First, let us define what localization is. Broadly, localization is taking one material and transforming it into something that is understandable and relatable in a different culture or region. This means that localization is all about adaptation. When localizing something, you will be looking out for concepts, symbols, and words that would not fit into the target culture or region. This means adapting the original product into something that looks as if it was not created in a different country entirely.

For example, this can be something as simple as general design. When looking at an ad or commercial, for it to be successfully localized, you will have to make sure that the info displayed (i.e. numbers, date, time, etc.) are all changed into the appropriate format. If you kept the dollar sign when changing an advertisement for your product for an audience that does not use USD, they would be confused about how much the product actually costs and if it is even sold in the country that they’re in.

Internationalization is different than localization in that it focuses more on trying to universalize settings. Internationalization can be thought of as a typically more “under the hood” kind of process, where you will focus more on the coding side of things. This means focusing on hard-coded strings, concatenation, and finding out what is supported in Non-English input and output. If this is not taken into account, anything that is displayed is at risk to not display correctly. Internationalization is therefore more of a system focused on making sure that the software itself has no problem being used in different languages and thus focuses a lot less on linguistic errors like localization is.

There are more subtle nuances between internationalization, but it will be easy to remember the overarching difference between the two if you just remember that localization focuses more on the linguistic aspects of things while internationalization focuses more on the software that the localization will use to display or function.

Let’s look at a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company that uses translation services as an example. For such a company, consistency and accuracy in software strings become more important than ever: a single confusion in a software string can be quickly multiplied by the combinations of strings, leading to a lack of clarity in software. Therefore, terminology management is particularly relevant in software localization.

In this new reality, terminology management becomes an invaluable tool for ensuring that the word or a term you use – from industry-specific jargon to marketing tag lines – are clear, consistent, and do not have competing definitions.

Terminology management simply means adopting a systematic approach to the words and phrases you frequently use. It often requires providing clear definitions for the relevant terms and categorizing them in order to create a standardized vocabulary.

There are numerous advantages to systematically managing terminology.

First, it allows ensuring linguistic consistency and accuracy by referring translators and content-producers alike to a single, standardized vocabulary of terms.

Second, terminology management is a great way to save time and resources as it helps minimize errors, reduce revision times, and streamline the translation process, thus allowing for greater re-use of previous translations.

Finally, with many user-friendly options readily available today, ranging from off-the-shelf tools to custom-built platforms, managing terminology becomes an easy process whose benefits multiply as your translation projects grow in scale.

In short, terminology management offers many benefits that are within easy reach and extend well beyond the initial investment. It helps keep your written output clear and consistent, so that everybody is on the same page!

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to request a quote from us.

Enjoy the video clips capturing some of the fun activities during the event. Two interpreters won the raffle prizes offered by Monterey Language Services. With the award-winning wine, they can enjoy it with their loved ones, and say to each other in Spanish “Te quiero!” and in Mandarin “我爱你！” (“I love you!”).

Language services can be as fun as the raffle! Monterey Language Services provides comprehensive, quality, professional and efficient translation & interpretation services in over 175 languages (we are also constantly adding new languages according to our customers’ needs), including:

• Medical Interpretation (in person/phone/video remote)
• Conference Interpretation (consecutive/simultaneous)
• Translation (hospital/business)
• Multimedia (subtitles/voiceover)
• Localization (website/software)
• Medical Interpreter Training & Evaluation

We guarantee that the quality is as good as the wine!  Increase your hospital’s service quality by partnering with us!

But translating a CMS-based site requires a special approach. The content of modern dynamic websites is not stored in a single file, and it cannot be simply downloaded and sent over to a translator. Thus, an entire localization engineering process is required to first extract the source text, then reintegrate it back in after the translation is complete.

Plug-ins do exist within some CMS platforms to assist with this process. They allow pages to be linked together as multilingual equivalents. However, full integration requires extensive engineering work. While most translation companies do not have this capability, Monterey Language Services does. Monterey Language Services’ localization technology and global localization platform streamline the integration process to ensure that our translation is properly applied within your site.

