Why Website localization in India is Necessary?

Why Website localization in India is Necessary?

India is known to be a land of diversities and we have all been witnessing these diversities at every instance of our life here. In a country which is so, versatile websites can never be of international standards as they don't appeal to the consumers here. A personal touch to the websites is very essential as it deals with cultural sensibilities of our country there by developing the e-commerce. 

When it comes to the world's largest democracy India beats every other country on the globe. It has 22 renowned languages with more than 100 verbal dialects. Even though English is broadly spoken and unstated in the business world of India, purchaser demand is quickly raising among Indian population sections that favor the use of Hindi for various purchasing websites.

Key India Market Statistics

India's Gross Domestic Product is $1.131 Billion with annual growth around 7.5% and internet population of 81 million. The amount of time a person spends online in India is directly proportional with the age of the user.

Insights into Indian Consumer Values

Family and Luxury Brands: Family bondage is very imperative to the Indian consumers. Resources are usually shared between family members. Brands such as Van Heusen, Tag Heuer, high-end chocolates, and perfumes too are gaining immense attention within India. Gone are the days when these items were sold and brought primarily from abroad. Today, you name the brand and India has it all. 

Movie

-India is a country that is highly impressionable by Bollywood, which endorses fashion in 
clothes and other activities.

Price

The consumers here do not want to be tagged as cheap, but the price is an integral factor in decision-making. Hence instead of looking for the lowest price, people here look for the best value for money.

The Hindi Language

Over 18 crore, people speak Hindi as their first language and over 30 crore people speak it as their second language. This makes Hindi as the third most spoken language in the world.

Cultural Considerations for Indian Website Localization

 An ancient culture like India has a huge list of symbols and icons that carry integral cultural 
meaning. It is essential to be aware of them in order to prevent any cultural blunders and 
inadvertent use of offensive symbols. For example, Feet, are considered untidy, the head is 
considered as the temple of the soul, Pointing with a finger can be mistaken as an offensive 
move and must be duly avoided.

The Color Used in All Indian Websites 

Definite colors bear definite meaning and represent characteristics of Indian culture:

• Yellow – Vendor
• Pink - Femininity
• White - Mourning, Unhappiness 
• Red - Fertility, Purity

If these aspects are duly taken care of, successful website localization in India shouldn't seem to be a herculean task!

Generating Indian SEM and Indian SEO for Optimal Search Rankings 

At time of planning the Indian website localization, researching about the linguistic and 
cultural aspect of the targeted region and market place is important. When it comes to 
localization of keyword listing, it is quite a different process from standard translation. 

You must make sure that the website localization company that you are hiring has the needed knowledge and understanding and comprehends your wants in order to carry out these services. With understanding and experience of job’s goals, your website localization agency can offer you with fitting localized Hindi keywords that will make sure that your Indian website content is optimum for different Indian search engines and can create utmost search results.

No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.

Free Online Translation: The Risks You Might Be Playing With!

Free Online Translation: The Risks You Might Be Playing With!

Nelson Mandela once very wisely remarked that when you speak with another in a language that they understand, it goes to their head, but when you talk to another in his own language, the same goes to his heart. In this growing world of commerce in which the trends of globalisation and liberalisation have a strong influence has greatly helped in broadening the sphere of economical operation. With such incessant growth of the global market and international connectivity a growing need for language translation mediums is recognised. People often rely on the free translation machines available on the internet to help them save the cost of translation or either because of the non-availability of other resources. Due to these reasons it may come as no surprise that around 200 million people used Google’s free online translation services in 2013. Many of them used it mostly for professional purposes.

Due to the easy and free availability of this simple medium of translation it is only natural that people will use it to their advantage. But little do they know that the same is not free from risks. They continue to use it without thinking about the damages these tools may cause to their business.

Risks involved

The free translation may lead to miscommunication, unintentional cultural insults and on a more drastic side; it may even result in loss of your business. 

     Miscommunication

A word which is recognised in your language may not be recognised in the language the word is being translated into. Also, it is important to understand that some words also have two meanings which may be completely opposite to one another and require a good understanding of the language to be able to conclude which meaning is best suited to your situation.

·    Cultural Insults 

There is also a risk of making unintentional cultural remarks which may have an innocuous meaning in one language but a derogatory and insulting meaning I the other. In such a case you may end up being guilty of damaging your business interests by emotionally hurting your co-partners, clients or colleagues.

