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Translation Tips: Expanding Word Counts

aiaTranslations

Jun 12, 2014

Translation Tips: Expanding Word Counts

This ongoing series will provide succinct guidance to buyers of translation services. Why does my document have 2000 words but my estimate is for 2800 words? Great question. Most invoicing and billing for translation is done on the final target word count. Agencies that hope to give you estimates that will not be exceeded, will estimate the expansion of words in the translation process. Because of this, you will see a larger word count on the estimate. It is also because

Translation Tips: Components of Pricing

aiaTranslations

Jun 5, 2014

Translation Tips: Components of Pricing

This ongoing series will provide succinct guidance to buyers of translation services. It is nearly impossible to compare quotes if you do not understand the components of a translation estimate. Use this section to familiarize yourself with the line items that may appear on your invoice. WORD COUNTS Most documents are charged by the word for translation. The exceptions to this are those that fall under a pre-established “minimum” or certain types of advertising copy. Estim

Not All Spanish is the Same

aiaTranslations

May 26, 2014

Not All Spanish is the Same

While Spanish is the most translated language in the United States, these translations are often fraught with errors because translators are not fully accounting for the wide range of usage and vocabulary differences that due to the regional differences in the language. While over 300 million people speak Spanish, regional and local usage variations have created translation difficulties for those trying to create one version of their Spanish documents for global use. In a n

Mattel’s New Ad Campaign is a Translator’s Holiday Treat

aiaTranslations

Dec 16, 2013

Mattel’s New Ad Campaign is a Translator’s Holiday Treat

As businesses and society itself go more global, advertising agencies are calling more and more upon translators. But commercial translation may be one of the most challenging kinds out there! For example, while many companies have short slogans that appear easy enough to literally translate from one language to another, what happens when that brief, catchy phrase isn’t so brief or catchy outside its original form? I remember a few years ago, an ad agency friend asked if I

5 Things Technology Still Can’t Help Us With

aiaTranslations

Nov 25, 2013

5 Things Technology Still Can’t Help Us With

No matter how impressive it gets (can you believe smartphones even exist?), technology does have its limits. Here are five things that I’m personally bummed out that we still can’t (reliably) do with our computers, phones, or tablets: 1. Catch every possible grammar and spelling mistake. You write something and spend days editing it, carefully crafting your sentences, meticulously choosing your words. Your brain is fried, and whenever you read over your document, it might as

Falling Through the Cracks

aiaTranslations

Oct 7, 2013

Falling Through the Cracks

Go ahead – visit http://www.healthcare.gov and take a look. Upper right hand corner gives you the español option. Of the 30 million who will now enter the national healthcare system, about 9 million of them do not speak English as a first language. (And these 9 million, may we remind you, are legal immigrants in the United States.) But not all of them are Spanish speakers. What happens to those for whom English or Spanish is simply not enough of an option to make access cl

The Search is On

aiaTranslations

Sep 9, 2013

The Search is On

Search engine optimization is the process of getting free or “organic” traffic to a website from search engine listings on the internet. The big search engines display web pages and content in order of what it considers most relevant to the terms for which the user is searching. If you have a website about travel tips when going to France, you want your site to be at the top of that list when people type in related search words. Search engine optimization is the science beh

Blurred Lines: Do Linear Ads Trigger Change?

aiaTranslations

Aug 26, 2013

Blurred Lines: Do Linear Ads Trigger Change?

The July 17th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on some results from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey which examined if antismoking messages on television, radio, billboards, newspapers or magazines are influencing smoker’s plans to quit. The good news is they are, the more interesting question is are they sending the right message? Over a quarter of a million people in 17 countries participated in the study, over 50,000 of which were smokers (

One of Their Own

aiaTranslations

Apr 8, 2013

One of Their Own

In 2010, Medicare paid more than $17.5 billion dollars for unplanned hospital readmissions as almost one in five Medicare patients returned within a month of discharge. October 2012, the Affordable Care Act began adjusting hospital payments according to it’s value-based purchasing program (VBP) which rewards value over volume and bases performance on quality measures such as readmission rates. Among others, a recent study by Hong Tao from the University of Wisconsin found in

Digital Trends, Old School Reality

aiaTranslations

Mar 4, 2013

Digital Trends, Old School Reality

It’s true: your company is progressive and ahead of the times. You have a beautiful, educational diabetes management website translated in Spanish for your large Hispanic customer base to peruse. It dazzles the eye. Do you think the doe-eyed abuella sitting quietly in a doctor’s office received your most recent Facebook post or the monthly newsletter you just emailed about the importance of monitoring her blood sugar levels? When it comes to educating patients, social medi

