There are a number of issues that come to light when we consider the increasing need for translation services in the modern commercial world. Or, put more specifically: the need for quality translation services in the modern commercial world.

This issue has been highlighted, in part, by the advent, development and popularity of machine translation on the internet.

A debate has sparked up around the question of whether we will actually need human translators in the near future. Online, automated and most often free, machine translation tools are seen as a marvel of modern technology; a time saving (not to mention money saving) shortcut to translating text.

High levels of economic migration to the UK over the past few years drew attention to a real need for language services. Of course, it would be far simpler and more cost effective for a stretched public sector organisation to rely solely on machine translation, but there is a very good reason why this doesn't happen. The fact remains that, in many cases, machine translation fails due to its inability to take into account contextual issues and cultural nuances.

The issue then spreads globally as we begin to see the new challenges faced by the web as we head into a more diverse information age.

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If we look towards the expansion of the web, we see the demand for information in languages other than English escalate. Particularly when economically emergent nations add new users and therefore new voices and perspectives to the medium, changing the texture and flavour of the web. For an example of this we can look towards Asia where, in recent years, we have seen massive increases in the number of web users across the continent. And, according to many sources, China has now overtaken the US in its number of internet users; with a reported 253 million people with web access.

This fact is made more pertinent when you consider that there are significantly fewer sites available in Chinese than in English.

All this points to the need for information to be made available to the portion of the world community that will benefit most by gaining access to it. Of course, to make this information available you will need good quality translation so that your audience will understand essence and the context of what is being said. In cases like these, machine translation would be practically useless.

As needs increase, so does the requirement to fulfil that need.

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Back in the UK, many government initiatives have been put into place to promote integration among existing and emerging communities. Literature, road signage and local government web content have all been revised and republished in languages other than English. And, like the world community, this requirement is constantly evolving in terms of scale and complexity.

It is not improbable to consider the prospect that translation services will continue to flourish as more and more organisations begin to realise just how valuable it is to offer multilingual content and/or media to their audiences.

In July 2005 Prestige Network were contacted by the London Criminal Justice Board (or LCJB). This contact was made after a referral to the LCJB from a Police Authority for whom the company had provided Language Services. Due to the relatively contemporary challenge of providing multilingual services, the LCJB had been searching for considerable time for a company who could fulfil their exact requirements.

Prestige were selected on the strength of its combined linguistic and technical expertise. Additionally, Prestige Network has developed strong relations within Public Sector by understanding its specific language needs.

Prestige Network’s capacity to supply a comprehensive range of languages meant that covering the languages that the LCJB needed was not a problem.

Webtran enables individuals to view any part of a website in one of a variety of languages at any time. This provides an opportunity for information to become available for the communities that need it most.

By combining Translation, Cultural Consultation and Web Optimisation, this service provides a comrehensive, end-to-end service. Creating the possibility to offer clear, sensitive and informative web content to cater for a wide variety of cultural and liguistic requirements.

In February 2006, Prestige Network was commissioned by the Home Office to carry out the translation of a booklet. ‘Living and Working in Britain’, contains friendly and easy to follow advice on issues such as buying or renting a home to driving laws and regulations in the UK. The original document was written in a semi-formal style and it was important, for consistency, to maintain that style of writing to make sure that the document could be as consice and useful as possible.

Prestige provided the expert translation service to achieve this goal, and were also able to find solutions to the challenges that the translation of this document presented in terms of maintaining a consistent layout and look.

Translation into some languages produced a substantially longer document, whilst the nature of other languages required a completely different format for the text on the page. For the Arabic translation of the document, for example, we needed to ensure that the format of the piece ‘mirrored’ the original, whilst still adhered to Home Office corporate guidelines.

Our languages team worked through the project, translating, formatting and designed each document, proofing it each stage respectively. In this way, we were able mainain a stringent quality control procedure throughout the project's lifespan.

In all situations, a degree of cultural sensitivity is as important as linguistic fluency. In certain situations however, a lack of cultural sensitivity can have disastrous consequences. In the armed forces in particular, individuals often find themselves in highly confrontational positions. In such events, employing cultural sensitivity can make a huge difference when trying to assert control over a potentially volatile situation.

We were contacted by the Ministry of Defence to provide a cultural consultancy programme for UK troops prior to their deployment in Afghanistan. The aim was to give soldiers a background on local culture and basic language skills so as not to alienate themselves from the community.

Our cultural consultancy team arranged lessons in colloquial Dari to be held in Brunei. These lessons consisted of teaching soldiers how to greet and address people, who to approach and who to avoid and matters that should and shouldn't be spoken about.

Role play scenarios were acted out to see how the troops might react in certain situations.
One of our linguists describes one of these exercises:

"Some of us were instructed to play the part of the interpreters, but most of us played civilians, and we were asked to dress in Burkha. We were asked to imagine how we would react if one of the soldiers were to take away a member of our family. The soldiers then had to use the interpreter to calm us down, and explain what was happening. We had been informed that some of these sessions could be deemed disturbing, but the soldiers made it fun."

Front desk staff at Hull JobCentre were finding that they were ill-equipped to deal with the increasing levels of Polish migrants coming through their doors. We were contacted to give JobCentre staff basic language training to enable them to lessen the language barrier.

The result was the design and production of a Poish phrase card. This convenient language tool was devised by us to help JobCentre staff communicate with the Polish community more effectively.

The phrase card contained translations of the most common expressions like "I know a few words in Polish" and "Are you here to look for work?" as well as advice on how to correctly pronounce these phrases.

The JobCentre in question were enthusiastic about the improvements seen as a result of the initiative.

"Our staff now feel much more confident in communicating with our Polish customers. This initiative has really improved our customer service. The Polish people are so pleased that somebody can speak the basics of their language.
"We've already shared the phrase card with other JobCentres around the country, so more people are benefiting."