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Brand Licensing Europe, London

Last week, Anna and Elliw travelled down to London for two days to attend the Brand Licensing Europe Expo event in the very impressive Excel arena.

An important business event in the calendar, seeing a whole host of big brands come together under one roof to showcase their products, meet other companies, discuss ideas and network.

Networking experience

From the long-established highly recognisable brands to those who are newer on the scene, we thoroughly enjoyed being in the company of such passionate business professionals and brand specialists who truly are at the top of their game. A real networking experience, both Anna and Elliw enjoyed meeting new people and introducing Bla’s service to a fresh audience. We would like to express our thanks to all who took some time out of their busy schedules to chat with us.

A trip down memory lane

It was a very impressive event, offering a great insight into how these big brands operate in such a fast-paced and saturated market. We felt as though we were taking a stroll down memory lane, surrounded by such iconic brands. From Groovy Chick, Strawberry Shortcake to Paddington to name only a handful, the nostalgia was real.

A buzzing atmosphere bouncing with creativity, innovation and vision – a truly inspiring event.

At Bla, we are a very training-oriented company and have enabled many young linguists to start and develop a career in the Welsh translation industry over the years. We feel that supporting the next generation of Welsh Translators is essential, not only to future proof our company but also the industry and language standards in general.

We have seen great benefit from training our staff within the company – they get the opportunity to familiarise themselves with our approaches to translation, our clients’ house styles and the high standards to which we work to satisfy our clients requirements. Our Translation Manager for Quality, Nerys, is responsible for training and ensuring staff progress here at Bla and, drawing upon her highly respected knowledge and experience, she does a fantastic job at elevating and enhancing our team’s natural linguistic talents.

Elin, our Trainee Translator, is just one example of the many Translators who have had the privilege of being mentored by Nerys. In a few weeks’ time, Elin, who joined us in September last year, will also be starting a Professional Translation Studies course at Aberystwyth University, in addition to the training programme she follows in the office. Elin will be splitting her time between gaining practical experience through working here at Bla and academic study alongside other like-minded professionals of the Welsh translation industry – a fantastic opportunity to mature her already established skillset!

Here’s what Elin has to say about the opportunity to earn and learn at the same time:

“This course will be an opportunity to enhance my knowledge and understanding of the translation industry. I am looking forward to learning and developing as a Translator. By the end of the course, I aim to be confident in translating sector-specific specialist terminology. I hope that the information I will learn and the feedback I will receive will support me to go from strength to strength and help me to deal with translation challenges that arise as part of my work.”

We would like to wish Elin the best of luck as she starts her new course. If her infectious can-do attitude at the office is anything to go by, then we know that she will absolutely smash it!

If you have a business operating in Wales or you are based in the UK with an overseas target market, but you operate exclusively through the medium of the English language, perhaps you should read on as here we outline 3 simple steps to incorporate bilingualism or multilingualism in your business.

We know how busy you all are and that there aren’t enough hours in a day. Perhaps you have already thought about incorporating another language in your business, but you’ve never got round to executing it. You may be eager to break into a new market in a new country or, if you’re a Welsh company, you may want to capitalise on your Welsh identity but you haven’t a clue where to start. Being a bilingual or a multilingual business shouldn’t make you feel as if you’re opening a can of worms.

We want to see more businesses gaining the confidence to harness bilingualism and multilingualism, and enjoying the plethora of benefits that come with doing so. This is where we come in.

Through our work with a variety of organisations of all sizes and from all sectors within the UK, we know first-hand the perceptions some may have of being a bilingual or multilingual business: “translation services are expensive”, “we don’t have time to manage translations on top of everything else”, “investing in a different language won’t lead to business benefits”.

To help relieve these perceptions, we have put together 3 easy steps to incorporate another language to your business, to show you just how easy and stress-free it can be. Our aim is to increase confidence levels amongst organisations to make more use of languages. Here goes:

1. Provide email signatures bilingually/multilingually and start your emails with a greeting in the language of your target market
   Even if you are unable to send the email in their language, by demonstrating an effort to include the target market’s language shows respect for their identity. It can have a very positive effect on the recipient(s) engagement with you and may improve their perception of you/your company. Languages are closely related to human emotions – an easy strategy that you should be capitalising on
2. Introduce grammatically correct Welsh signage in your buildings
   If you have an establishment or a building in Wales, this can be a very simple but effective way of demonstrating how your organisation values bilingualism in Wales (top tip: the English language signs at your establishment should not be in a more prominent position than the Welsh language signs. Be aware of this as it could lead to unfavourable attention). Please consult us to ensure that all Welsh language signage is correct!
3. Share bilingual or multilingual social media posts
   Use it correctly and social media can be a business’ best friend. From improving brand awareness to attracting more traffic to your website, it’s no revelation that the benefits are vast. Why not make the most of your social media platforms by sharing bilingual or multilingual content? Doing so can improve customer engagement, grow your market, and lead to an increase in sales. Supporting your bottom line with top marketing tactics.

