Translation Blog

If you’re hoping to expand your business into China, you need a reliable language partner that can translate Mandarin. Mandarin translation services are the only viable way for companies to enter the thriving Chinese market, ensuring your marketing collateral is influential among the Chinese population. In fact, it is necessary to sell your products or services in China. Requests for English to Mandarin translations have never been higher, particularly for marketing materials. Here we take a closer look at why entering this market is beneficial and how a professional agency that can translate Mandarin can help you stand out from the competition.

With over 1.3 billion Mandarin speakers, China is a target market that businesses must recognise! There are many reasons to take your business to China and invest in Mandarin translation services. Here are some specific benefits that will come after you translate Mandarin content for your next marketing campaign.

1. High Market Growth Rates

The first reason to translate Mandarin marketing content is the high market growth rates in China. The country has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDPs) worldwide, estimated to be $14.72 trillion in 2022. This is the second-highest GDP globally after only the USA. GDP rates are a fantastic measure of the economy, proving that the Chinese population is becoming wealthier is gaining more purchasing power.

Taking your business to China gives you access to this growing economy and enables you to convert new Chinese customers. But to do this, you must invest in Mandarin translation services. Marketing materials are one of the most crucial elements to translate into Mandarin, and English-to-Mandarin translations for your social media, advertisements, and website are essential.

2. Large Market Demographic

The current population of China sits at around 1.45 billion. Within the country, these billions of people speak several hundred languages – around 302 to be precise! However, Mandarin is by far the most widely used, spoken by 80% of the population. Mandarin Chinese is also the official language of the country and used for all official documents.

Therefore, businesses looking to enter the Chinese market should translate to Mandarin over other Chinese languages. A professional Mandarin translation service makes it possible to influence and communicate with this significant population effectively. This also explains why English-to-Mandarin translations are so popular – these are the two most spoken languages globally!

3. Translate Mandarin for Effective Communications

The Chinese population is unique, with their own perspectives and ways of doing business. Chinese is an expressive and emotive language, and politeness and respect are embedded deeply into their culture. Therefore, nothing can jeopardise a sale or the reputation of a company quicker than cultural misunderstandings, unintentionally offensive content, and miscommunications.

The best way to ensure a clear understanding is to hire a professional Mandarin translation service that offers creative services, such as transcreation. Transcreation is a must for marketing materials. Translators will translate Mandarin while considering the cultural context. They can adapt colours and images to ensure your message is delivered clearly, and make your English to Mandarin translations perfectly tailored to the unique Chinese population.

4. Clear Brand Messaging

When taking business overseas, you need to maintain your brand identity. Ensuring the prospective customer can relate to and understand the intended meaning of any marketing materials is critical. This understanding is what prompts your new audience to convert into paying customers, signup for your service, or purchase your products.

Professional English-to-Mandarin translation services ensure your brand messaging is preserved when you translate to Mandarin. For example, professional translators account for cultural differences when translating marketing content for the Chinese market. Google Translate or other automatic online translators cannot capture this sensitivity, but you can ensure that customers receive the right message when using a professional Mandarin translation service.

5. Competitive Advantage

Chinese is one of the most translated languages in the world, and English to Mandarin translations are among the top language pairs. Many businesses are seeing the potential of the market, and Mandarin translation services are in higher demand than ever.

Unfortunately, this means that any business entering China has competition from many international companies. With so many choices for consumers, hiring a language services provider to translate Mandarin could provide a unique selling point that propels your company past the competition. Choosing an experienced and reliable partner to translate Mandarin makes it even more likely that your translations are accurate, authentic, and effective.

6. Translating Mandarin Improves SEO Performance

The final benefit of hiring an agency to translate Mandarin is to improve search engine optimisation (SEO). In the modern world, SEO is a crucial component of all digital marketing efforts. When you translate a website or social content, you need to adjust the keywords and other SEO components so that your content shows up on foreign search engines. A professional Mandarin translation doesn’t solely translate Mandarin words – it considers SEO and improves your rankings in Chinese browsers.

Improved SEO ranking has ripple effects! Your website becomes more discoverable and gains increased website traffic. In addition, website visitors are more likely to remain engaged and share the content. Trust levels are also automatically higher when reading content in your native language. All of this can be achieved through professional English to Mandarin translations.

Translate Mandarin Content with Renaissance Translations

As you can see, there are many benefits of investing in a Mandarin translation for all your business marketing collateral. When you translate to Mandarin, you can enter a growing economy, communicate clearly, improve your online discoverability, and ultimately boost sales.

If you need to translate Mandarin, contact our team. Renaissance Translations offers a comprehensive Mandarin translation service from Chinese language experts. We can translate Mandarin marketing materials for your company to ensure your next marketing campaign is successful. Our company is member of the Association of Translation Companies in England and we are also members of SDL LSP Partner Programme. Contact our project managers today to get a quote on your project.

Online job boards, such as Upwork and LinkedIn, are making finding a freelance translator easier than ever. Organisations can post their specific project requirements, deadlines, and budget. Then, freelance translators ​can bid to get the gig. Alternatively, online marketplaces, such as Fiverr, are thriving places for translators and other freelancers to advertise their ability to translate professional documents, to be approached by potential employers. These accessible solutions have made it much easier to hire, or work as, a freelance translator. Online recommendations and reviews are helpful in evaluating the talent and subject matter expertise of a potential hire. However, they can’t guarantee a high-quality result or the service level that UK translation agencies can offer.

As with any project, establishing your business needs is important. Making a hiring decision should only come after you have a clear understanding of the project requirements. It is only after having a clear understanding within your organisation of your current and future project needs. Then, you will be able to sort through the pros and cons of hiring a freelance translator to translate professional documents. Having answers to these questions will also make the vendor evaluation, contracting and project management processes more efficient. Whether you choose one of the many UK translation agencies, or a freelance translator, you should consider the following questions in advance.

Translation Project Requirements Questions:

• Is this a one-time translation project or an ongoing translation task?
• What is my turnaround deadline?
• Does the time zone matter to me? For example, if you are based in the UK, would you prefer to work with a freelance translator or UK translation agencies or a similar time zone?
• What are the consequences if the delivery is not timely?
• Do I have the time and expertise to evaluate, screen, and hire a freelance translator?
• Is this a general translation project or specialised topic requiring an expert?
• Does my project require numerous professional translation services? For example, trancreation, subtitling, localisation, or voiceover work.
• Do I need more than one subject matter expert to complete the project collaboratively?
• Do I need a project manager to oversee the deliverables and milestones?
• Do I want to translate professional-level content into multiple languages? Does this require more than one translator?
• Is this a common translation language combination or a more unique source and target language combination? For example, a common language combination is French to English. However, Japanese to Swahili may be difficult to find professional translators proficient in both languages.
• Does my project require certified translation documentation to comply with relevant laws or regulations?
• What is the business risk if there is a mistake in the translation? Do we need our freelance translator or agency to have professional indemnity insurance?

Freelance Translator Pros

Cheaper: Freelance translators typically have lower expenses, as they typically work from home with no staff such as project managers, sales staff, or administrative roles. Thus, there are no agency fees to cover large business operating costs. This is often passed on to the customer, so hiring a freelance translator may be cheaper than UK translation agencies.

Direct Communication: With a freelance translator, you are typically communicating with the same person from the initial contact to the project’s completion. Some people prefer this personal and direct communication.

Verified Skills: The same person you initially discussed the project with will also be the person who will translate professional level work for you. Therefore, you will have a good idea of their areas of expertise and background in advance. There is also less room for miscommunication, as you are speaking to the translator directly.

Freelance Translator Cons

Recruitment & Contracting: You will need to search for, screen, and negotiate the project contract with every freelance translator individually. This can be time-consuming or even cause delays, especially if the freelancer does not have immediate availability on their calendar.

Service Risk: When working directly with a freelance translator, there is no guarantee regarding their ability to accurately translate professional materials to a high standard. The only reassurances come from their CV and references, whereas a translator hired via an agency would have been vetted with a skills test already. Moreover, if the freelancer does not have professional indemnity insurance, loss recovery is very limited.

Limited Expertise: A freelance translator has limited capacity to their skills and time. Once they reach this limit, you will need to start the recruitment process over again to find supplemental resources.

Limited capacity: With a freelance translator, the project will only be completed as fast as they are able. This means that large projects are difficult to turn around in a short deadline; on the other hand, UK translation agencies are more likely to have the capacity to handle short deadlines, bringing more translators onto the project if needed.

Translation Agency Pros

Professional Recruitment: UK translation agencies generally have strict recruiting standards to ensure only professional translators work on specialised projects. Recruitment standards required to translate professional documents can include a skills test, five years of translation experience, and a relevant degree or translation qualification. Further requirements are made for employees to work as industry subject matter experts or technical translators. This structure is not in place when hiring a freelance translator directly.

Verified Deliverables: For each project, translation agencies have a translator and a proofreader. Both translators are fluent in the source and target languages too. Therefore, all of the content is reviewed by two professional translators prior to delivery.

Advanced Technology: Many UK translation agencies have invested in the latest CAT tools and translation memory (TM) technology. This technology increases the accuracy and consistency of the final output, and can significantly increase the speed of a translation.

24/7 Resources: Translation Agencies often have hundreds or thousands of translation professionals on their books. This can significantly speed up a project, compared with using a freelance translator. Tight deadlines are easier to meet, as the project is easier to resource. Having a large directory to pull from also means that less time is spent looking for someone qualified to translate professional documentation.

Turnkey Service: Language service providers often offer a complete suite of services beyond translation, such as subtitling, voiceovers, transcreation , and typesetting. By hiring a competent vendor, your project can be completed efficiently from start to finish in one place. For large projects, this can save significant amounts of time. For large-scale projects, UK translation agencies usually assign a project manager who will coordinate the project throughout. In comparison, this would have to be done by you when working with a freelance translator, as well as with typesetters, subtitlers and proofreaders.

Guaranteed Results: Businesses often offer satisfaction guarantees to demonstrate their commitment to excellent customer service. If there is a mistake, UK translation agencies are more likely to carry professional indemnity insurance policies to protect all the parties involved.

Translation Agency Cons

Fees: Translation agencies hire more staff and therefore have more overheads than freelance translators. Whilst the customer does benefit from the expertise of additional staff such as project managers, the expenses are passed on to the client in the form of agency fees.

Agency Selection: There are many UK translation agencies, and internationally, to choose from. In fact, finding the right translation agency to partner with is a big decision. Looking at industry trade association memberships is a good first step. Reading testimonials, and asking for references from clients with similar projects to yours can help you decide who is best suited to translate professional documents for you.

Our Freelance Translators Are Experts!

Larger businesses often prefer to work with translation agencies, but there are also many benefits of working with a freelance translator. For larger projects, especially those requiring multiple languages or multiple services, working with UK translation agencies to translate professional documents may be the preferable option. Only you can decide whether a freelance translator or a translation agency is the right choice for you.

Renaissance Translations is an industry-leading translation agency, with over 5,000 translators on our books. We offer accurate and professional translation services, from translation to transcreation, in over 120 languages across a range of industries. Get in touch with our team today to discuss your upcoming translation project.

In order to accurately translate an Information Technology (IT) project, the use of technical translators is required. Depending on the size of the project, an entire team of technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) may need to work together to translate technical materials through the entire product life cycle. Whether this covers user guides, owner manuals, or IT software, technical document translation, undertaken by highly skilled and experienced technical translators, is the best route to go down when dealing with IT projects requiring specialist knowledge.

Why can’t I hire a general translator?

