16 Ways to Get Employees Excited About Workplace Diversity

by Lauren Nemec

I found this article about workplace diversity because my article "International Business: Business Card Etiquette" was referenced there: 16 Ways to Get Employees Excited About Workplace Diversity

I had a lot of diversity coursework and training throughout my undergraduate education, so I love the idea of getting employees psyched about diversity in the workplace. This article presents some excellent ideas for getting employees pumped up about diversity initiatives. I especially like the idea of "Multicultural Food Day" where everyone brings a native dish!

Great article, Dawn!

McDonald's Symbols Lost in Translation?

by Lauren Nemec

If you've eaten at McDonald's anytime within the past year or so, you may have noticed the strange symbols on the food packaging that are meant to represent nutritional information. They look something like this:

If you have any health education, it might be easy to make some educated guesses about what the chart means, but do you think the average McDonald's consumer can fully interpret everything?

Here is the nutritional chart decoded:


What do you think? Is the 'fat' icon is, as they say, 'an easily recognizable measurement tool'? It looks like a display on a stereo system to me. Does the icon with the three dots looks like a salt shaker? I suppose it might, now that you mention it, but I never would have deduced that on my own. Did you even notice the gray shaded areas or dotted line representing daily allowances? I suppose I was too busy decoding the icons.

These days, many global companies opt to use illustrations and symbols rather than incur the cost of translations into multiple languages. If you've ever bought furniture from IKEA, you know what I am talking about.

Ikea's 'instruction people' show you rather than tell you how to handle and assemble IKEA products.

How can a company choose a group of icons that will mean the same thing in any location in the world, without causing offense or confusion? It's quite a challenge and McDonald's did not go at it alone- they enlisted the help of a language services provider.

As this trend grows, more language services providers seem to be offering cultural evaluation services for companies using images, symbols and illustrations in their documentation. Experts (such as marketers or iconographers) evaluate symbols against a certain set of criteria to determine possible cultural offensiveness or insensitivity, appropriate use of color, similarity to existing symbols, ease of comprehension, etc.

I'm sure the language services provider that McDonald's used to analyze their icons did a quality job, but I would question the person who developed these icons. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But I say, unless you can show me the right pictures, I'd rather have the words.

Thank You

by Lauren Nemec

As one of millions of blog writers, I often wonder if people out there ever read my humble postings (other than my mother and a small handful of colleagues).

But people do, in fact, read ‘A World of Translation Work.’ And for that I am very grateful and would like to say a very gracious and heartfelt “Thank you!” I especially appreciate those who have supported this blog through 'word-of-blog' and cross-linking. To those who have posted comments and written emails, I appreciate your insight, feedback and compliments. Keep them coming!

Google analytics is a fabulous tool that allows you to see where your website visitors come from. I am thrilled to have readers from more than 60 countries around the world. (Cue "It's a Small World After All"). A special "hello, howdy y'all, guten tag, hallo, bonjour, buon giorno, hola, olá, merhaba, zdravo, konnichi wa, god dag, dia dhuit, saluton, dobrý den, päivää, and salaam" to all of you.

It is my goal to make ‘A World of Translation Work’ informative and entertaining. If you ever have any questions, comments or suggestions, I would be happy to hear from you. I welcome guest contributions, should you have anything you would like to publish and think this blog would be a relevant forum.

Thanks for reading!

Lauren Nemec

lnemec@translatus.com

+420 222 522 650

Czenglish

by Lauren Nemec

Turns out the Chinese are not the only ones having problems with poor restaurant menu translations.

I've just returned from a lovely lunch with my mother-in-law at a delicious Italian restaurant here in Prague. We had a nice laugh over the menu selections, which included items such as:

-Mozzarela cheese lavred wuth sloves of tomatoes and fresch basil
-Grilled proper salat with jogurt dresink
-Pizza with pineaplle tomtoes and chees
-Salad with nightshade and smokem cheese with 1000s islands dresink

I appreciate that restaurants are translating their menus into English. I can hold my own with food-related Czech, but there is always the fear of ordering liver or stomach by mistake. But I have to wonder: why do nice establishments spend so much money on printing beautiful, glossy menus with tassels and vellum paper only to overlook the importance of printing correctly translated menu items?

