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This month marks MTM LinguaSoft Fourth Anniversary. We're celebrating because they've been great years and everything indicates that the best is yet to come.

Over those 4 years, our network has expanded to include over 500 staff, translators, project managers and desk top publishing professionals. Our steadily expanding roster of clients includes several major corporations. We've successfully completed challenging assignments from localizing websites in Chinese, to translating e-learning applications into several languages, to turning out ready-to-print product instructions in as many as 21 languages. (If you haven't done it already, take a look at our redesigned website where you can see client testimonials, descriptions of former projects and samples of our work.)

This steady growth in resources, clients and projects has also brought financial success. We broke even in 2006 and will be profitable in 2007. Our first quarter growth in revenue for 2007 was a stupendous 300%.

But most of all we are proud of what we believe is the major reason behind our success: satisfied clients. This satisfaction is reflected in our post-project client surveys and - more importantly - in a high level of repeat work.

We want to take this occasion to thank all our valued clients for their business. We will continue to justify your faith in us in the future.

Not yet one of our satisfied clients? Request a free marketing kit at our new website and check out our Fourth Anniversary Special.

Coincidentally, this month also brings another occasion for us to celebrate - International Translation Day, September 30. Read more about it in this newsletter. Also, be sure to check out our new short feature "C'est What?" Every month it will describe a fateful or funny case of the dangers of mistranslation.

Warm regards,

Myriam Siftar

International Cuisine
The Challenges of Translating Menus

We've all seen bad English translations of foreign menus. Most are the result of using the cheapest available translator (the "bilingual" employee or family member) or of simply choosing literal dictionary translations. You may have come across some of these on your summer travels. For example, French translator, Amanda Grey, recently reported on Elonso blog about her experiences dining at various French restaurants. She came across such great examples as "believed fish" for poison cru (raw fish) and "raped carrots" for carottes rapées (grated carrots).

Such obvious blunders aside, though, menu translation does present some difficult challenges even for the experienced translator. Translators have to balance a number of factors. The menu should give a good idea of the content of the dishes, but some foods - or, at least, varieties of some foods - don't even exist in some countries. Other foods have names that vary from area to area even in the same language. Some dishes are unique to a restaurant. The language of menus for many upscale restaurants are intentionally flowery, while, at some popular restaurants, the food titles are intentionally jokey and culture-bound. How do you get across the feel of the menu as well as its meaning? When you add in the fact that a good menu translation should also make the food sound appealing, you may start to understand the problems that may come up.

In an article in Multilingual (September 2005) on translating airline menus, Tim Altanero talks about some of the ways that translators attempt to deal with some of these issues.

One way in which translations often attempt to deal with the issue of new food varieties is to use phrases that are actually redundant, such as zucchini squash and chile peppers. At other times, the translator chooses simply not to translate the name of the dish. There are several reasons for making this choice: because a direct translation would detract from the style of the menu (e.g., baguette au boeuf emincé, instead of "hamburger" on a high-priced menu); because a literal translation will sound unappetizing (epazote-infused catfish au vapor instead of "catfish steamed with stinkweed"); or because there is literally no translation that would make any sense. Sometimes a description area, may be available for further clarification; at other times the dishes may be somewhat mysterious in the original as well.

The translator has be careful that they themselves understand the content of the dishes. Translating things like French fries or Russian salad literally, for example, would leave many foreigners mystified. A Hindi translator told Altanero about a menu that included the term "black bread", which, if rendered literally into Hindi would probably indicate that the bread was old and stale.

Special problems arise when the translation involves varieties of wines, cheeses or other delicacies. Due to restrictions on trade and high prices, many people are not familiar with many varieties and the language used to describe them has very subtle nuances that are difficult to get across in another language.

Comparing different menu translations can be fascinating as evidenced by a post on a forum on NationMaster.com. The writer (apparently a Catalan) was seeking people to translate his restaurant menu into as many languages as possible, particularly uncommon languages. He already has translations in 70 languages and "You cannot imagine how interesting is comparing languages and learning about its people and culture."

Translating menus is more of an art than much other translation work, requiring a knowledge of cuisine and of local culture. A good translator can help you sell to foreign audiences. A bad translation may not only be unintentionally funny, but bad for business.

You can find one author's top 10 list of European Menu Translation Guides at goeurope.about.com/od/culinaryandwine/tp/menu_translator.htm.

"We Can’t Stand the Sight of
Matt ress Fragrant Grass."
A blogger spotted this sign in a park in Guilin, China. According to her, the literal translation of the Chinese characters is “Do you have the heart to step on the carpet of fragrant grass?” – the equivalent of "Please keep off the grass." She guesses that someone simply used a dictionary to come up with this mystifying translation.

September 30