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In a world of mega brands reaching out to all corners of the world, you might assume that their core message will be equally well-received no matter where they are.

There is a simple reason why in Thailand McDonald’s mascot, Ronald McDonald, greets Thai people in the traditional “wai” gesture of both hands pressed together. This equally applies to their menus: despite the ubiquity of the BigMac they still need to cater to local tastes. I’m sure that when the U.S. bosses of McDonald’s were looking to enter Thailand, they won’t have done it from behind their comfortable desks in the U.S. They will have done considerable market research on the ground, and they will have employed local management alongside their own people to get the business launched.

If you enter a new market with a “this is who we are, take it or leave it” sledgehammer attitude, a few nasty surprises might lie in wait (and maybe even a few laughs at your expense).

The same applies to localising a message for a particular market. You can employ a translator who natively speaks the language but doesn’t live in the country you’re targeting, but will your message capture the idiomatic subtleties it does in the original language? If a native translator can’t naturally keep abreast of all the small cultural changes in their native language ‘back home’, there are all sorts of cultural inferences which a more mechanical translation might miss entirely.

The internet is littered with such translation mishaps, and there is nothing more important than ensuring that your message passes the “local” test first.

When they use language in any guise, the best brands stand out in their attention to this detail. When you are reading something that sounds like it has been written by “one of you,” there will automatically be a higher level of trust than if it has been literally (but not culturally) translated by someone who hasn’t given much thought to localisation.

We employ exclusively local translators who are focused on one thing: how will the translation sound to their neighbour, to their friends, to their colleagues? What would they think when they read the words? If these thoughts are the same as the thoughts of readers in the original language, then the job has been done. This might involve some creative license, and this is something that translators pride themselves in deploying, so brands (end clients) should trust the locals on the ground to get it right for them.

Here comes the crunch: this requires a considerable amount of trust. When any message is being changed for any reason, the originators of the message naturally want to ensure that it retains its meaning. This is entirely natural, and in a way, it illustrates my point perfectly. It is better to have a discussion about getting a localised translation 99% perfect than not bother to localise it at all and have 30% of the local population get the wrong idea.

Localisation is important, and it is key to the art of translation in our global world.

Veerle Vanderplasschen, Managing Director

Preparing a piece of communication for public broadcast can be a daunting task, let alone having it translated into languages you don’t understand.

It seems obvious, but getting your communication right before embarking on a project like that is essential.

When companies or individuals communicate in their native language, there is naturally minimal thought put into how they will be perceived. People tend to assume that it will be perceived in much the same way that they view it (which is a fallacy to start with), but in actual fact the implied meaning is often far from how it is interpreted.

Any communication directed at a specific target audience should be written through the eyes of that target audience.

When we undertake a translation project, our first consideration is to always picture the recipient. Who are they, why is this message for them and how might their cultural background interpret our translated words?

When we share this approach with our clients, we notice that some of them start to analyse the text that they are asking us to translate. It might read a certain way in their language, but will the translation in a foreign language be able to convey the same message as the original intended? It is not that surprising, but the discussions sometimes lead to a realisation that their original content isn’t quite as ‘fit for purpose’ as they thought it was.

You only find new meaning when you are challenged to search for it.

The basics of being a good translator is to ascertain exactly what the source document means. But it certainly helps if the source text is on point. We delve deep into the layers of meaning, questioning our clients when something is unclear, and it is in that space of uncertainty that they themselves realise that they could be communicating more effectively in their own language.

I am happy to say that this is another reason why I think that translators will remain ahead of the machines, in providing a consultative rather than a mechanical service.

Secondly, it is surprising how little thought goes into some corporate communications. Just because you are putting words onto the page doesn’t mean that they are the right words. Our job is to be pinpoint in our choice of words; and when you have a translation partner that adopts such a forensic approach, it is worth checking that you have chosen the right words in the first place. Otherwise the exercise can start to resemble a twisted game of Chinese whispers. If we think that something doesn’t sound quite right for the context, we will attempt to mention it. We are here to add value in any way we can.

I suppose that is why I love my job so much. Our teams of translators are all trained to question these sorts of things and I often get the feedback that they have added massive value in that way.

No thought is perfect, and every piece of writing can be improved.

Why don’t you work with a translator who will not only translate your words but will also seek to challenge them when they feel it necessary?

by Veerle Vanderplasschen

It is likely that thousands of hours of contemplation went into perfecting the messages on your website. Countless minds from marketing, sales and operations combined to come up with something that reflects your difference in your market. There is no such thing as perfection in creativity, so it is likely that the content will have been revised and refreshed many times since then.

If you think that I am suggesting that your website is a work of art, you would be right. It is a unique reflection of who you are (at this moment in time).

That is, when it is viewed by a local native speaker in its original language.

In a globalised world, where companies wish to speak in the same way to customers spread across vast geographies, finding an efficient method to translate the content and subsequent continual updates is critical.

Enter the multilingual CMS.

Linking a multilingual CMS with a translation provider’s proprietary software via a connector is a great way of ensuring that translations are created, captured and uploaded in the application itself, without the need for external copy/pasting, greatly increasing productivity and reducing the margin of error.

Working with an experienced global translation partner in this way still means that the content will be localised and tested in-CMS and the technology allows you to keep your unified message, no matter what the target language. With complete unicode support, multilingual CMS set ups will edit and manipulate any common language correctly, with the human translators adding the final polish (as always).

The API integration of the CMS allows a partner to pull web content automatically and it reduces time spent on administration and allows a translation partner to streamline the workflow within their team.

Whether you have an urgent marketing campaign or a new service in your business, a multilingual CMS run by an experienced translation provider will allow for lightning-fast updates and accurate messaging. When new content appears in the source language, it will automatically be picked up by the tool.

Ensuring the consistency of your brand across the world has never been easier.

Of course, the human involvement with the tool is a critical aspect to achieving quality and consistency across languages. Whether you would like a machine-translated piece turned into quality content, or you would like human translators to look after the translation from scratch, the ultimate goal is that a French, Spanish or Mandarin speaker “feels” the same way as the English speaker (in the original language) did while reading your content. That is why you need to partner with a translation agency that is well-versed in collaboration with technology and sees it as the great enabler of globalised communication.

Absolute Translations have long been at the forefront of technological advances in our industry. We now offer a direct integration of client CMS systems with our translation tool through a connector and we are moving forward with this as a standard model for working with our international clients.

We would love to have a chat with you to discuss how your international messaging can be continually polished and perfected.

Veerle Vanderplasschen