Food label translation is one of our specialist areas of expertese, this year we did our largest ever food label translation project into Hungarian. This afternoon I’m busy preparing a template for a new client needing food label translations into 12 European languages. Part of our process is what we term “pre-translation”, this is about preparing the source text, and agreeing it with the client. Textual or layout changes during the life of a project are always a pain to deal with, especially in multi-language translation. The trick is to front load the work, getting the text as clear as possible, to minimise changes later on. Sometimes change during the life of a project is inevitable, for example on a large project checking the first sets of finished artwork, may identify required format changes in the source text. When preparing text for translation, its important to remember that people preparing the finished artwork are often not linguists, or if they are, on a multi-lingual job, they aren’t going to have native level proficiency in all the languages on the artwork, it is therefore really important that the layout is clear to follow, and that the correct sections of text are easy to identify. Legalities are also an issue with food labels, its important to remember that we are translating the source text, and seeking to accurately reflect it in the target languages, this means that if the product is mis-described in the source language, it will also be mis-discribed when translated, the process of food label translation, is therefore very much a partnership between the translation project team and the client.

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