About some European languages

ENGLISH: BRITISH, IRISH, SCOTTISH
If the original document is in American English, the document should be “adapted” for the target English: British, Irish, Scottish. There are, indeed, word differences between American and the three for England, Ireland and Scotland, plus major spelling differences. Also, the British are much less loosey-goosey with grammar and verbs, more of a stickler for accuracy, preferring less hype and exhibitionism in their marketing and training materials, and having a “soft spot” for humor. For technology, there are very important word usage differences, such as “hash key” for the telephone’s “pound key”.

For the spoken word, each of the 3 areas (England, Ireland, Scotland) have both a broadcast accent and a “street accent”. The broadcast accent is the smooth accent accepted for advertising, multimedia and videos. The “street accent” is that which is often use in specialty commercials or comedy to lend personality to a marketing piece. In general, “street accents” are never used in business multimedia or products. Additionally, British corporate marketing pieces usually have a different “feel” from American, tend to be more modest, and materials written in the U.S. expanded to the U.K. market will often benefit from some rewrite.

ITALIAN
Italy is divided into 3 basic regions: Milan, Rome and the Boot/Sicily. Milan has a reputation of being the international business area of Italy, Rome the trade and tourism center. For translation of documents, technical papers, human resources and marketing materials there is one generic Italian language in writing and speech for all regions. Although there are spoken “street accent” differences between the 3 regions, there is one single broadcast accent used by voice talent for all multimedia, videos, training, advertising and other materials.

@International Services, one of the sponsors of this site,  translates in Milan and Rome according to the project requirements, has consulting Italian engineers, doctors and other specialists, plus records voices for videos, CD Roms, DVDs and other uses directly within Italy. The Italian language is straight A-B-C with no special accent marks to cause computer software incompatibility.

The laws in Italy are quite different from the laws in the U.S. and translated documents with legal or risk impact will often be accompanied by notes clarifying the differences in the laws involved in the document. These legal differences affect many technical documents, contracts, financial papers and marketing translations.

PORTUGUESE
There are two main Portuguese languages: European and Brazilian Portuguese. The two are not simply a difference in pronunciation. There are major word usage differences between the two, and verb endings (such as “ing”) are not the same. Thus, a document from one or the other is immediately identifiable. Because of the grammar and word differences, translators from the target region must be used. The spoken accent between the two regions is as marked as the accents in the United States compared to Australia or England.

Translations from Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and  Lisbon, Portugal will differ especially with technical and marketing translators of highest caliber, and review services by engineers, doctors and other professionals. Additionally, professional voice talents are recorded in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon for use with multimedia, DVDs, video and voice products. Full lip sync recording services are also available, performed by the same voice actors who replace the voices of American hit movies into Portuguese.

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