We are finally in the best time of the year once again!

Setting aside the fact that the really hot weather (for those of us in Texas) has finally begun to wane, it is during the last couple of months of the year that I am reminded of the best things in life: enjoying family gatherings, practicing gratitude, eating great food, and, of course, giving gifts to friends and loved ones!

November and December are a time of reflection and looking ahead. As I pore over where we’ve been the last eleven months, I also look ahead to the new year and begin making plans. The one constant that comes to mind for me during this time is the character and commitment of my team.

I work with the best people in the industry, and while we are running a business, I know that people do business with people, not just a business entity. Our culture is one of authenticity, genuineness, integrity, and excellence; these principles are driven by the people that make SpokenHere what it is.

My team is like family to me. I know they will do their best to help those who need us, and that they will always do the right thing.

As you begin your preparations for the holiday season, take a moment to think about the people you work with. Think about what they mean to you. Tell them. Few things are more important, or powerful.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Bobby Lahiere, Founder & CEO

The post Happy Holidays from SpokenHere appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

Connecting with a multilingual individual goes beyond a simple switch between English and another language.

Communication requires context: cultural context. And, that’s why, as we will explore today through sweet, sad and sassy language examples, “you need an interpreter for that.”

If you’re fluent in more than one language, you likely know there are certain words or phrases that just don’t quite translate accurately into another language while retaining their full meaning. This is because language isn’t just about conveying ideas. It’s also a reflection of cultural nuances and perspectives.
These cultural nuances form a cultural context that shapes the meaning and subtleties of certain words or phrases, making them challenging to express to someone from a different cultural background.

Words Without Borders

Across the globe, there are countless fascinating expressions that defy direct translation into other languages.Some are so specific that they’re unique to certain dialects or regions such as Caribbean Spanish, and might not resonate elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world. With over 20 countries claiming Spanish as their official language, each has left its own imprint on the language. That’s why, even if you or your team members are fluent in Spanish, you might still require an interpreter to accurately navigate these cultural intricacies when communicating with Spanish-speaking employees, customers or LEP patients.

Tip: Check out our Top 5 Best Practices for Optimizing Your Remote Interpreting session!

Here are some of our favorite “untranslatable” words and phrases:

• Chuleta (Panamanian Spanish) – This is the word for pork chop in Spanish, however in Panamanian slang, it means “pity” or “disappointment” or even “damn”. To make it more confusing, “chuleta” can also mean the exact opposite. When you’re excited about something, it also can mean “Wow!” It just depends on how and when you use it.
• Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish) – This word is used to describe a man (typically a young man) who usually wears his shirt tails un-tucked. It’s often used in a negative context to convey a poor fashion trend.
• Fernweh (German) – This German word means a longing for distant places. And, while the English word wanderlust comes close, fernweh can also refer to a longing for a place that you’ve never even been.
• Frühjahrsmüdigkeit (German) – The German language loves to join words together to make progressively more specific words! Frühjahr means springtime, while müdigkeit means tiredness. Together, these words combined into one refer to a sort of reverse seasonal affective disorder, such as when people become depressed or lethargic at the onset of spring.
• Lagom (Swedish) – This word most closely translates to “just the right amount.” It carries the connotation of appropriateness, although not necessarily perfection. The value of “just enough” for Swedes can be compared to the idiom “less is more,” and carries a favorable connotation.
• Layogenic (Tagalog) – This is a slang word from the Philippines for a person who is attractive from a distance, but not from close up. “Layo” is the Filipino word for “far” while “-genic” is a term borrowed from English, particularly from the word “photogenic.”
• Saudade (Portuguese) – Portuguese speakers use this term to convey a beautiful, bittersweet longing for something absent. It could be something you’ve loved and lost or something that may not even have happened at all. Native speakers across the globe from Portugal to Cape Verde to Brazil to Angola claim that this feeling is unable to be translated.
• Schlemiel and Schlimazel (Yiddish) – Both of these terms refer to someone prone to bad luck. Yiddish distinguishes between the schlemiel and schlimazel, who would most closely be grouped under a single term such as “klutz” in other languages. The schlemiel is the traditional bumbler, who spills his coffee; however, the schlimazel is the one on whom the coffee is spilled.
• Shoganai (Japanese) – This term is a frequently used Japanese response that means “it can’t be helped.” It is a catchall response to any situation, large or small, over which people believe they have no influence. Another translation might be “It is what it is: accept it!” You might recognize similar phrases in other languages such as the Italian phrase “Que sera, sera!,” or the French “C’est la vie!”
• Sobremesa (Spain Spanish) – The literal translation of sobremesa is “upon the table;” however, this term is used in Spain for the time one spends still seated at a table after eating. In Spain, this includes the time that people remain at the table exchanging gossip, ideas, or even playing cards. For Spaniards, it’s a time to be self-indulgent and to recognize that there is more to life than working long hours. To them, there are few pleasures greater than sharing a meal and then chatting nonsense for a large portion of what remains of the day.
• Ya’aburnee (Levantine Arabic) – A literal translation would be “You bury me!”, but this morbid-sounding phrase has a surprisingly sweet meaning. Used mostly in Lebanon and Syria, this is a romantic expression telling the other person that they would not want to live without them. A better translation into English might be closer to: “Live longer than me or bury me, as I would not be able to live without you.”
• Zhaghzhagh (Persian) – This ultra-specific Persian word describes the chattering of teeth from being cold or from rage: the feeling experienced mostly in winters or after a fight.