·    Loss of business 

When you enter your confidential and sensitive data into the translator box to translate you may cause an irreparable damage to your business or your business interests.  Accessing the translator to translate confidential information using an unsecured public Wi-Fi puts your data at risk from others. Further the information may also be used by the online translator providers in a manner they desire.  The online translators may claim that they hold no ownership of your content but at the same time it is very explicitly stated in their privacy policy that by submitting data by using the translator you give them a worldwide authority to use and store your information in any way they please.

Confidentiality is the upmost priority for any business and to save you from such breach from cybercriminals and frauds, it is a safer and wise option to use professional translation services than relying on free translation services which comes with many risks hidden up its sleeves.

No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.

How Translation Services May Help You With Good eCommerce Reviews

How Translation services may help you with good e-commerce reviews

The earth is one giant village and is home to people of various cultures. Globalization has not only encompassed it into one, but also brought it closer in ways that has made life for everyone easier than anyone could even imagine.

Every aspect of life needs one to communicate with people that speak languages that are not the same as ours. One cannot live in a nutshell and ignore the necessity of being able to communities with people from other nations.

Being able to reach out to people of various dialects is not just merely an added advantage but has become a necessity especially when it comes to businesses that deal with foreign consumers on a daily basis. This of course takes eCommerce right up to the charts as the traffic for such business may come from any one across the world as the web gives such business's a world platform.

Often people from other countries tend to face problems when it comes to reading about products online. The reviews may be in the language of the country of origin but what happens when people from other countries want to read up too? Well, they don't have any other option but to let it be as no one would go through the problem of sitting down and translating the entire thing, the world wide web is supposed to be easy and not troublesome. If a website offers the service of translation their consumer base will surely expand from just national to international too.

There are various ways that one can bridge the language gaps, it can be overcome in such a way that it doesn't affect the sales in any way just by adding in the services of translation. Just this service could bring in consumer traffic to your site like never before.

Things that ecommerce sites must keep in mind:

1. Before starting to make up a back end code for various languages, the company must do an extensive study of who are the people that bring most traffic to their sites. Keeping this in mind the translation could be available in those few languages.

2. Have content that is valid for people across nationalities. What may be acceptable in one area may not be acceptable in another.

3.There is no need to have the same languages of the various regions that may follow different grammar, people often think whether to follow American English or British English, the main aim is for the message to be understood and both can be sent out in either and the reader will surely understand.

A good service is what brings people back to any store; just like that good service is what brings back customers to websites too. Hence it is very important that sites open up doors for everyone from all nationalities so it helps them grow well and make profits and at the same time customers enjoy a sense of satisfaction returning for more.

No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.

Guidelines For Globalizations And Localization: Is There A Need For Language Restriction?

Guidelines For Globalizations And Localization: Is There A Need For Language Restriction?

The whole world has become one big global village with the boom of the ever friendly World Wide Web. One can easily say that it not only has made things economically friendlier but one of its biggest advantages is that it has brought countries and more specifically cultures close to one another.

Globalization and Localization

Earlier one could only dream of being able to witness another country’s culture but now everything and everyone is as close as we would like them to be. It is possible to speak to a person who is miles away from you and get first hand information about their country, the culture they follow, the language they speak in their ideas, their religion, their values and most importantly with the introduction of Globalisation and Localisation we have an easier access to the goods and services of the other countries. Globalisation has impacted India in a very magnificent way as it has introduced us to the Western lifestyle of the people of the West and with that their various social structures and systems adhered to and followed by their people. One of the important aspects of Globalisation which has now become very localised in its approach is the introduction and establishment of the influence of the western education, the western clothes and the western ideas and thoughts. The concept of Globalisation has also influenced the Indians to try their hand field of business promoting a change in its sectoral economic engagement from primary sector to the tertiary and secondary and spreading among the people the importance of graduating with the very Americanised MBA degree which again is no longer confined only to the states of America but has come barging like the wind through the windows of every Indian household. Even the food that we so fondly eat is majorly the delicacies of various other continents and states and it is the effect of globalisation that we can enjoy them.

