Avoiding The Translation Trap

According to Juan Tornoe, author of Hispanic Trending and CMO for Cultural Strategies, "When marketing to a culturally and ethnically diverse audience in the United States, you really need to put your money where your mouth is if you want to secure a specific segment of the community as loyal, long-term customers." I couldn't agree more.

One of Juan's clients decided to reach out to its diverse Hispanic customer base with an enticing drawing, so it proceeded to translate its English marketing piece into Spanish. Because the company's customers varied in their amount of acculturation, a strong bilingual piece was needed.

That's where the translating train ran off the track!

Juan and his agency gave the company's translated piece a thorough review and, "were faced with the task of telling their customer that the Spanish language version would be ineffective at the very least, if not totally counterproductive." Ouch! Why did this happen?

The translator didn't "understand the client’s industry and, they had no clue on how to translate persuasive concepts/ideas – ‘transcreate’ – from one language to another."

Creating concept translations or any translation for that matter is an art form in itself. Throw your idea of literal translations or "computer enhanced" translations out the window! The days of using those tools are gone! Besides, they never worked anyway. Computer translating options are only good for a word or two at best.

Remember: A machine only knows what you tell it, and it will never be able to get the nuances of human speech. Garbage in garbage out, as the IT guys say.

Still, many companies that decide to translate pieces into Spanish make the decision to get the work done as cheaply as possible, without realizing two important things.

First, translation is an investment. Spend the money you need to spend to get it done right the first time.

Second, you will get exactly what you pay for if you try to cut corners: an ineffectual, badly translated piece that may not even be readable!

It shocks me when I see companies with the financial means to get a translation done the right way ask a Spanish-speaking employee to undertake the project without knowing the employee's educational level, abilities in English, or translation experience. Anyone who speaks Spanish can translate, right? Absolutely not. That's like saying that anyone who can speak English can craft a best-selling novel!

When having your firm's documents translated, the buck you save in the short run will cost you a mint in the long run! 

Also, I prefer translation that is done by team effort. Having several sets of eyes reviewing a piece can solve a multitude of problems, especially if your team comes from different places in Latin America.

According to Tornoe, "Communicating concepts in a different language, while maintaining the ‘spirit’ of the message, keeping its true meaning and persuasiveness, even if it means completely re-writing it and not leaving a single word of the original language’s version – that, my friend, is an art."

Here are some tips for avoiding the translation trap:

1. Budget appropriate funds for the project. Translating is an investment!
   
2. Ask translating companies for samples of their work and references from clients.
3. If it's a marketing piece, use a company that specializes in "concept" translations with a proven track record in Hispanic marketing and advertising.
4. If it's a legal piece, use a translating company specializing in "legalese." Your company's reputation and liability are on the line!
   
5. Never use computer generated translations!
6. Use the team approach.Working with native speakers from several different companies will give you a variety of perspective and help you with broader readability.