So, there you have 3 simple, non-invasive and highly effective steps to start to incorporate bilingualism or multilingualism to your business. Have a go and experience the benefits for yourself.

Our experts at Bla are available to help you to navigate your language requirements. All you need to do is share your goals with us, and we will do the rest, leaving you to focus on your duties. Contact us by completing our online form and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Bla recently provided Welsh translations for a popular national brand on their expansion as they introduced a café at some of their stores.

Amongst other signage to be displayed in their cafés, one of the most prominent signs they needed translated was as follows:

Take a Break

Our Translators worked as a team to offer a fitting Welsh translation. Having thought of a few strong contenders, they drew upon their professional experience to narrow down their options and select the best translation for this client, which was:

Saib am Sbel

The important thing here is that the translation resonates with Welsh speakers from all parts of Wales and across all Welsh generations, in a country where countless different dialects all exist inherently. We are confident that no Welsh speaker will be turning to the English to understand this Welsh sign!

The signs can now be seen in selected stores in Wales. They have taken their place perfectly and have been warmly welcomed by Welsh speaking customers. One of whom even shared a photo online, praising the company for investing in a professional Welsh language expert to ensure a correct, impactful and familiar-feeling translation – localisation at its best.

If you are a business operating in Wales, then it is in your best interest to demonstrate awareness of the area in which you trade. The easiest and fastest ways of doing this is by incorporating Welsh language signage in your buildings. This is such an impactful means of showing that you as a company value your customer base, their language, their culture and their way of life.

We have all seen incorrect Welsh signs being circulated on social media, but this is a great example of a national company going about things the correct way. We are thrilled to have contributed our expertise to this project.

A successful translation once again by our dedicated team and another happy client!

Contact us to discuss any localisation requirements you might have!

You might have seen on our socials that we have recently re-introduced Bla₂, our international languages unit, which is very exciting.

We had initially lunched Bla₂ at the beginning of 2024 following our success in the Association of Translation Companies’ Awards Ceremony where we were named Translation Company of the Year.

As we have been such busy bees with our Welsh translation service (which, not to worry, will be continuing at the highest standard with no change in how we work), we weren’t able to invest as much time as we would have liked on developing our international languages unit. As such, we required additional staff to support our expanding operations.

And so began our recruitment campaign to appoint both Welsh Translators and a Business Officer. With great success, we welcomed 3 new linguistic staff and Elliw, our Business Officer, last year. They all hit the ground running and have since settled in nicely.

With Elliw’s help, we have been able to invest more time and effort in further establishing Bla₂, exploring more exciting sectors and meeting even more like-minded professionals in the international translation industry. As such, our new service is in full swing.

To learn more about Bla₂, the languages we cover, and to request translation work, head over to our Contact Form and one of our advisors will be in touch as soon as possible.

We can’t wait to hear from you!

It is our pleasure to announce that two members of team Bla have recently had exam success. Mari and Elena have both succeeded in the Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters’ written translation exam – amazing news!

Both Mari and Elena benefitted from the expert direction of Nerys, our Translation Manager (Quality), to upskill and polish their natural talents ahead of the exam held in April.

We’d like to thank all three for their hard work and dedication and, of course, we send huge congratulations to Mari and Elena on their new accreditation.

Nice one, team Bla!

This year, we are once again sponsoring Gŵyl Cefni, a festival celebrating and promoting Welsh music. The festival will be held in the car park next to our offices in Llangefni on the w/c 2^nd June 2025.

Organised by our neighbours Menter Môn, this is a much-anticipated annual event in Anglesey’s calendar and offers support for new and upcoming Welsh artists as well as those Welsh icons we love.

Bla is proud to be sponsoring this event once again this year, supporting the team in charge of organising to continue with their great work and hopefully helping to secure the future of such festivals on our doorstep.

All we need to do now is cross our fingers for good weather!

Translation in Hospitality: Partnering with The Inn Collection Group

Our team at Bla recently had the pleasure of working with The Inn Collection Group, a national hospitality and hotel group based in Newcastle. The Group own and run countless hospitality establishments across the UK, two of which are based on our doorstep here in North Wales.

Having acquired The Swallow Falls Inn establishment at Betws-y-Coed as of late, the team at The Inn Collection Group were eager to incorporate the Welsh language into this new project which saw the old, timeworn hotel being brought back to life.

Back in early January 2025, the project team requested a meeting with Anna and Elliw at our Business Unit here at Bla to discuss their Welsh translation requirements for the project, and, most importantly, the timeline to which they were working. As they had an agreed launch date for the hotel, we were required to return work within a strict period to ensure that the team’s workflow continued to run smoothly and on time. A delay in returning translations can impact a whole project, but with excellent project management skills and disciplined linguistic staff here at Bla, the team at The Swallow Falls Inn were in the best hands.

