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By Anja Chemnitz Thygesen
Conducting research in another language can be tricky, especially if
you speak only your mother tongue. Being a native Danish speaker with
knowledge of English, French, German and Portuguese, I have the
advantage of understanding written information in Italian, Spanish,
Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian. Still, I often struggle when it comes to
specialised topics in which I may only know the business terms in
either Danish or English. This article outlines some of the lessons I
have learned from researching in foreign language markets.
Know the business in your own language
To understand and translate into another language, you have to know
and understand what you are researching in your own language. Start
out by gaining an understanding of the market structure and how the
market is functioning. Are the competitors usually working in exactly
the same field or is there an overlap? What does the value chain look
like?
I recently worked on a competitor analysis for a company that provided
direct mail and letter shop services. In my research, I discovered
that the main competitors were actually the distribution companies
(postal services) because they were moving into the market with heavy
capital and systematically taking over the competitors. This kind of
information about the wider market and what happens in it can help
you, even if you're looking at another country with other competitors.
Translate key terms
One of the first things to do once you understand the business in your
own language is to translate the key terms you are going to use in
your research into the foreign language. Often you can do this by
finding a homepage about the topic that is available in both English
and in the foreign language. By going through the English version in
detail and later the foreign language version, you may be able to get
a good idea of key terms. Remember always to cross-check the
information by looking up the word in a foreign language dictionary
and checking more than one source.
Get a good dictionary or try automatic translation
If you have problems defining your key terms you may use dictionaries
to help. There are many free Internet-based dictionaries that can help
in your initial search. However, I often find that they offer little
or no explanation about the terms and are completely lacking in
context. This makes it difficult for you to verify if the word you
find is the right one. In other words, you get what you pay for. If
you want a good dictionary, it will probably not be free of charge.
That said, here are some of the better free-of-charge dictionaries:
- EUdict <http://www.eudict.com/>. The number of terms in the EU
dictionary is quite limited but it contains a lot of lesser-known
languages
- LOGOS Multilingual E-Translation Portal
<http://www.logos.it/lang/transl_en.html>. The LOGOS dictionary is
also interesting and translates a word into several languages at the
same time. The dictionary offers a lot of languages but it seems to
focus on the main European ones (Spanish, Italian, German, English)
- If you want other alternative dictionaries you will find a more
extensive list of dictionaries at EUROPA's Translation - Language
Aids page <http://digbig.com/4tqjx>
- If you are completely lost and have no other possibilities you may
use an automatic translation tool, such as the one at Applied
Language Solutions
<http://www.appliedlanguage.com/free_translation.shtml>, to help you
in getting an understanding of the texts and terms you are working
with. I have tested it from Chinese to English and actually managed
to get some sense out of the translation.
Use a local search engine
Once you start searching for information you'll run into problems if
you limit your search to just international search engines. A local
search engine can help you define your terms and also find relevant
websites. Often you will also be able to browse through such search
engines and find pertinent information.
You can find local European search engines at Network Technologies'
European Search Engines, Directories and Lists
<http://www.netmasters.co.uk/european_search_engines/>.
Another place to look is Search Engine Colossus
<http://searchenginecolossus.com/>, which offers links to more
countries, but is of a poorer quality.
Always remember to use advanced search features in the global search
engines (such as Google). In some cases it may be useful to limit your
search either by language or by geography to get exactly the sites
that are relevant to your research work. Although these search
features may not always work that well, it definitely does limit the
breadth of your search.
English-only searching limits
It can be tempting to click on the English flag on a website and get
information in a language that you understand. Company websites and
websites of public services often have a portion of their site
translated into English. Unfortunately the English pages often contain
just a part and not the most recent information available. To get the
most valuable and detailed information you will have to screen the
pages in the local language and try to navigate through to the
information you are looking for.
One of the big Web surfing paradoxes is that you often find
information in English far down in the hierarchy of Web pages, and
only after surfing through numerous pages in a local language. This
makes it even more valuable to have at least some understanding of the
key terms you are looking for in the local language.
Use languages you know as a gateway
As mentioned at the beginning, understanding two Latin-derived
languages has been a gateway for me to understand other Latin
languages as well. You often come across homepages where the English
version is very slim compared to the pages available in the native
language. This makes it necessary to be creative and try your luck
with the pages in the local language (as long as the alphabet is more
or less the same as the one you know). By guessing and trying to read
with an open mind you will often be able to understand more than you
may have thought.
However these lucky guesses should always be double-checked, either by
finding the same information in a language you know or by getting a
local language expert to confirm your assumptions.
Leverage your network
Perhaps you know someone who speaks the language in which you are
researching ? Often they can help you and review what you have done to
see if it is in line with their interpretation. I often get help from
my colleagues, professional network, friends and family.
Make it a habit to ask people about their language skills even when
you go out to dinner parties - it may be of great help to you later.
Untrained researchers may not have your methodology skills but if you
take your time and explain why you need the information, you can often
get them to spend hours searching for you. A Polish friend once helped
me find Polish companies within the telecom industry and actually
continued sending me updates months after I had completed the
research. In this way I managed to get very detailed and valuable
information.
Remember the EU
The EU has a lot of material which has been translated into English.
Often you can find it in local European languages as well. European
Union A To Z Index is a gateway to the EU
<http://eurunion.org/infores/euindex.htm>.
Eurostat <http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu> collects statistics from
all the national statistical offices and you may be able to find quite
a lot of updated information through this source.
Grab your phone
It may be quite useful to email or phone people even though it may be
difficult to understand them. Quite often local specialists can guide
you to the right information about the topic you are researching. One
of our best examples is the national statistics offices, which are
often helpful in translating key terms or guiding you to the right
information on their website (which may actually be in English). You
can find the country profiles with national statistics offices at
globalEDGE <http://globaledge.msu.edu>.
And accept limitations
Sometimes you may misinterpret things based on your limited
understanding of a foreign language. So, accept that there are things
that you CANNOT do in a completely foreign language. You may be able
to get an annual report and understand parts of it, but do not start
to translate entire articles. It will be a waste of your time and can
be dangerous to your client, who may get an incorrect picture of
things. If you start translating articles and longer texts, you must
have a good knowledge of the language and may even double check your
information through an English source to make sure that the direction
of the translation is not totally wrong. I once attempted to translate
an article from German into Danish, and reached the conclusion that
the market was declining, only later to find in English language
sources that it was increasing.
If you have problems or need professional help, always turn to the
ones that know the market - the local information professionals:
AIIP, the Association of Independent Information Professionals
<http://www.aiip.org/AboutAIIP/directory_home.asp>. Use their
directory to find contacts in specific geographic locations or about
specific topics.
You may also contact your embassy in the location you are researching
and get their assistance.
Or you may even create your own network of researchers in which you
can exchange services. This is a good way of learning from each other
and avoiding wasted time on research that you suspect will end up
giving a poor result anyway.
All in all you can do a lot of research in a foreign language if you
use the right approach, use your creativity, your network and the
tools available. However you should always double check critical
information or get a person with local language skills to confirm your
assumptions.
Anja Thygesen is research manager with the Danish management
consulting company Quartz Strategy Consultants. She and her team of
researchers provide company and market information to internal
consultants as well as external clients. She has 8 years experience in
business research in management consulting. Anja has formerly held
positions in information research and knowledge management in A.T.
Kearney. She holds master degrees in economics and in communication
and is a member of AIIP. You can reach her at <act@quartz.dk>.
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