Why Medical Document Translation Is Necessary
Healthcare professionals must be able to communicate effectively with their patients regardless of the language they speak. This is why the interpreting and translation of medical documents such as patient medical records and post-discharge instructions are essential for providing proper care and treatment to patients who speak another language.
Benefits of Translating Medical Documents
With the translation of medical documents, doctors and nurses will be better informed of the condition state of their foreign patients. Patients will also benefit as they are better educated on the medical procedures that they are undergoing, the risks and the benefits.
The medical documents that should be considered for translation are:
1. Basic patient medical history
2. Consent forms for medical procedures
3. Post-discharge instructions
These documents contain information essential for the best possible care to be provided by the doctors and received by the patients.
The Need for Rush or Certified Medical Translation
Medical documents have to be translated quickly in cases of emergency. A patient who is entering the operating theatre for an emergency surgery would require a translation of his or her medical history delivered promptly to the hospital. Doctors would then be aware of any pre-existing conditions the patient may have, such as allergies or any other conditions before the surgery. A prompt medical translation would be of great advantage to the doctors and medical staff as well as the patient.
The Need for a Professional for Medical Translation
The slightest margin of error in medical translation, just as poorly translated prescriptions, can lead to a perilous outcome.
Incorrect information regarding medication dosage and patient allergies can come with serious consequences. It is therefore advisable to employ professional translators skilled in the field of medical translation. It may even be compulsory for the translation to be certified by an eligible translator.
Specialized medical terms are all over medical records and this is something that the man in the street would not understand. Moreover, the extensive usage of medical terms and abbreviations would simply baffle the layman. This is where experienced experts who are familiar with the medical terminology come in and prevent errors and unfortunate accidents from happening.
Website localization – what are the benefits?
To maintain a business and keep it thriving, companies strive to maximise profits through continuous efforts. However, just operating within domestic markets is inadequate. Companies need to reach beyond the domestic markets to open up new global opportunities and the way to achieve this is to cater to the international audience.
A company's website is a first point-of-contact for international audiences. Positive first impressions will be a head start in building relationships with people and this is crucial for forging sustainable and profitable relationships with potential customers.
Website localization involves modifying an existing English, westernized website according to the demographics and cultural characteristics of a desired target market to further enhance its usability in terms of communication and accessibility.
Website Localizations brings with it numerous benefits and here are the primary benefits:
Website localization erases language barriers
Research has shown that 32% of internet users around the world are non-native English speakers. As computer and internet usage increase most rapidly outside of North America and Europe, this figure is expected to become even larger. Now companies are growing to realise this change and are taking action. To capitalise and be a step ahead of your competitors, it is essential to be in touch with the international market and the way to cross the barrier is to make the potential customers feel connected through effective communication and henceforth build credibility as an international business.
Website localization is important to build credibility
Your company’s website offers content only in English. On the other hand, your competitor has a website that offers content in all the major languages. Which website would gain more credibility? Think about it.
In a competitive global market today, localizing a website can help boost a business into a lucrative one. By doing so, it can also identify the company as an undeniable international player in the industry. Besides, localizing a website will portray the company’s recognition, valuation and respect for a particular country or region.
Website localization leads to revenue increase
Do you know that potential revenues are lost annually due to the lack of website localization? As we are moving towards the digital age, it is important to localize your company’s website as you can better connect with your prospective consumers. Through website localization, netizens will naturally feel a sense of comfort and understanding as they access the content of the website in their native language. In addition, this will potentially attract millions of new customers.
Any international business must recognise that website localization is an economic imperative. Besides the technical and programming elements of website localization, there are several cultural factors that we have to bear in mind.
Firstly, has the language been translated correctly? Secondly, have the cultural variations in terminology, phrases, metaphors and sayings been properly considered? Have the symbols, images, colour scheme and website layout been considered for their cultural appropriateness?
If you think that website localization is a straightforward process, then you may be wrong. It is a huge investment that would help your company to increase its revenue. Hence, it is important to engage a professional website designer and a cross-cultural communications consultancy to ensure the website creates an utmost impact on the target audience.
Advantages of Translation
Since its inception, the internet has served as a powerful and efficient nexus of the entire human civilisation. Furthermore, it has allowed businesses to expand beyond the borders of their countries by connecting them with various consumer denominations all around the world.
While the internet has heralded an era of convenience and advantages, language still remains an obstacle for businesses attempting to enlarge their consumer base. While English may be perceived as the de facto official language of choice in business communication, many countries remain steadfast in their inclination towards their own native language. However, translation has been of tremendous aid in solving the rampant problem of linguistic mismatch and has enabled them to communicate with fewer difficulties, and has brought together individuals with distinct cultural and linguistically backgrounds.
Why is Translation so important?
• English is spoken by merely 10% of the global population. There are untapped opportunities in the markets dominated by speakers of foreign tongue, which can be accessed with the help of translation.
• Internet adoption is rising all over the world; due to that, the popularity of online transactions has reached new heights. Thus it is vital to translate one's web content into other languages.
• In various emerging markets including, but not limited to, China, Brazil and Mexico few business matters are communicated in English. Instead, they are communicated in the native tongue. Translation overcomes the language barrier and helps in interacting with the locals.
• Literary texts, books and novels must be translated into the variety of languages to ensure that the locals are able to understand and enjoy the content of the works.
The Necessity for Medical Translations
To achieve real, tangible growth and development in technology and medical sciences, knowledge and information that we have should be made available to everyone who needs it. However, because research in these areas has mostly been written and published in English, the benefit of this knowledge is confined to English-speaking people. Other language users who are not literate in English have no access to all this knowledge, which creates a gap for medical translators to fill.
There are experts who do this. Translations of technological and medical texts are available in Japanese, Korean, Polish, French, German, Swedish, Chinese, Italian and Spanish, done by medical practitioners who know the specialised terminology in the various languages.
There are also companies that specialise in providing medical translation services. They employ language specialists and professional translators to translate medical information in scientific journals and pharmaceutical trade publications. Medical translations are also available on some medical and scientific websites and in advertisements, which is useful for hospital staff and patients who seek the information.
Before any particular medical document can be released to the public, it will undergo a stringent process of editing, whereby it is screened for quality, in aspects of grammar, as well as medical accuracy.
This strict and confidential procedure is to ascertain that all medical research and documents are appropriately translated, and that all references are true and precise; no meaning is lost through the act of translation.
During this process, no one, except for those cleared for access, is allowed to even lay eyes on the document, till the day it is published.
The field of medical translation also plays a major role in medical conferences and seminars. Here, seasoned "medical language" specialists and experts of the craft ensure that no meaning is lost through the exchange of medical explanations in different languages.
Seeing how crucial medical translation is, we cannot forgo how essential it has become in the field of medicine; and in improving healthcare - which is by itself a key in any civilisation.
Ultimately, medical translation becomes the doorway towards greater understanding of ourselves as human beings.
Website Localization and Website Translation - What Is The Process?
If you have trouble reaching your targeted audience, we can help you. Using website localization or website translation we are able to revamp your website so that you can capture the eyeballs of your audience. Firstly, we are able to use the lingua franca of your targeted audience, so that they are readily receptive to what your company has to offer. As companies look to expand their global business footprint the use of website localization is immense.
translation4u takes the hassle out of website translation. We do all the nitty-gritty work covering a wide spectrum of duties: from that of the developers to the marketing people. Even if you do not have a content management system to start with—do not fret—we are here to set up everything from scratch. All you have to do is to provide us with the source files and we will deliver files for your upload.
Our time tested quality control localization process includes:
Website Localization Analysis
We provide requirements specification, project engineering analysis, client specific process definition, and scheduling, helping you zero in on your target audience and mapping out accurate costs and timelines required to complete the scope of work.
Translation of Website Content
We ensure that the website is translated in a linguistically and culturally appropriate way. Vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, style, and level of difficulty in speech are all taken care of.
Localizing Layout and Site Navigation
Translation often means a partial or total change of the website layout. Some examples are copy that read from the right to the left, instead of the conventional left to right; whether pages should be omitted or added is another important consideration when localizing the website.
People see with pictures
Messages are conveyed in pictures because people see with them. A single picture can speak louder than millions of words can say. A proper picture, tastefully chosen, can create first impressions and influence popular opinions. This is where adapting and adjusting images to positively fit your selected audience comes in. Artistic aesthetics will give you an edge over competition because people see to believe.
People embrace the familiar
Location of people changes the way they see pictures. One picture symbol seen in Europe could have a meaning a world apart when seen in Asia. People naturally embrace the familiar and symbols need to be personalized to clients’ localization for the right welcome and understanding.
Culture in Colours
One way people see with pictures is the identification of their culture in colours. Different colours send varying signals to the same audience. Pink is trust in Korea, yellow is nourishment and prosperity in China and red in India symbolizes purity. For an accurate message to be conveyed in a picture, the right symbols and colours must be chosen and analyzed in content for appropriateness and suitability.
Fitting the good piece in the puzzle
Translation4u (www.fastaccuratetranslations.com) specializes in two skill sets of testing services to ensure that an accurate and effective message reaches your audience with the proper picture, right colour and localized symbols. We solve the puzzle of communication by finding you the right piece that fits. Functional testing will enable the localized site to work exactly and link properly as the standard English version. A analytical linguistic test completes the perfect picture by smoothing gaps in translation and keeping the consistency of the message throughout various languages.
Cutting-edge technology for the perfect picture
We give you an edge over your competition with cutting-edge technology. Translation4u (www.fastaccuratetranslations.com) is the market leader in wielding technology for localization engineering solutions and we solve the challenging puzzle of communicating your product. Our company possesses the capability of working with all Web technology as well as rich engineering experience in countless web-based applications and many web formats. With carefully picked pieces by our specialty, the right group of audience is reached out to and an accurate message is delivered. Your picture can be perfect.
The Perils of Cross Cultural Marketing
Without clear understanding of a country’s culture, cross-cultural marketing could cause embarrassing mistakes. These could damage the image of a company and its product when selling in foreign territory. Some of these mistakes, however, do serve as humorous reminder of the importance of cross-cultural awareness in translation and branding.
The following are some examples of such marketing blunders.
1. Locum, a Swedish company, decided, on the Christmas of 1991, to spice up their logo in their usual Christmas greeting cards to their customers. They replaced the “o” in the logo with a heart, resulting in something more than what they had intended.
2. Matsushita Electric, a Japanese PC computer, was promoting a new PC to Internet users. A new web browser was created by Panasonic created and they bought the license to use Woody Woodpecker, a cartoon character, as the interactive guide.
The campaign, however, had to be pulled a day before it was launched, due to a grave mistake Panasonic made in the marketing slogan. Americans would not flock to “Touch Woody’s Pecker “, as suggested by the intended slogan of “Touch Woody- The Internet Pecker”.
3. One of range of desks, by Swedish furniture giant IKEA, was named “FARTFUL”. These would not have sold well with English speaking customers.
4. Even between English speaking countries, cultural ignorance could cause marketing blunders. British branches of Wang, an American PC company in the late 70’s, refused to use the “Wang Cares” motto. Their American counterparts could not understand that “Wang Cares” sounded too much like “Wankers” in Britain.
5.“Mist” was used in many brands, with brand owners being unaware of its implication in German language. Examples like "Irish Mist" (an alcoholic drink), "Mist Stick" (a curling iron from Clairol) and "Silver Mist" (Rolls Royce car) all ended up in embarrassment as “Mist” means dung/manure in German.
6. "Traficante" was used to name an Italian mineral water, ignorant of fact that its Spanish translation was "drug dealer".
7. Umbro, a UK sports manufacturer had to withdraw its new trainers (sneakers) called “Zyklon” in 2002.Naming a pair of shoes after the name of the gas that was used by the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps certainly did not get favorable reception.
8.Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent £6 million on a campaign to launch its new 'Bundh' sauces only to be told that "bundh" sounded just like the Punjabi word for "arse".
9.In 2001, Honda introduced their new car "Fitta" into Nordic countries, which they had to later rename as “Jazz”. If they had taken some cross-cultural marketing research, they might have discovered that "fitta" was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to a woman's genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
10.Not all pictures or symbols were similarly interpreted across the world. Staff at the African port of Stevadores interpreted the broken wine glass symbol as a box of broken glass, instead of it indicating "fragile" content. Rather than waste space,they threw all the boxes into the sea!
The Wonders of Translation
- Expand current audience scope: Globalisation
2. Internet commerce: The internet is global - there are no boundaries to it. People from anywhere around the world has access to it. That’s precisely why literally every single business or organization takes advantage of it and conducts their activities online. The reason is that they can easily serve customers internationally which would have been impossible. However one major problem associated with being online would be the inability to successfully and accurately convey information about your business to various customers from different nationalities. Translation would be the answer to those problems.
3. Technical translation: Numerous companies have in possession technical texts and specific jargons that are not translated, including technical manuals, product brochures etc. This creates the problem of customers worldwide who read a variety of different languages having serious problems fully understanding and appreciating what your business or organization is offering. This is where translation comes in to solve the problem, allowing every customer worldwide to understand you.
4. Appreciate different cultures: Translation enables people an insight into the culture and values of different countries. For instance, people who do not speak English require the translation of books from English authors such as Shakespeare, Agatha Christie or George Orwell in order to fully understand what the author is trying to convey. Subsequently, they too can learn something about the culture or mentality of the English people. Another example of translation aiding in the appreciation of different cultures can be seen in foreign language movies shown with English subtitles.
5. Travel and Tourism: In the tourism industry, the scale of the impact translation has is simply enormous. It is perhaps one of the most prominent examples of how the power of translation can be harnessed. Translation has enabled tourists to truly appreciate and understand the culture and beauty of the country they are visiting.
Therefore, translation clearly is a powerful tool, connecting the world together and closer.
It is often said that domain knowledge is needed in Technical Translation. Translators not only need to understand many technical terms such as 'endosmosis' and 'cytophagy'; they also have to know the meaning of multivocal words in a certain context.
There was a Singaporean company which engaged a translation agency to translate a brochure for its life science conference to attract Chinese companies to attend. The price was relatively cheaper among three vendors. Upon the return of the translation, the manager of the Singaporean company, who has a Chinese background, found that 'cell culture' was translated into 细胞文化. 'Cell culture media' was translated into 细胞文化媒体.
The word 'culture' alone in a general context can mean 'An integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning' (文化). 'Media' in the communication domain may refer to newspaper, TV, radio. (媒体)
It is clear that the translation was done in a word-for-word fashion. If the translator had specialized knowledge of biology, where 'culture media' means 'A liquid or gelatinous substance containing nutrients in which microorganisms or tissues are cultivated for scientific purposes', those mistakes would be avoided.
The correct translation should be
cell culture-细胞培养
cell culture media-细胞培养基.
A wrong translation will harm the conference organizer’s image in China when it delivers nonsensical and inaccurate Chinese publicity material to the public. Fortunately, this Singaporean company had a manager who understood Chinese and was saved from the embarrassment.
What if you do not have in-house expert in Chinese? You may follow these steps:
- Engage a reputable translation company.
- Ensure that the translation company only allows translators to translate into their native languages.
- Ensure that the translation company has a resource library where terminologies have been researched, verified by other translators and archived. In that way, you can rest assured that terminology used in your translation is accurate and appropriate.
Patent Translation
A Patent Translation is not just a document that needs to be translated into English for the client requesting this kind of translation, but one that also needs to be formatted correctly in order to meet the standards for a properly translated patent and must contain the appropriate terminology to meet the expectations of the target audience.
The novelty of patents is what makes them especially difficult to translate and can also lead to embarrassment to both agencies and clients alike if improperly translated. Of course, any experienced Japanese-to-English Translator can grasp the gist of the translation; however, to anyone knowledgeable in the field of patent translations, only translating the gist of a document is inadequate and will not meet the clients’ expectations.
This is especially true in the case of Japanese patent specifications and claims that are to be translated into English; more attention is required due to the nature of both languages. As you may already know, the Japanese language is a product of harmony or group-identity, while the English language is straightforward in what is trying to be conveyed. It is extremely important that translators know the nature of both languages in order to provide a high-quality translation. If this is not the case, then the meaning of the translated patent specifications and claims could possibly end up meaning something totally different from the original intention or concept of the inventor or inventors.
My purpose is to outline the seriousness of patent translations, which is usually (almost always) overlooked by service vendors and agencies alike; thus, resulting in a loss of their clientele. This loss in "return customers" also affects translators who have actually provided a so-called "adequate translation." Many times, this is unintentional on the part of the translator since he or she has not had the proper training and/or experience. Along with increasing your awareness of the grave importance of a properly translated patent, we would like to inform you that we apply this expertise to your patent translation and would like to offer our services to you in an attempt to provide you with an affordable translation.
translation4u has a team of qualified translators with legal, specifically patent experience. We specialize in fast, accurate, and cost-efficient Japanese-English (as well as other languages) technical translations daily, and provide follow up explanations and/or clarification of any language issues. (Example: Possible alternate interpretations of a sentence, included/excluded meanings based upon the original wording etc.)
Translators need a deep understanding of the source language. A Japanese-to-English translator needs to read Japanese on a native level. The only sure way to acquire that ability is to invest long years in study and in living with the language of the source text (Japanese for Japanese-to-English translation). The translator needs specialized field-specific knowledge. In technical or scientific translation, an understanding of the subject matter is not enough, but without it no amount of other skills will be able to compensate for lack of specialized knowledge.
Translators also need native-level writing skills in the target language. All the source language comprehension and field-specific knowledge in the world is not enough if the translator cannot write effective English. Sadly, even those people who have acquired Japanese level 1 proficiency (or English level 1 proficiency for Japanese natives) still cannot write the so-called one sentence claim correctly.
At translation4u, we only allow translators to translate into their native languages. Our native Japanese translators have done many patent translations in a broad range of technical fields, including chemistry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, software, semiconductors, and optical devices and many others on a daily basis. Many of our translators possess more than 10 years of experience.
If you feel we could be of service to your organization and if you have any questions that require clarification, please feel free to contact us.
|