Translatus should go around Prague translating restaurant menus for free in exchange for adding a "Translated by Translatus" notice on the menu. Hmm.. there's an idea...

Cultural Dimensions- Individualism vs. Collectivism

by Lauren Nemec

I just read a fascinating article on Yahoo! about study results illustrating Americans' individualistic nature and how it tends to hinder our abilities to understand other people's perspectives. Perhaps it's not directly related to translation, but I strongly believe that understanding culture is crucial to success in international business.

Study: Americans Don't Understand Others

Basic Rundown of the Study
Researchers took American and Chinese participants and told them to move a block on a table. There were two blocks on the table, though one was obstructed from the examiner's view by a piece of cardboard. The Chinese participants were more likely to take into consideration that the examiner was not able to see both blocks and quickly determined the block in the examiner's view should be moved. The Americans were confused by the request, and took much more time to decide which block to move.

Cultural Dimensions
The study and its results illustrate an important concept about culture: individualism vs. collectivism. This concept has been developed and studied by specialists in the field of cross-cultural communication- Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. These specialists have developed models of culture using multiple 'cultural dimensions'. Anyone who has ever had coursework or training in cross-cultural communication, intercultural sensitivity, or international management should be familiar with these dimensions of culture.

The individualism vs. collectivism dimension explains a culture's social functions; in society, do people function as individuals or groups?

Individualism
In individualistic cultures (such as in the United States, Canada, Germany and South Africa) relationships between people are loose. A person's utmost responsibility and duty is to himself and his immediate family, and people will often put their own needs above the needs of others. Independence and self-reliance are important values in individualistic societies. It is strongly believed that people should be free to pursue their dreams and goals.

This tendency to think about ourselves can suppress our ability to empathize with others and understand different points of view. People in individualistic societies are often seen as 'selfish' or 'egotistic'.

Collectivism
In collectivist cultures (such as China, Japan, Greece and most Latin American countries), individuals are bound together through strong ties. A person's responsibility and duty is to his community, and the needs of the group are put above the needs of the individual. People are expected to act in the best interest of the group, society or family unit. Harmony and loyalty are important values in collectivist societies.

Why is this important?
Developing cultural awareness can help you communicate and work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds than your own. Understanding the influence of culture on a person's values, behavior, communication style and decision-making may mean the difference between success and failure in an international business venture.

And for Americans, training in cultural awareness might be the medicine we need to cure our egocentric and selfish reputations!

Kwintessential has some great cultural awareness quizzes on their website, if you'd like to get started with your cross-cultural education.

Translation Tools for the Modern-Day Traveler

by Lauren Nemec

If you depend solely on a tattered old phrasebook to get by when traveling abroad, you’re way behind the times. These days, international travelers have a wide range of tools and gadgets at their disposal to help them communicate when abroad.

Swearing

Travelers can really blend in with the locals by using profanity, and websites likes cusscards.com and insults.net easily bring multilingual expletives right to their fingertips. So, the next time you’re cut off by an Italian driver in Rome, you can swear at him like the locals do. Please note that these websites may contain offensive material.

Health

On a more serious note, tools also exist to aid travelers with medical issues. Some niche language service providers exist to help travelers with special needs, such as allergytranslation.com. This service provides translations of 175 food allergies and nearly a dozen diets in over 20 languages. The allergies and their translations are printed on a small card, which can be shown to restaurant staff in other countries, ensuring a pleasant and safe dining experience.

High Tech

A cousin of mine and his wife are traveling through Europe for the next few weeks. They're addicted to their Blackberries, so they activated international service for their phones prior to their departure. With internet access in their hands, they'll be able to perform on-the-spot machine translations (in addition to other great things like checking email, reading restaurant reviews, and checking flight delays). Smartphones can be a great tool for international travelers- one I never even dreamed of when I first started traveling 10 years ago.

These days, you can buy various language software packages for your pocket PC that provide phrasebooks, bilingual dictionaries, machine translation, language learning programs and flashcards, voice translation, and picture dictionaries.

Electronic pocket translators have been around for a long time, but can do much more than they used to thanks to increased storage space and improvements in machine translation technology. Most electronic translators on the market also have multiple functions, such as an MP3 player, world clock, travel alarm, currency converter and calculator.

