With the Apprentice semi-finals and final appearing on British television this week, we thought it a good time to review relevance of the programme to the translation industry. Episodes in previous series have shown candidates struggling with linguistic and cultural issues, notably last series when buying products in Morroco, and in the previous series trying to sell cheese and other products on a French market. Both programmes were hysterically funny, and are my personal favourate episodes of any series so far. This series hasn’t quite matched these two episodes.

The big learning issue from the French market fiasco, was about understanding your target market. One team was very surprised not to be able to sell slabs of Makro cheddar, in a market that had over 100 varieties of quality French cheese. As a translation agency, we work extensively with retail, and our clients work very hard at understanding their target markets. A product which sells well in one market, may not sell well in another. In fashion for example, it isn’t just about style of clothing where national tastes may vary, colour preference may vary market to market.

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