5th December 2003 Reading Time: 4 minutes For some strange reason, I've heard that some people didn't receive our newsletter last month. If you were one of these people, don't worry! All our newsletters are archived on our website, so if you ever miss one, you can always look there to catch up on your reading. As this is our last newsletter before Christmas, we'd like to wish you a Merry Christams and Happy New Year with good health, good luck, and further prospects of professional success! Warm Regards,      Lydia's Top Tips I'd like to share something very interesting with you. Every now and then, I see a presentation that incorporates so many of my secrets and special techniques that I use it to illustrate how powerful a presentation can be. If you have participated in one of our 'Dynamic Presentations' workshops, you will recognise many of these. If you haven't, see how many techniques you can spot. I should also mention that this is long and very moving speech, so bear that in mind if you are feeling emotional today. Read More. A little English humour... This is a selection of the most infamous translation mistakes made by branding departments when they were entering new markets. We'd like to dedicate this month's 'a little English humour' to our new friends in the marketing department at Bacardi! When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. For a Spanish-speaking person this meant "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant." An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato." Click here to read more translation mistakes on our website. New Programs One of our clients recently broke a multi-million euro machine because the manual was poorly translated and did not specify that the machine required a 24-hour warm-up before being turned on. Another client has just discovered that they've been presenting their branding strategy incorrectly for the past 10 years. Instead of 'cleanliness', they have been using the word 'cleaning', which has a very different meaning. Could this happen to you? Do you have to translate documents between Spanish, English or Catalan? Did you know that the majority of non-professional translations contain serious mistakes like those above? Are your translations accurate? Have you thought about the consequences if they're not. Avoid costly and painful mistakes with Advance Communication's professional translation service. To learn more about our translation service, ask us for a fact sheet. Advance Communication provides training and development programs to companies and executives in Spain. These cover Communication Skills (presentations, meetings, sales, negotiations etc), Executive Coaching, and Business English training, certification and testing (with the British Chamber of Commerce & London Chamber of Commerce). PRIVACY: We do NOT distribute your email address to any 3rd parties. Advance Communication, Via Augusta 2 bis, 5º, 08006 Barcelona, Spain. Phone: 93 238 71 40 | Fax: 93 415 04 62 | Web: www.advancecommunication.biz Copyright © 1998-2003 Advance Communication, S.L. All rights reserved.