AAA Translation - We'll Take You Global

As a business owner, department head or project leader, you want your HR documents, marketing collateral or other translated materials to be accurate and timely.

Because translations done WELL are paramount to your global success, we have several tips to help you directly influence the outcome, speed and cost-effectiveness of any translation project:

1)    Start with a well-written, simple piece. If the original marketing collateral or internal communications document is wordy, ambiguous or poorly written to begin with, the translated document will follow. Translators cannot rewrite. Their job is to accurately translate. To increase your success in the original language – and in the translated one(s) – make sure the piece is written really well.

2)    Be careful who translates for you. Someone may be bilingual, but that doesn’t mean they are an experienced translator, understand your industry or are up-to-date on the latest, localized language nuances in the market you’re trying to reach. It’s best to work with professionals who have teams of in-country, experienced translators.

3)    If you have preferred company lingo or branding guidelines, provide that to your translation company BEFORE the project begins.

4)    Be careful who proofreads your documents. You may have someone on your team who speaks Spanish, for example, but the nuances of Spanish in Mexico differ greatly from Spanish in Colombia. And even if someone is from the area, if they no longer live there, they are not as knowledgeable as an in-country translator and proofreader. AAA Translation’s founder and CEO Susanne Evens, for example, no longer translates German, despite growing up there. “I still speak German often and visit Germany, but I have lived in the U.S. too long to provide the kind of accuracy that I expect and get from someone who still lives there.”

Want to get more tips or learn how you can work with AAA Translation for your next translation, interpretation or global consulting project? Contact us at 636.530.1010 or visit www.aaatranslation.com to learn more.

by Susanne Evens

Just like bad translation work can hurt your company and reputation, so can hiring a bad interpreter. A recent and very public example of this is the sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s funeral who stunned the world and embarrassed event organizers in South Africa.

On the flip side, the movie Lost in Translation gives us a funny illustration of the role of a foreign language interpreter…and how much can get lost. This is one of my favorite scenes:



How do you select a good, legitimate, experienced interpreter for your event, presentation, meeting or other needs?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Be skeptical. A certain amount of skepticism is healthy when it comes to hiring an interpreter. Be sure to ask plenty of questions and check references.

2. Plan for backups. It’s best to work with an experienced company that carefully vets their interpreters and has qualified backup options should there be an emergency that prevents your original interpreter to work the project.

3. Make sure that the interpreter is proficient in both languages involved. Proficiency in BOTH languages involved is a must.

4. Be sure the interpreter has a vocabulary for your topic or industry. Proficiency in both languages is critical; so is familiarity and experience with the vocabulary required for your subject matter (especially if it’s highly technical).

5. Make sure they are familiar with the different cultures involved. Do they understand cultural nuances, colors not to wear, customs and other key cultural factors that may be important?

6. Make sure they are experienced. Interpreting is a unique skill that goes beyond knowing languages, cultures and vocabularies – it requires experience. Make sure that your interpreter has plenty of it.

7. Ensure that all time required is included in your pricing quote. Most companies provide reference materials at least one week prior to the assignment so the interpreters have enough preparation and research time. All this time should be included in the rate quoted for interpreting.

Want more advice or to learn about AAA Translation’s interpreting services? Contact us at toll-free at 844.293.3519 or learn more at www.aaatranslation.com.

Translating and localizing product manuals, packaging labels, marketing materials and other documents and collateral is often a necessity for a manufacturer when they sell their products in a foreign market. Some manufacturers, especially those who are new to the localization process, lean on their local distributors to translate various documents. It seems like a logical solution – the distributor is already responsible for selling the products, they typically live in the foreign market and it will save the manufacturer time and money. However, what may seem like a simple solution is typically not the best option.

Before handing off your foreign language translation and localization services to a distributor, consider this:

Quality Standards: A distributor is responsible for selling multiple products from multiple manufacturers. Translation is not their business or their top priority. Can you count on quality results? Who is doing the translating? Are they a good writer with excellent grammar even in their own language? Who is proofing their work?

