Thursday, June 25, 2015

Never walk alone – 3 ways of expanding with idioma

Cooperation. The fundamental pillar of our civilization and a vital factor of evolution at any level. Through  cooperation and partnership, we share and improve and build synergistic effects that are beneficial to everyone. Even competition and cooperation do not exclude each other in a developed business environment. idioma's core processes are based on international cooperation and mutual respect, and we feel it as our mission to bridge the differences in culture and business via languages by applying a cooperative approach. Our Partner program is a case in point.

Friends from the translation industry

Even in today's competitive environment, its important to find efficient ways of mutual thriving and progressive development. That is why we offer our partners something that can't be supplemented by any investment – 35 years of professional experience in the translation industry. With our in-house developed CAT tools, vast TM resources, a world-wide network of translators and coverage of 70+ languages, we are able to offer our partners from other translation agencies attractive rates, and often for uncommon language pairs. With our 24/7 online cloud solutions for both clients and translators, we are capable of deliveries within 4 hours and help our colleagues from other translation agencies and language service providers to always meet tight deadlines. Sounds too good? Find out more here :)

Effective agents with sales drive

Language service providers are just one of many who can benefit from a partnership with idioma. Having good sources of business is just as vital as the core professional capability. If you have contacts and a network, sales talent and drive, you're just the one we want to be friends with. Efficient mediators can develop  interesting business concepts that build on our services and solutions, whether in passive or active mode. Dear 007s, look here to learn more.

Innovative web entrepreneurs – unite with us!

Not a translator, not a star salesperson? Doesn't matter, we'd like to be friends anyway, because we simply love web developers! You build websites full of content that's just begging to get translated... With our API solution, you can profit from the upsell and earn commissions with very little effort whenever your clients need translation. We encourage web developers to take our API and build up on it, then offer customized and state-of-the art integration of a localization module in different CMS and server systems. So team up with us – you code, we translate, your customers sell more, and together we earn! More about our translation API and developers' partnership here!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Business trip to Tokyo - part 3: New vs. old in Japan

Tokyo is the biggest and probably one of the most overcrowded cities in the world with a rich history and numerous peculiarities of its own. It's full of rules, restrictions and signs ensuring that the mass of people is capable to coexist in such dense living and implements various means and tech gadgets to ease the chaos resulting from "unnecessary" human contact. No wonder about that. Tokyo (or Edo, as it was originally named until less than 150 years ago when it became the imperial city and official capital of Japan) was inhabited by over million of people already by the end of the 18th century. Although the emperor still remained in Kyoto, Edo was a de facto capital and trade center since the line of Tokugawa shoguns declared the city as their headquarters. 
Heavily destroyed twice during the 20th century, after a strong earthquake in 1923 and later the 2nd world war, the city of Tokyo was fully rebuilt, more or less delicately combining the aspects of old and new, traditional and modern. The city has preserved its genius loci, and it keeps its antique appearance despite being crisscrossed by railways and expressways and dotted with skyscrapers all over. The narrow streets with typical architecture surrounded by the pulsing, modern city around them maybe what makes Tokyo so popular among tourists.


Typical rice wine barrels  in front of a typical building and details that blend old and new.



Crime rates are extremely low given the number of inhabitants in this metropolis. You don't need to be afraid not to lock everything up; your stuff is usually right where you last left it.

Even the grocery stores feel, well, traditional, with goods often displayed outside, right on the street. No security around. The Japanese culture relying on rules and manners simply doesn't expect you to do something as incomprehensible and low as shoplifting :)

Religion has a huge say in terms of traditions. Displays with wooden plates at local temples or little papers where people write their wishes and prayers are a common sight around the city...

 ...and sometimes you dont even know how, you suddenly get from here...

...to here. The city skyline also features green parks with pagodas, lakes, trees and most importantly peace... 

...Buddha statues...

 ...and an occasional geisha :)

Tokyo is indeed one striking city with its specific nature, business opportunities and experience it provides, mainly to "Western" people. Knowing different cultures and how people think are key issues to mutual understanding, in both human and business relations. Here at idioma, we are fully dedicated to help you with understanding different cultures and markets and expand your business thanks to a localized message. Learn more at www.idioma.com



Thursday, June 11, 2015

Language facts: Italian

Italian is a member of the Romance group of languages. It is the official language of Italy, San Marino and Vatican City, and one of the official languages of Switzerland. Italian is spoken by about 58 million people in Italy, 30,000 in San Marino, and 840,000 in Switzerland. Italian is regarded as the 4th or 5th most studied language in the world and is also an official EU language. It is also one of the most visited countries in the world – close to 40 million people go there every year – which could explain the interest in studying Italian.

Rome.
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com

Medieval lingua franca

Italian is descendant of Latin, or better said Vulgar (common) Latin, and shares or resembles Latin in terms of vocabulary more than other Romance languages. From late medieval to Renaissance (mainly due to the cultural and trade impact and dominance of Italy) Italian had a function of so called lingua franca – universal language in trade and international relations in Europe, similar to today's English. Italian is profound with its number of mutually incompatible dialects and it is said (with a little overstatement) that two neighboring villages don't understand each other when speaking in their own regional dialect. 

Well-known Italian words

Italian pizza.
Source: DollarPhotoClub.com
While it is common for many languages to have borrowed words from English and French, Italian is also a language from which many tongues have picked up a few terms. The most well-known are perhaps 'Pizza' (a word understood almost all over the word), 'Bank', 'Alarm' and 'Ghetto'. Other borrowed words that spring to mind come from the world of music and performance, e.g. 'Piano', 'Violin' and 'Opera'. In the world of science, look no further than 'Volt', which is an electric unit named after Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the world's first battery in 1779. 


Alphabet

Italian uses the same letters as in the English alphabet, with acute, grave and circumflex accents on vowels. Some letters (j, k, w, x, y) are excluded from the standard Italian though, used only in loan words.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z


Friday, June 5, 2015

Welcome to your new idioma experience!



FRESH - INTERACTIVE - EFFECTIVE. 

On June 1st, we released our new website and brand new idioma WORLD™ platform to enhance your possibilities in the translation universe. 

Apart from new services such as Translation Memory creation, Glossary Creation and our unique Stream Translation API, all current services, including Stream (for instant online estimates of translation price and delivery term) and Ask (systematized language queries) have been completely redesigned including a full overhaul of the functionality to make everything more user-friendly. 



The new idioma WORLD™ replaces our former TC platform and stuns users with a fresh, intuitive design. Moreover, it was designed to meet the new Web 3.0 standards and fully complies with mobile device requirements.


idioma WORLD™ controls all aspects of every project we handle. The system is closely interlinked with iQube, our web-based translation platform, which all translators and verifiers work against online. idioma WORLD™ has been developed in-house to manage localization projects the way we want. The system keeps track of all project details, including individual project steps. 

As a client, you can track on-going projects, who is the translator and reviewer, and easily see the progress on translation projects as percent ready. This can be highly useful for your planning and to assure you that delivery will be on time, especially when deadlines are tight. Obviously, as an intranet solution, idioma WORLD™ has built in https encryption/decryption with SSL certificates to ensure your data is safe and cannot be sniffed or hacked.

However, it's not just our clients, who will benefit from new idioma WORLD™ platform. The redesign included, inter alia, also supplier pages, adding motivational statistics and analysis of translator performance (including translation and verification speed and quality indicators). Thanks to this, as well as a comprehensive booking and availability tracking system, we take translation quality and speedy turnaround  to even higher levels. 

Don't have your idioma WORLD™ account yet? Register now at www.idioma.com and enjoy a whole new experience in ordering and managing translation projects!