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Strategic resilience in shifting global markets

Latin America has become an indispensable partner in the global transition, driven by energy innovation, AgTech, and nearshoring. Success in these high-stakes hubs requires turning economic complexity into opportunity through precise, localized communication that speaks the language of local regulations.

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Driving global alignment through audio content

Moving beyond simple text translation to high-impact professional dubbing is a critical lever for scaling enterprise knowledge. In global training and engagement, cultural pacing and precise tonal alignment are what transform standard video into an authoritative, native brand experience.   

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Fueling the AI economy with linguistic assets

High-quality, human-verified multilingual data has become the ultimate bottleneck for culturally fluent AI models. In the evolution of machine learning, specialized data curation and expert linguistic validation are what transform raw content into the high-stakes training assets that power global intelligence.

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Case Studies

Delve into Keylingo's collection of case studies for a firsthand look at how we've empowered clients to thrive in the global marketplace. Explore real-world examples showcasing our tailored solutions and our clients' success stories in thriving international markets.

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Explore Keylingo's dynamic live events featuring insightful interviews. Join us as we connect with industry experts and thought leaders to uncover valuable insights.

Lessons From Leaders

Join us for this episode of Keylingo Spotlight, where we will delve into the pivotal lessons of our esteemed guest, Kristin Gutierrez, bestselling author of
“Be A Better Sales Leader”.

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Trend Talks

Check out this episode where we discussed the ever-evolving language field and explored the future of automation in localization with our guest Istvan Lengyel, Founder & CEO of BeLazy.

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Trend Talks

Delve into our first episode featuring Diego Cresceri, a seasoned entrepreneur and CEO & Founder of Creative Words, a leading language company based in Italy.

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Keylingo Blog

Delve deeper into the world of global communication with our in-depth articles. Discover a wide range of topics, including industry insights, data-driven research, and practical strategies to help you navigate the ever-evolving business landscape.

Intuitive Native Translators for Your International Marketing Campaigns (Part 1)

If you are a growing company successful enough to start reaching out to foreign markets, the very last thing you want is to introduce yourself with a mistake. One of the biggest challenges for a globalizing business is to face the challenges of new languages and cultures. You’ve inevitably spent a long time tailoring your brand and marketing campaigns to the tastes of your home audience and it’s only natural to worry about how these English-centered messages will carry over into a new environment.

Should you translate directly and hope for the best or invest the money into completely redesigning your marketing infrastructure? These are important questions, and ones that only a true native translator with in-depth knowledge about your new target market can help you with. Some marketing campaigns will be perfect almost directly translated as long as the words are right while others will, in fact, need a complete re-work for a different audience.

Historic Translation Mistakes

It’s all too easy to think that you’ve made a successful translation only to discover later that you have said something silly, nonsensical, or that somehow misses the mark with your new audience. There are dozens of amusing examples of classic corporate translation mistakes, like how an airline’s ad “Fly in Leather” translated accidentally to “Fly Naked” or Mercedes-Benz registered in China as “Bensi” which translates to “rush to die”. However, a personal favorite and excellent example of why you want to watch out for half-wrong mistranslations is the KFC introduction to their incredibly welcoming Chinese market back in the 80s.

Complete vs Partial Translation – The KFC Example

KFCs are incredibly popular in China, but that doesn’t mean that the chicken franchise successfully transported their marketing campaign initially. In fact, one of the funniest translation mistakes in history occurred as KFC was opening their first location in mainland China. Their classic motto “Finger Lickin’ Good” was mistranslated into a kanji-phrase that read “Eat Your Fingers Off”. This mistake stands out quite poignantly because it’s clear that they had a translator, just not a native speaker who understood the context of the kanji they strung together. When the mistake was pointed out to KFC, they quickly made the needed corrections, but as you can see, it’s all too easy for even a well managed and well-meaning company to mismanage their translation efforts.

Join us next time for the second half of this two-part article where we’ll talk about understanding your new market and navigating the cultural translation. For more interesting tips about professional translation services, contact us today!

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-04T14:00:32.674Z):

The Pitfalls of Word-for-Word Translation (aka Literal Translation)

Often, you might come across something funny when you encounter word-for-word translation. For example, something as simple as the French phrase “Je m’appelle Jean” can become clunky if you translate word-by-word. The word “je” means “I.” The word “me” which is shortened into “m’” here means me. The word “appelle” means “call.” And “Jean,” being a proper noun remains the same. So basically, the phrase “Je m’appelle Jean” literally translates into “I me call Jean” which is not a grammatical English sentence.

