Translation Blog

Taking your business across the border is exciting, and most companies know they need to translate marketing materials into other languages. However, working internationally also requires brand name translation. Not investing in brand name translation is one of the biggest marketing mistakes. It is essential that a brand translates its name and tagline to succeed in a new market and appeal to its new customer base.

You might be confused about why brand name translation is crucial, and you’re not alone. Many companies believe it is just a translation of words into the language their new market speaks to capture the customer base, but this isn’t the case. This article discusses this issue thoroughly by examining key points necessary for brand awareness and avoiding translation mistakes.

What is Brand Name Translation?

Brand name translation is a method to transform your product portfolio from one language to another by keeping the brand’s original content. This process is considered when a company expands its business from the local to the international market.

The first thing to consider when you translate brand names is understanding the meaning of the brand name in other languages. To avoid marketing translation mistakes, you must ensure that it portrays a similar concept in another language. If you have a brand name that implies a similar concept in all languages, there is no need to alter it, or you may wish to perform a literal translation.

On the other hand, words that mean different things in other languages (known as lexical cognates) can be a nightmare for brand name translation. For example, the word “Mist” in English means humidity, while it means “Manure” in German. A British company selling essential oil diffusers with a brand name like “In The Mist” isn’t going to have quite the same impact in the German market.

Although this seems simple enough to get right, companies often make marketing translation mistakes while translating their brand names as they cannot understand other marketplaces’ language and cultural factors comprehensively enough. Therefore, it is essential to do thorough research and consider investing in professional brand name translation services.

How Can you Achieve it?

Translating your product portfolio and brand names into something favourable and in-line with the global marketplace is essential. You can hire a brand name translation agency to alter your branding if it has a different concept in another language. A translation agency provides its expertise in creative translation by modifying brand names, product portfolios, and your overall corporate image.

In the translation process, the marketing team comprehensively analyses the market and prepares a report to present a clear picture of the brand alteration. Your translators should pay attention to cultural values customers hold when buying a new product – alongside a deep delve into the language and literal meaning – when they translate brand names. This cultural factor in brand name translation should encourage the audience to buy your products.

If you don’t want to hire a translation agency, businesses can analyse the trends in the market themselves and pay attention to what their ideal customers like. If your customers prefer original brand names that portray your company image, then there is no need to change them. In this case, you can also do a creative translation (transcreation) of your brand that provides similar meaning but in a creative way better attuned to your new audience.

Similarly, if the customers are interested in product names written in their languages, you should advise your marketing team to work on the translation process. You should adopt a literal translation process to achieve this kind of scenario, but be careful to avoid marketing translation mistakes and never do a word-for-word translation. You need to ensure that the meaning is maintained.

Why do Companies make Marketing Translation Mistakes?

Brand name translation is not just translating your brand or product names into another language. Most companies fail to comprehend the cultural factors behind the translation process. Moreover, businesses do not consider the basic principles and techniques needed to translate brand names effectively. As a result, they badly failed to capture the customers’ attention.

To avoid marketing translation mistakes, you must follow four crucial principles of the translation process, or chances of a poor brand’s image will be inevitable. Here is a closer look at these four principles of brand name translation:

1. Brand names should advise the customers to buy the company’s products through an introduction in their languages. In this case, you can use creative and literal translation methods to convey your product message.
2. Brand name translation should focus on sales. The amelioration process has no value if the company does not imply product sales in its brand name. It is a common problem for companies to translate brand names without focusing on the sale of products.
3. Brand names should always keep the original aesthetic value. This principle is based on creative translation, which means creativity in the brand names. You should consider an artistic factor, too, when doing a creative translation of your brand name into a new language.
4. Brand name translation should be according to customers’ cultural beliefs, buying behaviour, psychological factors, and local traditions. The most important principle for changing the brand name must be considered for the business expansion process.

A translation agency can be perfect if your company wants to avoid being involved in the research process. A translation agency provides expertise in both research and planning applications to comprehend customers’ interests and needs related to the brand name.

Examples of Brand Translation Mistakes

If the companies do not consider the first principle above, there will be adverse consequences when they try to translate brand names and taglines. For example, KFC launched their popular fast-food chain in Beijing and poorly translated their infamous product slogan, “Finger Licking Good”, into a cannibalistic message. This negatively impacted their sales and their brand in the Chinese market!

The translation of product names is also vital. For example, In the 1970s, American Motor was among the manufacturers that made translation mistakes. American Motor changed its mid-size car name into the Spanish word “Matador.” It later turned out that matador meant killer in the Spanish language. This translation disaster hurt the company’s sales in the Spanish market.

Other examples of marketing translation mistakes include American car manufacturing giant Ford. They launched their product slogan into the Belgium market and wanted to present that “every car has a high-quality body”. However, it translated that “every car has a high-quality corpse”—not quite the brand name translation quite wanted!

Renaissance Translations’ Creative Brand Translation

Brand name translation is crucial when a company expands its business into an internal market. This article highlighted the critical factors involved in the process. It has also mentioned vital principles that should be considered before changing the brand or product name. Following these principles will prevent marketing translation mistakes when taking your business overseas.

For further reassurance that you will translate brand names accurately and effectively, hire a brand name translation agency. Renaissance Translations is a leading language partner that has worked with many top brands worldwide. We offer professional translation or transcreation services, and a highly creative translator works on content translation.

Don’t hesitate to contact our project managers today if you want to discuss your creative brand name translation. Our network comprises 5,000+ linguists specialising in a range of languages and industries, and we are members of the Association of Translation Companies in England. We can help you translate brand names effectively and help you tap into whichever international market you have in your sights.

The Kurdish language is one of the rarer languages in the translation industry. However, this doesn’t mean it is any less important! English to Kurdish translation services from a professional translator can help businesses enter Iraq and other countries within Kurdistan. Translate your English content into Kurdish, and you open up to a whole new market, all through the power of translation services!

Unfortunately, the Kurdish language has many differences from English, making it one of the more complex translations to get right. As one of the rarer languages in the translation industry, finding a qualified native Kurdish speaker to work on your project makes things even harder. Here we discuss these challenges and the advantages of different types of Kurdish translations.

Challenges of Translating the Kurdish Language

Kurdish is not an easy language to work with. It is a West Iranian language from the group of Indo-Iranian languages, unlike English’s West Germanic roots. It is chiefly spoken in Kurdistan and is the third most spoken Iranian language after Persian and Pashto. Experts believe it is spoken by 20 to 40 million people in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.

The Kurdish language has three major dialect groups based on geographical location: Northern Kurdish, known as Kurmanji, is spoken from Mosul in Iraq to the Caucasus in Turkey; Central Kurdish, known as Sorani, is the primary literary form of Kurdish, spoken within a broad region; South Kurdish, known as Pehlewani, consists of various less-studied dialects.

English is written in the Latin alphabet, whereas Kurdish is primarily written in the Persian alphabet. It can also be written in Latin, Cyrillic, or Armenian scripts, depending on which Kurdish dialect you translate. There are also sounds in the Kurdish language that are entirely new to English speakers, which must be understood for accurate translation. Only a professional English to Kurdish translator can handle these unique challenges with ease.

Finding the Best Kurdish Translation Provider

Every business looking to translate a document aims to get high-quality translation on time. When you translate from English to Kurdish, there is also a need for quick and accurate language translation. But as we’ve just covered, translating from English to Kurdish authentically is challenging and requires a professional translator.

Unfortunately, there is a high shortage of English to Kurdish translators in the market. Of the translation agencies available on the internet, businesses need to evaluate the agency before assigning the translation project. This is especially important for medical translations or technical translations that require linguistic skills and industry expertise.

When choosing a translator to work with, ensure the translation agency has recruited many professional Kurdish translators with valid translation qualifications. Also, ensure the translators are native speakers of Kurdish for accurate results. You need a translation agency that can provide both factors; anything less could cause the reputation of your business to suffer.

Types of English to Kurdish Translations

For straightforward document translation, finding an English to Kurdish translator is relatively easy. They can translate into the Kurdish language without specialising in a specific industry. However, some industries require particular knowledge and expertise for your translated content to be accurate. Here is a closer look at some of the common specialised translation types businesses need:

1. Technical Translation

Many businesses and firms need to translate technical documents written in English into the Kurdish language. Whether an engineering project for power plants or a technical software translation, you can rely on an English to Kurdish translator for the best results. A great mastery of the language is essential in all processes, along with technical knowledge that makes your translation successful.

2. Medical Translation

With many people speaking the Kurdish language in the UK, the demand for English to Kurdish medical translation services is higher than ever. The medical translation process should include three main stages by three different Kurdish translators, ensuring the final product is error-free to disasters for your non-English speaking patients. A medical background is also a must, ensuring you accurately translate all medical terms into Kurdish.

3. Legal Translation

Many English businesses operating in Iraq need a legal translator to translate contracts, regulatory information, and other kinds of legal documents into the Kurdish language. A legal translation needs to be 100% accurate, or you could face legal repercussions. You must work with linguists with legal expertise and specific training in legal terminology for the highest quality legal English to Kurdish translation services.

Renaissance Translations’ Kurdish Translation Services

If you need to translate English content into Kurdish, our translation agency can help. Renaissance Translations has helped many companies translate and localise their specialised content to Kurdish. We have an extensive network of professional English to Kurdish translators specialising in various fields. We can help you with all documents at competitive prices and in a timely manner.