Patient Compliance is in the Semantics

aiaTranslations

Jan 7, 2013

Patient Compliance is in the Semantics

How do we make patients listen to us? Do we speak to them in their native tongue? Do we deliver culturally sensitive messages? Do we use smart marketing techniques to get them to take their medication every day? Yes, all of these things are helpful, but perhaps first we should look at the attitude behind the term “patient compliance.” The word compliance alone indicates the action or fact of complying with a wish or command and indicates a meeting of rules or standards. P

Anthropologists Save Lives Too

aiaTranslations

Dec 17, 2012

Anthropologists Save Lives Too

Let’s be honest, “Medical Anthropology” probably sounds like a quirky college major someone made up because they couldn’t get through medical school. The truth is it can save lives. Pauline Binder is one such medical anthropologist who recently presented her doctoral thesis, “The Maternal Effect Migration: Exploring maternal healthcare in Diaspora using qualitative proxies for medical anthropology” at the Department of Women and Child Health in the Faculty of Medicine at Upp

Facebook: Connecting Us to Health?

aiaTranslations

Dec 10, 2012

Facebook: Connecting Us to Health?

With one in four persons connected to the internet, even in developing countries, is social media a great information equalizer? Looking over my current news feed which includes inspirational quotes, video of a guy who didn’t give up and puppies enjoying the new snow, I’m not so sure. In older, traditional healthcare models, one authority, a doctor, pharmaceutical company, Center for Disease Control, etc. disseminated health information to the public. With social media now i

In Your Face: Translation and Social Media

aiaTranslations

Dec 3, 2012

In Your Face: Translation and Social Media

Happy Birthday In Arrears Birthday wishes have made a big comeback with Facebook, since we get weekly reminders and don’t actually have to remember our friends’ special day any more. So that seemed like an easy place to start looking at translations. As the technology behind both translation features, Google and Bing, basically consists in stringing words together, drawing from their vast inventory of documents in the respective languages and looking for similar patterns, “Ha

Culture-Based Triggers

aiaTranslations

Nov 26, 2012

Culture-Based Triggers

There are many psychological predictive models that attempt to explain human health behavior. From the old school Health Belief model, through the theories of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior to the more recently revised PRECEDE-PROCEED and Transtheoretical (TTM) models, there are many theories behind what makes us get off the couch and do something about our health. Among these models, there are many catch phrases for what causes us to act: Cues to Action, the Action S

aiaTranslations

Oct 30, 2012

Pharma Companies Can Weather the Storm

As hurricane Sandy meets a turning gulf stream and a nor’easter winter storm to unleash havoc on the Mid-Atlantic region, so too is the pharmaceutical industry entering an era of the perfect storm. Recent trends and events have set the industry up for major shifts and changes. The current blustery economic recession created, not a drop in pressure, but a drop in industry growth. In prior years, a billion dollar industry expanding its growth at about 10% per year did not nee

Return Ticket

aiaTranslations

Sep 11, 2012

Return Ticket

When you need material translated from English into a variety of foreign languages, you might look for a standardized way that allows you to ensure accuracy and completeness of the different translations. Back translation seems to be a good option: After rendering the source text into the respective target languages, the target texts are translated back into English by a different set of translators. While the first translator group specializes in translations from English in

aiaTranslations

May 28, 2012

Risk Communication and the Medical Linguist

Whether through verbal or nonverbal language, we communicate with others continually and without much thought. Communicating a message clearly and concisely under normal circumstances is an art in and of itself. The style and goals of this form of art become more complex when communicating in emotional or risky situations. Translating this specialized form of communication into a foreign language is the job of a medical linguist. Risk communication is a research-based approac

Talk is Not Always Cheap

aiaTranslations

Jul 17, 2009

Talk is Not Always Cheap

The conclusion of a recent study concerning the affordability, availability and acceptability barriers to healthcare for the chronically ill seems to say it all: “In strengthening the public sector, it is important not only to improve drug supply chains, ambulance services, referral systems and clinical capacity at public clinics, and to address the financial constraints faced by the socially disadvantaged, but also to think through how providers can engage with patients in a

Health 2.0 for Everyone?

aiaTranslations

Apr 20, 2009

Health 2.0 for Everyone?

In the U.S., the trend is toward becoming a super self-educated patient – spending time in chat rooms and on health-related websites. But is the Health 2.0 revolution really available to everyone? What about those who do not speak English as a first language? The answer is overwhelmingly no. Pharmaceutical companies lead the way when it comes to understanding the diverse U.S. healthcare market. They translate patient information brochures and disease awareness campaigns.