Language Translation

The bad translations above may be funny to you, but tragic to their owners.  These examples are from real companies who were looking for cheap translations.  There are good translations.  There are cheap translations.  There are no good, cheap translations.

Know this.  Every website, regardless of size or budget, is seen all over the world by millions of potential customers. This globalization makes it imperative that your message be “localized” for every potential customer.  BeersOfBaltimore.com is being read by Chinese who are paying $14 for a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Consider your translations as a prized corporate asset. Don’t trust this asset to “in-country” employees or trading partners.  Demand professional translation specialists (MAs or PhDs) with both native and source-country residence and experience in the topics they will translate.

Also consider “fit.”  Most languages take more space to print and time to read than English.  Our experience in video, websites and print equips us to fit our translations into the original language’s space without costly re-writes or re-prints.

If you plan to translate in more than one medium, it pays to do all media at one time.

Avekta disdains the recent trend toward the commoditizing of translation. Our bids are based on the entire communication as a conceptual whole, including translation, fitting, cultural implications, motivational analysis and implied reasoning.

Obtaining a bid quickly, in any medium, in any language is simple. Just email us the appropriate text, or send us a copy of the tape or DVD with your contact information and deadline. We will respond within 24 work-hours.  FREE QUOTE: translations@avekta.com

Here are some examples of translations we’ve done. GET TRANSLATED: 212-308-8000

Pacific Gas & Electric

Pacific Gas & Electric, the public utility of San Francisco and surrounding suburbs, requires its publications to be translated into many different languages and cultures. Correct and appropriate translation is essential when safety and financial issues are at stake. This flier for averaged monthly billing was produced in English, Spanish, Chinese. Korean and Vietnamese.

Museum of Modern Art

When New York's Museum of Modern Art temporarily moved to Queens, the museum's directors decided to recreate the museum's guide into the local languages - Korean and Chinese - fit into existing designs. The American Museum of Natural History also commissioned us to produce Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, French and Japanese version of the planetarium shows.

Cavendish Farms

Headquartered in New Brunswick, Canada, Cavendish is a food producer and agribusiness supplier with global reach. We translate product packaging including the complex ingredients and nutrition labels that are required by law in many target countries. The laws being different in each locality, the translations are very precise and critical to each product's success.

Time Warner

Our first translation project for Time Warner was the Spanish version of the corporate Human Resources benefits document. TW's version was an interactive audio recording accessed by a toll-free phone line. The project included recording and editing the audio. Then we proceeded to translate the print-based HR manual for every country in which Time Warner operated.

Holiday Inn

DO NOT DISTURB! That's NOT what this doorknob hang tag says. Instead, it appeals to a hotel guest's environmental support and conservationist ethics. Informed of the need to save water, energy and avoid polluting rivers and streams with detergents, this hang-tag was one of the first to suggest using a towel and washcloth a second time. This version is in Spanish, French and German, thereby conserving paper at the same time!

All Nippon Airways

Working for QBIC Factory Group, an international print and multi-media agency located in New York, we translated this newspaper and magazine print advertisement for All Nippon Airways (ANA), one of the largest arlines in Japan. The advertisement is intended to attract Chinese travelers with its services to and from Beijing, Hong Kong, Washington, DC and Los Angeles known to have a stellar on-time record.

The O'Gara Group

The O'Gara Group provides a diverse portfolio of security, safety, and defense products and services to commercial and government organizations worldwide. We translated their first international brochure for their armored vehicles division in French and Arabic. The Arabic version lead us to be selected by the Government of Saudi Arabia for the translation of road signs at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

Abbott Laboratories

Leading producers of nutritional products with a global reach, Abbott Laboratories sponsored a vast educational program to improve pediatric health and nutrition in virtually every country in the world. We translated the extensively illustrated volume into Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese.