While digging through piles of newspaper in my folks’ house, I stumbled upon a great article in the NYTimes Magazine that provides a glimmer of hope for both literacy and heritage tongues. It amazes me how new the written N’Ko alphabet is, relatively speaking. More importantly, as much as people protest the degradation of writing skills from the truncation involved with texting and now Tweeting, there is some reassurance that SMS can in fact enhance the vitality of a language and encourage more people to learn how to read and write. Technology is not the enemy in this case. In centuries past, languages were kept going by Bible translations. That’s not to say that missionary work is not still relevant. Rather, cellphones are a much more universal tool with benefits beyond interpersonal communication. Now, the main obstacle is affording the equipment and developing the firmware, something we tend to take for granted in the developed world. Perhaps all the mobiles phones that have been tossed aside for swankier smartphones can be repurposed for indigenous languages.

The blog post raised another fantastic point –

Whether a language lives or dies, says K. David Harrison, an associate professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, is a choice made by 6-year-olds. And what makes a 6-year-old want to learn a language is being able to use it in everyday life. “Language is driven from the ground up,” says Don Thornton, a software developer in Las Vegas who specializes in making video games and mobile apps in Native American languages. “It doesn’t matter if you have a million speakers — if your kids aren’t learning, you’re in big trouble.”

Regardless of the language spoken, the vitality of a language and the multilingual capabilities that give people an edge in work and life hinge greatly on early childhood learning. Kids seem to soak up everything like a sponge, hence why we are loathe to use bad language around them. If a society want traditional languages to survive, it is crucial to include it from day one. My mother used Italian as a secret language with my grandparents when I was young, and I started understanding it around age seven. If only I had started earlier, maybe I would have more fluency and comfort. Imagine what could be done for endangered linguistics!

From all of us in the SpeakLike team, we wish you and yours a happy holiday season! We have had a very busy year and are looking forward to exciting and great things in 2012.

Did you know that The New York Times has a blog on grammar, usage, and style. In a world of text-speak and changing educational standards on writing and grammar, it’s heartening for me to see one of the primary papers of records (and yes, my paper of record) scrutinize not only their facts but also the structure and style of their articles. Two days ago they published some of their errata related to foreign words in articles. It astounded me that their error rate can be as high as 50% for non-English words.

Part of the reason I’m having a problem getting my head around this is, there are so many “foreign” words that have burrowed their way into the English language. New York in particular is a hotbed of linguistic mashup. I’m also shocked that spellchecking did not pick up mistakes in spelling or accentuation.

In any event, it’s easy to lose something in translation even when you speak the same language. It’s so important, in my humble opinion, to ensure that people young and old are equipped with the right tools and training to write clearly and understandably so that the message does not get clouded by the delivery.

There’s no doubt that Twitter has become an international icon in social media, providing a way for people around the world to spread information far and fast. Although English remains Twitter’s first language, Yahoo news reported on a recent study by social media monitor Semiocast which suggests that the popular social website is becoming more global.
In the past year, tweets in Arabic have jumped from 99,000 per day to over two million per day. Other languages have also made incredible gains, such as Thai, which grew by 470 percent during the same time period. The estimated 5.6 billion tweets used in the study included sixty-one languages!
Getting your company’s message out through social media like Twitter can be more effective through tailored localization. Speaklike can help you reach a broader and more global audience by offering business-quality translation for your company’s online presence. From translating websites to blog posts, and even tweets, Speaklike’s services let you communicate more accurately to more people
faster than traditional translation services.

As the world gets smaller and even the most isolated cultures open up, more works of literature are being translated to reach new audiences.

The Chinese government is supporting China Publishing Group’s effort to translate 500 classics of social science literature, one of the largest projects of its kind in modern China. China’s biggest publishing house is adding to its existing collection of foreign works to further academic and cultural development. In light of the inconsistencies in English language education, the translations could serve an important role in exposing Chinese students to social science writings from other places and times.

Meanwhile, in Cairo Humphrey T. Davies is hard at work translating Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s
Al-Saq ‘ala al-Saq. The award-winning translator is tackling this complex book, fraught with archaic language and obscure references, to increase accessibility and exposure to a masterpiece that many in the Arab world have heard of but few outside of academia have actually read. Al-Shidyaq, one of the first Arab novelists and a modernist ahead of his time, has never been translated into English, like of the literature in the Arab world. Many of his ideas on freedom of expression and human rights will resonate with participants and observers of the Arab Spring; this project could not have come at a better time.

Finding talented translators who can bring works to life in other languages help spread art and thinking, which makes the world a more interesting, and more educated, place. It can be a small(er) world, after all.

Adam Gopnik commented on a recent article in The New Yorker that there are no dead languages. Treating languages like they are dead, he explains, is akin to “studying biology today purely in terms of species living now.” Yes, most students learn that there are animals and plants that no longer walk the earth. I would disagree, though, that most biology classes not focused on evolution keep the extinct in mind. Following that logic, there are very few language classes out there for languages that are spoken in limited context, let alone not spoken at all, with the notable exception of Latin and classical Greek.

In fact, there are many efforts to keep endangered languages alive. Mark Abley chronicled many of these efforts in his 2003 book Spoken Here. Even in India, there is some concern that their competitive advantage in English language fluency could stifle the other existing languages and dialects. Here in New York, there is a great example of a “regular guy” contributing greatly to grassroots language revival of Irish Gaelic.

A world where everyone understands each other is a lofty ideal. However, this should not necessarily come at the expense of local cultural and linguistic diversity. Losing the different abilities to express one’s self would make the world smaller, but also a more boring and less vibrant place.

At SpeakLike, we love new ways of looking at how people communicate. That’s why we think
the map of Twitter users by language is so cool. Eric Fischer, the map’s creator, used data collected by Google Chrome to illustrate Twitter’s global nature. The images are striking.
English, shown in gray, is densely packed into the Anglophone world, with some Spanish and French
noticeable in the United States and Canada. The attached article points out some other surprising
information, as well. Despite the Chinese government’s official ban on Twitter leading up to the
20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests in June 2009 and the existence of an alternative, state-run microblogging service, people there are still managing to tweet, as can be seen in the substantial green glow (Chinese) along the country’s urbanized eastern seaboard.
While at first glance, the map suggests that many users are divided along national lines, the high
resolution version with tiny, multicolored points in metropolises indicates cosmopolitan, multilingual
cities across the world. It’s clear that having a Twitter presence in only one language limits businesses’ ability to reach as many potential customers. SpeakLike can help companies reach their audiences around the world by providing Twitter translation. Just choose the language and which tweets should be translated and begin expanding your group’s reach today!
Here’s another map of where SpeakLike’s Twitter followers are located.

Allowing businesses to create their own content to meet their customers’ demands is essential in today’s world, and social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have helped companies reach their clientele more directly than ever before.

Recently, the Financial Times reported that Google has moved to broaden the appeal of its social network, Google+, by adding a Pages feature for businesses. Although this feature is only a first step towards making Google+ competitive with deeply entrenched Facebook, it shows how the ongoing drive to connect companies and their customers online is becoming stronger and stronger.

Business are eager to connect with some of Facebook’s 800 million users or the younger Google+’s 40 million, but without localizing content, social marketing misses out on reaching foreign customers. Social networks, like the people in them, are international. Facebook and Google+ are available in well over 40 languages.

SpeakLike provides services in fast, business-quality translation, allowing companies get the most out of social network marketing. Check out our Facebook page, which shows examples of our Twitter translation in action. Coming soon, our Google+ page will be ready

The SpeakLike team was quite busy over the summer making lots of improvements to help our customers get the right language translation when they need it.

Choose what’s most important: quality, speed, or price.
SpeakLike now provides choices for each translation request. Balance requirements for the quality level, turnaround time, and price.

Pick your quality level.
With SpeakLike you get human translation, not machine translation. Still, the quality of human translation can vary. Some translators use better sentence structure and spelling. Other translators address more subjective requirements, typing just the right phrase for a particular meaning. Now with SpeakLike, you can choose the level of quality you want, from good enough to ready-to-publish.

Discount price, good enough quality
Choose our lowest priced service, as low as US$0.06 per word for language translation, for good enough quality not required for business communication. Because this service accesses our largest pool of translators, one will often see really fast results (our average turnaround is only 1 hour). Although sometimes the wait is longer, so if a translation is needed in a hurry, choose a faster option. For marketing content or other important business communication, please plan to review and edit this content or ask for a guaranteed double-pass.

Request a review and edit for better quality.
Select double pass to have a qualified SpeakLike reviewer edit the document before it comes back. A slightly higher price and some additional time provides higher quality.

When do you need it?
A SpeakLike order can also be configured based on how fast you need your translation. Each level takes a higher priority in our automated system. Our team monitors translation activity and makes sure urgent work gets the attention it needs.

SpeakLike specializes in fast translation, including real-time chat translation (in seconds, not minutes) or customer support email messages in minutes or hours. Customers can even partner with us to process more than 10,000 – 15,000 words per day, in hours.

Use our select group of professional translators.
Access a select group of our most highly rated and trusted translators available for many of our languages, but these requests might take more time. For special language or content requirements, such as marketing or financial language, we can put together a custom translator group.

Try our new translation form right on the homepage for an instant quote on your next translation. For each option there is listed a price quote and estimated delivery time, and you pay only for what you purchase (US$5.00 minimum).

Call us at +1 212-497-7590 or email us at sales@speaklike.com for any questions on these options or to learn more about how to configure custom services that meet your company’s on-demand language needs.

Two weeks ago we discussed how the sound and “design” of a name can affect the success of a product or service. Since then, we have found a few more examples that hit home. Today, presentation and first impression in a new language or audience is so vital in international business today and very heavily determines how brands are perceived. Companies looking to grow in new markets need to localize for success.
This article, about differences in Latin American Spanish dialects, illustrates how important it is to make sure your message is tailored for your audience. Accidentally using words or phrases that have different local meanings, like telling a Texan and an Englishman you left something in your boot, can lead to humorous situations. When it comes to work, however, it’s best not to take chances.
Likewise, many companies are working hard to rework their brand names when entering the Chinese market. In China, as in many countries, the names and the sounds are important. According to this article, businesses like Tasty Fun (Coca Cola) and Precious Horse (BMW), among others, have worked hard to make their brands sound appealing to local consumers. Having high-quality, localized translations and resources to help translators use consistent phrasing, like those that SpeakLike offers, can help you avoid embarrassing mistranslations and faux-pas in front of your customers. If you’re produce cleaning products, you don’t want to accidentally call yourself Mr. Chicken Meat!