The question is not how to identify a gifted person, but how to give people the chance to be gifted.

Inspired by the Giftedness 2012 conference (The 12th Asia-Pacific conference on giftedness hosted by Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for the Distinguished Academic Performance), I would like to pose an important question to this blog reader's: How fair is the current structure of "giftedness" identification programs?This applies to the way most societies, including our Arab one, define giftedness influence performance even at the corporate level.

It was by mere luck that I came across a page on Friends’ fictional character Phoebe Buffay on Wikipedia (Ok, I admit, I was searching for Smelly Cat the song, just for fun!). I looked at the page, and in one second, I decided to write this short post on the status of Arabic content online.

This guide is intended to help new and experienced translators and editors understand House of Content’s philosophy in Arabic digital content, and translation in particular.

Although this is not a translation course, it is intended to “train” translators on basic principles in translation. Part 4 of this series will focus on Arabic translation techniques, but the rest of the posts can apply to all language combinations.

We welcome your feedback at any time, as we are sure experienced translators and content specialists have a lot to add and enrich this quick guide.

This part deals with translation technicality.

B. Transcreation is (not) all about technicality:

Being gifted and talented allows you to venture into the the Arabic translation business, but it is not all that you need. You need to be aware of the techniques required, and to train yourself on them. Transcreation requires that you adapt your style to the required tone of voice, and select domain-appropriate vocabulary and expressions. You also need to adapt to the text type. Translating an article or essay is different from working on a brochure, a press release, or on product description texts.