Translation
If you have any ambitions at all towards international trade, you’re going to be at a disadvantage unless you can demonstrate a willingness to communicate with your prospective business partners in their own languages. To insist on English is at best discourteous, and at worst will lose you the deal.
Furthermore, agreements founder on misunderstandings.
As the cliché has it, communication is a two-way street. You need to be sure that what you’re reading is what your overseas associate meant you to read, and vice versa.
Let’s be honest: most of us can muddle along with the major (western) European languages. We all know a bit of French, a smattering of Spanish, a few words of German – and if we don’t, we know someone who does.
But BHP has always looked further east.
Over the years, we’ve translated documents, often highly technical, into or from:
- Russian
- Hindi
- Bahasa Melayu
- Chinese
- Korean
- Japanese
- Thai
- Vietnamese
- Amharic
- Standard Arabic
- Farsi
We’ve built up a network of experienced translators: some local; some national; some (thanks to email) on the other side of the globe. But all committed to working to the highest degree of accuracy.