Power up your Spanish translation program...

Spanish-speaking Americans are growing in numbers, expanding their reach and buying power, and gaining ground in numerous geographical areas. The 2010 US Census preliminary results indicate that in numerous states, the Hispanic population is on the upswing.

• In Texas, Hispanics accounted for 65% of the overall population growth.
• In Illinois, Hispanics contributed 72% of all minority growth in the state.
• In South Dakota, the Hispanic population more than doubled from 2000 to 2010.
• In Oklahoma, Hispanics accounted for nearly 51% of the overall state population growth.
• The Louisiana Hispanic population grew by over 78% between 2000 and 2010, and the Mississippi population, by 105.9%.

With more state results to come, trends definitely point to robust Hispanic market growth.

Many of these people are Limited English Proficient, and are most comfortable reading and communicating in Spanish.

What does this mean for you? If you are thinking of increasing your presence in the Spanish-speaking marketplace, now is the time to make your move.

Localizing your website and multimedia materials, translating your documents and signage and presenting marketing and advertising campaigns in Spanish as well as English will help you target and connect with LEP consumers. New Spanish-speaking prospects are out there in force, and they are ready and willing to use your services, buy your products and support your company - if you commit to reaching out to them in their own language.

At Avantpage, we excel at English to Spanish translation that is high quality, culturally sensitive and audience-appropriate. Our translation teams are experts at choosing the proper wording, sentence structure and terminology that will best get your message across.

This month's Language Spotlight focuses on Khmer. We've been getting more requests for this language lately, and we thought it would be an interesting language to explore in more detail.

Khmer is the official language of Cambodia. It is the second most widely spoken Austroasiatic language spoken after Vietnamese. Khmer is spoken in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the United States, France and Australia. There are a total of about 8 million Khmer speakers worldwide, and in the United States, there are an estimated 190,000 Khmer speakers. The Khmer language is written in Khmer script, using the Khmer alphabet, which closely resembles the Thai and Lao alphabets. There are also influences from Sanskrit, Pali, French and Chinese in the Khmer language. The Khmer script has symbols for 33 consonants, 24 dependent vowels, 12 independent vowels and several diacritic symbols. Many words have more than one accepted spelling. There are no spaces between words in the written language, only at the end of sentences or phrases.

The history of modern Cambodia is a tumultuous one. In 1887 Cambodia became part of French Indochina, but following Japanese occupation during WWII, Cambodia gained full independence from France in 1953. In 1975, Communist Khmer Rouge forces captured Phnom Penh and at least 1.5 million Cambodians died of execution, forced hardships or starvation under the new regime headed by Pol Pot. In 1978, the Vietnamese invaded and drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside. This began a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off 13 years of civil war. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords sought to establish democratic elections and a ceasefire, but it was not until 1999 that Khmer Rouge forces surrendered. Today, Cambodia's government is a multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy, and national elections are generally peaceful.

Cambodia's two main economic forces are textiles and tourism. This beautiful, lush country is rich with stunning ancient temple ruins, picturesque villages, seaside resorts, architecturally dazzling cities and gorgeous natural beauty. Tourism is growing, and many foreigners have made Cambodia an exciting and unusual travel destination.

Avantpage's Khmer translation experts are fully equipped to provide clients with high-quality, expert translation for a variety of needs - healthcare, government, financial and more.

For information about Khmer/Cambodian translation, click here.

There are over 1 billion people in the world who speak some form of Chinese. The most popular Chinese spoken languages are Mandarin (the official language of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China), Cantonese, Wu, and Min. No matter what spoken language or dialect is used, the Chinese have only two systems to represent their language in written form. 

Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese are the two writing systems used by those who read, write and speak Chinese. Because of cultural, historical and political reasons, written text in China evolved into two different and separate writing methods. While both writing systems share the same grammatical structure and are essentially the same language, they are not interchangeable.

Traditional Chinese has been in use since the 5th century, A.D. It uses about 13,000 characters, and some of them are highly complex. Because Traditional Chinese was so difficult to learn, many, many Chinese remained illiterate. The Simplified Chinese writing system, which uses about 8,000 simplified characters, was introduced by the Chinese government as an official writing language in 1949 in order to combat the problem of illiteracy in China.

Simplified Chinese text has fewer strokes per character and fewer characters in use. It is easier to write and understand. Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China and Singapore, and Traditional Chinese is used primarily in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and among the Chinese speaking population of Malaysia. Chinese speakers in the United States generally use Traditional Chinese as well. Although Traditional Chinese is more complicated, it allows for more precise pronunciation, and more distinctiveness and legibility between characters. When translating documents into Chinese, translators must be aware of which system their audience uses, and sometimes must translate the document into both.

Here are some examples of Traditional Chinese characters in black, and their simplified counterparts in red*:

*Omniglot.com, The Guide to Languages, Alphabets and Other Writing Systems

Are you aware that Avantpage is a minority-owned business? We are proud of our MBE status, and today I'd like to take just a moment to expand on that a bit ...

What is an MBE? 
An MBE - Minority-owned Business Enterprise - is defined as a for-profit business which is owned, operated and controlled by minority group members who are Asian, Black, Hispanic or Native American. At least 51% of the business must be owned by a minority to qualify, or, if the business is publicly-owned, at least 51% of the stock must be owned by one or more members of a minority. Also, the management and day-to-day operations of the business must be controlled by minority group members as well.

Many large corporations actively seek to do business with MBEs, and often have internal programs in  place to contract services with a certain percentage of MBEs, in addition to their other suppliers. If you are interested in choosing a translation company with MBE status, Avantpage is certified by The National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC).

What does MBE status mean to our clients?
There is actually a two-pronged advantage to Avantpage's MBE status. First, because we are certified as an MBE by the NMSDC, we are eligible to register with major corporations in their supplier diversity programs. And that means exciting opportunities for Avantpage to gain valuable experience with new corporate clients, improve our industry recognition, expand our services and grow as an organization. 

Secondly, there is a more "intangible" benefit to our being designated an MBE.  In the translation industry, we deal closely with minority issues in regard to language barriers. We understand sensitive language issues, cultural differences, and diversity concerns, because our company was founded and built by minorities. 

Avantpage constantly seeks to further our understanding of and sensitivity to the needs and concerns of other minority businesses and individuals. While our MBE status is another advantage to working with us, our work stands by itself due to its quality, service and competitive cost.

Congratulations to our client, California-based AltaMed Health Services Corp.!

HISPANIC BUSINESS Magazine has ranked it as the number one nonprofit in the nation based on spending in service to Hispanics.

"Since 1969, the organization has provided health services to the underserved population in Los Angeles County, with special focus on the Mexican-American segment. Today it operates more than 20 facilities including five clinics, a youth center, and several HIV treatment centers. From prenatal testing to senior care, AltaMed has a program to address the need."

Read more about their ranking, and how AltaMed helped pioneer the practice of bilingual and bicultural healthcare for the Hispanic market.

We're glad to work with this great company as they strive to improve care and services for their members.

That was our response upon receiving our census form in the mail. After all, the country of origin question goes a long way in determining what kind of language services an area needs to provide for local residents.

Well, it’s sort of on the census.  

You see, under Question 9 about race, there are boxes for “white, black, American Indian, Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Other Asian, Native Hawaiian, Guamanian/Chamorro, Samoan, Other Pacific Islander, or “Some Other Race.”

So one can glean some information about national origin and languages spoken from this version of the census, but there are some notable categories missing here. Arab-Americans are often divided about how to fill out this item—most choose “white,” but feel oddly doing so. In the same way, this form doesn’t accurately count Russian-Americans or Americans of Polish heritage, since those groups also self-identify as “white.”

Here’s the answer to the “missing ethnicity question,” straight from the Census Bureau:

“The 2010 Census isn’t designed to capture data on a person’s ancestry. We capture that information on the American Community Survey (ACS), which is part of the official census but conducted throughout the decade on a rolling sample of about 2.5 percent of the population every year. In Census 2000 and earlier decades what is now the ACS was commonly called “the long form” of the census; the 2010 Census is the first to use a short form only.”

Time will only tell whether the ACS provides us with an accurate accounting of the many ethnic and linguistic groups within America, and whether this experiment with a “short form” proves costly in the long run for historically underrepresented groups.