Translators often ask themselves why they receive so few positive responses to their quotes for projects. The fact is that the translation industry is highly competitive and there may be dozens or even hundreds of bids for a single translation job.

What should translators do to get their quote past the screening stage and, ultimately, to win the job?

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Things you SHOULD do:

Read the project description attentively: do you meet the job poster’s specifications? If you do not, don’t waste your time or the poster’s.
Write a brief and to-the-point cover letter. Bear in mind that it will get only a few seconds’ attention during the first screening. Sum up the important information in the first paragraph: your language pair(s), native language, qualifications/experience, output per day/week, rates, payment terms, and your webpage or online professional profile. If you feel there is more important information that the poster should know, include it AFTER the initial summary paragraph.
Personalize your response: tailor your cover letter to the poster’s requirements. If you know the project manager’s name, use it. Make sure you spell it right and use the proper title (Mr. Ms., etc.); if you are not sure of the person’s gender because the name is foreign, take the time to find out. If the language you are writing in has “familiar” and “formal” forms, use the formal address.
If the poster emphasizes a particular issue (e.g., location, experience, availability, software, and so on) be sure to address it in the body of your cover letter, preferably very near the top.
Follow the instructions in the job posting to the letter. If candidates are asked to mention the job number, language, rates or anything else in the subject line of the email, be sure to give exactly the information requested.
When you are ready to deliver your quote, make sure you’ve included everything the poster has requested: your proposed rate (or rate range), CV, certificates and/or samples of your work, if requested. Sample translations should not violate confidentiality: consider using your translations of public government documents, model contracts, a paragraph from a document you have already translated (redacting any identifying information first, of course) or even a short text that you have chosen yourself to highlight your skills. If your translation of a book has been published online, don’t hesitate to include the link.
Send it to the person specified by the deadline given, and send it to the address specified, whether it is the agency’s email address or the response service of the platform the job was posted on.
Spell check, and then spell check again every time you make a change. There must be NO spelling errors!

But it’s not enough to tick all the boxes of the “SHOULDS”; just as important to winning that project are a few things that you SHOULD NOT do.

Apply for projects for which you are not qualified, whether it’s a matter of the field of expertise, software used, rates, or any other specification in the job posting. Not only will you waste your time (which is your prerogative), you will also waste the project manager’s time, and you will not get the job. Worse yet, you may end up being flagged as a time-waster and future bids for projects you ARE qualified for may be discarded before they are even read.
Ignore the poster’s instructions about subject line information. Instead, include it somewhere in the body of your cover letter (see number 3, below).
Write a cover letter that reads like a novel. Job posters may received hundreds of cover letters; if they can’t find the information they need at a glance because it’s buried somewhere deep in your 15-paragraph cover letter, you can be sure that it will end up in the virtual version of the circular file. If you make it past the first screening, the client can always contact your for more detailed information, if required.
Ignore the poster’s request for your experience, qualifications, rates or availability. Refer him to your webpage or online professional profile.
Send your information to the HR department of the job poster’s company instead of the poster himself.
Send your CV with a colored background or in a colored font. These may cause readability problems.
Send a one-size-fits-all cover letter and CV to multiple potential clients regardless of the particular project you are quoting on and copy it to undisclosed recipients in a mass mailing.
Misrepresent your abilities and experience. Not only is this the road to professional ruin for the translator, it can be disastrous for your client once you have been entrusted with a project.
Fail to do that final check to make sure you have met all requirements regarding the subject line, request for specific information and/or documentation on qualifications, rates and experience, cover letter information, CV format and samples…and fail to do one final spell-check and proofreading before you send it off.

There are many factors at play when a project manager entrusts a project to a translator; just because you did not win this project does not mean that you will never hear from the poster again. Should the poster contact you to let you know you were not chosen, thank him politely for letting you know. Consider this an opportunity to offer yourself for future projects and ask him to keep your information on file for anything suitable that might come up. You may hear from him sooner than you think!

International e-commerce: When marketing in English only isn’t enough

Today, the world can be your global marketplace, thanks to e-commerce, the buying and/or selling of goods and services over the internet or via other electronic services. The proliferation of B2B (business-to-business) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) web portals and other marketing platforms has made it possible for companies and individuals across the world to shop for, compare and choose exactly the products they are looking for, and has motivated businesses ranging from small, home-based mom-and-pop operations to some of the world’s largest multinationals to market their products to target audiences across the planet.

Yet reaching your potential customers and then getting them to actually buy your product is far more nuanced than you might at first imagine, and language plays a highly significant role in the customer’s decision to choose your product.

This highly important issue – which is often overlooked, underestimated (or, sadly, even ignored) by companies engaging in e-commerce – was highlighted in a recent survey (Can’t Read, Won’t Buy: How Translation Affects Global E-Commerce) conducted by independent research firm Common Sense Advisory (CSA Research).

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This survey included more than 3,000 global consumers in 10 countries where the official languages do not include English: Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Turkey. These countries were chosen because either they have big economies, large populations or they speak a language used in several countries). The survey was conducted in an official language of each country, but respondents were also asked to rate their own ability to read English. It looked at consumers’ online languages preferences and how these impacted their purchasing decisions. Factors such as nationality, English-language proficiency, global brand recognition, and the ability to conduct transactions in local currencies were taken into account. A market research specialist firm handled the survey and data collection, while CSA’s statistician reviewed the raw data and ran a series of calculations and correlations to determine the results.

The results showing the importance of marketing in the local language were clear:

consumers spend more time on sites in their own language
consumers are more likely to buy at sites in their own language
people prefer products with information in their own language
most consumers prefer products in their own language
most buyers will pay more for products in their own language
language becomes more of an issue when buyers need help
all nationalities agree on wanting customer care in local languages
language affects behavior throughout the customer experience.

Only in a few cases (for example, consumer comfort buying in other languages varies by nationality, lower prices matter more than local language in some countries, and buyers more proficient in English feel more at ease buying in English) did the results seem to favor English-language only marketing, although these characteristics tended to be restricted to certain countries or those who felt themselves to be proficient in English.

Other findings from the survey include the fact that 30% of the respondents never make purchases from English-language sites, and another 29% do so only rarely. Half would prefer that at least the navigation elements and some of the content appear in their language, while 17% of these feel strongly that this should be the case. Conventional industry wisdom says that potential customers flee mixed-language websites, and this survey has definitively shown this to be simply untrue.

The survey’s results are certainly surprising to the many global marketers – both consumers and companies – that have generally been operating on the assumption that potential customers with basic English skills are successfully targeted with either the original English-language e-commerce portal, or with an English translation of the portal’s original language content.

Based on this unexpected outcome, Common Sense Advisory points out that website localization (which results in culturally appropriate translations tailored to the target audience) is indispensable to any company or individual wishing to sell more of its products to its potential global customers and, indeed, must be part of the strategy to provide a positive user experience and engage potential customers in a brand dialog.

Seseo, ceceo and distinction…or why Spaniards “lisp” and Latin Americans do not

Posted On September 3, 2014By TranspanishIn Did you know?, Spanish Language/ 6 Comments

One of the questions frequently posed by students of Spanish concerns the so-called “lisp” that can be heard from most, if not all, Spaniards when speaking Spanish: Why do Spaniards “lisp” (and some seemingly more than others) while Latin American Spanish speakers do not?

There are three important concepts that must be understood in order to answer this question: seseo, ceceo, and distinction.

“Seseo” (pronounced “seseo” in both standard Castilian and Latin American pronunciations) is the word used to describe the pronunciation of the letter “s” in all positions, the letter “z” in all positions, and the letter “c” before “e” or “i” (aka as the “soft” c) as a voiceless alveolar fricative. This variant is standard in Latin America and can be found in the Canary Islands, as well as in some parts of Andalusia.

“Ceceo” (pronounced /seseo/ in Latin American Spanish and /θeθeo/ in Castilian Spanish) is the word used to describe the pronunciation of the letter “s” in all positions, the letter “z” in all positions, and the letter “c” before “e” or “i” (aka as the “soft” c) as a voiceless corono-dentoalveolar groove sibilant. Though this sound lacks an official symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it is usually represented by either [s̄] or [θṣ]. This sound is unique to certain areas of Andalusia.

Modern distribution of seseo, ceceo and distinction in Andalusia.

Finally, “distinction” is the maintenance of the phonemic contrast – the differentiation in the pronunciation – between the letter “s” in all positions (pronounced as either an apico-alveolar retracted fricative (chiefly northern or central Spain) or lamino-alveolar retracted fricative (remaining areas)) – and the letters “z” in all positions and “c” before “e” or “i” (aka as the “soft” c) as a voiceless interdental fricative. This pronunciation is considered standard Castilian Spanish and is the basis for Spanish orthography.

The answer to our question of why Spaniards lisp and Latin Americans do not is tied closely to the history of Spain’s exploration of Latin America.

At the start of the century that saw Columbus reach America, Spanish had eight different sibilant phonemes. By the sixteenth century, they gradually began to merge and eventually simplified into three, two (the third was the sound represented by the letters “j” or “g” before “e” or “i”, and is not relevant here) of which corresponded to the letters “s” in all positions, the letter “z” in all positions, and the letter “c” before “e” or “i”. This simplification was not consistent throughout the Peninsula, and the process that took place in Andalusia and in the Canary Islands gave rise to new sibilant and non-sibilant sounds that were exclusive to those areas that eventually resulted in the phenomena of “seseo” and “ceceo”. It was the speakers of the former that made up the larger part of sailors and emigrants to the new lands, bringing with them the seseo-based linguistic variants that would form the foundation for the Latin American variants of Spanish, in particular coastal variants.

At the same time, a different phenomenon was taking place in Andalusia: ceceo. In many parts – particularly the south and west – the two phonemes /θ/ and /s/ merged, creating the sound [s̄] ([θṣ]), which is close, but not identical to the standard Castilian [θ]. While often considered a marker of low socio-economic status, speakers may show sociolinguistic variation, switching between ceceo and distinction due to sociolinguistic pressure in certain settings, using, e.g., ceceo among family and friends and distinction in professional or public settings.

Month: September 2014

Translation events in October

Bid on a translation job — and win it!

International e-commerce: When marketing in English only isn’t enough

Seseo, ceceo and distinction…or why Spaniards “lisp” and Latin Americans do not

Telephones:
United States: 1-866-597-5526
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E-mail:
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Month: September 2014

Telephones: United States: 1-866-597-5526 Argentina: 54-9-11-6372-6069

E-mail:info@transpanish.biz

Telephones:
United States: 1-866-597-5526
Argentina: 54-9-11-6372-6069

E-mail:
info@transpanish.biz