Do you believe these common translation myths?

by Target Language Translation Services

- September 29 2021

The world of translation can be a confusing place. What’s the first thing that comes across your mind when you think of the translation industry? Did you just think of translators? I bet the majority of people immediately relate the translation industry to “translators”. Then if I ask “What else do you have in mind?”, people may think for a while and give up. Well, the translation world involves so many people and positions other than linguists. It’s just one among a lot of myths about the translation industry. Translation myths keep businesses from reaching their potential in international markets. So let’s take a closer look at some translation myths and why decision-makers in multinational companies shouldn’t believe them.

Any bilingual person can become a good translator

Many people assume that bilingual people are nature translators. They can greatly understand both languages so it’s just a piece of cake for them to translate any documents. The truth is, bilingual people aren’t necessarily translators, so you shouldn’t expect them to become language experts overnight. Their experience in the industry could be of help during the localization project.

In fact, translators develop essential language skills that enable them to select the best words for each communication context. Not only do they have an excellent command of their native and second languages, but they’re also familiar with cultural differences between countries and regions. Since a small cultural mistake such as inappropriate colours or unsuitable expressions can lead to the boycott of the target country’s audiences, translators do more than put words together to preserve the meaning of your text and ensure that the translated content is appropriate in the target culture to provide an excellent service to your clients.

Machine translation gives good quality outcomes and cut translation costs

Many would say machine translation is free-of-charge, quick, and precise. Let’s see. We can all agree that quick and free are the two best features of machine translation. But the precision is not so sure. Translation errors can impact the first impression businesses create in a local market and keep them from achieving business goals. Take website translation as an example. If it gets lost in translation, businesses fail to communicate effectively with target audience. When a small mistake slips out, people are most likely to laugh and move on. But, when the content doesn’t make sense, it risks pushing people away. People could even see the faux pas as a lack of respect for their culture and language.

It’s the sort of risk not worth taking, especially in new market. While it may seem a smart way to save some resources, this decision could cost more in the long run.

Professional translators don’t use technology

Many newbies to the world of translation mistakenly think that “translation technology” refers to computer-generated translation, such as Google Translate. In fact, most specialized translators use software tools that incorporate “translation memory”, a database of previous translations. The language industry has evolved from printed dictionaries and people who translate one sentence at a time. Today, software tools are widespread among translation professionals, and have been in use for many decades in multiple ways.

CAT tools speed up the translation process and ensure more consistency across all translations. Moreover, they provide a Translation Memory, where translators can save industry–or company-specific terminology and build glossaries of terms for future projects.

Even if the software performs a significant part of the job, the translator is the one who ultimately decides the form of your translated content. So, it’s “human translation”, but faster, cheaper, and sometimes more accurate.

Translation memory also offers another advantage – it usually ends up saving some money for the buyer, because it means they do not have to pay to translate the same sentence or phrase over and over again.

Only one translator is needed throughout the translation process

An experienced and specialized translator can produce high-quality translations without the help of other linguists because they can edit and proofread their own translated documents. Therefore, only one translator can handle the whole translating process. Well…that’s actually another common misconception of the translation industry.

A specialized translation process often involves various parties too. Not only is a professional needed to translate content, but as with monolingual writing tasks, there usually needs to be an editor who can review it. In addition, sometimes translators attach too much to their translations and don’t want to make big changes in their own. You might even need to have a separate proofreader and someone to ensure proper formatting.

Working directly with freelance translators is a good strategy for certain types of projects, and many freelancers can recommend reviewers to ensure that a second set of eyes checks their work. However, when projects are more complex – involving multiple languages, content types, or file formats – an agency is often a better solution.

Localization is the same as translation

One of the most common translation myths out there comes from not understanding the differences between translation and localization. While translation forms the basis of a localization project, the latter includes a wide range of processes meant to adapt content and products to local markets.

When selling in international markets, a word-to-word translation of website, app, or customer care best practices isn’t enough to be persuasive. Moreover, it doesn’t provide an excellent user experience, which can result in frustration and mistrust.

As a brand, it’s necessary to overcome not just the language barrier, but also the cultural differences that might keep people from engaging with the messages. Localization services go beyond translation. They target all those technical elements and cultural insights that can make the brand fit into any local market.

Conclusion

The language service industry keeps the wheels of global business turning. Companies need to communicate in multiple languages, which automatically increases the demand for language services.

To choose the right translation services, sometimes the best indicator of translation quality has nothing to do with things like typos and misspellings. From the buyer’s perspective, translation quality often has more to do with the real proof of a good translation — the results that it enables — in the form of greater brand awareness, more customers, more page views, more downloads, and more sales.

This article is reprinted from CLEAR WORD TRANSLATIONS, GTE LOCALIZE and SMARTLING.

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