There are many circumstances where a general translator is more than suitable for the task at hand. However, when you need technical document translation, you should turn to specialised technical translators. It is tempting to hire a general translator to save some money on the project especially when underestimating the skill required to translate technical documents. You may also hire one when assuming that the translator has resources to assist in translating technical terms. Unfortunately, using industry glossaries or technical dictionaries is not an adequate substitute for industry experience. Word-for-word translation without a thorough understanding of the specialism will likely result in mistranslations. Moreover, an experienced IT translation specialist can translate technical coding, whilst ensuring that the product will still work as expected. Therefore, working with technical translators is the best option for IT projects.

Why should I hire specialised technical translators for my IT projects?

1. IT is a rapidly changing industry: Technology is constantly changing and evolving. With the modification of the products and services, businesses must constantly update supporting materials for end users, across all supported languages. Translating such revised content of new versions into multiple languages will help customers use more features. Hiring a technical translator will ensure accuracy, and will help you gain a reputation as a high-quality service provider.
2. IT markets are expanding globally: As global infrastructure improves, so does the availability of personal computers (PCs) and mobile devices. Technology use is growing worldwide. Increasing the number of languages in your app or programme will increase its potential user base. Not only do the applications themselves need technical document translation, but the graphic user interface (GUI) also needs localisation for appropriate use and understanding across cultures and dialects.
3. IT is a competitive industry: Digital markets are getting crowded for designers and developers of hardware, software, software as a service (SaaS), mobile devices, and apps. The sheer number of digital options consumers must choose from can be overwhelming. One clear way to stand out from the crowd, and to gain new customers from diverse markets, is to offer your service in a choice of language options. Hiring a technical translator for your content, user manuals, training materials, and marketing materials can help you to launch.
4. IT is a Risky Business: All industries require business risk mitigation when translating content. Ineffective communication can result not only in misunderstandings but also in unintentionally offensive content. Moreover, some information technology applications inherently involve additional risks. For example, failing to hire a competent professional technical translator can result in mistranslations of fundamental instructions and functionality capabilities. Technical document translation should be taken seriously, as a mistake in a manual can have significant repercussions; something that companies definitely want to avoid. Therefore, hiring a highly competent professional technical translation team with professional indemnity insurance to translate technical materialis imperative to work on your IT translation projects.

Renaissance Translations’ Professional IT Translation Services 

Renaissance Translations offers a range of technical translation services. Our translation experts can translate technical documents in numerous areas including IT translation, scientific translation, medical translation, and engineering translation. With over 5,000 translators, we can match you with a technical translator to suit your project’s requirements. Your partnership with us comes with professional memberships such as ATC and SDL LSP Partner Programme. Contact us today to discuss your upcoming technical document translation project.

The difference between captioning and subtitling services may not be immediately obvious, as the terms are often used interchangeably. However, they serve different purposes, and are intended for use by different audiences. Choosing between captioning or subtitling services can make a significant difference to your end user. Subtitling companies may offer a choice of both services, but what is the difference between subtitling services and captioning? Movie subtitling is the addition of text in a different language to that spoken in the original video. Meanwhile, captioning is a text in the same language as the video, with the addition of descriptions of non-verbal noises and cues. Captioning, when done well, means that a deaf person (or someone watching on mute) would be as equally informed about the video as a hearing person.

Captioning Services

Captions are a word-for-word transcription of the audio portion of a video, displayed in the spoken language. One of the most important elements of captioning is non-speech captions. Captioning these sounds in the video is vital for providing context for the deaf viewers. Examples of non-speech captions include ‘music playing’, ‘startling thunder’, or ‘weeping woman in another room’. Captions are provided by subtitling companies for hard of hearing or deaf viewers. However, language learners and visual processors also benefit from watching shows and movies with captions. One recent survey (2021) found that captions are incredibly popular, with 80% of 18-25 years olds surveyed stating that they used subtitles or captions some or all of the time.

