4 Foreign Language Translation Tips

When translating your website, marketing materials, documentation, owner’s manuals, user guides and instruction booklets it is important to keep the following items in mind.

1.  Hire a professional subject-matter expert who is a native speaker of the language you need translation for.  Your company’s international reputation and brand are in the hands of your translation team.  A reputable translation agency will have the experience, software and team to handle your specific project.

2.  Foreign language translation is not just typing your document into another language.  Your entire document’s meaning can be mistranslated and could cause legal trouble and lose of sales.  Experienced translators are intimately familiar with both the language and the subject matter – while non-native translators may miss a phrase or a word’s culture-specific meaning.  This could change the entire meaning of the document.  The art of translation should be left to the professionals. 

3.  Use a human translator.  Instant computer translated documents can have humorous-yet disastrous results. If your original documents took you several days or weeks to prepare – be wary if your translation doesn’t take some time to translate as the same care should be implemented for your translated documents.

4.  Do not be tempted to use cheap and fast translations that may actually be SPAM.  These translations can mean huge problems later.  There should be a balance between the price, the turn around time and the quality of the translation.  Technical translations can be more time consuming.  Be realistic with your deadlines. 

Respect and Translation go hand in hand

Translating your documentation, website and marketing materials is a gesture of respect.  This indicates you value your potential client, business partner or foreign employee, or at least recognize that they are not all together exactly like you and that this is acceptable and even…a positive thing.  Just be sure to have a reputable translator or agency help you with this.  You would hate to go to all this work and due to a poor translation you end up offending them. 

If you are hosting potential clients from a different country/culture – having signs to welcome them in their own language can help establish the business bond you are looking for. 

In addition, greeting them in their own language is a sure fire way to elicit surprise and cultural points too.  Don’t be afraid to try, even if you mispronounce a name,  use an improper title, or fail to conjugate a verb correctly you will please the potential customer, partner or employee at some level just for trying. 

A great example of this is seen here.

Tips for using Translation Memory Systems

Translation Memory (TM) can save you and your organization time and money.  There are certain tips to keep in mind to get the most bang for your buck when writing your technical documentation and translation and localization of your information.  Consistency is key but here are a few tips to help you navigate the items to keep in mind while writing your source content.

1.  Don’t use synonyms – For example: log in vs. log on – stick with one and use it

2.  Don’t change your formatting – For example: Click the next button vs. Click the NEXT button. 

3.  Create segments that can be used in several contexts.  Insert CD vs. Insert Disc

4.  Make generalizations – the three steps are vs the steps are

By keeping these technical writing tips in mind you will not only save money but create consistency and standards for your content.

3 Tips for Successful Foreign Language Translation

Translation of your English text can be a big endeavor.  Keep these translation tips in mind to help you save time, money and confusion.

1.  Keep your target market in mind.  Creating copy for global audiences should not include acronyms, puns, plays on words and national contexts as these will lose impact when they are translated into a foreign language.

2.  Proofread your English source documentation.  This will help the foreign language translator understand your text and prevent delays and confusion.  In addition, be sure to have your translations proofread.  An omitted word, a spelling error, and incorrect punctuation can harm your organization’s reputation in your new market.  First impressions are everything.

3. Translating from English into a foreign language typically means an expansion of text.  Translations typically require more words to communicate the same thing in English.  This concept is called the expansion factor – a 250 English word document could expand to as much as 400 words after translation.  This is important for two reasons.  One – be sure your formatting and layout allows for text expansion – so leave plenty of white space.  Additionally, check with your translation or language service provider charges by source or target word as that will effect your costs. 

Taking the time to translate your documents with these tips in mind can help your organization take their products/services global. 

Translation Memory – Why it should matter to Technical Writers

Translation Memory (TM) systems like Trados and SDLX can help technical content authors reuse their text with matches and save their organization money.

A match refers to segments of text that are the same or similar to previously translated and identified segments of text.  In translation, the segment pairs (source and target languages) are stored and saved in a TM database.  Why is this important?  You can leverage your matches across your documentation whether it is by product year, model or brand. 

• Exact matches are 100% the same – meaning the text segment is exactly the same word for word.  This is also known as repetitions.
• Fuzzy matches are exactly that – a match but only a certain percentage of the words are the same.  This can vary by translation service provider from 70%-99% of a the text must be similar.  
• New – are segments that must be translated from scratch.

The less translation you need the lower the cost and time requirements for you and your organization.  Be sure to think about reusing your text segments so that you can capitalize on cost cutting and saving when you go to translation.