Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

How to Get the Most for Your Translation Dollar

Sara Freitas-Maltaverne, SFM Translation Services

Taking your business international often means enlisting the services of a translator—a potentially risky undertaking. How do you know if the translations you’ve purchased do your product justice when you don’t understand the language? Worse, can you be sure that the translations won’t cause serious damage to your image or result in the costly duplication of work? Example: It cost a small, innovative microtechnology firm nearly $2,000 to have their brochure for an overseas trade fair reprinted and overnight-shipped to the venue when an error was discovered in the translation.

Whether you need the latest foreign market research to launch your product overseas or compelling marketing collateral to grab the attention of potential customers, a professional translator or interpreter is an invaluable ally. Remember: translators work with written documents (brochures, reports, correspondence), while interpreters communicate orally.

Here are a few things you can do to increase your chances of getting a successful translation—and your business’ chances of making it in today’s global marketplace.

Penny wise, pound foolish: bilingual does not equal translator.

A European property management firm needed an English version of its annual management report, originally written in French. To save money, the firm decided to assign certain parts of the translation to its in-house bilingual secretary. One of the gems produced: In a description of the firm’s partnership with a leading national bank (“alliance” in French) the well-meaning admin—no doubt with the help of a French-English dictionary—came up with the translation “wedding band,” which is another meaning of the word “alliance” in French, but clearly not the right one here. The cost to the company? In addition to the lost work time the admin spent slogging through the translation, the firm had to pay a rush fee to have the report retranslated by a professional in time to get it to the printer.

How can you avoid falling into the same trap? By calling in a professional translator and drawing up clear specifications for your project.

The following three steps will help you get your translation project off to a good start.

1. Decide what needs to be done, when, and who is responsible for each stage. Everyone involved in the production process (from document authors to DTP) should be aware of the timeline and specifications. Put it all down in writing.

2. Once you have determined your workflow and deadlines, you will need to choose a service provider. As a general rule, professional translators work into their native language. (Are you translating your product literature into Mexican Spanish? Look for a native Mexican translator!) Referrals from colleagues in your industry are a good place to begin your search, as are professional translators associations. The ideal translator has a track record both in your industry and with the type of document you need translated and can prove it by showing you examples of previous work.

3. Once you have selected a service provider, check again to be sure the purpose of your translation is clear. Are you translating incoming texts that your business needs for information purposes only or outgoing material that will have an impact on how your company is perceived by customers? The quality you need—and the cost—will vary accordingly. Discuss this with your service provider and get all commitments in writing. You and your service provider should know and agree on who is responsible for each step in the translation process.

Still not sure you’re ready to cross the language barrier?

You can better prepare your business to go international by learning as much as you can about working with translators and interpreters before the pressure is on. Start with Translation: getting it right, a free downloadable brochure endorsed by language industry professionals. Professional groups like the American Translators Association are also an invaluable source of information. Once you have the tools you need to take your business overseas, the sky’s the limit.

           

Posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 10:55 am and is filed under Expansion, Marketing, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.