Merrill Brink News Reviews and Opinion on May 8, 2015: Why Localisation, Not Language, Is Important for All Portuguese Translations
London, UK (PRWEB UK) 8 May 2015 -- The Portuguese language is spoken by more than 260 million people throughout the world in places like Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, Angola, Macau, East Timor, the Republic of Cabo Verde, Príncipe and São Tomé. Even more impressive, Portuguese has become an important language in the international business world. The demand for language training in Portuguese has grown tremendously. According to Carlos Minchillo, an assistant professor at Dartmouth, “The consequence of Brazil’s economic performance in recent years and the future events to be held in Brazil, such as the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, is that we have more students who choose Portuguese for professional reasons. Some of them are even eager to live and work in Brazil.” However, associating Portuguese with Brazil alone creates problems when translating materials.
Portuguese Dialects Abound
Brazil is a melting pot of cultures and peoples, and Brazilian Portuguese has been influenced over the years by both African and Amerindian languages to add words for foods, animals, plants, religious concepts, clothing and even body parts to the lexicon. However, the use of these words, often not seen in Portuguese dialects spoken in Europe and Africa, represent only one difference in dialects. The three main regions in which Portuguese is the predominant language also shows significant differences in verb tenses as well as in the ways words are spelled.
Localisation Makes a Difference
The many differences among the regional dialects of Portuguese can make it difficult to correctly translate business documents because there is no standard for the language. Consequently, content for Portuguese speakers must be localised for the specific region of the target audience.
In 2006, the Common Sense Advisory group released Can’t Read, Won’t Buy: Why Language Matters on Global Websites. According to this report, 72.4 per cent of people surveyed said they were more likely to buy products when information was written in their native language.(1) The reason is simple: localisation lets customers know the company is investing in their interests and making their preferences a priority.
Putting localisation over language can provide cost savings for an organisation. Offending a group of people by using content suited to another region has proven to be costly for even the largest companies. According to estimates from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. companies lose approximately US$50 billion in sales every year due to problems caused by improperly localised content.(2)
As these examples illustrate, translating a document into Portuguese isn’t quite the same as making sure the content is localised to the target market or country. To ensure accuracy and cultural appropriateness, partner with a trusted professional translation provider who understands your international content strategy and can provide professional translators who are versant in the language variants of your target audiences. Simply translating a document and checking for spelling or grammatical errors won’t do it. Your translation vendor must be able to identify intricacies within the translated file to make sure it is right for the intended audience.
Full Article: http://www.merrillbrink.com/importance-of-portuguese-localization-05042015.htm
References:
1 DePalma, Donald A., Sargent, Benjamin B., Beninatt, Renato S., “Can't Read, Won't Buy: Why Language Matters on Global Websites”, Common Sense Advisory. September 29, 2006.
2 Layden, Julie, “Localization: Essential for Competing in the Global Marketplace”. Accessed from The Federation of International Trade Associations, Website. 1997.
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Vanessa Lontoc, Merrill Brink International, http://www.merrillbrink.com, +1 (917) 720-5598, [email protected]
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