Today, with so many people wanting translations and many more seeking work as a translator it is easy to choose a translation service with the cheapest quote to provide a translation. However, it should not be forgotten that a cheap translation is not always the best. Just imagine a job creating instructions in another language for a medical device or product. If any mistakes are made in the translation it could be disastrous, maybe fatal for the user.
It is difficult to know how to balance getting good quality at the right price, especially when translation services needed are not only wanted in a variety of languages but also for a range of products with different uses.
Introducing a product for the first time to a new market is now quite a complex process and can be quite expensive, ranging from assessing and using local expertise, ensuring that the product matches any of the target country’ s laws while creating marketing content that will match the new consumers and the way they think and act.
What are potential marketing translation service problems?
Technical expertise
Specialised documents for products need not only a lot of subject knowledge but the right terminology in the new language should be known also.
Use of dialect and style
Style and word usage are very important in a technical document. The subject matter needs to be expressed clearly, simply and concisely, so that the expected reader is able to understand the information without any reservation and in their own tongue.
Time
Technical documents, especially in relation to the launching of a product in a new location, need to be translated to a set deadline so that the business can attract sufficient interest in the product at its launching.
Legal matters
If there are any mistakes in the technical texts this could mean financial loss to the marketing company, even injury if the instructions of a product manual are poorly translated. A life could be lost if a serious misunderstanding related to the use of the product took place.
What are the solutions?
- Hiring a translator who is a technical translation expert is essential and even better one who has translated for a similar product before.
- Ask your translation provider to thoroughly check your work to ensure the quality is high before it is released to you.
- Use of CAT tools that help to maintain terminology consistency by re-using frequently translated concepts and phrases, or concepts. They will also decrease the deadline for the translation of your documents.