A blog from Jack Porteous, UKTI London’s Language and Culture Adviser.
You’ve spent hours agonising over the minutiae of your marketing materials, days making your website word-perfect, and months producing the perfect sales brochure. Now you’re looking to export and need it all translating – so how can you guarantee that your translator gives a true representation of your company and products?
Trusting someone from outside of your company with such an integral part of your communications can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are my top tips for working with translators:
1. You get what you pay for
Free online machine translation is improving but is still not good enough to replace human translation. If you need to quickly understand the gist of something it can be a useful tool, but if something is being published or sent to clients then it is better to leave translation to the professionals, even if it does come at a cost. The Institute of Translation and Interpreting has a database of its members , and the Institute of Linguists of their registered translators and interpreters, which are both good places to start your search for a translator. It will benefit your company in the long by having translations done professionally.
2. Prepare your materials for translation
Ask yourself: does it really need translating? For instance, instructions for products can often be communicated as clearly through pictures as words. If it does need translating think about what won’t translate well. Humour, cultural references, idioms and jargon can all translate badly, so you have to consider the ‘cultural gap’ that exists between you and your target market. Saying your product is ‘The Full Monty’ might make sense in Sheffield, but won’t in Singapore.
3. Communication, communication, communication
The purpose of translation is to help you communicate with your customers and clients, or help them to communicate with you. If you want your message to be clear, you need your translator to understand your company and products. Encourage him/her to ask questions – it’s not a sign that they don’t know what they’re doing, rather that they are taking their work seriously. The more they know, the better their translation will be.
4. Who is it for?
Specify your target audience – communicating a message to teenagers and CEOs isn’t done the same way in any language. You need your brochure translated into French? Great! But is it for France, Senegal, or Quebec? Language variation across countries which speak the same language can be enormous, and differences in the meaning of specific words could change your message in unexpected ways. If possible, make sure your translator has an intimate knowledge of your target market as well as a specialisation in your sector.
5. Check and check again
Most translation agencies run a ‘bilingual checking’ and then a ‘monolingual checking’ process as part of their service, but make sure that they do! Everyone makes mistakes, so proofreading is important before your translated documents are finalised.
Buying translation is far more complicated than buying a real, tangible product and it’s important to get it right. Botched translation can be expensive to put right, and the consequences of not getting it spot on first time can be much greater than you might think in terms of your reputation and your bottom line. You don’t want to get lost in translation, so make sure you are confident with your choice of translator and work with them to ensure the end product reflects the strength of your company and products.
You can contact Jack at jackporteous@uktilondon.org.uk
Find news and services information from UKTI at gov.uk/ukti, or arrange a meeting with a UKTI international trade adviser
1 comment
Comment by cporteous posted on
good use of minutiae- interesting blog