Picking up where we left off last week, when the translation involves more than just a translation of the text itself, other considerations like graphic design, typesetting and cultural adaptation may come into play, especially for documents written in one country and produced or translated for another. With that in mind, hire translators who live in the target country. We have spoken about the importance of hiring translators who live in the same country as your target audience before and it’s always a good idea to consult a variety of language specialists who live in the same vicinity as your target customers. If you have native-language speakers of the language you are translating into working for you, they can also be a valuable asset to your translation campaign.
A recent example of this premise in action is the name of Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. Although Microsoft states that the name Bing was chosen for its “global” appeal and lack of negative connotations, the folks heading up the search engine naming committee may have failed to consult Chinese language experts. The Chinese equivalent of Bing can have several meanings based on how the word is pronounced. One of these meanings is disease or sickness. Others include soldier, pancake and ice. Another close variant can also mean contraception. None of these qualities even remotely support the aims of web search.
A company that was successful in choosing the right name for its goals might be the online classifieds site, Kijiji. The word Kijiji is a Chinese word meaning to “pull people together to share things”. The pronunciation is also very similar in both English and Chinese.
This consideration reflects the challenges that business owners, translators and other localizers face when adapting the visual presentation of a website or marketing strategy to a foreign country. We would also encourage businesses to be open toward adapting certain aspects of their visual brand, as necessary, to the cultural context of the target audience. For example, in the area of visual branding, the colour white might be perfectly acceptable in Western countries to symbolize the qualities of purity and cleanliness. However, in Eastern countries, the colour white often symbolizes mourning and funerals. This is not a decision you would ever take lightly, but consider the negative consequences if you didn’t consider alternative choices?
In the same way that a bad translation—and especially using machine translation to translate any of your professional documents—can destroy the hard work you have put into your brand, not doing your homework before you hire translators or other language specialists to translate your brand’s message into other languages can have a similar effect in crippling your efforts to introduce new customers to your products and services.
We hope you’re enjoyed Part 2 of our two-part series on information and tips for translating your company’s brand successfully. If you missed Part 1 of the series, you can read it here.
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