http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/

While searching the web for cross cultural communication information, I came across the website Kwintessential. This is a company that specializes in translation services, interpreters, multilingual design and intercultural communication training. The company is fairly new, just starting operations in 2003 to support globalization.

If you click on the link provided above, you can see that the company offers many different services in ensuring good communication throughout cultures. They have website translation, telephone interpreters, and even sell translation equipment for meetings and conferences. The website translation was very interesting to me. The company can take a US based website and modify it for a particular culture. The difference with website translation is that not only do the words need to be presented in a different language, but it needs to be reorganized and designed to portrayy the same message that is appropriate for that culture.

This company is truly amazing. If you click on the “Free Tools & Resources” link, you will find tons of interesting and helpful items. Some of the tools provided are: country etiquette guides, cultural quizzes, foreign language font uploads for your mac or pc, language identifier, and much more. Also, be sure to click on the Video of the Month located on the homepage. It shows a comic way in which people sometimes get lost in the translation.