Translation costs can be considerable even for large organisations, so how do you ensure you get the best return on your investment? An aspect of translation which isn’t always considered, is what we would term pre-translation. It is very typical that a potential client approaches us with a large amount of text, and simply asks for a translation quote. Our first question may seem obvious, but does it need to be translated? If you were translating packaging for India, for example, did you know that English is an official language of the country? If you choose to translate into a single Indian language, you risk alienating speakers of other Indian languages, the safest approach is therefore either to translate into a number of Indian languages, or simply leave the text in English. The choice will depend on your specific requirements, and target audience.

With websites, you may have a large site in English, and feel that you need to have exactly the same information in the target language. Whilst the principle content should certainly be translated, do you really need a full 600 pages? Of course we will be delighted to translate the lot, but since you pay proportionately based on word count, you may feel it prudent either to build up content over time (which is good for search engine optimisation anyway), or to “dip a toe in the water”, with some well targeted key content first.

With sales brochures and marketing materials, consider relevance to your intended reader. For example your exact location, map details and local information may be great for a UK audience, but may be meaningless for a Spanish website visitor who is considering buying online. On our own site for example we have a specific page targeted at a local audience, on Nottingham translation, but we don’t have the same page on the international versions of our site, because it isn’t as relevant to the website visitor.

Is information given correctly localised for an international audience? It is surprising how often UK 0845 phone numbers appear in international advertising, the problem is that someone trying to contact you from another country, can’t access you using an 0845 UK code, they will need a geographic number, in the international format.

These types of considerations are really important. As is using appropriate style and tone of language. A formal style may be great for one country, but not suit another. In general, simple sentences will be easier to translate, than complex compound sentences, and will read better in the target language.

In summary, to get best use of a translation budget:

1. only translate what you need to
2. ensure the text is appropriate to the target language
3. ensure the tone and style are culturally relevant
4. prioritise the most important text to be translated
5. work with your translation provider, and consider pre-translation issues

Need a translation quote? Speak with betterlanguages.com today.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.