world of relocation in 2001.

He founded his company, Inter Relocation in 2002 as a small destination services and immigration compliance provider in Budapest. From humble beginnings with a staff of 3 the company grew both locally in Hungary and then outbound over the following years to the point where Inter Relocation now delivers relocation services in 23 countries across Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2017 he was elected for the Vice-President of the European Relocation Association.

One of the cornerstones of Inter Relocation’s business model is the provision of in-house immigration compliance and over the last 16 years, Stuart has gained a broad knowledge of the immigration process and challenges across a diverse region encompassing both EU and non-EU states.

Between 2002-2012 he worked with the Robert Burns International Foundation to manage the annual Budapest Robert Burns Supper. This is a major charity event, run by volunteer business people. They have raised over EUR 500,000 in the 12 years the Supper has been running in Budapest.

EDMF-Translation-Interpreting-Language-Services-Lokalisation and SEO-3 Flags

How to improve your international SEO strategy? – Part 3

As promised in our earlier articles, we now continue our analysis of the importance and benefits of localisation and SEO translation.

A company that is growing around the world has an increasing number of international requirements to satisfy. How can it create a global website for this? Should it keep an existing one, or create localised versions?

Here are a few tips to improving your international SEO strategy.

Know your target audience

The majority of web users do not speak English. The quality of your translation, localisation and international SEO strategy determines whether or not you will win business.  Know your audience’s language, slang, concerns and everything they prioritise.

Quality translation

Improving international SEO depends heavily on the quality of the translated web pages. Despite dedicating a lot of time to planning and reviewing translations, leaving the actual job to machines will likely result in localisation errors. Efficient and quality translation requires more than just loading words into a software programme, which focuses just on their literal sense.  Involving human expertise in the translation process is very important. This is the only way to ensure proper syntax, meaning and consistency in your translated content.

Optimising keywords

Anyone visiting your website does so via regional search engines (Facebook pages, Twitter hashtags, etc.). Different audiences find your company in different ways, so you are best advised to use the most appropriate keywords and expressions. After compiling your list of keywords and expressions, you can integrate them into your online content, and use them in the meta data.

Use country-specific domains (hu, co.uk, fr). As you would like to expand your company on an international scale, it is worth buying the upper-level domain names for the individual regions where your web pages will run. This is probably the most effective way of being able to optimise a website for an international audience, whilst making sure that the target audience can actually find it. The audience understands the suffixes of the given country, and the domain conveys the information that the website will be understandable for them. The search engines rank these websites in higher positions for the audiences in these countries.

Of course, this not a one size fits all scenario, multilingual websites can be created in many different ways, and what you ultimately choose depends on your given situation.

Localisation and multilingual SEO are not easy to blend either, and if you take the wrong path this can cost you time and money. That said it is important that you know all of the options out there in order to make an informed choice.

Fact is that multilingual online content helps companies grow and be competitive. Optimising and localising websites as well as SEO are key parts of this. This is all impossible without quality translation.

An experienced translation agency saves you the hassle of addressing these problems as it is capable of blending these aspects into the translation process for your website.

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Court document translations no longer need certification

CHANGE IN LEGISLATION! – Court document translations no longer need certification

The new Act CXXX of 2016 on the Code of Civil Procedure entered into force on 1 January 2018. In accordance with the new legislation it is enough to provide “simple”, i.e. not “certified”, translations of documents pertaining to newly launched civil lawsuits.

Procedures have been simplified based on the new legislation and there is no longer any need to use the services of the OFFI (Hungarian Office for Translation and Attestation Ltd.) for certified translations of documents created in civil lawsuits. It is now enough if you use the services of reliable legal translators or translation agencies. Of course, only those that comply with the provisions of Decree 24/1986 (VI. 26) MT on translation and interpretation.

Wording of the new legislation:

Section 62 [Need for translation in lawsuits]

For lack of any law, binding European Union legal act or provisions of an international agreement to the contrary, if translation is needed then a simple translation may be used. If there are any doubts regarding the accuracy or completeness of the translated text, a certified translation shall be necessary.

The intention to establish a system that curtails OFFI’s monopoly and which is in harmony with the European translation market is thus reflected not only by a European Union regulation but also by this Hungarian law.

The rules for paying translation and interpreting fees in advance have also been amended.

Section 79 [Advance payment of costs]

(2) Unless otherwise provided for by law or in a binding European Union legal act or in an international agreement, the fee of an interpreter assigned for purposes other than evidentiary procedures shall be paid in advance by the party creating the need for the interpreter.

(3) The expenses of a translator assigned for purposes other than evidentiary procedures shall be paid in advance by the claimant.

Further provisions of the new law related to translation and interpretation:

Section 67 [Formal elements of authorisation]

(5) A Hungarian translation of authorisation issued in a foreign language shall only be presented if required by the court.

Section 171 [Appendices to petitions]

(2) At least a simple Hungarian translation shall be enclosed with any document compiled in a foreign language.

Section 320 [Provision of documents]

(1) If a party wishes to prove a factual statement with a document, the document shall be enclosed to the submission or presented at the court hearing. At least a simple Hungarian translation must be enclosed for any foreign-language document. If there are any doubts regarding the accuracy and completeness of the translated text, a certified translation shall be necessary; failure to do so means the court will disregard the document.

Section 600 [Launching legal action]

(5) The court may only oblige a party to present a certified translation of any enclosed document if facts cannot be clarified in any other way.

All the legal translations we do are carried out by professionals with experience in the given field.

Do you have any questions about legal translations? Get in touch with us.

EDMF Translations - multilingual websites

Why does your company need a multilingual website?

 Sixty-three percent of global brands reach more clients after increasing the number of languages available on their website

Facts – Most of the world’s largest websites offer more than one language, generally two, but some even have a hundred languages. Sixty-three percent of global brands reach more clients after increasing the number of languages available on their website. Why? Because investing in languages helps enterprises to grow and enhances their competitiveness (as confirmed by CSA Research). Unfortunately, this is a message still to reach 37% of the world’s leading brands.

Has it reached you yet?

EDMF Translations - multilingual websites

Multilingual online content: English and Russian the leading languages

Demand for online content in more than one language has risen dramatically nowadays. Currently, 53.6% of websites are in English. The next most popular language is Russian, at 6.4%.
This leaves millions of web users on the outside, unable to read a large part of online content because they don’t understand the language. This of course is exploited to the full by those who speak English.
And even if someone does speak English, there are many different levels of fluency. Most people prefer to handle their business activities in their native tongue. The demand for translated content is only going to grow in future with the rise in online users, especially in China and India.

Multilingual SEO – the Google example

And there’s more. Translating online content is a great thing to do, but what is it worth if people cannot find it? Does it matter if your website appears on Google’s first search page in English if you are targeting other languages? This is where multilingual SEO comes into play, which is more than just keywords. Multilingual SEO is vital nowadays for people to find your company.

Mobile optimisation

Alongside improving your website it is vital to optimise the content for mobile devices. Today it is often true that more people browse sites on their mobile phones. This goes beyond even multilingual websites. According to the International Data Corporation, 3.2 billion people will be able to access the internet this year, and more than 2 billion of these online users will be on mobile devices. This is why it is worthwhile ensuring your website can be accessed properly on mobile devices and tablets.

 

Why our new website is the most exiting move for our company in 2017

Why our new website is the most exciting move for our company in 2017

Moving to a bigger office

EDMF is proud to announce the launch of our new website, which coincides with our move to bigger premises. Almost twice the size of our previous office, and with modernised equipment and infrastructure. We look forward to welcoming our partners and customers in our new central Buda location.

Why our new website is the most exiting move for our company in 2017 EDMF Translations' new office

Our new website provides a clear message: who we are, what we stand for, and the values we focus on when delivering and completing translation and interpreting projects. The website also boasts a clean design and an intuitive and consistent site-wide navigation system with improved menu functionality. Which directs you to the information most relevant to you.

It is also fully responsive with mobile devices, making it easy to navigate through on a wide range of web browsers and portable devices.

EDMF Translations - Why our new website is the most exiting move for our company in 2017

Blog that improves your business

You can sign up for our new blog right on the homepage, and access the articles that matter to you most by using the smart topic filters. Going forward, we will continue to communicate regularly through our blog and provide new articles and information.

The blog articles will help you understand the translation industry more clearly. And see how we can benefit your business in ways you might not have imagined. We’re really proud of the new website, and feel it will create the experience you’re looking for when you pay us a visit. Check our blog HERE.

Why our new website is the most exiting move for our company in 2017

Please leave us any feedback on our website. That may be helpful to us in making it as user-friendly and functional as it can be. Website feedback can be submitted to contact (at) edmf.com, through the live chat, or through our Contact Us page.

The power of social media

Follow us on social media too to find out about all of our company news first-hand, or to get in touch – we’d love to hear from you, let us know what you think!

EDMF Translations, Hungarian poetry day

National Poetry Day in Hungary

11 April is National Poetry Day in Hungary. The excellent Hungarian poet Attila József was born on this day, which has been National Poetry Day since 1964. Let us commemorate the great poet.

(You can read more about him here: http://bit.ly/1TsHSfe) For those who love poems, we particularly recommend the following beautiful poem by Attila József, as translated into English:

Hungarian poetry day, Attila József

Photo source: Wikipedia

Attila JÓZSEF: Lullaby

The sky’s blue eyes are falling shut,
shut, too, the house’s many eyes;
fields sleep beneath their coverlet –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

Ants rest their heads upon their knees,
the drowsy wasps are in a daze,
their business and buzzing cease –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

The streetcar snores, its rumbling
dozes, forgetful of the days,
but rings its dream-bell, ding-a-ling –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

Asleep the jacket on the chair,
its torn sleeve dozes where it lies,
this day no further will it tear –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

The whistle snoozes, and the ball,
the woods and picnic holidays,
the favourite choccie-bar, and all –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

Distance, glass marble of the skies,
you will achieve in all your ways,
you’ll be a giant; close your eyes –
and go to sleep now, little Blaise.

A soldier, fireman, you will be!
shepherd, you’ll lead wild game to graze!
Mummy herself drifts off, just see –
so go to sleep now, little Blaise.

Translated by: Zs. Osvath; F. Turner