ENGLISH: BRITISH, IRISH,
SCOTTISH
If the original document is in American English, the document should
be "adapted" for the target English: British, Irish, Scottish.
There are, indeed, word differences between
American and the three for England, Ireland and Scotland, plus major
spelling differences. Also, the British are much less loosey-goosey
with grammar and verbs, more of a stickler for accuracy, preferring
less hype and exhibitionism in their marketing and training materials,
and having a "soft spot" for humor. For technology, there
are very important word usage differences, such as "hash key"
for the telephone's "pound key".
For the spoken word, each of the 3 areas (England, Ireland, Scotland)
have both a broadcast accent and a "street accent". The
broadcast accent is the smooth accent accepted for advertising,
multimedia and videos. The "street accent" is that which
is often use in specialty commercials or comedy to lend personality
to a marketing piece. In general, "street accents" are
never used in business multimedia or products. Additionally, British
corporate marketing pieces usually have a different "feel"
from American, tend to be more modest, and materials written in
the U.S. expanded to the U.K. market will often benefit from some
rewrite.
ITALIAN
Italy is divided into 3 basic regions: Milan, Rome and the Boot/Sicily.
Milan has a reputation of being the international business area
of Italy, Rome the trade and tourism center. For translation of
documents, technical papers, human resources and marketing materials
there is one generic Italian language in writing and speech for
all regions. Although there are spoken "street accent"
differences between the 3 regions, there is one single broadcast
accent used by voice talent for all multimedia, videos, training,
advertising and other materials.
@International Services translates
in Milan and Rome according to the project requirements, has consulting
Italian engineers, doctors and other specialists, plus records voices
for videos, CD Roms, DVDs and other uses directly within Italy.
The Italian language is straight A-B-C with no special accent marks
to cause computer software incompatibility.
The laws in Italy are quite different from the laws in the U.S.
and translated documents with legal or risk impact will often be
accompanied by notes clarifying the differences in the laws involved
in the document. These legal differences affect many technical documents,
contracts, financial papers and marketing translations.
PORTUGUESE
There are two main Portuguese languages: European and Brazilian
Portuguese. The two are not simply a difference in pronunciation.
There are major word usage differences between the two, and verb
endings (such as "ing") are not the same. Thus, a document
from one or the other is immediately identifiable. Because of the
grammar and word differences, translators from the target region
must be used. The spoken accent between the two regions is as marked
as the accents in the United States compared to Australia or England.
@International Services translates in Sao Paolo
and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Lisbon, Portugal with technical
and marketing translators of highest caliber, and review services
by engineers, doctors and other professionals. Additionally, professional
voice talents are recorded in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon
for use with multimedia, CD Roms, video and voice products. Full
lip sync recording services are also available, performed by the
same voice actors who replace the voices of American hit movies
into Portuguese.
DUTCH, FLEMISH, AFRIKAANS
There are two main Dutch dialects: Dutch for Amsterdam, Netherlands
("Holland"), and Flemish for Northern Belgium. The written
languages are extremely similar, but do have word usage differences
that cause a document's origin to be identifiable upon close study.
There is a significant difference in spoken accent. Accents for
recording include broadcast Dutch for Netherlands and broadcast
Flemish for Belgium. There are a few other Dutch accents within
Netherlands and Belgium (called "street accents") that
are not used for recordings such as videos, multimedia or marketing.
Additionally, there are two African dialects of Dutch, including
Afrikaans from South Africa.
@International Services has translation teams in Amsterdam, Antwerp,
Brussels and Johannesburg. Additionally consulting engineers, doctors,
attorneys and other professionals are available in each region.
Professional voice talents are also recorded in Amsterdam, Brussels
and Johannesburg, with the recordings returned to client via email
or CD.
CASTILIAN SPANISH (SPAIN), CATALAN
There are 11 dialects of Spanish, 10 of which are in the Americas.
Castilian Spanish from Spain is the "mother" from which
all Latin American Spanish has sprung. Castilian Spanish is very
different from Latin American Spanish, even more different than
U.S. versus U.K. English. Major word use differences abound including
technical, legal and business words. Text written in Spain will
use different prepositions and have a very different "feel"
from the Western Hemisphere. A translation from Spain is instantly
recognizable.
The spoken accent in Spain is also enormously different from the
accents of the Western Hemisphere, and the Spanish people have a
powerful preference for their own accent. Sales will significantly
increase when marketing materials are translated into Spanish for
Spain, and recorded with a voice inside Spain, and be far more effective
than translations and voice recordings from the Americas.
Spain is home to 3 other languages, one of which is Catalan from
the Northern region of Spain near Barcelona. Catalan has the same
root as Castilian Spanish, and people who speak Catalan also speak
Castilian Spanish. For business purposes, Catalan is used almost
exclusively for marketing and sales or special product localization,
never for normal business documentation.
CZECH, SLOVAK, HUNGARIAN AND EAST
BLOCK
The East Block languages include Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian,
Rumanian, Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian. Translation
and localization is provided for documents, product and software
localization, marketing, and human resources. Professional voice
talents are recorded in Hungary, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia
and Latvia.
Although these languages are based upon A-B-C
letters, most have very special accented letters that are not available
in English based graphic systems and font choices. Thus, compatibility
for fonts and character sets is an important issue to be handled
quickly at the beginning of any project. Or, @International Services
can provide all documents as PDF, or artwork as bitmap files, to
avoid preparing the client's machine for compatibility. For web
sites and web work, once the browser has been properly set to each
language set, the site will appear with proper text and accents
for properly equipped viewers.