Further it is important to remark that globalisation is not the increasing dependency on foreign products but the opening of new horizons by making available to the citizens a plethora of option sin every field of life to choose from making it an important aspect of our life. We often see that globalised products are used in mixture with the local products like for example; often do you see people wear an Indian cotton kurta with jeans which are an American invention. This mixture is the result of globalisation which has become localised in today’s world. Many are of the view that globalisation has in a way done damage to our own domestic cultures as people tend to pick up the cultures of other countries, but how can one be well aware if he/she is just isolated in their own cultures. Recently German was discontinued in schools in India as Sanskrit was to take it place, but where is the democracy if we don't have the right to choose. Being able to learn a new language not only helps us immensely in the world outside but also helps us to understand the culture and ways of various people around the globe.

No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.

Painless Software Localization – Here is The Key!

Painless Software Localization – Here is The Key!

Software had made many changes in easing our lifestyle, automating out industrial needs and performing routine tasks in much controlled way. Technology has grown leaps and bounds that it has spread to the whole world like a virus at a much quicker pace. As the world advances with it, the language becomes a great barrier to deploy the software that serves a certain purpose. The computer programming language is pretty universal and can be adapted across geographies as it is driven by specifications. It is the Human Machine Interface, otherwise called as the Man machine Interface (MMI) that poses a big challenge with various languages spoken in the world, some with dialects and some without. In this article we will have a quick look how to adapt the localization principles for developed software projects in ease of use for other cultures and regions.

When to start localizing software

Localizing a software is not as easy as translating a piece of document. A document is a product which is translated by an expert after the document is produced. Whereas localising software needs to start when the project is initiated. It needs to run parallel with the design and interface specifications of the product that is being developed. The GUI interfaces need to be universalised and notations needs to be worked out as part of the project design phase. The product is in the making when the localisation is performed unlike traditional document translation. And localising a software product doesn’t end with translating from one language to another for the language strings, but it involves rigorous testing methods and integration of dictionary tools to roll out successfully.

Process to perform localization

Localise to fit the culture

Localising of software should blend with the look and feel of the final product. It has to fit in with the cultural perspective. This involves cultural assessment and evaluation of linguistic tools required for the localization. The localisation also needs to take into account of the way the scripts are written or read. In some languages, they run from right to left like in Arabic and in some they are read from top to bottom. So the software design that is performing the localization should take this in to account in the layouts and designs of forms.

    Create glossary and grammars

Creation of a glossary of terms and any grammar and thesaurus tools needs to be planned for in a software localisation project. Software caters to various domains and multiple human groups so a well document glossary should be factored mandatorily. They should help in understanding the targeted language.

    Translate not just the language but the user interface

As said already, software translation is not just redefining from one language to another, but is a cultural fitment of the product. Hence the product needs to adapt them into re-sizeable user interfaces for forms and dialogs, support of local fonts, localisation of graphics, scripts and media files containing audio, video and other textual representation of objects.

    Quality, Testing& Delivery

Finally comes the building of the localised project along with its language files, help manuals, glossaries, meta-data files and testing them under textual, audio visual procedures to ensure the software is completely fitting the local environment and culture. Even the audio should align the local slang of the culture for a successful localisation.

Words you need to know about Foreign Language

Words You Need To Know About Foreign Language

Someone once said that learning a new language is like becoming a whole new person. True actually, language is for communication, what light is to the world. Simply put, you limit your life when you limit your language skills. Like riding a bicycle for the first time, you jump on and take off, you may fall but you learn to balance yourself along the way. Grammar, vocabulary and diction will help you balance and hone your language skills.

Number of words you need to know

The thumb rule is to plan yourself; use the Pareto principle,do the 80 - 20 rule.The Pareto Principle is very clear, Italian engineer and philosopher Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto observed and researched plants and animals for a considerable length of time before drawing a conclusion, known as Pareto’s Law. It works out as follows: in the cycle of life for many actions, approximately 80% of the effects usually come from 20% of the causes. In other words, with regard to work or study, 20% of your efforts can bring in 80% of the results.

For this to work, we need to understand 95% of words commonly used in a foreign language. When you go about grasping this, the remaining 5% comes to you through contextual situations and experience in the language.

As exasperating as it is trying to figure out the right tools and methods to learn a new language, there is something even more vexing, none of the numbers and statistics on this subject are the same, they are all impossible to nail and thus  keep you confounded, varying  from source to source.

The basic foundation should include

With any foreign language, at the foundation level, you will require to know a basic 250 - 300 most frequently used words of the native speaker. These words are the ones you will be using 65% of the time. On the other hand, it has been noted that 2000 - 2500 words form 90% of what is used all the time.

