Archives for June 2021

The most common abbreviations in Swedish

30.6.2021 by Delingua

Scholarships for highly accomplished language students

11.6.2021 by Delingua

Why and how to set up an academy in your company – case DelinguaLAB

9.6.2021 by Delingua

We founded Delingua’s own academy, DelinguaLAB, in 2018. The idea arose, on the one hand, from our desire to make it easier for new graduates to move from the school bench to working life, and, on the other hand, from the practical need to attract more talents to our sector.

After the summer holidays, it’s time for the eighth DelinguaLAB. Now we are looking for future professionals for all the different jobs in our business. We receive applications in a steady stream as DelinguaLAB is already well-known among students and its message is also relayed by universities and their student organisations.

One of our customers recently told us that DelinguaLAB served as encouragement for proposing the establishment of a similar academy in their company. If you are interested in setting up an academy of your own, read the following and learn why and how DelinguaLAB was born.

Driven by passion

We are passionate about our industry and also want to tell others about it, both our customers and especially to newly minted language experts who are looking for their place in the language service industry. We genuinely want to help and also assume our responsibility for the future of the language industry and the sufficient supply of talented professionals.

What you don’t learn when you study

Translation studies mainly focus on issues related to translation itself. Other tasks in the language service industry, such as project and vendor management, sales and marketing of language services and work with localisation technology, can only be learnt by working in companies in the sector. Quite a few people don’t even know all the jobs that a degree in translation can qualify you for.

Free classroom and online training

Because we want to help and discover new translation industry talents, participating in our programme is free of charge and participants are paid for the work they perform. In our free classroom or online training, the learners selected for the programme will get comprehensive expert overviews of the industry and the needs of customers, learn to use different tools and get a chance to shadow professionals in their work.

Paid traineeship

An important element of DelinguaLAB is the real work assignments that participants get to do. Work performed is paid for in accordance with industry practices. Translators receive detailed feedback about their translation assignments from reviewers and, for other tasks, we are happy to take on trainees for longer periods.

We do not use the programme as a source of free labour.

Mentors as support

DelinguaLAB participants are assigned mentors from among experienced Delingua employees for the duration of the programme. The mentor’s feedback and guidance in everyday life are especially important as, for many, this is their first job in their own field. Furthermore, the fact that many Delingua employees are involved either as trainers or as mentors makes the programme a joint project for the entire company.

Content for marketing

Delingua’s mission is to be the preferred partner in all language services in Finland. Your own academy can be an excellent source of content for both customer and employer marketing. To quote a customer: DelinguaLAB certainly does not make Delingua a less interesting company, far from it.

Co-creation

Even the best of companies cannot rest on their laurels, thinking that they have all the best people and resources. Development must be carried out continuously.

DelinguaLAB offers a great opportunity for co-creation with young talents. We get to both develop as an employer and to create something new. It is not only that we have something to give but that we are open to fresh insights into our established practices.

Although universities provide high-quality learning, the language service industry is undergoing such a rapid and profound transformation that it is difficult to keep up. Nowadays, it is increasingly rare that the material to be translated would come as traditional Word files, the pace of translation required in working life is more intense and hardly anything is translated without language technology tools. For many tasks that are part of the everyday routine for us, there is no specific training available and it may be that new graduates do not have a clear idea of what work in our business really is like.

DelinguaLAB is the best solution we have come up with to tackle these challenges. We are happy to tell more about our experiences to other companies who want to set up their own academy.

P.S. In fact, we believe that future talents should be encouraged even before they go to university. That is why we have started cooperating with Helsinki Upper Secondary School of Languages . This year, we awarded scholarships to highly accomplished language students.

International e-commerce

1.6.2021 by Katja Virtanen

The e-commerce market is growing rapidly as the opportunities offered by e-commerce have become evident also to small and medium-sized enterprises during the coronavirus pandemic. And no wonder. With e-commerce, you can multiply your company’s sales opportunities and, by adding multilingualism to the equation, you can also go international. An online retailer should keep multilingualism in mind from the outset. Even if internationalisation is not planned initially, it may become relevant later.

Here are a few fundamentals of international e-commerce (you can read more in our e-commerce guide).

Choosing an e-commerce platform

When choosing an e-commerce platform that suits your business, consider how it will adapt to internationalisation. Most platforms offer different language options for both online shoppers and retailers themselves. If the language you need is not available out of the box, can new language versions be added easily?

Language versions are not just about translating the content. The entire online store must be localised. Therefore, when choosing the platform, also take into account how well it can be adapted to different currency units, payment and delivery methods or the calendar of the destination country, for instance.

Choosing the online store’s languages

The choice of language depends on what and where you want to sell. You can get further with English than with Finnish but, according to one survey, 76% of online shoppers want product information in their native language.

The smartest approach is to carry out an advance analysis of where your products are most in demand. At the same time, consider the return on your language investment as it consists of matters other than just translation. The maintenance of language versions, marketing and customer service in the chosen languages also cost.

English is the most widely used language on the Internet: up to 60.4% of the world’s 10 million most popular websites are in English. So choose English if you don’t have a specific target audience in mind.

International search engine optimisation

Localising your online store is not enough if search engines cannot find it. Keyword research must be conducted for each language and target area separately if you want to attract customers to your online store.

Detailed keyword research analyses which target-language terms are used when people search for your company’s products or services. These terms are not necessarily the first translation options that come to mind.

If you’re thinking about using only English in turning your business international, keep in mind that only a fraction of Google searches are done in English. English is also the most difficult language in terms of search engine visibility, precisely because there are so many English-language websites. It may therefore be a better idea to analyse the target markets more thoroughly and start international business one language area at a time.

Automated management

Many platforms offer ready-made translations. Even at their best, they are not enough as your product information must also be professionally translated. You need a good localisation partner because customers won’t buy anything from an online store with poorly translated content.

Choose a language services partner that has experience in online store translations and the ability to automate the management of language versions. In practice, this means integration between the e-commerce platform or the PIM system and the language service provider’s system. Integration can often be achieved with add-ons.

As a rule of thumb, the more language versions and information to be updated the online store has, the smarter and more profitable it is to manage language versions through integration rather than manually.

Maintaining language versions

The maintenance of language versions includes not only the continuous updating of the multilingual website but also marketing and customer service in the chosen languages. The ready-made translations offered by platforms certainly are not enough for this.

It may not be the smart option to translate a website into Chinese, for instance, if you are not prepared to serve customers in Chinese as well. Even before adding a new language version, you must take into account that customers may send inquiries or return products and you should be able to serve them in their own language. The online store must also be marketed continuously to ensure that the desired target group can find it. Otherwise, your technical investment will be a waste of time and money.

An international online store is not a one-off setup and translation project. In theory, geographic barriers to e-commerce are easy to overcome but, in practice, an international online store requires constant work and investments. The most important thing, as with marketing in general, is to know your customers and offer them localised service. After all, the customer experience is everything also in global business.