Legal Liability: If the distributor makes a mistake or incorrect translation, what will the manufacturer’s liability be?

Consistency and Branding Standards: Most manufacturers invest time, money and effort to create and maintain their brand identity and product positioning. Maintaining the integrity and consistency of a brand requires a central translation and localization effort. With multiple distributors and multiple markets, relying on distributors for translation efforts makes it virtually impossible to ensure and maintain a consistent brand identity in each market.

Reputation: First impressions count. If your first impression in a new market is clouded with mistakes or, worse yet, a big translation blooper, it will most certainly slow or halt your sales and growth opportunities there.

Rework and Reprinting Costs: If there is a problem, how much will it cost you to do the rework and reprint your materials?

Message Control: We have seen and heard of cases where distributors have edited materials as they translated them, changing the original message in a way that made the product easier for them to sell by exaggerating benefits, changing the wording on warranties, etc.

When you are expanding to foreign markets and need foreign language translation and localization help, we urge you to consider the long-term picture and work with professional translators who can help ensure quality, consistency and that the message delivered to your marketplace is exactly what you intended.

To learn more about how AAA Translation can help manufacturers in foreign markets, give us a call toll-free at 844.293.3519 or learn more at www.aaatranslation.com.

Think Twice Before Using Translation Programs My daughter began college exactly 10 years after we moved to America from Germany. When we first moved here, she still spoke fluent German and had a summer to learn English before school started in the fall. Ten years, apparently, was enough time to completely forget almost every bit of German she learned at such an early age. Not realizing just how much of her native tongue no longer knew, I tried to pressure her into taking another language in college so that she could gain valuable knowledge of other cultures and languages. She decided to take German instead of following my advice.  During the second semester of her freshman year, I received a frantic phone call. "Mom"! I need your help! My final paper is due tomorrow for German, and I don't think it's saying what I want it to say. Are you really busy? Can I e-mail it to you to take a look?" Of course I said yes. Five minutes later, her paper was in my inbox ready to be proofread. Little did I realize how much she had forgotten... I called my daughter back, and I asked her one simple question, "Have you forgotten everything of your German?" To my horror (not only as a mother but also as the CEO of a translation company), I hear my daughter say, "I used an online translator for the words I didn't know." I went silent. My own flesh and blood... Read the Full Article... .......................................................................................................... The American Dream: An Interview with Susanne Evens AAA Translation founder and CEO Susanne Evens was interviewed by The American Dream about her story and becoming a dual US-German citizen. Click Here to Read the Interview... New Soccer Book Translation We're excited to announce that we are translating our 5th soccer book for Meyer & Meyer Sport, for which we have translated 40+ books since 2002. Look for "Matchplan Fussball" coming soon. Welcome New Clients! We're excited to announce two of our recent new clients: Blue Line Marketing in Providence, Rhode Island Citizens for Modern Transit in St. Louis, Missouri

by Susanne Evens

My daughter began college exactly 10 years after we moved to America from Germany. When we first moved here, she still spoke fluent German and had a summer to learn English before school started in the fall. Ten years, apparently, was enough time to completely forget almost every bit of German she learned at such an early age.

Not realizing just how much of her native tongue she no longer knew, I tried to pressure her into taking another language in college so that she could gain valuable knowledge of other cultures and languages. She decided to take German instead of following my advice.

During the second semester of her freshman year, I received a frantic phone call.

“Mom”! I need your help! My final paper is due tomorrow for German, and I don’t think it’s saying what I want it to say. Are you really busy? Can I e-mail it to you to take a look?”

Of course I said yes.

Five minutes later, her paper was in my inbox ready to be proofread. Little did I realize how much she had forgotten…

I called my daughter back, and I asked her one simple question, “Have you forgotten everything of your German?”

