“I’m Glad the Menu is in English.”

Last evening, my neighbor knocked at the door and gave me the menu from the Indian restaurant where they went for dinner. “Food is so good there, they barely speak English…”, and saying this, she looked meaningful – and I understood, this meant “very authentic delicious food”.

The menu showed a myriad of dishes that I certainly pronounce incorrectly; leave alone understand their meaning, nor what they might taste like. But luckily, the description/translation stands right underneath. So Lamb Jalfrezi is “Lamb sautéed in a wok with fresh garden vegetables and herbs” and Jeera Aloo is “Potatoes cooked with spices, ginger, garlic and cumin seeds”.

Well, I am not sure if the names are classic Indian dish names or self-created ones, yet in this case I am simply happy and relieved that with the description/translation I get some kind of picture and would be able to make a choice from the menu.

The owners are even so sensitive to give me an option to order my dish via a number next to the dish in case I feel self-conscious when trying to pronounce it, yet the truth is probably to avoid misunderstanding (remember, “they barely speak English”).

Of course, they have to add English because we are in America and most of their guests are English speakers, and their intent is to sell their food to the locals, and make communication easy, make their guests feel at ease. Menu International

And exactly that is always my point: Now we have the season of vacation, of travelers, visitors from Germany, France, Italy and so on. And not all of them speak English. They would appreciate a menu in their native language, would feel at ease, and very welcomed!

With that, I created a summer special for translating your restaurant menus. See here for the details: www.translationpurpose.com!

And I definitely will check out this Restaurant:
Curry Corner – Indian cuisine
9408 Martin Way East, Suite 2
Lacey, WA 98516
www.currycorner.us

The “American Track” is international – www.amtrak.com

Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) is the transportation for enjoying the journey while traveling the US, as well as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal in Canada.

Amtrak took its international approach very thorough and translated its entire content into Spanish and German language. I explored the German part and I am pretty sure that the Spanish is of equal excellence:

Portal (to the various languages): When arriving at www.amtrak.com, you clearly can see the links in the native language ‘Español‘ and ‘Deutsch‘ written vs. the sometimes ambiguous flags that are used to indicate a foreign language page.

Images: Images with text are translated, special offer picture ads, even the search button are translated for the German visitor. It gives the whole website a very integrated look and feel.

Customer Service: The German traveler finds all info on individual Amtrak stations, can search for current special offers, latest information on critical issues (such as swine flu), and use the reservation system in its native language. Amtrak provides an interactive map to search routes and plan trips which is in English, yet it is acceptable because the search goes via an image map of the US or by station and region names. And in case German visitors don’t find an answer in the question and answer section of the website, they can go to the contact page and submit their request… the answer they receive will be in German.

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