Forget verbal communication- Just point

Those who want to forget spoken language altogether can depend on the most basic of non-verbal communication tactics – pointing. There are many universal wordless phrasebooks in print, usually called ‘picture dictionaries’. Whether it’s toilet paper, gasoline, beer or a doctor, simply point to a photograph in the ‘phrasebook’ to signify what you need.

Discretion

Though not related to translation tools exactly, there is one more sophisticated 'device' to point out.

In an age where travelers (especially from the U.S.A.) need to look as inconspicuous as possible, some products and services are designed to help travelers blend in. Avant-Guide, for example, is a range of travel books that won’t make you stick out like a sore thumb. Their discreet covers make the books look more like a novel than a travel guide.

So throw out that old phrasebook and get with the times ;)

Transliteration of Candidate Names into Chinese Causing 'Upset Stomachs'

by Lauren Nemec

Who would you vote for in the 2008 Presidential Election: ‘Europe Pulling a Horse’, ‘Upset Stomach’, ‘Beautiful Soup’, or ‘Sticky Rice’?

(Translation: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney)

Chinese-American citizens in the City of Boston are pushing for the full translation of voting ballots, including transliteration of candidate names. Because written Chinese uses characters rather than an alphabet of Roman letters, some Chinese-Americans may have a difficult time understanding an English-only ballot. Advocates for Chinese-American voting rights insist on using transliteration as a tool to assist Chinese-American voters who are not able to read English.


However, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin is opposed to the transliteration of candidate names on ballots, arguing that there is no precise or accurate process of transliterating names and that there is a possibility candidates will sue over their transliterated names.

Remember: Transliteration is not the same as translation.

Translation changes the word into another language while preserving original meaning.

Transliteration changes letters or words into corresponding characters of another alphabet or language.

Though there is a process to transliterating, it is not without flaws and can be very subjective. When a name is transliterated to Chinese, the linguist will find Chinese words that phonetically sound like the pronunciation of the original name. The linguist will then choose the word with the most appropriate meaning and turn it into the correct Chinese written character for that word.

Take my first name, for example: Lauren. The first syllable, ‘lau’ sounds like the Chinese word for ‘law.’ The second syllable, ‘ren’ sounds like the Chinese words for 'cloud', 'kind’ and ‘patient.’ My transliterated name could therefore be ‘law cloud’.

The problem with this process is that it can create nonsensical meanings in the target language. Perhaps you’ve heard of a very famous transliteration problem of Coca Cola’s. Back in the 1920’s, Coca-Cola was preparing to enter the Chinese market. A translator transliterated the name ‘Coca-Cola’ into Chinese characters. When the drink didn’t sell, the company found out that the transliterated characters meant ‘bite the wax tadpole’ or ‘a wax flattened mare’. The company then changed the name of the product to 'happiness in the mouth' for the Chinese market.

In order for an election to run precisely and smoothly, the ballots should be as clear as possible. Transliterated names could possibly cause more confusion than clarification and might complicate election procedures and results. Politicians with unflattering or poorly transliterated names could potentially argue that it adversely affects them in the polls, possibly resulting in litigation and contested elections. With this in mind, it’s easy to understand William Galvin’s concerns. However, the Chinese-American activists are not out of luck yet: Galvin says, "If there is precise way to do this, then I'll agree to it.” Good luck!

Further Reading:

Candidates lost in Chinese translation: USAToday

Voting rights, not 'Sticky Rice': Boston Globe

International Business: Business Card Etiquette

by Lauren Nemec

“To know another’s language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of yourself.” Winston Brembeck

Your plane tickets are booked, your glossy brochures are printed, your business suit is pressed and your trusty phrasebook is in your pocket. Are you prepared for your meeting?

In the United States, business cards are seen as nothing more than an easy way to exchange contact information. Elsewhere, however, a business card represents its owner, and as such should be treated with the utmost respect. In some business cultures, exchanging cards can be a ceremonious process, with plenty of opportunities to impress – or offend - your business associates.

Here are some tips and guidelines on appropriate business card content, appearance, translation, and ceremony.

Business Card Content

It may seem straightforward - all you need on your business card is your name, job title and contact information, right? Depending on where you are doing business, more information may be necessary. Your card should provide people with information about your background and qualifications.

Job Title

Your job title could be the most important piece of information on your card. Ensure it is translated accurately. Some job titles can be hard to translate, or the title might not exist in the target language.

