Your company is an Asian company. You have come to this web page because you want to find out how Universal Web can help your company improve your web site.
As an example, let's discuss the situation of a Japanese manufacturing company. The principles illustrated in this example can also apply to other types of companies (banking, trading, etc.) from other countries (China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.).
Suppose the Japanese company sells TVs, DVD players, musical keyboards, and other electronic products in Southeast Asia. Such products require clear instructions and packaging.
Because the Southeast Asian market has so many different languages, the Japanese company realizes that it would be cost-effective to use English to communicate with the entire regional market. They decide to translate the operating instructions for all of their products from Japanese into English.
However, Japanese executives know from experience that problems may occur when they use English to communicate with Southeast Asians. For example, Japanese people sometimes have trouble understanding English when the global language is spoken or written by Thais, and vice versa.
It is easy to prevent such problems from occurring in written communications. After each product's operating instructions are translated into English, the Japanese company can hire a native English speaker to edit the text. As a result, the English version of the instructions will be clearer, smoother, and easier for consumers in the target market to understand.
It is now standard practice for a Japanese company to present its company profile on the worldwide web. The company's web site supports its employees' use of their business cards ("meishi" in the Japanese language). Instead of carrying a company profile sheet, each employee can have the company's URL printed on his or her business card.
As in the case of the business card, a Japanese company's web site is often produced in two languages: Japanese and English. The purpose of the English version is to communicate with all non-Japanese people who visit the web site.
However, the category "non-Japanese" includes a wide variety of people, who have many different native languages and different levels of English fluency. In order to make the English version of its web site effective for such a diverse audience, a Japanese company needs to use "Global English" rather than American English or British English.
The term Global English refers to English that can be easily understood by a global audience. It is an important goal when translating a product's packaging or operating instructions from Japanese to English. Global English is even more important when translating the content of a web page. A native speaker who edits a worldwide web site must do much more than correct mistakes in grammar.
The native speaker must be skilled at producing English that is clear to people all over the world, not only people who are from his or her own country. This means streamlining the English text and removing idioms that are specific to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, or other English-speaking countries.
Most Japanese companies are already aware of the effectiveness of Global English for increasing their export market. However, the sudden growth of the internet (especially e-commerce and e-learning) has caught many companies by surprise. Some Japanese web sites still have poorly written English-language pages or no English version at all.
Universal Web can help you promote your company on the worldwide web. Our native English speakers are experts at producing Global English to make your web site more easily understood by a global audience.
If your web site already has an English version, we can edit it. If your web site does not yet have an English version, we can help you build the content for each English-language web page.
In addition to editing and writing, we can make your web pages look more attractive to a global audience. For example, we can show your web designer how to modify a web page's layout to make its text harmonize with its photos, graphics, and other images. We can also reorganize your web site so that it will be easier to navigate, thereby motivating visitors to spend more time at your site.
Please look at the list of fees that we charge for our services.
To learn more about Global English, see the Editing A Document Before Translating It and Frequently Asked Questions pages in the Yankee English Services section of our web site.
For other information, email us.
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