5 reasons why you should translate when so many people understand English?

We are very lucky to live in a world where English is prevalent all across the globe. Americans have gotten very used to doing business across borders in English - so why translate at all?

1. Shows respect for your clients, customers and foreign employees

2. Studies have shown that people are 40% more likely to buy from a company if they can read the materials in their native language

3. Marketing materials will convey your brand/image appropriately. Especially for Websites - Search Engine Optimization occurs in the foreign customer’s language of search

4. Sets you apart from your competition because they are probably marketing in English

5. Helps protect you in legal issues as the instructions, service or technical documents will be better understood

Take the time and money to ensure you are communicating clearly to your global market.

10 Tips to Choosing a Translator

Anyone can hang a shingle on their door and call themselves a translator. Translating your materials is a huge matter of trust…after all, can you proofread the text in a different language? Most of our customers cannot. They are trusting us to take their English words and help them be understood when they go global. With over 1,000 dialects and 180 parent languages around the world, who wouldn’t be a bit confused.

You already know not to use a machine to translate your materials but how do you choose the “right” translator for you and your organization.

Many people claim to be professional translators when they are not. How do you differentiate? It is difficult unless you test them. Many people are bi-lingual or tri-lingual but just because they can speak another language does not always make them a good translator.

Qualities to look for are:

1. They are native speakers for your target language.

2. They live in the country/region you are seeking to enter. Language changes and those that are living and breathing the language will be your best guides.

3. They have extensive experience with the type of work you want to be translated (i.e. engineering documentation, medical records, legal patents, contracts etc.)

4. They are professional and courteous. Now I know that you think this seems obvious but many translators we have tested don’t get back to us right away or their English skills are sketchy at best.

5. They can deal in your time zone. Trust me, you don’t want to be up at midnight working with a translator on an issue.

6. They communicate their holiday schedules. Believe or not, other countries do not have the same holidays as us and these need to be expressed, so that no delays are unexpected.

7. They must be tested. This is a bit tricky if you don’t have someone who can read your target language but it will help you feel confident in your translators work down the road.

8. They must be able to work in the file formats of your original documents. Can they work in Frame Maker, InDesign or re-create your document from scratch if you only have a PDF?

9. They should use some form of a translation memory software. This will help your documents stay consistent and may save you some money if you have large amounts of text that are similar.

10. They must have a quality check process that includes, proofreading the translation as well as editing the document once it is placed into the original file format.

Translation

a place where you should be picky and that the cheapest price may not be the best choice for taking your professional image and brand globally.

Machine Translation vs. Human Translation - The Big Debate

So…you decided to take your business global and need to translate your marketing materials, website and technical documentation…where do you start?

Under no uncertain terms - DO NOT USE MACHINE TRANSLATION!

I know you are tempted because you don’t have the budget or the time and think simply copying and pasting into Babelfish or some other program from Google or Yahoo will do the trick.  Don’t be fooled. These programs will not do your material justice in the translated language. 

Translation is an art…one that many subject matter experts spend their entire lives mastering.  Just like English writers, whether creative or technical, they master their craft as they practice and by training - so do translators.  They are very good at understanding the contextual meaning of the source language and translating it into their native language.  As an example, have you ever taken a sentence and tried to rewrite that sentence in English to say the same thing only using entirely different words?  It is difficult, but translators do that every day into the target language. 

Don’t make a mistake and use a translation software that gets the context incorrect or that is not localized for the target market.  You do NOT want to jeopardize your entire business image just to save a few dollars.  I promise you the headaches are not worth it. 

Right now the software is just not sophisticated enough to do a decent job in translating meaning and context. In the future - that may change.  We will have to wait and see.