Multilingual Connections: Research is Our Native Language
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Topic: Blog
Doing international research? Choosing the right translation partner is essential to impress (and even delight!) your internal team or end clients.
It may sound obvious, but research managers have research to manage. They have research to conduct and data to analyze. When projects go global, they should still be able to focus on the work at hand and on what they do best. Research managers should be able to relax (OK, maybe not relax exactly) and rely on a translation partner to help facilitate a meaningful connection with participants across languages and cultures without the stress of potential miscommunication. Of course, when things don’t go according to plan, data analysts can end up with inaccurate, clunky translations with time glitches, lack of nuance – and in the worst case, possibly even security breaches.
Our international team of translators has well over 125 years of experience combined in perfecting skills and systems for all types of translation services. We love sharing their accomplishments and perspectives with our clients. Here are a few of the faces behind the words and the work at Multilingual Connections:
Our team specializes in market research translation, which means we can collaborate on your research projects as a true partner. Founded by a linguistic anthropologist with a background in user research, Multilingual Connections has supported international research across over 75 languages and cultures for research & design firms, corporate in-house teams, marketing agencies, museums, universities, nonprofits, and more. We understand the intricacies of conducting market research across cultures and languages, which allows you to obtain timely and accurate insights that ultimately guide your decision-making, adding value to your project.
Our market research translation experience includes the gamut of qualitative and quantitative projects, for each stage of the research process:
- In-depth interviews
- Focus groups
- Questionnaires
- Surveys
- Mobile journeying
- Virtual training and presentations
- Video Calls
At Multilingual Connections, our relationship-driven team takes a partnership approach to deliver services, leverage language and cultural expertise, incorporate innovative technology, and provide excellent customer service. This allows us to create language solutions tailored to a variety of unique needs.
Language and cultural expertise standards
Understanding the target culture ensures content resonates with each target audience. Our linguists are aware of cultural nuances and use this to inform their work. For each project, we assign translators with relevant industry expertise to customize each project team. With both language and industry experience, our team is able to contribute greater nuanced translation outputs. This expertise is important for market research not only when the work gets translated into the target language, but also when it is translated back for final analysis.
How our Multilingual Connections team overcame a unique challenge:
For a study aimed at learning more about how Japanese youth use apps, a more nuanced approach was needed for recruitment. As wetranslated the screener questions into Japanese we also reviewed questions for culturalappropriateness to maximizeengagement from the targeted Gen-Z audience.
In addition to using native Japanese-speaking linguists, we intentionally assigned this project to linguists currently living in Japan who understood the Gen-Z audience. For extra oversight, we added a Japanese project manager to the team. Our team analyzed the screening questions before translation, and we realized that translation alone wasn’t enough to ensure the questions were relevant for the Japanese audience. Localization was necessary to create a culturally appropriate Japanese version of the screening questions.
By working with native Japanese linguists who currently lived in Japan, we ensured that the people working on the project were immersed in the culture and had an excellent understanding of the market and audience. As a result, we provided quick, accurate and relevant localization of the questions so they would resonate with the target audience. In this way, our expertise in the market research industry added a strength to our language and cultural expertise.
No matter what the project, we deliver value through our proven process:
As a trusted language partner, we start by getting to know individual business goals to discover what success looks like for our clients. Next, we define the project scope, ensuring transparency and collaborating around process, budget, and timeline. At the completion of each project, we develop partnership strategies – discussing how to improve workflow efficiencies and incorporating client feedback to ensure future success. While this process is not specific to our work in the research industry, it is a part of our commitment to excellence and a demonstration of how we plan for success and build legacy knowledge about our clients’ preferences to continually improve their next translation experience with us.
Security and confidentiality
A growing concern for global market research firms is the maintenance of security and ongoing compliance of privacy regulations. Our team understands that researchers are looking for insights to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Coupled with their need for keeping this data secure is their commitment to maintaining confidentiality for participants. Our system includes secure file sharing and data transmission methods and all Multilingual Connections team members worldwide are bound by nondisclosure agreements and undergo regular compliance checks and training.
We invite you to consider Multilingual Connections as your global partner in research.
We’d love to hear from you.
Want to stay connected?
We periodically share news and updates around translation, language and culture. Rest assured we’ll never share your contact information with anyone!