Our team at Bla provided their expertise in language services to translate various food menus (a challenging task if undertaken before lunch time!), drinks menus, press releases, signage for the site, as well as staff recruitment packs for The Swallow Falls Inn. The menus required post artwork proofreading, after their graphic designer had completed the typesetting, which is arguably the most crucial step in the translation process. These are the final checks before going to print to ensure that no errors have been introduced during typesetting – an essential step which must not be overlooked in any translation project.

What a mammoth effort this was for The Inn Collection Group and our team at Bla were delighted to have partnered with them as their chosen Welsh translation provider. Swallow Falls Inn has now opened its doors and we wish them the best of luck.

The Inn Collection Group is a fantastic example of a private company based beyond Wales showing respect towards our Welsh culture by firmly putting the Welsh language centre stage – take a bow!

If you want to reap the benefits of translation in your hospitality business, then complete our Contact Form and one of our advisors will respond as soon as possible.

In the latest edition of the ITI Bulletin, our Director Alun Gruffydd reports on his presentation at the Nordic Translation Industry Forum’s conference in Malmö back in November 2024.

This particular conference focused on the role of humans in the translation industry against a backdrop of AI’s rapidly developing momentum. Alun, who has previously expressed his scepticism of AI, centred his presentation on defending the traditional approach to translation – with the magic of a human touch!

Alun presented comparisons of idioms of four languages – Welsh, English, Finnish and Norwegian (all of which we translate into here at Bla!) as he was eager to demonstrate the various layers of languages and how that only a trained human Translator can fathom such richness.

In addition, he stressed that we should not forget the “academic and professional journey of the linguist”, which is already so often overlooked, especially so in the context of the Welsh language. Not only will allowing clients to become self-qualified lead to a decline in the population of Translators, but also bares immense risk on the quality and accuracy of written content.

Click here to read Alun’s insightful article titled ‘Another Country’ in the ITI Bulletin and scroll down to page 33.

At Bla, we have over 13 years’ experience of serving our valued clients with expert Welsh translation services. Over the years, we have had the privilege of serving returning clients as well as welcoming new ones. One thing all of them have in common is the questions they ask regarding Bla’s services. Therefore, it is our pleasure to outline below a few frequently asked questions:

1) What services do you offer?

Our team specialises in document translation, editing, and proofreading. Due to our varied client base, we are familiar with a whole range of subjects, from Engineering to Education, Climate Change to Current Affairs and everything in-between. We are comfortable with providing short and catchy translations for those attention-grabbing marketing materials as well as hefty, technical reports. Discuss your requirements with our Business Unit so that our translation team can achieve the best outcome for you and your goals.

2) What qualifications do your linguistic staff hold?

We have 8 qualified Translators and 1 Trainee Translator here at Bla, as well as access to a pool of around 20 qualified Freelance Translators who have all been approved to work with us by our Director. Our qualified in-house team hold relevant degree-level qualifications (and post-graduate qualifications in some cases). Our Trainee Translator is currently undergoing a tailored training programme under the supervision of our Translation Manager – Quality and Director, which also involves an element of expert training by external providers. For more information about our experienced staff, please see our About page.

3) What are your prices?

Our fees vary depending on the service you require and are very much in line with the translation industry. Usually, translation services are priced based on wordcount. You’re more than welcome to fill in a contact form here outlining your requirements and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

4) What are your return times?

We provide a return time based on various factors: your requirements, the document’s complexity, our capacity in terms of resources, therefore our return times vary. We will always communicate the expected return time with you before beginning any translation task. If you have a specific return date in mind, please feel free to inform us with your enquiry. We value honest communication with our clients and, therefore, we will never make any promises that we cannot keep.

5) Do you use AI?

We do not use AI in our line of work. Rather, we use a TM Software which is a translation ‘memory’ our human Translators feed into and maintain regularly. Our TM of choice is MemoQ – a reputable and widely used software package. Using a TM has many advantages; improves consistency across documents, speeds up the translation process, facilitates collaboration within our team which, ultimately, improves the service we offer to our clients.

6) What other languages can you translate?

In 2023, we established Bla₂, which is our International Languages Unit. This means that organisations can turn to us with all of their translation needs, streamlining their supply chain and benefitting from Bla’s famous top-class customer service. Apart from the Welsh language, we specialise in Arabic, Urdu, Romanian, Polish and French, however we can undertake translation projects in a whole host of other languages beyond these. Head over to our Bla2 page to learn more.

If we haven’t quite covered your questions above, then you’re urged to reach out to us by submitting a contact us form here and one of our team members will respond promptly.