Latinos and the Nonprofit Sector

Posted On November 26, 2009By TranspanishIn Latinos, Spanish Language/  1 Comment

With the Hispanic segment of the U.S. population growing rapidly, it’s no wonder that retailers have begun to sit up and take notice of this group’s influence; however, it’s undeniable that the non-profit sector needs to engage Latinos as well in order to advance their agendas.  Hispanics have a great deal to offer nonprofit organizations in the way of volunteerism and monetary contributions, but just as corporate outfits must modify their advertising approach for the Hispanic market, non-profit organizations must also find new approaches to actively engage Latinos.  “A launch into the Hispanic market is essential to any organization’s survival…but it’s not something that can happen without proper planning and thought.” [1]

One of the key means of reaching out to Spanish-speaking donors or potential volunteers is by securing a professional translation of all copy such as brochures, press releases, and fundraising letters.  While many Latino communities in the U.S. prefer information in English, be sure to provide literature that shows sensitivity to the traditions, norms, and other cultural subtleties that are unique to your prospective donors or volunteers.  Avoid using the same English-language materials that were developed for your non-Latino audience.

While traditional written materials are a mainstay of any fundraising or volunteer campaign, the power of the Internet and social media should not be overlooked.  According to Vanguard Communications, a public relations and social marketing firm based in Washington, D.C., “The number of Latinos using social media is growing exponentially, but the number of organizations tweeting in both English and Spanish is still fairly small.  A Facebook fan page or Twitter account dedicated to your issue is a popular mechanism for providing Spanish-language updates and action steps and promoting the offerings through your other outreach efforts.” [2]

A nonprofit organization looking to establish loyalty toward its cause must focus on getting to know its audience, encouraging involvement and demonstrating a commitment to the Latino community.  “The U.S. census identifies Latinos as a young population, indicating the majority has not reached their primary giving years,” thus the development of a thoughtful strategy for capturing Hispanic donors and volunteers has the potential to reap great rewards in the future. [3]  Latinos who perceive themselves as valued, respected and an integral part of an organization’s agenda will prove to be an invaluable resource to nonprofits as they look to advance their worthwhile causes and efforts.

[1] Fundraising Success, Conference Roundup: Reaching the Hispanic Population
[2] Vanguard Communications, Understanding Trends in Hispanic Outreach
[3] Association of Fundraising Professionals, Diversity Essay: Latino philanthropy in the U.S.

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Globalization and Its Effect on the World’s Languages

Posted On November 19, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Languages/ 5 No Comments

“Globalization is a social process characterized by the existence of global economic, political, cultural, linguistic and environmental interconnections and flows that make many of the currently existing borders and boundaries irrelevant.” [1] As the process of globalization expands its reach in the 21st century and linguistic barriers begin to fall, what are the possible implications on the world’s languages?

»Impact on Minority Languages
As mentioned in this recent blog post here at Transpanish, one of the greatest casualties of globalization is the loss of some of the world’s more obscure languages. Dialects and regional languages are becoming more marginalized as they succumb to languages such as English that wield greater perceived social and economic value.

Although the future admittedly looks grim for some minority languages, globalization doesn’t necessarily spell the end for all of them. Indeed, globalization can bring to the forefront the plight of some of these endangered languages, sparking attempts to revive them. In Andean nations such as Peru, there is increasing awareness that indigenous populations require special support if their minority languages are to survive.  The Peruvian government now sponsors Educación Intercultural Bilingüe, a program that benefits speakers of the indigenous language Quechua as well as other minority languages.

»Loss of Uniformity among the Big Languages
Major languages such as English and French will likely “become victims of the Babelisation process” as these languages take on more and more local flavor in the various regions where they are spoken. Some researchers speculate that this phenomenon could lead to eventual non-comprehension between the variant forms of English. [2]

»Taking Grammar for Granted
Without a doubt, one of the driving forces behind globalization has been the Internet. With the ease of communication through digital means such as email, IM, and chat, it seems that many users across the globe have traded in style and form for speed. Use of SMS shorthand and the informal style pervasive in emails and the like have prompted some to say that good writing is gradually becoming a lost art.

