3 Tips for Successful Foreign Language Translation

Translation books 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. 

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