Interpreters Do More Than You May Realize

Interpreters use the full spectrum of a language and a speaker’s cultural context to actively adapt a message. In cases where a word or expression can’t be translated literally without distorting or altering the meaning, a trained interpreter must quickly adapt the message using other words or phrases in the target language to convey the meaning and connotation of the original speaker.

For example, imagine expressions in English such as “having a chip on your shoulder,” “a leopard can’t change his spots,” or “this is a piece of cake.” How would these sound to someone of another culture if translated literally word-for-word? Not quite right.

Regional words and expressions can also be misunderstood because they sound similar to a specific word in English, but have a different meaning. We featured an alarming example of this in a past blog that describes how a Spanish-speaking patient was misdiagnosed because of a language mistake.

These examples demonstrate the importance of accuracy and cultural knowledge in interpretation.

Expert Interpreters Know Cultural Context

Remote Interpreting can provide an easy solution for a company needing to facilitate communication with a limited-English customer or employee, between members of multilingual teams, with international clients and partners, or with LEP patients. Having a skilled linguistic and cultural interpreter can make the difference in accurate AND compassionate communication.

Because remote interpreting services do not require the interpreter to be there in person, companies can cut costs by facilitating culturally correct interpretation services virtually for meetings and other conversations. By using interpreters with cultural fluency specific to your audience’s native language culture, the likelihood of positive, meaningful communication increases substantially.
SpokenHere provides on-demand remote interpreting services that are charged by the minute, with no minimum call times or monthly fees. SpokenHere’s ConnectNow remote interpretation platform allows you to connect with culturally-informed interpreters instantly from your desktop, tablet, or even mobile device.

When you find yourself in a situation that calls for a knowledgeable cultural liaison, our team of language professionals is here to help your organization communicate in over 300 languages and dialects. We would love to chat! Contact us today.

Or you can sign up for a free remote interpreting account.

The post Cultural Context: Why You Need an Interpreter appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

Is your organization clearly communicating in context?

Join us to examine how important context is to effective intercultural communication and to make sure that your organization is utilizing the best interpretation and translation resources for your audience.

If you’ve ever misunderstood what someone was trying to communicate because of something non-verbal or not explicitly written out that “you should have known,” then you’ve experienced how misunderstood context can quickly derail an interaction.

Communication difficulties in the way two people interpret the context of a conversation can happen in many professional and personal situations. While many factors impact this, we’ve seen challenging intercultural communication issues arise between people whose native languages rely on context to differing degrees.

Maybe, the two communicators even grew up speaking the same language, but their geographical and cultural backgrounds litter their seemingly straightforward communication with contextual differences. Sometimes the results can be catastrophic, while sometimes the blunders result in hilarious stories that might be cringe-worthy, but at least not harmful.

Context in communication matters more than some people acknowledge – to the detriment of their communities and customers.

Meaningful communication relies upon the communicators themselves and/or the supporting interpreters and translators first identifying the importance of context and then harnessing the correct communication tool plus their own expertise to localize all communications. As we often note among our own team, “you need an interpreter for that.”

Let’s take a deeper dive into definitions and resources.

What Do We Mean When We Talk About “Context”?

According to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, context is defined as “the situation in which something happens and that helps you to understand it.” What this means in reference to communication is that how we each decode messages based on what our backgrounds are, who we are with, where we are, what is happening around us at the time, our opinions and beliefs, our shared values and experiences, and our non-verbal cues.