» Decline in Foreign Language Learning among English Speakers
While today there are almost two billion people learning English and more bilingual individuals than ever before, the globalization of languages means that there’s even less motivation for English speakers to learn a second language.  Despite the many benefits of picking up a second language, foreign language learning in both the U.S. and the U.K. is on the decline.

Sources:
[1] Globalization 101
[2] Languages in a Globalising World, p.28-9

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Demystifying Internationalization and Localization

Posted On November 12, 2009By TranspanishIn English Language, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

Internationalization and localization are two buzzwords that are often bandied about with respect to translations and global commerce.  Internationalization and localization are actually two complementary phases of globalization, a critical process for companies with an international presence.  While these terms can apply to a pure text translation, they are most often used in reference to software development, web sites, and video games, where the user interface and images must be considered in addition to text.

The internationalization phase of globalization is integrated with the design process of a product.  The product is “neutralized” during internationalization, meaning that cultural references, language and country-specific information are removed.  Internationalization is a forward-thinking process that makes the product more easily customizable to the specific markets that the company is targeting.  According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), “Internationalization significantly affects the ease of the product’s localization.  Retrofitting a linguistically- and culturally-centered deliverable for a global market is obviously much more difficult and time-consuming than designing a deliverable with the intent of presenting it globally.”

The second phase of globalization is localization.  In the localization step, the product is adapted for the unique needs of a specific market.  It is important to note that localization is much more than mere translation.  Localization of software, web sites, etc. involves an intimate knowledge of not just the language but also the culture of the company’s target market.  Usually, this level of understanding comes from someone with a native command of a language and culture.

Although text translation is an integral part of the process, localization goes deeper to address more complex issues and differences such as:

1)    local currencies

2)    weights and measures

3)    format for the date, time, addresses, etc.

4)    cultural preferences regarding color and aesthetics

5)    adaptation of graphics to remove potentially offensive or culturally-inappropriate symbols or images

As the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) notes, “All these changes aim to recognize local sensitivities and to enter the local market by merging into its needs and desires.”

Remember that in both the internationalization and localization phases, it is important that the product pass through a testing and quality assurance step to ensure that the end result meets the client’s needs and expectations.

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Babies cry in their mother tongue

Posted On November 6, 2009By TranspanishIn Languages/  No Comments

An article published in Science Blogs reports:

Telling the difference between a German and French speaker isn’t difficult. But you may be more surprised to know that you could have a good stab at distinguishing between German and French babies based on their cries. The bawls of French newborns tend to have a rising melody, with higher frequencies becoming more prominent as the cry progresses. German newborns tend to cry with a falling melody.

These differences are apparent just three days out of the womb. This suggests that they pick up elements of their parents’ language before they’re even born, and certainly before they start to babble themselves.

Birgit Mampe from the University of Wurzburg analysed the cries of 30 French newborns and 30 German ones, all born to monolingual families. She found that the average German cry reaches its maximum pitch and intensity at around 0.45 seconds, while French cries do so later, at around 0.6 seconds.

These differences match the melodic qualities of each respective language. Many French words and phrases have a rising pitch towards the end, capped only by a falling pitch at the very end. German more often shows the opposite trend – a falling pitch towards the end of a word or phrase.

These differences in “melody contours” become apparent as soon as infants start making sounds of their own. While Mampe can’t rule out the possibility that the infants learned about the sounds of their native tongue the few days following their birth, she thinks it’s more likely that they start tuning into the own language in the womb.

In some ways, this isn’t surprising. Features like melody, rhythm and intensity (collectively known as prosody) travel well across the wall of the stomach and they reach the womb with minimum disruption. We know that infants are very sensitive to prosodic features well before they start speaking themselves, which helps them learn their own mother tongue.

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International SEO Tips to Expand Your Site’s Reach

Posted On November 4, 2009By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators, Translation Buyers/  No Comments

With companies looking to reach out to customers around the world, it’s important to understand how to optimize a web site for the international market. One of the best-known methods for improving international page rank and driving traffic to your site is through search engine optimization (SEO). Webmasters employ SEO techniques, which factor in the complexities of search engine algorithms and how people search using keywords, to improve “the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ or unpaid…search results.” [1]

Keyword density is the single most crucial parameter used in search engine optimization. The majority of SEO experts suggest aiming for a keyword density of 1 to 3 percent in your site’s text. Search engines like Google frown upon the overuse of keywords – a practice known as keyword stuffing – and will penalize a site that engages in this practice.

