Financial translation: Know its peculiarities
Financial translation is a branch within technical translation. As we have seen in previous articles on this blog, professional translation involves different specializations such as legal translation, medical translation, marketing translation, and literary translation, among many others.
Within the technical translations, there are those that share terminology, words and phrases typical of a specific profession, such as financial translation.

What is financial translation?
It is the professional translation of financial documents that are usually issued by banks, asset management agencies and companies of all kinds. Financial documentation is varied and includes annual balance sheets of a company, its profit and loss accounts, the statement of cash flows, changes in equity and the documentation generated by investment funds, among many other documents.
Its faithful translation is extremely important, since many of the companies that generate this documentation operate in different countries, therefore, their documents must be able to be interpreted in different languages ​​by various actors such as international authorities, boards of directors, shareholders or participants of an investment fund

What types of documents require a financial translation?

Some of the documents that usually require the financial translation service to be intelligible in other languages ​​are the following:

• Annual reports
• Technical analysis
• Accounting records
• Feasibility studies
• Audit reports
• Tax returns
• Documents related to mergers and acquisitions
• Documents on privatizations
• Compensation and benefits plans
• Legal agreements and contracts
• Documents related to insurance
• Financial correspondence
• Advertising materials for financial institutions
• Printed and audio-visual financial presentations

What are the peculiarities of financial translation?
Like other specialized translations, financial translation has its own peculiarities and requirements. Some of them are:

• Infallible rigor: The main characteristic of financial translation is that it must be carried out with infallible rigor. Therefore, it is essential to respect the presentation rules depending on the type of document in question: a statement, a report, a contract or a record, among others. Consequently, the financial translator must also master certain tools in which these formal documents are usually presented (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
• Multilingual elements: The technical language is one of the peculiarities of financial translation, since many multilingual elements are usually found in its lexicon. For example, there are anglicisms that must be adapted or respected; that is, some terms must be translated, while others must be kept in the source language, always taking into account the context and general meaning of the document.
•  Target audience: Beyond being familiar with financial terminology and its current status, the professional translator must take into account the audience for the document in question. An individual who invests in the stock market to increase his equity is not the same as a professional investor, therefore, their knowledge and the way in which these contents are transmitted to each other will not be equivalent either.
•  Discretion and confidentiality: In general, financial documents require strict confidentiality, therefore, the chosen translation agency must be reliable enough to respect these agreements.

What characteristics should a financial translator have?

Like other specialized translations, financial translation requires certain skills from the translator related to their field of work. Therefore, it is not enough to be a professional translator and know the terminology of the world of finance. It is necessary to have extensive knowledge of the sector to be able to understand the full meaning of the documents to be translated and to be up-to-date on the current situation of international economic and financial issues.
Therefore, in order to obtain a faithful and good quality financial translation, it is essential to ensure that you hire an agency that has specialized translators who are familiar with the type of documents that need to be translated.

How can I contact a financial translator?

Worldly Translations is a translation agency with more than a decade of experience, so we know how to respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of our clients. We have specialized translators, so we assign each job to the most appropriate person to perform that task.
If you need a financial translation, contact us as we have expert translators in the world of finance who are passionate about these topics.

Spanish and Castilian are two words that are used interchangeably to designate the same language. However, this undifferentiation generates some debates and discussions because it is, above all, inaccurate and controversial.
To start at the beginning, let’s see what the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) says about it. The following are the definitions of the masculine names “Spanish” and “Castilian” according to the RAE:

• Spanish:
• Romance language that is spoken in Spain, much of America, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and other parts of the world

• Castillian:
• Spanish language, especially when you want to distinguish it from any other vernacular of Spain.
• Romance dialect originating in Castile, from which Spanish fundamentally comes.
  Variety of Spanish that is spoken in the northern part of the territories of the old kingdom of Castile.

Knowing how the Royal Spanish Academy defines Spanish and Castilian, the first fact that draws attention is that the origin of the Spanish language is found, precisely, in the Romance dialect originating in Castile, a region with imprecise limits located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula (former kingdom of Castile).
With this starting point, from Worldly Translations we can begin to unravel the origins and debates that arise around these two names that are usually used to designate the same language.

What controversies exist between Spanish and Castilian?

The main discussion around the name of the Spanish language (spoken in Spain, Latin America, Equatorial Guinea and in other Spanish-speaking areas) revolves around whether it is more appropriate to call it Spanish or Castilian; or if both forms are equivalent to each other.
This overriding controversy is twofold. On the one hand, if it is more appropriate to use the term based on its origin (the Castilian romance) or based on its best-known name (Spanish). On the other hand, if when referring to Castilian it refers only to the Spanish spoken in Spain, or if it is a synonym of Spanish in any Spanish-speaking country in the world.
Like many of the discussions related to the naming of a language that is identified with a certain territory (Spanish with Spain and Castilian with Castile, the ancient kingdom where the language originates and from which it extends to America), this controversy is considered extralinguistic. Why? Simply because it carries a historical past that implies a fight in favor of a single denomination to facilitate its international identification.

Are there discussions from the linguistic point of view?

From a purely linguistic perspective, it is not possible to justify preferences for one denomination or another to designate the Spanish language. According to the Royal Spanish Academy and the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, Spanish and Castilian are then synonymous.
However, according to the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, also belonging to the RAE: “The Spanish term is more recommendable because it lacks ambiguity, since it refers univocally to the language spoken today by nearly four hundred million people. Likewise, it is the denomination that is used internationally (Spanish, espagnol, Spanisch, espagnolo, etc.). Although it is also synonymous with Spanish, it is preferable to reserve the term Castilian to refer to the Romanesque dialect born in the Kingdom of Castile during the Middle Ages, or to the dialect of Spanish that is currently spoken in this region. In Spain, the name Castilian is also used when referring to the common language of the State in relation to the other co-official languages ​​in their respective autonomous territories”.
To complete this last idea, the Spanish Constitution of 1978, in its third article, uses the specific name “Castilian” to differentiate the official language from the other “Spanish languages” such as Basque, Aragonese, Catalan or Valencian, Asturleonian, Galician or Aranese.

Therefore, it is evident that although they designate the same language, the controversies around Spanish and Castilian exceed the linguistic scope and are more related to political and territorial disputes.

Every fan of reading knows that the great classics of world literature remain in the collective memory of humanity. However, for this phenomenon to happen not everything is reduced to the imagination, style and writing of an exceptional author, but it is the literary translation that makes possible the success of a text around the globe.

For those titles such as Anna Karénina, the Harry Potter saga and even The Bible to be the most widely read books in the world today, the work of professional translators has simply become indispensable. Literary or editorial translators have the ability to enhance a work to such an extent that in many cases their name appears on the covers of the books in question.

Unlike other themes, in literary translation it is not only about making a novel, a poem, a play or a story intelligible in other languages; rather, the role of the professional translator is also to give life to a “new” work that preserves the stamp of a specific author.

Reading a book in Spanish that was originally written in English – just to mention one case – is not only reading the story created by an author, but also the experience and professionalism of a literary translator. In this case, as “invisible doers” we must not only faithfully preserve the content and style of a writer, but also turn that professional translation into an artistic fact in itself.

What are the peculiarities of literary translation?

First and foremost, it must be borne in mind that literary translation is a very specific type of translation. It has nothing to do with technical translations or other types of work that we also carry out at Worldly Translations, such as medical translations, legal translations or marketing translations.

The literary translator must capture the content, meaning and seanse of each sentence of the work in question and reformulate it with the words, expressions and cultural references of the target language. In addition to preserving the author’s style, the specialized translator must be able to faithfully convey those “touches of color” and emblematic expressions that make the mark of a writer.

For an editorial translation to be successful it must not only be faithful to the original work, but it must also have an added value linked to the skills of the translator. Ultimately it is this professional who manages the writing of the book retain its appeal in another language to continue captivating readers around the world.

What are the challenges of literary translation?

Like other types of translations, a literary translation has its own difficulties. The main ones are:

• Proper nouns: On many occasions, the names of the characters or the places where the story takes place may have relevance or a special meaning only in the original language. Therefore, when this occurs the translators must consider whether they will translate them or leave them as they are.
• Specific terminology: Some literary genres, such as science fiction, may have very particular terminology that must be mastered in order to interpret and translate the work correctly.
• Word games and rhetorical figures: Although they are more common in poetry, they can appear in any type of literary text. In some cases, there is simply no equivalent in the target language, so the translator must look for an alternative that best suits the original meaning.
• The sagas and their peculiarities: In a saga, it is important to maintain certain translation rules with which the readers are familiar and to respect the terminology that its followers already know.

What characteristics should a literary translator have?

In the first place, for a book to become an enjoyable and relevant work also in other languages, a translator specialized in literature must be used. The knowledge of the professional translator, their creativity and own literary skills play a key role in order not to lose quality both in relation to the meaning and the prose in question.

Therefore, a literary translator should not only be a professional translator, but should also be an amateur reader and a good copywriter. A professional who has sufficient artistic tools, reference materials and attributes to turn “a simple translation” into a literary work that conquers readers around the world.

How can I contact a literary translator?

Worldly Translations is a translation agency with more than a decade of experience, so we know how to respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of our clients. We have specialized translators, so we assign each job to the most appropriate person to carry out that task.

If you need to translate a book, contact us as we have literary translators who are passionate about writing and the languages of the world.

There are countless reasons to study English and master the language, but they all come together in one: it is the universal language. As we have seen, the English language is one of the three most widely spoken languages ​​in the world, along with Spanish and Chinese. More than 360 million people speak it as their mother tongue, while another 500 million speak it as a second language. Thus, it is the most studied language around the planet.

Beyond its rich history, its expansion and its evolution over time, there are many reasons that made the English language the “universal language.” Next, we will analyze some of the main aspects to review all the reasons that drive us to study English today.

1. It is the business world’s language

The evolution of the English language into the business language par excellence occurred naturally, since it is the official language of two of the most strategic financial centers in the world: the United Kingdom and the United States. Furthermore, this is the official language or has a special status (such as a co-official language) in 75 independent territories around the globe. Therefore, mastering the universal language is essential to do business outside your country of origin’s borders.

2. Its expansion is transcendental in the history of humanity

The expansion of the English language around the world is one of the cultural events that marked the evolution of civilization during the last quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. In almost the entire planet it is possible to affirm that most of the inhabitants speak “a little” of English or at least can understand it. Therefore, this means that whoever masters this language could be understood by almost everyone. This expansion of the language around the globe is one of the most important events that have marked humanity since the very birth of language. So much so, that before this phenomenon no language had reached the character of a universal language.

3. Most of the cultural industry products are in English

The Anglo-Saxon countries and their cultural industries are an inexhaustible source of international entertainment. With Hollywood at the helm and the subsequent arrival of streaming platforms – such as Netflix and Amazon – we could say that English is also the language of mass culture. Although in this globalized world all entertainment products are translated into dozens of languages, the truth is that it will always be better to enjoy movies, books and songs in their original language. Therefore, film and music were also great allies in the expansion of English and its evolution into a universal language.

4. English is related to other languages

The origins and history of the English language are exciting. Invasions, wars and land sieges marked the path of the evolution of this language from Old English to the modern English that we speak today. Since the third century, different cultures contributed to the formation of the language; among them, the German, the Roman and the French. Therefore, this language is truly a hybrid that brings together elements of different languages. This mixture of cultures, expressions and words transforms it into a universal language because it is, in general terms, easy to learn for speakers of other languages.

5. It is an extremely flexible language

Almost all the people who have adopted English as a second language agree on something: in this language there are many ways of saying things. Thanks to its wide vocabulary (between 750 thousand and 1 million words) and to all the words that are added year after year, in English you can find many ways to explain the same thing. The flexibility of the English language is such that in other countries even new languages ​​have been invented from the root of English. This is the “Singlish” of Singapore, which combines it with Chinese and Malay. Likewise, in Spanish-speaking countries it is common to say that “Spanglish” is spoken when concepts and words in English and Spanish are intermixed.

Since the late 1980s, marketing has taken on a special relevance for companies since its practices, principles, decisions and actions make up neither more nor less than the corporate image that is displayed abroad. Even more so in these times when globalization turned the planet into “a world of possibilities”, marketing translation reached an importance unthinkable a few decades ago.

The internationalization of markets, massive access to the Internet and the development of new communication technologies are some of the many reasons that drive companies to request marketing translation services so that they are not out of the game on the transnational scene.

It is no longer enough to have creative and regularly updated marketing strategies; In order to have real sales opportunities that drive business outside borders, you have to make yourself understood, essentially. Therefore, we could say that today professional translation and digital marketing are two sides of the same coin for those seeking to expand into other markets.

What are the most common mistakes in marketing translation?

Marketing strategies and actions carried out by companies to promote a brand or business in foreign markets often fail in multilingual communication.

Generally, these problems occur due to not resorting to a professional translator agency and underestimating the importance of offering readers a quality translation on the effectiveness of communication, which preserves the meaning but also the creativity and intentionality of the initial strategy.

What are the keys to a successful marketing translation?

As we have seen, it is not enough to master a language to be able to translate a text correctly, preserving its meaning, the author’s intention and the effect it generates on readers. To do a marketing translation you need to:

• Dedicate hours of study to the subject in question, using reliable sources and reference materials.
• Keep fluid communication with the client and their marketing
• Be familiar with copywriting and persuasive writing.
• Fully understand the target audience of the company’s actions.
• Know – in addition to the language and the language of marketing – the culture of origin and destination.

What is the importance of persuasive writing in this process?

In terms of marketing, creativity and persuasion are essential for the success of any communication strategy. An advertising slogan must be creative enough to attract the attention of readers, interesting and attractive to maintain that interest, and very persuasive to encourage the target audience to buy what is being sold.

Therefore, a translator specialized in marketing must not only be trained to translate marketing-related texts, but must also be trained in the art of persuasive writing so that those texts retain the attraction and intention that allows them to have a certain effecton its readers.

What documents are part of the marketing translation?

Our marketing translation services include brochures, flyers, marketing and advertising scripts, advertising slogans, brand speeches, company presentations, new product launches, website content, press releases and everything else related to corporate communication.

The ultimate goal of these actions is to position the image of the company, but they must also be attractive enough to arouse the interest of the reader and thus encourage sales. This objective is especially considered by translators specialized in marketing, who, in addition to making messages intelligible in another language, must “translate” and preserve the intentions of the authors of the original document.

How can I contact a translator specialized in marketing?

Worldly Translations is a translation agency with many years of experience, so we know how to respond efficiently to the needs of our clients. We have specialized translators, so we assign each job to the most appropriate person to carry out that task.

If you need a marketing translation, contact us, we know how to translate your communication strategies and actions clearly, persuasively and effectively.

Professional translators are accustomed to facing very dissimilar texts every day, both for their style and subject matter and for the lexicon and language used according to the discipline in question. Just as we must translate sworn or legal documents into another language, we also carry out medical, literary and marketing translations, just to mention a few.

Therefore, in teams like Worldly Translations, each of its members specializes in a branch of study so that our work as “invisible doers” is more successful, responsible and faithful to the original meaning. In short, our goal is always to offer our clients increasingly professional work.

Without going any further, when we face medical translations, we are aware of the great responsibility that is being entrusted to us, since our work can have a direct positive or negative impact on the physical and mental health of a person or a community.

What are medical translations?

Medical translation is a specific branch of scientific and technical translation and includes the translation into another language of documentation related to the pharmaceutical field, clinical materials and health in general.

Some of the medical documents that are often translated into other languages ​​are: composition and package inserts, clinical trial protocols, medical reports, complex study results, patient records, toxicology reports, releases issued by laboratories, and scientific news or innovations, among many others.

Why is medical translation so relevant?

Medical translations are extremely important internationally. In the first place, because most of the nations of the world present as an indispensable requirement for the distribution of a pharmaceutical product or a clinical material within their territory the translation into the official language of the country of all the documentation and labelling of the product in question.

Likewise, they also usually request the professional translation of the documentation necessary to carry out clinical trials and thus allow local health personnel, patients and legal representatives to fully understand it. Applications to register these pharmaceutical or clinical products in the countries where they will be distributed and marketed must also be translated.

But in addition, medical translation is also very important for particular cases, such as, for example, the results of a highly complex study of a patient that requires a consultation with a foreign professional.

What are the main requirements of a medical translation?

First, when performing a medical translation, the quality of the original document must be maintained so that the result in another language is as rigorous and accurate as the original text. Therefore, it is essential to have experience in medical translations, and to have reliable sources and verified reference materials.

Likewise, there are also legal and regulatory conditions specific to each country to take into account when performing a medical translation, especially in the translation of health texts originating from other nations.

What are the aspects that differentiate medical translation from other branches?

• Texts related to the field of pharmaceuticals and medicine require a high level of training and experience in these topics to be able to interpret and translate them correctly.
• The language and terminologies of medical documents are very specific and particular. To make one of these texts intelligible from one language to another requires a professional translator with medical and pharmaceutical knowledge.
• As with all professional translations – but especially in this field – knowing the context is essential for the clarity and success of a medical translation.

Why is it important to use a professional specialized in medical translations?

As with most jobs, whatever their relevance, going to the right professional will save us time, money, and headaches.

To know why it is essential to use a specialized translator, it is enough to be aware of the consequences of not doing so:

• A wrong translation could have an extremely negative impact on patient care and the health of the community. The primary goal of the medical industry – preserving health – could be severely affected by misleading translations passed from one medical professional to another.
• Likewise, the validity of medical documents could be annulled due to erroneous texts, something that will surely lead to administrative problems that also cost time and money.
• In addition, legal conflicts related to the incorrect translation of documents could arise due to its direct impact on the health care of patients. The latter can even lead to a lawsuit.

How can I contact a specialized translator?

Worldly Translations is a translation agency with many years of experience, so we know how to respond efficiently to the needs of our clients. We have specialized translators, so we assign each job to the most appropriate person to perform that task.

If you need a medical translation, contact us as we know how to professionally and responsibly make a document related to something as important as health intelligible in other languages.

If there is one thing that all of us who work with languages are aware of, it is the following: language is constantly changing and evolving. The use that speakers make of it modifies the rules and customs, since these are the result of neither more nor less than social convention. So much so, that we as professional translators must constantly update ourselves in terms of the current lexicon and idioms in order to be able to deal with the translation of all kinds of texts and make them intelligible in another language in the most faithful way possible.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the use of inclusive language has spread among speakers, mainly young people and teenagers, and is today “on everyone’s lips”. With adherents and opponents in all languages, this inclusive language (also called “non-sexist” or “inclusive”) is now widespread in various countries around the world. Therefore, we believe that it is a subject that deserves to be analysed from a serious, broad and neutral perspective.

As we have seen in the various articles on this blog, the work of professional translators includes countless branches of study and specialization, such as legal translation.

Throughout our professional career, translators are faced with different texts and documents that allow us to improve ourselves in different aspects of the wide universe of modalities that coexist within the translation’s world. So much so, that teams like Worldly Translations are made up of translators specialized in medical reports, literature, marketing texts, online stores and legal translation, among many other topics that differentiate our work.

The English language is one of the three most widely spoken languages ​​in the world, along with Spanish and Chinese. But beyond the 360 ​​million people who speak it as their mother tongue, another 500 million speak it as a second language; therefore, this is undoubtedly the most studied language around the planet. However, not all English speakers – native and foreign – know the origin, history and evolution of this language, which like all is in constant motion.

In recent articles on the Worldly Translations blog, we have started to introduce our readers to the exciting world of our translation career and profession. Although we have taken care to describe the differences between interpreting and translation and have shared our tips for becoming a professional translator, this time instead of talking to our future colleagues we are going to talk to those who are on the other side: the clients who turn to our services.

The work of a professional translator is required for a myriad of reasons, as it enables texts originally written in a language to circulate around the world, crossing all existing linguistic and cultural borders. Therefore, in every corner of the world there is at least one professional translator capable of translating a novel, a scientific article, a legal document, a medical report, a poem, the label of a product, or any other text that needs to be intelligible and broadcasted in another language.

However, when delegating this work to someone there are different aspects to take into account to be sure that you are dealing with a true professional translator. These are the 5 attributes that distinguish the way we do our work, those of us who do it in a passionate, serious and highly responsible way: