MTM LinguaSoft Newsletter, July 2005

Are you ignoring local customers?

The U.S. Census Bureau has been clear: Hispanics have become the largest minority population in the United States and the growth shows no sign of slowing down.

Key data

There are 38.8 million Hispanics in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2002), making them the fastest-growing minority group in the nation. The Hispanic population is expected to grow 44% from 2000-2020 and 62% from 2020 to 2050. (Source: www.census.gov, 2004)
U.S. Hispanic purchasing power has surged to nearly $700 billion and is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2007, nearly three times the national rate over the past decade. (Source: HispanTelligence®)

Impact on marketing

Smart marketers have already figured these trends into their plans. They are addressing the particular needs of this segment by studying the culture and purchasing habits, learning and using the native or dominant language. Products and services are then adapted to meet the expectations of this segment. Marketers who choose not to devote significant time and effort to the Hispanic population may be missing a significant opportunity. In fact, businesses should consider implementing new approaches and strategies to specifically target Hispanics. Perhaps the most effective way to reach this evolving market is through the Internet.
According to a study conducted by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, approximately half of all Hispanic-American Internet users are Spanish-language dominant. It means that at home they speak more Spanish than English. With that in mind, the use of Spanish on a website may increase how much time is spent on this site and may influence the buying decision. A Terra Lycos study showed that in 2002 Hispanics spent 55% of their online time connected to Spanish language sites, compared with only 39% in 2001. If one considers world-wide Internet users, by not making their websites available in Spanish, businesses may be missing 20% of all Internet users.

The challenges involved with marketing to the Hispanic population go beyond the language barrier. It is about creating a comfort level between the company and the potential customer(s). Hispanics want to buy from someone who understands their culture and background. To gather this type of information, one can to attend community-based events and, of course, hire Hispanics employees. As with any branding and image project, businesses will have to consider a complete marketing plan taking into account print, TV/radio and web marketing, customer service issues.

Who has taken the lead?

Some US companies are already catering to the Hispanic population, and it is paying off. In 2002, H&R Block installed 4,100 bilingual tax preparers and rolled out a Spanish website www.hrblock.com/es. This initiative helped Hispanic traffic grow by double digits. The National Basketball Association is addressing its fans and promoting itself to Hispanics by having its website www.nba.com available in Spanish. Other businesses with a Spanish website include: Lowes, Nextel and Southwest Airlines. Government sites such as the Social Security Administration and the Department of Motor Vehicles are also paving the way. Closer to the Philadelphia region, Commerce Bank has started similar initiatives.

In light of the above figures, there are several professional sectors well positioned to take advantage of this increase of new potential customers. For these sectors, Spanish–language websites will be viewed as being as essential to doing business in the U.S. as English-language websites.

Telecommunications

Banking

Real Estate

Media

Insurance

Healthcare

Electronics/Video Games

E-learning

As the demographics of the United States continue to skew in favor of Spanish speakers, Hispanic consumers will become too large a segment to ignore. The businesses that figure out a way to reach this group will reap the benefits.

Source: Census 2004 data distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov.

The basics about the

Chinese language

Since 1990, U.S. exports to China have grown almost 12 percent annually to USD 561.4 billion. China is now America's sixth largest export market. It is also the fastest growing export market with an increase of US exports by 22% in 2004. Without a doubt, China represents a significant opportunity for new overseas revenues. The growth of Chinese imports in many key sectors, such as energy, chemicals, machinery, telecommunications, medical equipment, construction, services and franchising confirms that China will remain a key target market for American exporters well into the 21st Century. (Source : US Department of Commerce, Commercial Service).
A review of business and trade publications over the past 6 months confirms the growing importance of China in the global economy. Doing business with China is a hot topic and has been accompanied with an increasing number of translation and localization projects. This article is MTM LinguaSoft's small contribution focused on the basics about the Chinese language.

The Chinese language has more than 20 identifiable spoken dialects and has two distinct written forms. The combination of dialects and writing systems will vary based on the location of the speaker and/or business entity. There are three major areas where Chinese is spoken: the People's Republic of China (or mainland China), Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Mandarin and Cantonese

Mandarin exists only as a spoken language and is the official language of mainland China and Taiwan. The Cantonese dialect is spoken exclusively in the south of China and in Hong Kong. Both dialects use the same written form, either simplified or traditional. But the pronunciation of the written characters is completely different. It is like comparing English and Spanish. Since Mandarin and Cantonese are not written languages, it is not relevant when requesting written translation, though it is correct to specify one of them if you are looking for an interpreter.

Simplified and traditional Chinese writing system

The traditional form of Chinese characters has been around for the past 3,000 years. Unlike Latin-based languages, Chinese does not use a phonetic alphabet. Rather the language is created by characters that represent whole or parts of words. Although traditional Chinese characters are visually appealing, it has historically led to high illiteracy rates due to the difficulty in having to memorize the stroke orders for more than 50,0000 characters. Because the language is non-phonetic, each character combination needs to be memorized and cannot be spelled out. In early 1950s, the Chinese Communist Party created the simplified Chinese writing system as an attempt to reduce illiteracy. The main difference between the two writing styles is that the simplified version tries to limit the intricacies of some of the characters that are most common - hence the term simplified.
Traditionally, Chinese was written from top to bottom in a column fashion. The vertical lines are read from right to left. For short displays, such as horizontal banners, the characters are also written from right to left. Nowadays, in simplified Chinese, almost all publications are printed from left to right with only occasional deviation when some layout variations are desired. Even with Traditional Chinese, most books and newspapers are also printed from left to right.

Translation for scientific and technical domains

Today, the Chinese language has, especially in technical domains, imported words from many other languages of the world, most notably English. Borrowed words are admitted into Chinese in three main ways: translation, transliteration, and sometimes a combination of both. Unlike Japanese and Korean, where technical terms are transliterated using Katakana and Hangul, in Chinese, borrowed technical terms are mostly translated conceptually. Therefore, each "borrowed" word will have a specific Chinese word corresponding to it. Moreover, different scientific or engineering disciplines often have different translations for the same English word.
The second category is transliteration, which applies mostly to proper names, such as people's names, geographical names, trade names, etc. In this category, the borrowed words are translated phonetically as close to the English word as possible. In China, there is a foreign-Chinese dictionary of people's names with nearly 4,000 pages providing standard transliteration for 650,000 foreign people's names from around the world. The last category is a combination of the two methods - that is, half conceptual and half phonetic. A typical example can be seen with the name “Cambridge” where “cam” is transliterated and “bridge” is translated. Similarly, with “New Zealand,” “new” is translated and “Zealand” is transliterated. In the other direction, English also imports some words from Chinese. Common examples are ginseng, silk, typhoon, fengshui, etc.

Software localization

In software and websites, the Chinese language requires two different encoding systems whether it is simplified or traditional Chinese. This is the first imperative step when localizing software for the Chinese market. Other technical considerations are date/time format, first/last name fields, address formatting, word/line breaking and sorting orders.

As businesses increase trade relations with China, there are many aspects to consider in order to be successful. One component of a successful strategy involves proper usage of the Chinese language and writing systems to convey a relevant and accurate messages. Similarly, understanding Chinese documents is critical before signing contracts, distribution agreements and other legally-binding documents. For all these language challenges, it is best not to attempt to solve them alone. Use the services of professional linguists and technologists who will help with your translation and localization needs for the Chinese market.