Words with More Than One Meaning

So it’s best to avoid word-for-word translation, largely because it doesn’t mix with the different grammatical constructions in different languages. But, also consider the fact that one word can have more than one meaning in a language. For example, the word “hee” in Hindi is usually translated as “only” or “just.” But sometimes, it can be used to underscore or emphasize a certain action or feeling. For example, the sentence “Mujhe yeh karna hee nahin” means “I really don’t want to do this.” In this case, the word “hee” means “really.” However, most people in India translate this incorrectly as “I don’t want to do this only” which is not idiomatic in the English language.

Words with No Exact Counterparts

Apart from grammatical issues and words with more than one meaning, there’s also the fact that certain words just don’t have counterparts in other languages. Take, for example, the French phrase “je ne sais quoi.” A word-by-word translation of this phrase would be “I don’t know what” which hardly means the same thing as the original. So you have to approximate by using phrases like “a certain charm” or “a certain something.” For example, you might say, “That well-dressed lady has a certain charm.” Or you might just keep the French phrase and say, “That well-dressed lady has je ne sais quoi.”

Pointing the Finger at Literal Translation

Be careful not to quickly accuse your translation team of literal translation without understanding first what edits your in-house reviewer has inserted into the translation. All too often a company’s in-house/in-country reviewer has “free-styled” the translation without taking into account the (e.g. English) source content and inserted additional content that was not be found in the original. Professional translators will convey the meaning, without straying from the original source. Which means they won’t embellish, add additional or omit content, or change the meaning of what is being conveyed in the source content. Translators are not granted the creative license to change the meaning of the client’s content.

Either way, you can’t rely on word-for-word translation but have to use some ingenuity to get your meaning across. Contact us for more information.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-04T14:00:27.650Z):

How to Translate Your Product’s Owners Manual for Foreign Customers (Part 2)

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part article on getting a technical translation of product manuals. Last time we defined technical translation as a very precise and industry-specific translation style and why you want to stay away from auto-translation. Today, we’ll be covering how to get the best possible translated technical manual.

Working With Your Translation Service

As you might guess, when it comes to technical writing, you need a translation service that understands at least the basic technical aspects of your product. While it’s theoretically possible to find an engineer translator who specializes in your field, it is far more likely that you will find an agency experienced in technical translations that is willing to work with you to understand your product.

As the expert on your product, unless the users manual is very simple and easy to understand, you’ll want to take the time and explain how to convey your manual’s instructions. Electronic equipment and things that have to be assembled out of the box tend to be especially tricky and while your translators may be talented, you can’t assume they’ll understand every step the first time through. Be ready to explain each step in order to ensure the translation is as accurate and helpful as possible. It may even help to show an example of the product.

Translating the Diagrams

In badly translated manuals, the diagrams and pictures are often one of the few clues available but they can be returned to their helpful visual-aide status with a quick translation brush-up. Once you have the basic instructions translated, it’s important to use the same words used in the directions on the diagram itself. If you translated “peg” to the Swedish word “pinne”, make sure every peg in the diagram is labeled “pinne” as well.

Covering all the Warnings

With the rest of the instructions translated, there is one section of your translated users manual that needs very careful attention. Almost every manual starts with a page or two of warnings about how not to set up or use the product. Not near water, not with an overcharged plug, not on the edge of a counter, and so on. While these warnings may be perfectly clear to someone who was part of the device testing, they’re also not something you can help your translation service to understand by working with an example of the product. Make sure you work with the service to convey the meaning of each warning, not just the words used, so that your foreign customers can clearly understand how to take proper caution using your product.

Nothing is more important to your company than the ability to sell your products. Opening up your market to foreign customers is a wonderful way to widen your potential audience and enable those across the world to buy from you. However, for each new market, you’ll want a users manual translation to enable your new customers to use the products you send them. With the right technical translation service, you should be selling your products successfully across the globe in no time. For more information about translating your product’s technical manual, contact us today!

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-04T14:00:22.472Z):

How to Translate Your Product’s Owners Manual for Foreign Customers (Part 1)

You are a local business on the rise and just starting to look into globalization. You sell your products online through one or more popular e-commerce portals and you’re finally starting to think about expanding your shipping options to other countries outside the US. This is wonderful news and an important part of your business growth, but it also requires a few very careful decisions. Mainly, how will your foreign-language customers buying through a translated web portal understand the documentation that comes with your product? Naturally, you want your product to be useful and appreciated by the buyers and your owners manual is there to help with that, however, in an untranslated state it will be less than helpful. The solution? You need a technical translation service.

What is a Technical Translation?

