For thousands of years people of different countries have been trading goods for the bettermentof their civilizations. Today, importation and exportation of goods and services is as competitiveand complex as ever. With the competition and complexity comes the need to be able tocommunicate with business partners, clients, and potential customers in global markets. Beingable to effectively communicate with these stakeholders is critical to the success of anybusiness looking to expand into new markets. Thus it is absolutely essential to be able toquickly and effectively understand and communicate in the languages spoken by thoseindividuals. Whether or not you or someone within your organization speaks these languages, itis important to recognize which resources are available to you and your business to successfullyfulfill your business translation needs. These resources include the use of machine translation,which is computer software which helps you translate information from one language to anotherand human translation, which includes expert translators who understand the in’s and out’s ofthe languages being translated. Effectively using both of these resources together can help youeffectively save time and money when fulfilling your business translation needs.
Machine Translation
Machine translation has many benefits to you and your business, including a very quicktranslation time and low or no up front costs. Since machine translation happens through acomputer software, it can be done in a matter of seconds. There are many different softwaresolutions available, thus you can find either cheap or free solutions that will meet some of yourbusiness needs.
When to Use
One rule of thumb to follow in most circumstances is use machine translation for internal purposes and human translation for external purposes. You should take advantage of machine translation in your business needs when you are looking to translate documents from business partners, clients, or even your competition and are looking to understand the general content of the documents. This type of translation should be for your personal use to better understand the content at hand.
Likewise, if you are looking to tackle a new market you will need to do the market research to better understand it. Much of the relevant content you will be looking at will be in another language. Instead of hiring a human translator to translate all of this general content that will be used only for your research purposes, having machine translation to translate the content and assist your market research will save you both time and money. Machine translation will allow you get a general understanding of the contents of competitors’ web pages, articles and publications being written about the industry and other news regarding the general economy of the market you are looking to penetrate.
Human Translation
Human translation, like working directly with a professional translation firm, will allow you do many of the functions that machine translation can’t do for you. For example, getting documents translated that will be used directly with business partners, clients, or potential customers in the market you are looking to do business or helping you get your marketing messaging translated correctly.
Though human translation is a manual process and thus takes longer to complete, the big advantage that it has to machine translation is the quality of translation. Because human translators can understand both the context of the language being used and the culture of the language in which the content is being translated, human translators are thus able to better specifically translate the meaning of each sentence and word of the content from one language to another. This is where machine translation often flops.
When to Use
Because the success of any business relies on the sales to customers within its target market, itis vital to be able to communicate to those customers how you can best resolve their needs.When entering a new global market, it is important to communicate effectively to businesspartners, clients, and potential customers. This means you will need to understand the contextof the content being translated and the culture of the language to which you are translating.Messing up your message with a business partner or potential customer can cost you anopportunity to continue your relationship with them. This could hurt the bottom line of yourbusiness as well as its reputation. For this reason it is critical to work with someone who hasexpertise and experience translating to your market and can help with the communication of allexternal business communications between you and those stakeholders within your globalmarket. Partnering with a professional translation firm will assure that you have the experienceand expertise on your side for your business translation needs.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that as a general rule, you can use machine translation for your internal businesstranslation needs, such as translating business documents from business partners or clients foryour personal use or market research of web pages in a different language. Then use humantranslation for your external business translation needs, such as communicating directly withbusiness partners, clients, or potential customers in your new global market. By combining bothresources, you can save yourself both time and money while also getting the quality oftranslation needed based on each circumstance.
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