Context is hard to explain to others from a different background; however, we use this nuanced “context” to decipher interactions or ideas without being conscious that we’re doing it. If you’re still a little confused about how a difference in cultural contexts can affect communication, here’s an example:

In some cultures, an offer of coffee after a meal is considered a polite way to indicate to guests that they should leave soon. In other cultures, an offer of coffee at a similar social gathering or occasion is viewed as an act of kindness or an invitation to guests to stay longer because everyone is having a great time. If people from different cultural backgrounds (let’s say the host is from Culture “A” and the guests are from Culture “B”) are unaware of these differences, it could easily lead to an awkward situation if coffee is served.

Communication in Context: Explaining High vs. Low “Context” Cultures

The famous anthropologist, Edward T. Hall, studied the effects of context and culture on communication and was the first to discuss the delineations between high context and low context cultures. He noticed that certain cultures relied more on the use of context instead of explicitly stating what was being communicated. He called these high context cultures. In contrast, cultures that tended to communicate using terminology and rules that are explicitly spelled out, he called low context cultures.

High context societies and groups are those where people tend to have close connections over a long period of time. Because of this, certain behaviors and expectations aren’t made explicit, because most members learned what to do and think from years of interactions with each other. When communicating, a person from a high context culture may not verbally state the precise intent of their message, but instead expects the receiver to read between the lines using their contextual understanding. In these cultures, non-verbal contextual cues such as tone of voice, eye contact, gestures, and facial expressions carry a great deal of meaning.

In contrast, among low context societies, behaviors, beliefs, and expectations are more openly spelled out. These cultures rely much less on context to convey meaning and instead state their messages more directly and explicitly. The essence of a communication is conveyed by the precise words used, and there is very little expectation that nonverbal or situational cues might drastically change the meaning.

As you can probably guess, communication between people from high context and low context cultures can be challenging and lead to misunderstandings. People from low context cultures tend to listen primarily to the words spoken and often miss or misinterpret the nuances and non-verbal cues of a high context communicator.

No culture is completely high or low context. However, below is an idea of where some notable cultures fall on the context scale:

As you can see on the scale above, even cultures speaking the same language can rely more or less on context in communicating. That’s why simply understanding or speaking the same language as the person you’re interacting with isn’t always enough to understand their message: there is often contextual meaning buried within the communication.

Communication Tools that Increase Contextual Understanding

Even though two people might speak the same language, being from different countries or cultures impacts how they interpret the words spoken or written. When those two individuals speak, they may easily misinterpret each other.

So, how do you as a friend, organization, employer, health professional, or family member ensure that your meaning does not get lost in translation?

Learn more about what we now know about body language and context? Explore our blog “Is Your Body Language Lost in Translation?” and join in the discussion!

Partnering with an experienced professional interpreter or translator is vital in avoiding some of the breakdowns in understanding what could otherwise occur during intercultural communication. An experienced interpreter or translator will not just have a high-level of sensitivity to cultural context, they will also know which resources to recommend to support meaningful communication in all of the settings that you find yourself in.

Key communication tools and resources include:

Video Remote Interpreting

Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) can provide an easy solution for a company needing to facilitate communication with a limited English proficiency (LEP) person whether they be a customer, employee, member of a multilingual team, patient, or an international client or community partner.

Having a skilled linguistic and cultural liaison present via VRI can be the “deal maker” that helps to solve a problem or to facilitate an agreement across cultural barriers, because it preserves the authenticity of language by showcasing non-verbal cues and other contextual information that would be lost in audio or over-the-phone interpretation (OPI).

Check out our free resource to make the most of communication time: “Top 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Remote Interpreting Session“

Because video remote interpreting sessions do not require the interpreter to be present on-site and yet still retain the authenticity of cultural contexts because of the video platform, companies can simultaneously reduce their personnel costs and still greatly boost participants’ understanding.

Localization

Localization is another key communication resource for those requiring contextually sensitive translation services.
Localization is a step beyond the standard translation project scope or a Google translate response and provides companies with a more accurate end-result that better communicates with the target audience. While localized translations require more time and attention to detail, they are safer, culturally-sensitive, and overall a better representation of what your organization wanted to communicate – whether it be via a localized website translation or any other technical documents and marketing collateral.