Furthermore, we can translate not only the surface content, but also the meta data of your site. That will ensure your site’s SEO (search engine optimization) functions in all of its intended languages, serving to attract new visitors and help your site succeed in international markets. That’s right – We translate and localize your SEO content so that your website will rank high in other countries and markets!

We can also monitor the updates you make to your site and update our translations to match, so that all of your customers are presented with the most current information.

With our skilled and experienced team, we guarantee the successful translation and implementation of your website, no matter the content or language, with no extra hassle or effort on your end. Just leave everything to us.

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.

Objective: Your Silicon Valley business wants to expand business operations overseas by marketing to international clients. You need to train your multilingual employees to increase their technical know-how and sales skills. You have corporate messages to send to your employees worldwide.  Perhaps you are a high-tech Web media company, a Silicon Valley bank dealing with international clients and transactions, or an international law firm dealing in patents, trademarks and copyrights, private equity, venture capital, and commercial litigation. For clients working in biotechnology & biotechnologies research, medical devices, surgical systems, semiconductors & semiconductors memory and equipment, fiber optic components, entertainment, design, consumer publishing, social gaming entertainment software, business information, and consumer information technology, they all market to prospective international buyers and investors in the most interesting forums and conferences.

Monterey Language Services feels fortunate to have contributed to the success of many of these types of conferences for our Silicon Valley clients. We particularly enjoy interpreting in a forward-thinking and bustling region like Silicon Valley.  To be continued…

Monterey Language Services strives to provide the highest quality of translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us for a quote.

To put this into perspective we can look at a hypothetical situation. Let’s say a business established in the United States is opening a branch in German. In order to sell their product they will need to transform their whole website from English to German. Instead of making a whole new website for the German branch the smart thing to do would be to invest in a website localization service. Technical and translating experts work hand in hand to ensure that the web pages, hyperlinks, navigation bars, animations, and audio/video are all at a perfect translation from the original English version.

At Monterey Language Services we can help you with all of your localization needs, as it is one of our specialties. In fact, we are currently working on an interesting project which involves localizing 14 very different languages including German, Chinese, Tagalog, Finnish, Canadian French, Turkish, and Indonesian.

JAWS stands for Job Access with Speech, a software that uses speech synthesis technology to help the visually impaired enjoy numerous computer applications, programs, and even surf the web. The first version was released in 1989 by the American computer programmer Ted Hunter, who lost his sight in a car accident. That basic version has been updated immensely since then and now has windows support and even its own version of iTunes.

It’s nice to see technologies such as JAWS growing and getting more complex. Computers are one of our best sources of communication and should be available and easy to use for all.

Monterey Language Services watches the development of technology closely since it is such an important part of our work. In a way, the above-mentioned software localizes the computer programs for the blind. In this same spirit, Monterey Language Services offers software translation and localization services. We are currently working on a project to localize software into 14 different languages. In addition, we offer video-conferencing services for communication between two remote parties.

MLS team members are professional, dedicated and passionate about languages and foreign cultures. We are oriented towards finding the best words for the best translations. As individuals, we take pride in being cultural communicators and in promoting international understanding.

Offering translations from every language into English and vice versa, our company plays an important role in cross-border business communication. We provide translation, interpretation, copy-editing, proofreading, website localization, software localization, multimedia transcription, dubbing, subtitling, foreign language desktop publishing, and more.

At MLS, resources abound to work with foreign languages. Our network is global, and yet locally we are within easy reach of the top language experts in the world. The language history of this area is showcased in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, where immigrants of almost every ethnicity worked. The area has developed into a hub of translation and interpretation education and services. MLS captures the essence of what the Monterey Bay Region offers.

The firm’s website www.montereylanguages.com contains numerous blogs by team members.  Here we recount our experiences working with languages and display a wealth of understanding of how language expresses culture in different parts of the world.

MLS handles all your languages needs professionally. For translation of documents, interpretation for diverse settings or for any other language or culture-related services, email us at info@montereylanguages.com and find out how we can help you:

•    optimize and better formulate your ideas, arguments and concepts
•    enrich your personal or your company’s profile, story or presentation
•    increase your personal or your company’s marketability