Captions can be “closed” or “open”. Closed captioning (CC) offers the option to turn the captions on or off. Open captioning means the captions are embedded in the video and so cannot be switched off by the viewer. Several countries have passed legislation to prevent discrimination against those with disabilities. Therefore, providing captions is becoming more prevalent, so that the hard of hearing can access and enjoy more video and audio content. This demand has resulted in more translation companies offering captioning or subtitling services. Moreover, movie subtitling and captioning are also convenient for those watching videos in noisy environments (i.e. gym, train station etc.) or where having the sound turned on would be inappropriate (i.e. work, hospital, etc).

Subtitling Services

Subtitles are captioned text that has been translated into a different language than that in the video. Unlike captions, subtitles do not provide descriptions of non-verbal sounds, something to be aware of when using subtitling services. Subtitles enable global audiences to enjoy content in different languages. Because of international demand for subtitling services, there are lots of subtitling companies to choose from. Language learners may choose to watch content with subtitles to improve their understanding of the audio portion of the video content. Movie subtitling is a key part of the international distribution of movies and is an alternative to dubbing. You can read a Brief History of Subtitles to learn more.

How common are captions and subtitles?

Both captions and subtitles have become common practice, and in some places are added to videos as standard. In the past few years, it has become commonplace for short videos posted on social media to have captions or subtitles. Approximately 85% of videos are watched without sound on a personal device, e.g. a mobile phone. Therefore, the use of captions can increase social media engagement. Global film festivals and social media have expanded the reach of movies and TV shows to new audiences, increasing the need for movie subtitling in a variety of languages. For example, entertainment is not the only industry that benefits from using subtitling services. Businesses in all industries are also using video content to engage potential customers, and so could benefit from working with subtitling companies.

Furthermore, marketing departments are constantly working to remain competitive globally. They can basically achieve this by captioning their content, but also by translating it into their target audiences’ preferred languages. Localising the content to ensure appropriate understanding is also something worth discussing with your language service provider. We recommend hiring specialist captioning or subtitling services, as necessary. Poorly executed captioning can detract from the viewing experience and can make it difficult to follow the video’s plot. Similarly, poorly executed movie subtitling can disrupt the viewing experience, especially if the translation is of low quality. Therefore, working with experienced and well-regarded subtitling companies should be a part of your company’s long-term marketing plan.

Do I need to caption or subtitle my video? 

Possibly both! Your organisation will need to review the relevant legal requirements in your country and industry. Numerous countries have anti-discrimination laws that require captions to be available for certain materials. Then, you will want to consider your target audience’s needs and marketing goals when hiring subtitling services. In essence, every situation is unique; subtitling companies will have experienced staff who can discuss with you what is best for your project. This answer will also depend upon where you intend to distribute your video, and who your intended viewers are. Remember also, that it is possible to use a combination of subtitling and captioning. For example, French movie subtitling with additional non-verbal captioning, on an English language film.

In which languages should I subtitle my video?

Again, this will depend on the intended target audience of your content. Is there more than one official language in the country where your customers reside? Is there a requirement for a legal mandate to provide bilingual videos? Or are there large populations of immigrants in your target geography that would appreciate your information in their native language? For example, Spanish subtitles may be a good second language choice for distribution in the USA, but would not be a great choice for distribution in China. In summary, both captions and subtitles can expand your video’s accessibility, as long as you choose your languages carefully. In a world where movie subtitling on online platforms is becoming the norm, working with subtitling companies who provide captioning or subtitling services is increasingly necessary.

Renaissance Translations’ Professional Subtitling Services 

Renaissance Translations is a full-service language service provider, ready to assist you in transcribing, translating, captioning and subtitling your audio and video content. Whether you need movie subtitling for international distribution or want to improve accessibility with captioning, we can help. Your partnership with Renaissance Translations comes with professional memberships such as ATC and a guarantee to meet any tight deadline placed on us. Let’s discuss your project requirements.