Are U.S. pharmacies shortchanging their customers?  A multi-state study conducted by the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern found that more than 50% cannot give their Spanish-speaking customers translated medication instructions.

A Spanish-speaker reported having applied a cream on her baby eleven times a day when she should have applied it once a day.  She made the mistake because the Spanish word for eleven is "once".  What would have happened if the prescription was for an oral medication instead of a topical treatment?

One easy way pharmacies can help ensure patient safety is by having patient information brochures for many common medications translated into the languages their customers speak.  This will not only increase their customers' loyalty, it will also reduce the pharmacies' liability risk.

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Resist the urge to save a few cents per word by hiring a freelance translator for your next translations project.  All translations need to be proofread and edited before they are good to go.  It's the same quality control process you follow before you send something off to the printer, and your non-English speaking customers aren't going to appreciate a typo any more than you do.

So, now you have to hire a second translator.  The cost to you has just gone up.

Who on your staff will be handling the project? Do these people have the time to find, evaluate, train and coordinate the work of two (or more) translators?  Will the loss of  productivity in their day-to-day responsibilities be offset by what you think you'll save on the translations?  Will managing the project keep them from doing something that actually generates revenue for your organization?

Work with a translations company that provides services in multiple languages, and save your internal resources for more productive work.

Image by Joshua Davis.  Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Every June the Country Music Association hosts a big we-love-our fans fest here in Nashville.  It started out as Fan Fair over 30 years ago and now attracts over 160,000 visitors to the city.  In 2008, country music fans came from over 20 countries to enjoy live music and the opportunity to meet some of the biggest stars in the business.

So why doesn't the CMA - and the city of Nashville, for that matter - show some good old Southern hospitality to its foreign guests?

The festival's official website (www.cmafest.com) offers information on foreign travel to Nashville, but there's not a word in any language other than English.  The Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau is proud of the new website launched last year, but it, too, fails the hospitality test (www.visitmusiccity.com).

The NCVB site states that "Tourism is our business - the direct impact of the hospitality industry in Nashville is $3.5 billion annually with over 10 million visitors to Music City every year...Our mission is to grow Nashville's second-largest industry from $3 billion to $5 billion."  Is that growth possible when you ignore foreign tourists?

Foreign tourists spend an average of $4,500 per trip to the U.S., much more than domestic tourists spend per capita.

The Memphis Visitors and Convention Bureau's site offers translations in six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, and Japanese.  If a German looks for travel information about Tennessee in her own language, she'll find Memphis first.  And visit Graceland, and pay for a hotel and meals, and buy some souvenirs.  You get the picture.  Foreign tourists will spend their money where they feel most welcome.

So we're asking both the CMA and the city of Nashville to follow the lead of cities who welcome their guests with multilingual maps, brochures, websites and guidebooks.  We need to uphold our reputation as one of America's friendliest cities!

Photo by Brent and MariLynn. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Did you know that searches conducted in Spanish often deliver results from sites outside the U.S.?    One reason this occurs is because Spanish language websites here are not optimized as well as sites based in countries like Mexico and Spain.   U.S. advertisers have also been slow to target Hispanics online. 

Make sure you optimize your site for Spanish speakers before you go live so that your customers find you, not your competitor.

You can read the full article at MediaPost.

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Photo by Joe Shlabotnik.

One of the best things you can do to ensure consistency in your translations is to create an English glossary.  Every industry and most companies have standard terminology  and catch phrases that they use repeatedly.  A glossary will ensure that the term in English will always be translated the same way.

Here's how it works:

• compile key terms used by your company
• if you are having a technical manual or user guide translated, the author of the English version should write the definition of the terms
• ask your translations partner to create equivalents in the target language
• run the translated terms by your in-country staff
• the project manager at your translations company will then revise the glossary and distribute to the translator(s)

The glossary will become the "bible" for your translators, and will save you time and money.

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