No two types of material are the same when it comes to translation, and different approaches need to be taken to ensure that content, tone, and style are accurately rendered. This is especially true when it comes to marketing and advertising—while there may be a certain 1:1 equivalency in technical terminology (cholesterol will stay Cholesterin in German and cholésterol in French), all bets are off as soon as language gets creative. So if you have packaging to translate for worldwide distribution, chances are the list of ingredients is pretty straightforward, but the text portion describing and advertising your product could turn into Pandora’s box.
Your carefully conceived and developed marketing content should never come out of this proverbial box distorted, clumsy, or plain wrong. Every word in the original text was chosen carefully, the syntax built subtly but solid. What you need now are linguists who can do the same in each target language, who do magic with words while staying loyal to yours, and who know how to navigate all potential cultural pitfalls.
Geography
It may seem obvious, but geography should actually be your first concern when assigning the right team of translators. It is crucial to discuss with your language services company of choice what the exact target markets are—a translation “into Spanish”, for instance, will greatly differ if performed for the Latin American market or for Spain. Not only are there linguistic differences, especially in the colloquial language often used for marketing purposes, but cultural sensitivities vary as well. Sometimes two or more translations into Spanish are necessary to reach your target audience, depending on which countries you are distributing your product or services in, and they must be performed by experienced, native linguists.
Philosophy
As noted above, there is a different approach and philosophy to working on creative materials vs. technical texts. Translators who specialize in this kind of material are strong writers, unafraid of letting go of structures and metaphors contained in the original that need to be recreated or replaced in order to accurately convey what is being said, and how. Not every translator masters this paradox. Those who do must know target and source languages inside out and be tuned into subtleties of style and tone. The act of translation becomes an act of reinvention, at the end of which stands a text that mirrors the original in rhythm, imagery, and content but reads as if created from scratch for the intended audience.
Fluency
Readability is crucial for the appeal of any marketing and advertising piece. If a text doesn’t flow right, we will easily abandon it or even be turned off by it. This of course will affect our perception of the product or services it relates to. Be it a tagline, slogan, ad, packaging or other promotional material, its purpose is to lure the audience into wanting to know more. If the line or text is no longer catchy or witty in translation, its entire effect is lost. Stylistic tools are of highest order, although the linguist must sometimes carefully weigh if it may not be better to replace a rhyme with an alliteration or the other way around—again, the paradox lies in remaining true to the original while making the adaptation fit into its own linguistic and cultural context. Every language has its own musicality and every audience is tuned into different melodies.
Vocabulary
Whatever the melody or music of a text may be, it is still made up of words, and choosing the right words is crucial not only to sound and fluency but also to content and tone. The way you address your audience, the industry-specific terminology, the common ground you strike or new ground you break with the target customers must ring true in every single translation. And this of course will vary from market to market, and it is the responsibility of the respective linguist to know and research the adequate wording. The challenge is to “package” it in a way that makes it attractive and follows the idea of the original as closely as possible in consideration of the different idiosyncrasies of each culture.
Accuracy
The translations can only be as accurate as they are befitting for their respective market. This means that we cannot simply look at individual words or phrases and determine if they are “right” or “wrong”. You may say translating ‘sugar’ with ‘salt’ will always be wrong—but even that does not necessarily apply, for instance if it involves a metaphor or saying. One of the greatest mistakes that can be made in the adaptation of creative texts is the literal translation of an idiom or figure of speech, which can easily be an oversight. The English “thorn in someone’s side” is a “thorn in someone’s eye” in German, and if a German speaker told an English speaker something is “for the cat”, he or she would not necessarily know that it’s simply a waste of time. If your marketing or advertising piece is rich in imagery and colloquialisms, be prepared that it will need to be adapted to suit the conventions and sensitivities of the target audiences. The notion of accuracy must always take into account the bigger picture.
Sensitivity
Cultural and linguistic sensitivity is ultimately the key to successful adaptations of any kind of promotional materials. In order to bring your global message across to every single target market, the linguists must be familiar with what’s deemed appropriate and what isn’t, what’s funny and what isn’t, what sounds good and what doesn’t and so on. Their in-depth knowledge of target and source culture combined with their skill and expertise of recognizing and choosing the right words, stylistic tools and expressions to render your text in the most adequate and appealing way will ensure nothing gets lost in translation, and gaps will be masterfully bridged. Nanette Gobel