Curious if our team of SpokenHere language professionals have experience in localizing translations for your industry? Check out a few of these additional case studies and industry articles for a behind-the-scenes view of our work partnering with clients in the manufacturing industry, healthcare arena, marketing sphere, and non-profit organizational realm (just to name a few! We would love to chat and answer your questions about how our language specialists are ready to meet your business’ communication needs.)

Context Matters to Us Because it Matters to You and Your Communities

When you find yourself in a situation that calls for a skilled linguist and cultural liaison, we’re here to help.

SpokenHere provides on-demand video remote interpreting services with a robust team of skilled, culturally-fluent interpreters. Plus, we understand the complex language service needs of many organizations, and do not require minimum call times or monthly fees from our clients, but rather charge by the minute to make sure companies are confident in both reaching their meaningful communication goals and staying within their budget’s parameters.

We also offer services such as simultaneous interpreting and voiceover support with our team members that specialize in making sure your context is at the forefront of their minds, as they enhance your communication no matter what platform or setting you find yourself in.

SpokenHere’s localization service includes more than rewriting text into a different language, because we focus on adapting your complete message to a specific audience and location. We take a holistic approach, considering other aspects such as adapting graphics, using appropriate date and time formats, and adopting cultural references, among many other details.

We love languages, because we love making sure that people feel seen and are heard, as we actively engage in relationship-building efforts across the globe. Contact us to learn more and view a demonstration.

The post The Impact of Context in Communication: Culture matters! appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

We envision a world where differences in language do not keep people from building deep and meaningful relationships with one another. Over time, we’ve evolved how we think about what we offer our clients beyond the early idea of “we sell translations”. On a tangible level, we provide translation and interpretation services, but what’s really at the heart of what our work accomplishes, is helping to bring people together so they can be understood.

We’ve made it our mission to apply our expertise in foreign languages to help your business build better relationships with the people it values most. Our love for languages and building those relationships shines through in everything we do.

Born Out of Love

SpokenHere was born out of an intense love of foreign languages. Our Founder and CEO, Bobby Lahiere, participated in a student exchange to Vienna, Austria across two summers in the mid-1980’s, after finishing his second year studying German at his high school. A flame of passion for international travel and languages was ignited during that experience that still burns brightly to this day.

After graduating from college, Bobby continued pursuing his passion by getting into the language services business. After 19 years of a largely successful partnership at another language service provider, Bobby founded SpokenHere in January 2011. The rest is history. Today more than 2000 clients on six continents rely on our professional written and spoken foreign language services.

SpokenHere’s Core Values

We strive to reflect what we believe is most important in every interaction between our clients and our team. The following Core Values support our vision, shape our culture, and are a reflection of our identity:

• People First – Relationships enrich our lives. They make what we do worthwhile. If we do the right things to grow and nurture relationships with our clients, our contractors, and our team, business will take care of itself.
• Authenticity Matters – Being genuine in today’s digital world is more valued than ever before. Down-to-earth, real people are who we want to build relationships with, because that is who we are at SpokenHere.
• WOW with Excellence – We work to deliver a WOW experience to our clients, our vendors, and each other by striving for excellence in communication, execution, and ongoing support.
• Integrity Above All – Openness and honesty form the foundation for everything we do. By being truthful about our pricing, capabilities, and commitments, we treat others the way we want to be treated.
• Continual Growth & Learning – Always being open to listening and learning offers us the opportunity to grow as individuals and as a team, which allows us to strengthen our skills and relationships in language services.
• Happiness – We have fun, laugh at stuff, don’t take ourselves too seriously. These things make us better, healthier, more pleasant, and more enjoyable for everybody else!

Client Experience

Our relationship with our clients is about much more than translation turnaround times or improving satisfaction ratings. We aim to put our clients’ needs and expectations at the center of what we do, and ensure that we are doing all we can to meet and exceed them in every interaction.

To make sure we are providing the best client experience possible, we focus on three cornerstones:

Personal Touch

We pride ourselves on being there when our clients need us. We respond quickly and listen to each client’s individual needs with each client having their own dedicated account manager to oversee their projects. Our ability to customize translation and interpretation services to meet those needs is what sets us apart.

Constant Improvement

We are constantly evaluating our services and how we can make them better. While we are making small changes and improvements every day, some of the big improvements we’ve recently made include:

• Launching a new website with a simplified client login page for quick access to our customer portals and helpful resources
• Adding video conferencing capabilities to our remote interpreting platform
• Expanding our ASL and Spanish on-demand video remote interpreting services to be available 24/7/365

Added Value

We have always viewed the relationship with our clients as a partnership, and our goal is to help our partners be more successful. In that spirit, we work hard to find new ways to add extra value to our service offerings. This year in particular, we have added two new programs that add value and convenience for our clients:

ReWords – our new client loyalty program offers VIP discounts and the opportunity to save even more as a client’s translation needs grow.

A SpokenHere Client’s Perspective – Youth Villages

Youth Villages provides help for children and young people across the United States who face a wide range of emotional, mental, and behavioral problems. They work to find solutions that strengthen the child’s family and support systems and dramatically improve their long-term success. Youth Villages helped more than 30,000 young people and their families last year.

As the number of communities they served grew and expanded across the United States geographically, they found they needed to communicate with families in a growing number of languages. They realized they did not have the internal staff to help with those conversations. As one can imagine, the families they are trying to support are facing challenging situations. In order to properly support these families, the Youth Villages staff needed to be able to communicate with them and put them at ease in a variety of settings. Youth Villages turned to SpokenHere for both written translation and remote interpretation services to help them continue to do their important work in our communities.

“Due to a lack of bilingual service providers, it can be difficult and sometimes impossible for non-English speaking families to find mental health services and counseling. By having access to SpokenHere, Youth Villages is able to provide family counseling to families who need it and to reach all parts of our community. It also allows us to connect them with resources. I have been very pleasantly surprised by how helpful and flexible they have been with my schedule. I would absolutely recommend SpokenHere to anyone at my company who needs translating services.”

– Veronika Ackerman, Family Intervention Specialist, Youth Villages

The post The Heart of SpokenHere appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

It’s pretty hard to believe that we are about to celebrate SpokenHere’s 10-year anniversary as a business. Looking back on the journey of SpokenHere as a company and my own evolution as an entrepreneur, there is a particular moment that stands out where I had a major epiphany – an “Ah ha!” moment.

I was sitting in a restaurant, sipping a coffee and chatting with a business coach about SpokenHere. He asked me, “What do you do?” I was quick to answer, “We sell translations!” He then asked me, “Why is that important?” With each subsequent answer, he kept asking, “Why is that important?”

And so down the rabbit hole we went. Where we eventually landed fundamentally changed how I thought about SpokenHere and our mission. It all started out with, “We sell translations,” and that work is important because being understood is what matters. No great relationship, whether between friends, spouses or a company and its customers and employees, is possible without great communication. We feel differences in language should not stand in the way of building better relationships, and that is what really lies at the heart of what we strive to achieve every day.

A lot of what you see today from SpokenHere was born from that “Ah ha!” moment.

An Artificial Language Test

SpokenHere’s “origin story” really starts with my love for languages.

I was very curious about everything growing up. I still am, maybe even more so today. I have a natural curiosity that is almost insatiable. Three subjects I’ve been very interested in my whole life are history, geography and people. One period of history that I’ve always been particularly intrigued by is World War II.

I went to a private school for seventh through twelfth grades, and before we moved up to ninth grade, our school administration gave all of 8th grade students an “artificial language” test to assess our aptitude for learning languages. If we scored above a certain level, we could choose whatever language we wanted to take in ninth grade, Spanish, French or German), instead of having to start with Latin. I scored above the threshold, so they gave me free rein to choose whatever language I wanted to take.

One of the things I should mention at this point, is that I have always prided myself as the salmon that swims downstream. I’ve always kind of gone against the current; you know, I never wanted to be like everybody else. So when deciding what language to study from the options my school offered, I had no interest in Spanish (everyone chose Spanish). There’s a history of French in my family – my grandparents were French immigrants. While I didn’t grow up learning French, I thought, well, I could always learn French from my aunt if I wanted to. Then there was German.

German really appealed to me!

It was different, no one I knew anywhere at the time even had the opportunity to learn something as “exotic” as German (it’s not exotic, of course, but it did satisfy my urge to be different). It also dovetailed quite nicely with my huge interest in World War II history. So I signed up for German, and I instantly fell in love with it.

My German teacher in high school, Mr. Pactor, actually became a mentor to me, and I still keep in touch with him to this day. He helped bring out and nurture my love of languages. It was a love and a talent that I just didn’t know I had until I started that first German class in ninth grade. When I think back on the results of that language aptitude test,  getting to choose to study German was a seminal event for me – it changed my entire life’s trajectory.

Change Was in the Air

After graduating from college, I knew I wanted to continue to do something with languages, but I had no idea what options I had. I ended up finding a small translation company. When I met the founder, we hit it off right away and started working together. That grew into a 19-year long partnership that came to an end in 2010.

In January 2011, I had a big kick in the pants. For the first time in my career I found myself with no partner, no company, no income, nothing. I made the decision then to not look back and charge ahead on my own using the knowledge and relationships I had built in those 19 years. Except this time it would be my own translation company. I would succeed or fail on my own terms.

A sudden flurry of activity

I had to come up with a company name, tagline, and logo, then threw together a website all within a few days. Next I began to contact a lot of the clients (and translators) I had worked with in the previous company to take advantage of the relationships I had cultivated over the years. Many of those clients were more than happy to continue working with me in this new endeavor. That was really the spark that SpokenHere needed. January 31st, 2011, was the day SpokenHere was officially born, and now we’re coming up on our tenth anniversary.

Suddenly in the role of a new entrepreneur, I had to hustle to get things off the ground with no initial revenue. In those early months, my main sales rep. from the old company, who also happened to be a very dear friend (remember, relationships matter!), offered to come work with me in the new company for five months with no salary. I immediately said that I couldn’t do that. She insisted, saying, “I believe in what you’re doing, and I trust you.” Well, who could argue with that? So she came and worked the first five months for no pay. (But I made sure she ended up getting repaid handsomely over time.)

Evolving into a Leader for SpokenHere

Fast forward to about three years later. With a lot of hard work and the addition of some extremely dedicated team members, SpokenHere had gone from $0 to over $1 million in revenue.

This point in time is where my personal development as a leader becomes a huge piece of the SpokenHere story. As a small business owner, you learn a lot as the company grows. I think it’s the classic dilemma for entrepreneurs, right? They have a great idea. They are passionate about it, and they know they can make some money at it. So, they start a company, and they’re doing everything themselves.

It’s hard to give up certain pieces of the work; it’s hard to delegate. It’s hard because it’s your baby, and you know nobody’s going to do it better than you can.  What I learned as my company grew is that learning how to delegate makes me a better leader. As long as I’ve done a good job of putting the right people in the right seats on our bus, I can step back and those people can continue to flourish and grow. It took me a while to figure out how to let go of that need to control everything, but now I do it regularly.

Better Relationships Motivate Us

Among the other big lessons I’ve learned is that money isn’t the biggest motivator. Obviously money has its role, but I think accountability and ownership are much more meaningful. When I give my team members ownership over what they are doing and the autonomy to be able to make it happen, they feel like they’re contributing and working to accomplish something important. Eventually, I want to get this company to a point where it can run without me.  I can’t scale myself no matter how good I am and no matter how much I can do. If I want SpokenHere to grow as a company, I can’t oversee everything. Yes, I could keep this business where it is now and continue to be comfortable, but I have a bigger vision.

Building Better Relationships

Now to circle back to my “Ah ha!” moment and what is different at SpokenHere’s 10th birthday. You know, that day while sipping coffee and answering the same question of “Why is that important?” over and over, it dawned on me that we needed to start approaching how we deliver and sell our services more from our why, instead of the what. That was a big shift in our thinking. It impacts how we interact with each other internally and how we serve our clients. That simple exercise had a profound effect on the direction of SpokenHere and our brand.

We’ve grown from “We sell translations” to “We apply our expertise in foreign languages to help your business build better relationships with the people it values most”. You can see throughout our new website and elsewhere that our business and brand has evolved to reflect that value. Our love for languages and building those relationships shines through in everything we do, and of that we are most proud.

The post The SpokenHere Journey to Better Relationships appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

Discover Winter Holidays Around the World Through Culture & Language

If you’ve visited any retail or department store in the last few weeks, you’ve probably noticed that the Christmas décor is out in force (and has been in some places since before Halloween!?) We’re surrounded by the warm glow of lights on strings, the smell of pine wreaths, and the sound of Christmas carols. But around the world, winter brings far more than Christmas; it brings a season filled with diverse cultural traditions, each with its own stories, symbols, and languages.

You might even have one of your coworkers, patients, clients or neighbors who celebrate winter holidays you’ve never heard of and sometimes, all it takes is the right language support to understand truly and honor their traditions. Interpretation and translation open the door to cultural connection, making space for conversations that help us appreciate what these celebrations mean to the people who hold them dear.

Besides, who can say no to more reasons to celebrate? Here are a few holidays that are celebrated during the colder months in countries around the world.

Diwali Festival of Lights

Diwali is a five-day festival celebrated in the fall by Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains around the world, though its meaning and significance vary across regions and religions. With Hindi being the most widely spoken language among Hindus (though far from the only one), Diwali traditions and stories are shared in many languages depending on where families originate.

Despite these differences, Diwali carries one shared symbolism for all who celebrate — the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness. Families celebrate by illuminating their homes using clay or oil lamps and creating intricate designs made from rice or flour in front of doorways or shrines.

St. Nicholas Eve—Sinterklaas’s Birthday

St. Nicholas Eve and Christmas are separate holidays in Holland. Celebrated on December 5, the night before Saint Nicholas Day, children in Holland wait for Sinterklaas to come all the way from Spain to deliver toys. In this tradition, Sinterklaas, rides a steamboat to the port and finishes his journey through the town riding a white horse.

Because the celebration is rooted in Dutch culture and language, many of the songs, poems, and playful rhymes shared during the holiday are written in Dutch, and families often exchange handwritten verses that describe the recipient in humorous or heartfelt ways, a tradition that wouldn’t translate easily without language support.

Instead of getting coal, the naughty Dutch children are said to be taken to Spain for a year to learn to be nice.

Hanukkah

For eight days and nights, Jewish people around the world celebrate Maccabees’s victory over King Antiochus, who forbade Jews to practice their religion. The dates of Hanukkah change because this holiday follows the lunar cycle but it typically falls sometime in December.

Hanukkah is celebrated for eight nights with prayer, the lighting of the menorah, and food. Families also celebrate by playing games, singing songs, and exchanging gifts. Potato pancakes, known as latkes in Yiddish, are traditionally associated with Hanukkah and are served with applesauce and sour cream.

Winter Solstice

The Winter Solstice occurs around December 21 and is the shortest day (longest night) of the year. People all over the world have celebrated this day for centuries with ceremonies and festivals.

In Iran, they have long celebrated this turning point and the return of longer days with Yalda Night. This festival has ancient roots, but today involves getting together with family and staying up all night (for those who can make it). They use this time to celebrate the end of the harvest season and pray for good luck in the coming year. Fruits and nuts are served alongside tea, and traditional poetry and myths may be read.

The Zuni and Hopi tribes of North America celebrate the solstice with a celebration called Soyal, also known as Soyaluna or Soyala. The Soyal celebration, which lasts for 16 days, includes ceremonies that signify bringing the sun back to illuminate the earth after the longest night of the year. Songs, prayers, and traditional dances with masks and costumes are performed to welcome the kachinas, or beneficial spirits that are believed to visit people during this time.

Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a holiday created by Dr. Maulana Karenga to celebrate African heritage and culture and is held December 26 through January 1. People gather with their family and friends to exchange gifts and light a series of black, red, and green candles. These candles symbolize the seven basic values of African American family life: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith known as the Nguzo Saba.

Language plays an important role in Kwanzaa. This holiday gets its name from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza – meaning first fruits. Swahili is intentionally used throughout the celebration: it names the principles (Nguzo Saba), the kinara (candle holder), the mishumaa saba (seven candles), and the zawadi (gifts). Dr. Karenga chose Swahili because it is one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa and isn’t tied to a single tribe, making it a unifying linguistic symbol across the African diaspora.

This week long celebration also includes a feast of faith, called Karamu Ya Imani, bringing communities together to honor culture, connection, and shared values.

Three Kings Day

On January 6, at the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas (yes, the ones from the carol), comes a day called the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day. This holiday celebrates the day the three wise men reached baby Jesus and gave him gifts. Celebrations include a feast with a King’s Cake for dessert, which has a coin or a figure of baby Jesus hidden inside.

Three Kings Day (or Día de los Reyes) is primarily celebrated in Latin America and Spain. Many Spanish children receive their Christmas presents on this day. In Puerto Rico, on January 5, children place a hay-filled box under their beds, hoping the Kings will bring them gifts.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year is possibly the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It falls on different dates each year, sometime in January or February, depending on the lunar calendar. This celebration lasts for about 15 days, and although celebrated in winter, it is also called the Spring Festival because it marks the end of the coldest part of the year.

Marking this holiday involves going home to be with your friends and family. Celebrators hang red decorations, the traditional color of the holiday, and give gifts wrapped in red packages. Chinese New Year celebrations include traditional dances, fireworks, and elaborate parades.

As families and communities across China and around the world celebrate, they may speak a variety of languages or dialects. Many festive greetings during the holiday reflect this linguistic diversity. For example, “Happy New Year” may be said as “Xīn nián Kuài lè” in Mandarin or as “San Nin Faai Lok” in Cantonese.

Maslenitsa

This Slavic holiday celebrates the end of the harsh winter season before lent in March. Also known as Pancake Week, Maslenitsa is a weeklong holiday during which the Russian people eat blinis, thin pancakes covered in toppings that can range from sweet to savory. The round blinis represent the sun as it brings an end to cold winters. The celebration includes family gatherings, snowball fights, and community events, culminating in the burning of a straw effigy of “Lady Maslenitsa”, who represents the winter season.

Las Posadas

In Mexico you can find people celebrating Las Posadas between December 16 and December 24. Families celebrate the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Each evening during the festival, a child dressed like an angel leads a procession through the streets of the town. The festival culminates with a beautiful feast at the Cena de Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Dinner). Some of the traditional dishes include romeritos (baked shrimp), bacalao (dried cod fish), roast turkey, salad, and mounds of sweet and sugary buñuelos(fried dough fritters). You can also find families in Guatemala and parts of the Southwestern United States celebrating Las Posadas.

A Great Time to Connect

There are a wide range of worldwide celebrations that you may not have heard of. Taking time to learn about a few when possible can help you gain a better understanding of and improve your relationships with the people around you. And that’s what we’re all about, building better relationships.

Your multicultural employees and customers are sure to appreciate it when you wish them a happy holiday in their native language. And when you need to say more than just a few words, contact the SpokenHere team of Interpreters and Translators to help bridge that gap.

Whatever you believe in, and whatever culture you are from, I hope your holiday season is filled with love and light!

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Two thousand years ago, Latin was the lingua franca (which is Latin, sort of, for “universal language”). From Spain to Romania, everyone understood at least enough Latin to shop or serve in the military (there was no cable TV back then, so those were just about all your choices). When people learned to read, they learned to read Latin, and a great many people could read — at least a little (just think how much easier medical or law school must have been back then!).

However, if you travel today to Italy, heart of the Roman Empire, you won’t hear anyone speaking Latin in the restaurants or market places. You’ll hear Italian…and you’ll probably see it too, given the Italians’ penchant for talking with their hands.

Did the Italians kill Latin in favor of newer, better, hipper Italian?

Well, yes actually, but they didn’t do it in the Colosseum. It was more of a gradual thing. As the barbarians slowly overtook the Empire, their languages mixed with the indigenous Latin and what we are left with today are Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc.

Every language is changing all the time (even the language you are speaking right now), in baby steps. Languages change in the way sounds are pronounced, in the words that are used, even in the way words are strung together to make sentences. Languages grow and even die too. When the last speaker of a language dies, so, too, does the language they speak (and a small part of the diversity of human culture). While the Pope (and the lawyers of the world) may have Latin on life support, it’s pretty much dead in the real world.

We’re just glad the toga died out with it.

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This year’s tournament is being played in Russia, where they speak Russian, of course. Did you know that 20 official languages are recognized by the nations fielding teams this year? Nine countries’ use an alphabet other than a Latin one: Iran, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Serbia and host country Russia.

What’s even crazier is that four countries, Morocco, Senegal, Belgium and Switzerland have MORE than one official language! That means some countries could have more official languages than goals scored on the pitch!

Check out Volume 6 of our Video Snack Series: The World Cup Edition!

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Not from stampeding elephants, ill-fated bungee jumps or too much vodka. A language dies when its last speaker dies. Today there are 6,909 languages in the world. But 500 years ago, that number was double, and in about 100 more, there’ll be half that. Of the 165 indigenous languages in North America, only eight have 10,000 speakers left.

When a language dies, we lose our connection to that culture’s past, knowledge and traditions. So get out there and learn Livonian, Eyak and Mesmes!

Check out Volume 4 of our Video Snack Series!

The post [Snack Video] Did You Know Languages Die?  appeared first on SpokenHere Language Services.

Check out Volume 3 of our Video Snack Series!

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