If you have a document to translate into the Kurdish language, let us help you get the most accurate translation. Your partnership with Renaissance Translations comes with professional memberships such as ATC and a guarantee to meet any tight deadline placed on us. We have the right team for your project regardless of your needed language pair. Contact our project managers today to discuss your Kurdish translation project.

Translations are in high demand in the UK, and there is a good reason for it. According to the 2011 census, about 4 million people in England and Wales don’t speak English as their primary language. Of these, around 140,000 do not speak English at all! Unless you translate English to another language, this is a huge portion of the population you cannot effectively communicate with.

The 2011 census was the first to ask how fluently people could speak English if it wasn’t their major language of communication. This overview showed how diverse England is; if we consider the capital a snapshot of that diversity, we are bound to find higher concentrations of diversity here. In large multicultural cities such as London, the need for translating English into different languages is even more imperative.

If you’re wondering what language to translate your English content into, you’re in the right place. Here we run through the top 10 most translated languages in London and explain why they’re essential in targeting the entire multicultural UK population.

1. Polish Translation

Polish is also one of the most frequent language translations in London. There are about 546,000 people that speak Polish in the United Kingdom. This accounts for about 1% of the population, with a large portion residing in the UK’s capital. When you translate the English language into Polish, you’re instantly increasing your reach by this amount. Polish translation services are also vital for businesses operating abroad and industries that work closely with new migrants.

2. Punjabi Translation

Punjabi translations are high on this list, as there is a sizeable Punjabi population in the UK. This is due to Britain’s involvement in India during the 19th and 20th centuries. The large community consists of migrants that initially came to the country more than a generation ago. Many cannot speak English fluently and need you to translate content into their native language, while children of the initial migrants tend to speak both Punjabi and English.

3. Urdu Translation

Urdu is also one of the languages in London that can be linked to Britain’s involvement in the Indian subcontinent during the 19th and 20th centuries. About 0.5% of the UK speaks Urdu, representing around 269,000 people. This makes Urdu one of the most sought-after language translations in London. Many businesses translate from English to Urdu to remove language barriers and improve communications with the growing Indian population in the UK.

4. Bengali Translation

Bengali is another Indian language spoken in Great Britain. Around 221,000 people in the UK speak Bengali, alongside Chatgaya and Sylheti. This makes up 0.4% of the country’s population, a sizeable portion for which to provide Bengali language translations. Many Bengali people also live in the capital city. Therefore, businesses targeting London and a wider UK audience want to translate from English to Bengali language.

5. Gujarati Translation

Gujarati translations are also in high demand for any translation agency working in London. There are over 213,000 speakers in the UK, accounting for approximately 0.4% of the total UK population. To translate your marketing materials, websites, documents, and other types of content from the English language to Gujarati are essential to reach this part of the population.

6. Arabic Translation

Around 159,000 people (0.3% of the population) speak Arabic in the UK, with a particularly high concentration of Arabic speakers residing in London. It is also one of the most spoken foreign languages worldwide! Any well-meaning translation agency will want to leverage this population by providing Arabic translations. Translate from the English language into Arabic, and you don’t just target the UK market; you can increase your exposure globally too.

7. French Translation

French translations are critical in London, with around 147,000 French speakers in the UK. This accounts for about 0.3% of the population, which isn’t surprising, given the geographical proximity to France. However, it is also likely that the French speakers in London come from African French-speaking countries. When you translate into the French language, you can communicate with these people far more efficiently than in English.

8. Portuguese Translation

Portuguese translations also are vital in London. This high demand for businesses to translate into this Romance language comes from the geographical proximity of Portugal to the UK. Many Portuguese people have moved to London, with about 0.2% of the population speaking the language. This percentage specifically amounts to 133,000 people across England and Wales. To target these people, you need to translate from English to Portuguese.

9. Tamil Translation

Tamil translations are growing with the increase in Tamil speakers in the UK. Like many languages on this list, Tamil can be traced back to Britain’s involvement in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are 101,000 Tamil speakers in the UK today, amounting to 0.2% of the UK’s population. English businesses looking to communicate with this small group within the UK need to translate into their native language.

10. Turkish Translation

Turkish translations are also on the list of most in-demand languages in London, with over 99,000 Turkish speakers in the country. This represents around 0.2% of the population. The UK and Turkey also have a free trade agreement, which creates an additional need for businesses to translate into this language. Nearly £20 billion in trade volume is exchanged annually, and those trading need to translate cross-border documents and other communications from English.

Professional Translation Services in 120+ Languages

If you need professional language translations, look no further! Renaissance Translations offers high-quality translation services by experienced and professional translators. Everyone on our network is also a native speaker, ensuring you receive authentic and 100% accurate content.

We not only translate the languages in London but also more than 120 languages or dialects worldwide. Furthermore, we can translate between hundreds of uncommon language pairs such as French to Chinese, German to Danish, Spanish to Hindi, and many others. Contact our project managers to discuss your project today!

