Globalisation and the advent of the internet have seen an increasing number of UK businesses capitalise on a new opportunity to sell their products and services overseas. The exact number of UK businesses that currently sell their products to Europe differs depending on where you look, but the general consensus is that between 5 and 11 percent of the UK’s 5.4 million businesses currently export to the EU.

Success in this international market relies on, among other things, a business’s ability to reach its audience in their language. We have previously discussed the preference of international consumers for buying goods and services in their own language, with 56.2 percent admitting that local language content is even more important than price.

Clearly then, whether it’s marketing videos, global patent filing or certified legal translation, a rigorous translation that allows you to reach an international customer base in their language is a must. Here are three examples of business translation services that are central to your overseas success…

1. Certified legal translations

The legal hoops you need to jump through in the UK can be difficult enough to understand, so when you’re expanding overseas, you need to make sure you have a legal translation team on your side to remove the additional complication of language.

Without accurate translation, cross-cultural miscommunication and misunderstandings are a real risk, and when dealing with the law, they could prove to be very costly mistakes. Employing a certified translation team from the start that can translate audio and text documents on your behalf will ensure the accuracy of legal documents. That will reduce the risk of lost revenue, reputational damage and legal proceedings that could result from linguistic errors or oversights.

2. Video translations

Video is becoming an increasingly popular and effective method of communicating with customers, whether it’s other businesses or consumers. Product demonstrations, how-to tutorials, adverts and educational videos can all play an important role in attracting, engaging and converting international customers, as long as they are in the local language.

Subtitling services and audio translation are both crucial to adapting English-speaking assets for local audiences. If your videos are translated and localised appropriately, you can increase the ROI of the original video and bring it to a whole new audience at very little extra cost.

3. Patent applications

One of the most important aspects of any business is safeguarding its products so they cannot be replicated by other organisations. If you have a product or service that can be patented, then putting the necessary protection in place is highly advisable, particularly if you plan to enter multiple markets.

Patent applications require exact wording and a thorough understanding of the language they are to be granted in. The slightest mistake could end up with the necessary protection not being provided and that could make or break your success overseas. With the costs of making a mistake so high, it’s essential your patent application translation is word perfect first time around, which is where our business translation services can help.

How can we help?

Around half of all online buyers will purchase products from businesses in other countries by 2020. Is that a market you can afford to miss out on? Get in touch with Linguistica International to see how our business translation services can help you put your best foot forward overseas.

The internet has got a lot to answer for, or perhaps it’s social media more specifically that seems to be impacting our world in so many damaging ways. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram have all been linked to declining levels of mental health in teens and young adults. Not only do they exacerbate children’s and young people’s body image worries and worsen bullying, but they also cause sleep problems, feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness.

One of the biggest concerns is undoubtedly the rise in online bullying and the ease with which faceless ‘trolls’ can say pretty much whatever they like, to anyone they like, with relative impunity. However, thankfully there is one way those who make bullying, threatening and inflammatory comments can be caught.

When free speech turns ugly

The anonymity trolls enjoy is a major contributing factor to their behaviour. They believe they can say anything without consequences and even use software that conceals their IP addresses so their ugliness can come out. That makes it extremely difficult to prove who is behind the comments using conventional investigation techniques.

Thankfully, investigators are starting to realise that linguistics could be the key to tracking the trolls down. Much like fingerprints, our speech patterns leave behind clues about who we are, with linguistic quirks and our unique vocabulary providing insight into our experiences, our background and where we come from.

Forensic linguistics in action

Of course, linguistic identification is nowhere near as exact as biological identifiers such as fingerprint evidence or DNA, but it can be enough to change the direction of an investigation. In a recent American defamation case, a local businessman and various judges were being relentlessly trolled by an online commenter.

Forensic linguists were called in and noticed that just a handful of nouns were used in unusual ways. This helped to link the troll to articles a local lawyer had written which had been published online. After digging a little deeper, investigators then saw that the username of the troll was connected to the lawyer personally. When confronted with this evidence, the lawyer confessed and was subsequently demoted.

The role of machine learning

Trolling is a very difficult issue to tackle in this way because it is so prevalent. The costs of using forensic linguistics in every case would be huge, which is where artificial intelligence can help. Some sites use AI moderation tools to review and approve content before it appears on public-facing platforms. This type of tool uses search filters to identify offensive keywords, but other tools have gone a step further than that and can identify abusive messages even where offensive language or slurs are not used.

This type of tool could be used by platforms like Twitter and Facebook to identify and block abusive messages before they are received. Not only would that offer a degree of protection for users, but it would also mean forensic linguistics could be saved for more serious cases.

What are your views?

This is a very emotive topic and one we would love to hear your views on. Please share your experiences on our Facebook page or to find out more about any of our translation services, please get in touch with our team.