Just as search engine optimization is of great importance to a website written in English, it’s equally important to consider SEO when optimizing your site for other languages such as Spanish, Chinese or German. Here are some steps you can take to improve your international SEO and ensure that your site ranks well with your target audience.

1- Never use direct translation to create keywords and page titles in your target language.  Direct translation is rarely a wise idea, but even less so in the case of keywords, which “have evolved directly to serve the everyday needs of the people of a particular country,” [2] according to multilingual search marketing guru Andy Atkins-Krüger. A direct translation of a keyword may yield the correct term, but what you’re looking for is the most popular term.

2- Remember that keyword translation may differ even within the same language, especially in languages as diverse as Spanish. For example, Spanish speakers in Latin America are likely to search for “computadora” while users in Spain will use the keyword “ordenador,” even though they’re both looking for “computer.”

3- When performing keyword research for your target country, use the search engine’s advanced search feature to restrict your query by specifying the international domain extension (for example, Argentina [.ar], Spain [.es] or Chile [.ch]).

4- The most sound approach to conducting international keyword research is to hire a native speaker of the target language, as only a native will be familiar with the critical nuances that make all the difference. Include the keywords yielded through your research in your page titles, descriptions, and tags, as well as advertising keywords and links.

5- Make sure your web host’s servers are located in your target country, and secure a domain name with the appropriate corresponding country extension. A site that meets these criteria will take a major hit in its ranking.

[1] Wikipedia, Search Engine Optimization
[2] Search Engine Watch, Translating Keywords Should Never EVER Happen

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FBI’s lack of translators

Posted On November 3, 2009By TranspanishIn Languages, Spanish Translation, Tips for Translators/  No Comments

An article in Reuters reports:

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has lost 3 percent of its linguists and failed to sift through millions of documents as the agency’s workload of terrorism cases grows, according to a report issued on Monday.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies were widely and repeatedly criticized for failing to have enough linguists, especially for languages spoken in the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In addition to losing 40 of the 1,338 linguists the FBI had at its peak in March 2005, the agency now takes 19 months on average to hire a contract linguist, up from 16 months, the Justice Department’s inspector general found.

The FBI had 883 translators in 2001 and despite stepped-up efforts since then to recruit more they still face lengthy security clearance reviews which can take up to 14 months and another five months for proficiency testing.

The report also found that the FBI fell short in its hiring goals last year in all but two of the 14 languages for which it had hiring goals, but the review did not identify which ones because that information was classified.

“Failing to hire an adequate number of linguists in a timely manner adversely affects the FBI’s ability to manage the growing translation workload and reduce the current backlog of unreviewed material,” Justice Department inspector general Glenn Fine said in the report.

While the FBI reviewed all of the 4.8 million foreign language documents and intercepts it collected for terrorism and criminal cases from fiscal year 2006 to 2008, 31 percent of some 46 million electronic files were not examined, most of them collected in fiscal 2008, the report said.

Further, some 25 percent of the 4.8 million audio hours collected from wiretaps and other surveillance between fiscal 2003 and 2008 had not been reviewed, mostly counterintelligence information but also some English material, the report said.

To wade through that backlog, it would take 100 linguists and other personnel more than seven years if they worked the typical 40 hours a week, according to the report.

Included in the material that had not been reviewed were some 737 hours of audio and 6,801 electronic files — some of it in English — that were deemed part of the FBI’s top tier of counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases in fiscal 2008.

Responding to the report, FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said the agency’s translation capabilities, including hiring and retaining linguists, are better than ever before.

“I am confident that with respect to counterterrorism translation matters, we have made progress to address our collected material in a timely way,” Pistole said in a statement.

“With regard to counterintelligence collections, we are doing a careful job of prioritizing and monitoring the most important material,” Pistole added.

The FBI also disputed some of the numbers, saying that some material was duplicates. The agency also said it would be a waste of resources to translate and review every single electronic file it collects and it has a system for identifying the information in files it needs.

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