In many situations, your title will help your business associates determine if you have the authority to make decisions on behalf of your company. You can determine the same thing about your counterparts by referring to the titles on their business cards.

Academic Qualifications

In countries where people hold great respect for higher education, it may be beneficial to state your academic qualifications on your business card if you have any advanced degrees. A few examples of where this would be appropriate are Austria, France, Germany, India, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, and Russia.

Professional Qualifications

If you are member of a professional organization, or if you have received any honors, awards or other distinctions, you might consider putting this information on your business card.

Company Logo

A logo is seen an essential part of any reputable company’s identity, and as such, should be included on your business card.

Company Distinctions

Many cultures value tradition, stability, and longevity. If your company has been established for many years, it would be an asset to put the company’s founding date on your business card.

Translating Your Business Card

If your business card is in English, it is not necessary to have it translated when doing business in these countries, as English is widely spoken or understood:

• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• German
• India
• Israel
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Philippines
• Poland
• Singapore
• South Africa
• Sweden
• Switzerland

It is beneficial to have your business card translated when doing business in the following countries:

• Argentina (Spanish)
• Austria (German)
• Belgium (French and Dutch)
• Brazil (Portuguese)
• Canada (French and English)
• Chile (Spanish)
• China (Chinese, local dialect)
• Colombia (Spanish)
• Egypt (Arabic)
• Greece (Greek)
• Hong Kong (Cantonese)
• Italy (Italian)
• Japan (Japanese)
• Peru (Spanish)
• Russia (Russian with Cyrillic alphabet)
• Saudi Arabia (Arabic)
• South Korea (Korean)
• Spain (Spanish)
• Taiwan (Traditional Chinese)
• UAE (Arabic)
• Venezuela (Spanish)
• Yemen (Arabic)

If you do translate your business card, you can have it translated on the reverse side. Remember to hand over a double-sided business card so that the native language of your business counterpart is facing them.

Business Card Appearance

The quality of your business card may reflect the quality of your product or service, so opt for the best.

People may appreciate the elegance of an engraved or embossed business card. As this prevents anything being printed on the reverse side, have separate cards made for translations into other languages.

In China, the colors red and gold are considered to be auspicious, and would be ideal for use on a business card.

If you don’t already have one, consider buying a business card case. It is considered poor business etiquette to shove a card in your pocket.

Business Card Exchange

Exchanging business cards is a common practice in most countries. In some countries, it is quite common to distribute business cards to everyone you meet, including secretaries and assistants. Make sure you bring a plentiful supply of business cards with you. To avoid causing offense, be sure you offer a card to everyone present, no matter their station. Remember this example: Japanese employees can be very loyal, often staying with the same company for their entire career. The assistant you meet today could one day be an influential decision maker. He will likely remember you if you treat him with respect and politeness.

Rituals of business card exchange vary greatly from country to country. In Western countries, cards are usually exchanged with very little ceremony. However, in some nations, business card exchange can be a highly ceremonious event, requiring decorum, etiquette, and knowledge of the customs.

While varying slightly in formality, the exchange of business cards in countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan is as follows:

Bow or shake hands and say your greeting. Present your business card with both hands (or your right hand only, see below), with your associate’s language facing them. Start with the most senior person in the room, and repeat with process with everyone else, moving down the corporate ladder as you go along. When accepting a business card, accept it with both hands and a gracious 'Thank you’. Politely read the business card for a few moments. This is a good time to clarify the pronunciation of a person’s name, ask a question, or make a pleasant remark about his or her card. You may want to leave the cards near you on the table to facilitate name-learning during a meeting. Be sure to carefully put all the cards away in a business card case.

A good rule of thumb for ANY country: treat a business card as if it is a precious gift. Don’t write on it. Don’t stuff it in your pocket. Don’t play with it.

In places like India, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco and Egypt, the left hand is considered to be unclean. (If you don’t know why, click here for a good explanation). Therefore, in these countries, you should hand over your business card only with your right hand.

------

Although poor business card etiquette may not be disastrous for your business efforts, good business card etiquette will leave a positive impression of you and your company in the minds of your associates. Knowing the ceremonies will help to put you at ease and open the lines of communication.

Before leaving on a business trip, it is wise to research local business card customs. Here are some resources to get you started:

Executive Planet

Kwintessential Article