If you think that only deaf people can benefit from a video subtitling service, you are mistaken; everyone can take full advantage of captioning and subtitling services! Professional subtitles and captions enable you to consume the content quickly and easily, and many younger internet users automatically switch on subtitles and captions when viewing video content.

Indeed, investing in a subtitling service and adding captions to your videos has plenty of benefits. It doesn’t matter if your content is a promotional advertisement, short video, feature film, or television show; professional subtitling benefits all types of video content. This article will review the top ten benefits of using captioning and subtitling services, and might just convince you to add words to your films and recordings.

1. Subtitling Services Improve Learning & Understanding

Professional subtitles and captions greatly help students in online learning environments. Students take full advantage of video transcription and captioning services, using them as learning aids to improve comprehension. Of course, this has implications outside the classroom. Investing in subtitling services ensures your videos are more widely understood and absorbed by viewers, which is essential for any online training course or informative video.

2. Enhance Video Search & User Experience

Another advantage of professional subtitles and captions is that your video is more searchable. Users can search for keywords within the transcript and quickly find your video content. Therefore, subtitling services help viewers find the videos they are looking for. The entire user experience is improved thanks to the seamless online experience, which is a huge benefit of captioning services.

3. Boost Your SEO Ranking with a Subtitling Service

Search engines can’t watch videos and have nothing to do with the visual content on your website or social channels. But search engines can crawl your content and drive traffic to your site if you’ve invested in subtitling services. The entire text of your video is later indexed and made searchable.

Moreover, you can get long transcripts optimised for specific keywords as part of the captioning services you’re paying for. This will help you further optimise the search rank of your video, making it rank higher. Therefore, you increase your SEO ranking by adding professional subtitles and captions to your video content.

4. Subtitling Services Make Content More Accessible

Professional subtitles and captions were initially introduced to accommodate people who are deaf or have learning difficulties. Investing in captioning services and subtitling your content made it more accessible to such individuals. These original benefits of subtitling services still stand today; everyone can easily consume your product through improved accessibility, increasing the size of your audience.

5. Understand Content in Foreign Languages

Have you ever considered writing professional subtitles in a language other than English? People with different native languages can significantly benefit from captioning services. Foreign language speakers from other countries often require video translations of English content. Professional subtitling services help viewers from all across the globe understand your videos.

6. Enhance Native Language Skills

Professional subtitles and captions can help foreign language speakers understand your content, but let’s not forget how subtitling services can help improve your native language skills. Video transcripts help viewers understand and improve spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This is one of the primary reasons captions are recommended for children watching television. Captioning services are a subtle yet effective way of teaching them essential language rules.

7. Improve Videos with Poor Sound Quality

We all have seen videos with poor sound quality or loud background noise. Without professional subtitles, these videos can be near-impossible to understand. Likewise, many people (especially non-native English speakers) struggle to understand solid Russian, Scottish, or Australian accents.

With subtitling services, viewers can easily understand what the person in the video is trying to say. Captioning services also filter out all the noise in the background, so your viewers are only reading the important information. Every word is synchronised and precisely what the person is saying in the video, so your videos can be understood without any sound at all.

8. Learn About New Cultures

Another great thing about professional subtitles and captions is that they can help viewers learn more about other cultures. Access to various other cultures is something that we take for granted, but the reality is something different. A great way to learn about new cultures and traditions is by watching local programs and movies.

While listening to the audio gives some insight, subtitling services take things further. You can even rely on captioning services as a language learning tool, as professional subtitling can help you pick up the language with these local shows and movies.

9. Subtitling Clarifies Technical Terminologies

If you watch an interview or podcast, you might encounter technical jargon. This industry-specific terminology can make videos hard to understand, and you might not be able to pick up the new vocabulary through audio alone, you need professional subtitles to help! Subtitling services and captioning services make it possible to read the word from the transcript and search on Google.

10. Improve the Viewer Experience

Without captioning services, capturing your viewers’ attention instantly is a huge challenge. Sometimes, individuals are not in a position to turn on the volume. This is where subtitling services can come in handy. With the help of professional subtitles and captions, viewers can easily understand the content of the video. They don’t have to turn on the sound to understand everything.

Professional Captioning & Subtitling Services

As you can see, the benefits of subtitling services are extensive. If you have an audio clip or a video that needs professional subtitles or captions, you can count on our experienced team. Over the years, we have supplied many UK and foreign companies with our subtitling and captioning services, and the results were fantastic!

Your partnership with Renaissance Translations comes with professional memberships such as ATC and a guarantee to meet any tight deadline placed on us. Get in touch with our project managers today to discuss your project. You can grow your audience, make your content more accessible, prove audience understanding, and reap all rewards of adding professional subtitles to your video content.