There are many different kinds of translation and the method used should be determined by the nature of each document. Legal papers, for instance, need to be translated with legalese in both languages kept in mind while artistic material should be translated to preserve the meaning and cultural associations rather than the exact words. The same policy is applied to technical documents like instructions and owners manuals and this is known as technical translation.

When a technical translator works on your owners manual, they will need to understand what is being conveyed and create the same helpful message in a new language. While your wording may not be preserved, the instructional meanings will be. This will ensure that your future foreign customers will be able to not only puzzle their way through the pictures but actually gain useful information and instructions from your owners manual. Technical translation is all about preserving the procedure of the original text over anything else.

Dodge the Auto-Translator Mistake

A lot of young companies who want to expand without spending on translation try to translate their work using an automated translation tool. This may seem like a good idea but only because you don’t actually know exactly what the translator is saying. Auto-translation is one of the best ways to create an incomprehensible users manual while thinking that you have provided something helpful and culturally aware. If you’ve ever read a badly translated users manual, then you know exactly what this can be like for the recipient trying to make a foreign-manufactured device work with diagrams as your only real guide.

This is only the first half of our two-part article! Join us next time for part two where we’ll talk about coordination, diagrams, and warnings. For more information about translating your product’s technical manual, contact us today!

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-04T14:00:17.104Z):

Translation is Key, Locally and Online.

Never before has the world seen a more powerful, more open platform of communication than the internet. The pinnacle of man’s achievement, the internet has been a story of constant evolution, a story of triumph from humble beginnings in 1983, to the dawn of the World Wide Web in 1990, to today’s all-encompassing behemoth cloud of information we know today.

Rooted heavily in the English speaking world, the internet is now diversifying in language,and though English is still the most popular, the gap is closing fast. China in particular has exploded on the scene, with 771 million Chinese speaking users online, compared to 985 million English speakers. While others such as Spanish (312), Arabic (185), Portuguese (158), Indonesian (157), Japanese (118), Russian (109), French (108), and German (85) continue to take their slice of the pie as well, the real interesting data lies outside of the big names. A staggering 897 million online users speak a language not listed above, meaning that over one third of the internet speaks a language outside of the top ten languages.

According to the Census Bureau in 2013, a record 61.8 million U.S. residents (native-born, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants) spoke a language other than English at home. Whether you are doing your business online, an ever increasing option, or doing business locally or globally, having a professional translator can be key to the next big business transaction.

As the internet continues to evolve, it will encompass more people, more cultures, and more languages. This new, more diverse internet, will be even more vital to the growth of business but it may be harder to navigate the waters of language barriers. If you are in need of assistance, it is best to find a good translation service such as Keylingo.

Please, contact us and we can help you take the first step in the right direction.

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-01T14:01:20.209Z):

5 Reasons Your Business Might Need Professional Translation Services (Part 2)

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part article on why businesses often need professional translation services. Last time we talked about the importance of a localized website and how sometimes your investors might be from another country. Today, we’ll pick up with business partners!

3) Acquiring a Foreign Business Partner

Business partners come in many shapes, sizes, and locations. While it might be convenient for all your ideal opportunities to appear within walking distance of your office, more often than not, the most beneficial business partners are much further away than even commuting can account for. This is especially true in the modern global economy where the best partners for your business can be oceans away, not just miles. When this happens, every form of interaction must be completely translated from top to bottom. Everything from memos to relevant financial statements need to be translated by a professional who can ensure absolute accuracy.

4) Expanding Your Market to New Countries

As your business grows, there’s no need to keep it confined to your country of origin and, as you probably know quite well, most of the top companies in America are also incredibly popular across the globe. From Microsoft to KFC, almost any company has an incredible amount to gain by opening locations and services in as many countries as will have them and expansion can support. however, with every new market comes the challenge of re-translating every contract, government license, policy handbook, and of course, the marketing campaign. It’s incredibly important to ensure that your marketing assets not only match your current brand, but align well with the new target culture.

5) Local Customers Who Speak a Foreign Language

Not all customers who speak a different language live in foreign countries. America is well known as a great cultural melting pot and includes many thousands of citizens for whom English is not their preferred language because they were raised in a household where something else was spoken instead. While the most common alternative local language is Spanish, there are communities of almost every other language group scattered across the country and members of these communities are all perfectly viable customers for your company. A wonderful way to welcome them to your products or services is to provide content, contracts, and information in their preferred languages.

While none of these examples require a full-time translator kept within your company, they are all excellent tasks for a professional translation service. Whether you only need the occasional translation or a small amount of translation on a regular basis, translators are your best bet for affordable and highly skilled translations. For more information about professional translation services or to schedule a consultation for your company, please contact us today!

AI Search Summary (Updated: 2026-06-01T14:01:14.337Z):