DOS AND DON’TS OF TRANSLATION

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The quality of your documentation acts as an indicator of how dedicated your company is to maintaining quality as a whole. You want to make a good impression, particularly when attracting new customers – what could be worse than providing them with a bad translation they can hardly understand?

Here are some do’s and don’ts of translation:

Do’s:

  • Do let your translation be done by professional and native linguists. It is the most effective way to guard against literal translation and to make sure that your message is conveyed in the most accurate and context-appropriate manner.
  • Specify what the translation is to be used for. A text translated for a speech would be of a different style to that needed in a promotional brochure.
  • Find out exactly what your client wants. For example do they want texts aimed at a British or American reader? Do they want a text translated into Spanish for use in Spain or South America?
  • Try not to leave translation to the last minute – the more time your translators have the better.

Don’ts:

  • Do not attempt to translate documents yourself. Even if you regularly do business in a foreign language, your written skills are still bound to come across as foreign.
  • Do not use foreign employees to translate documentation. Translation is a skill and bilingual employees are unlikely to produce the high quality of a professional translator.
  • Do not employ translators to translate out of their native language. Translation etiquette states you must only translate into your native language i.e. a native German translator should only translate from their specialist language into German and not vice versa.
  • Do not use student translators who are not qualified for the job. The quality is unlikely to be comparable with that of a professional translator.
  • Do not use machine translations. Today the Internet offers numerous online automatic translation services. However, it only gives you a very literal and basic translation that is inappropriate to be used in formal business matters.