Of course, the million dollar question is what are those 300 words? There is no magic answer; the jury is still out there on this one. Each language has its own parameters and that is the beauty of it. You learn with practice.

However, for your learning ease, supported by facts and research that is out there, we have listed the category of baseword groups we feel are important to any language you want to learn.

        . Animals

·         . General nouns- objects, articles, singular nouns

·         . Transportation- land, air, sea

·         . People – relationships, genders etc

·         . Food- local, cuisine this is very important

·         . Beverages

·         . Body

·         . Clothing- man , woman, children

·         . Location-  places, areas

·         . Colors

·         . Months

·         . Society- to include religion, money, culture, genders etc

·         . Home- furniture,

·         . Nature – sea, river , ocean, trees

·         . Materials- metals, glass, wood

·         . Measurement and math

·         . Seasons

·         . Number

·         . Time- to include days of minutes, morning, week, months, year etc

·         . Verbs

·         . Adjectives

·         . Pronouns

Each language is unique to its region and dialects can differ marginally from place to place even within a country, so there is no hard and fast rule per se. All you can do is bend and adapt, take Chinese, for instance, it has approximately 370,000 words, English on the other hand has 171,476 words, Dutch 430,000 words and French 100,000 words. As you can see each language varies and with it the number of words you need to learn may run the gamut. So do your math and apply yourself to the task with the dexterity of a gymnast and the willingness to learn.


No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.

Being Bilingual and Being a Translator

Communication is the most important skill in any area of work, so whether you are a polyglot or a bilingual, you are half way to honing your skills. However, you walk a thin line here, knowing a language and perfecting grammar and diction are two different things. Just because you are bilingual does not automatically mean you are a great translator. Let us address each one by one, first by clearly defining the bilingual and the translator and then assessing how they are different.

 

Being Bilingual and Being a Translator

Who is a bilingual?

A bilingual person can communicate in two languages but not necessarily to a degree of professional competency. Do note that language has four expressions: speaking, reading, writing or listening; of these four modalities a bilingual may have one or more skills. Hence the extent of competency may not be as much as that of a professional translator.

Did you ever translate a song or a piece of literature from one language to another? How good was your translation, if you are a native speaker it would have been easy, if not you would have had an uphill task. Sometimes communication has been known to get lost in translation and we mean literally. A small goof and the whole sentence can mean something different. Every language has its quirks, typical of the country of origin. Hence culture, colloquial trajectory, the interplay of words, vernacular jargon, euphemisms and many other factors comes into play when speaking a language. A native speaker or a language expert may be able to translate best what a bilingual cannot.

Who is a Translator?

A translator is a professional with a thorough grasp of the source language that they must translate in. A translator must possess certain key skills, chief among them the ability to understand the language in its totality. A translator must have thoroughly grasped the fundamentals in the four modalities: speaking, reading, writing or listening. Of course, when a professional translates the other factors to be taken into account would be the culture of its origin, and translating from a plethora of dictionaries and reference materials to consistently provide perfected material in a language that is accurate and precise in its translation. Therefore the most critical quality required of a professional translator would be the ability to read and write in the source language.

The skills could be clearly defined as:

• Meticulous knowledge of the source language to be translated
• Familiarity with its culture
• Extensive vocabulary
• Clear and concise expression in translation in the four modalities

The subtle difference between bilinguals and translators! 

The difference between being a bilingual and a translator can be vastly depending on the person concerned. But in most cases it is as simple as the difference between a professional and an amateur. A translator has the knowledge and expertise alongside the experience to deliver communication that is clear and concise in written or spoken form. A bilingual may or may not be able to translate like an expert for a very simple reason; the grasp of the language may not always be up to the mark and there may be a lack of ability to write in the source language. That is the very distinct difference between understanding a language and perfecting it. Factors to be considered would be analyzing the language, spelling, grammar, diction; every language has its rules. The key is to understand and implement them without the source language ever losing its essence.

A bilingual can translate a message to a different language, but may not be able to faithfully do so with justice, whereas a translator would interpret the source language as is and translate the message without ever losing the truth of the words they are translating. Thus we can distinguish between a translator who is a professional and a bilingual. 

No material contained in this blog may be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission of Rephraserz Media and Communication Services. The information published in this blog is own property of the company.

© Copyright 2015 Rephraserz Media and Communication Services.