To my horror (not only as a mother but also as the CEO of a translation company), I hear my daughter say, “I used an online translator for the words I didn’t know.”

I went silent. My own flesh and blood...

“Mom? Are you still there?”

Oh, I was there. I was there trying not to scream at her about how ridiculous it was to use an online translation service to turn in a final paper that determined her final grade in the class, which could have caused her to fail.

I got my wits about me and in my professional, calm voice explained to her why using an online translation service that has no clue about native slang, innuendo, homonyms, heteronyms, etc. is an absolutely terrible idea. After a few minutes of my speech, she cut me off and simply asked me to help her.

The story of my daughter’s near misfortune with a failing paper is, unfortunately, something I often see when a company does not invest the time and money into quality translators with native language ability, educational credentials, etc. The “machine translator,” as it’s dubbed in the translators’ inner circle, is just purely that: a machine. It doesn’t understand common native sayings such as, “I love this!” If that were to be translated into German, the literal translation would be, “I love it!” This looks the same; however, Germans don’t use the words “love” and “it” in the same sentence. EVER. The word love in German is really only used when talking about an actual being. A native speaker would know this and would quickly be able to distinguish between the English meaning and translate it into the German version of saying that same statement.

Successful, globalized companies spend a lot of time and resources ensuring that their message is being clearly and correctly stated because, again, what means one thing in English doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in Mandarin Chinese, German or Spanish. An example from history is JFK’s faux pas of saying, “Ich bin ein Berliner!,” which literally means, “I’m a jelly donut!” not I’m a citizen of the city of Berlin (quotation from a June 26, 1963 speech by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin, Germany).

Correct translations go a long way when trying to take your company global. Consumers worldwide are becoming more sophisticated, and they want everything in their own language. Employees do as well. From product packaging to websites to human resource documents, everything must be translated. And it must be done right. A computer program simply can’t do that for you.

About Susanne Evens
Susanne Evens is the founder and CEO of the St. Louis-based AAA Translation company (celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), the president of the St. Louis-Stuttgart Sister Cities, an executive board member for the World Trade Center St. Louis and a member of the Business Week Alliance/Market Advisory Board. Her advice regarding global business development and communications has been featured by national and international media outlets that include BusinessWeek, National Public Radio (NPR), International Enterprise Singapore, BrandChannel.com and more. Under her leadership, AAA Translation has grown to serve business clients the world over, working in 150+ languages. Learn more at www.aaatranslation.com.

We’ve all heard the saying, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional, try hiring an amateur,” and most of us can tell stories about how, in our personal or professional lives, this has rung true. Yet, in the foreign language translation and interpretation field, we see professional organizations working with amateurs all the time and how “little” translation mistakes can lead to big blunders.

Think about this: in our native language, organizations hire professional copywriters and editors to create their marketing and product materials and often spend weeks and months fine-tuning the words to get the message just right. If you need a professional to work within your own language, why would you trust your foreign language translation or interpretation needs to your neighbor, brother-in-law, college student or office mate? They may speak two languages, but are they trained experts in translation nuances, grammar, customs and other important factors that make ALL the difference? Language is more than just words. It takes years of studies and total immersion to know the nuances to create truly accurate translations.

Here are a few examples of “small” interpretation and translation mistakes made by amateurs that had SIGNIFICANT results.

1. THE SEVENTY-ONE-MILLION-DOLLAR WORD
This example comes from an article written by linguist and author Akira Okrent. In 1980, Willie Ramirez was admitted to a Florida hospital in a comatose state. His family, thinking he had food poisoning, tried to describe his condition, but they only spoke Spanish. Translation was provided by a bilingual staff member who translated "intoxicado" as "intoxicated." A professional interpreter would have known that "intoxicado" is closer to "poisoned.” The doctors proceeded as if he were suffering from an intentional drug overdose, which can lead to some of the symptoms he displayed. Because of the delay in treatment, Ramirez was left quadriplegic. He received a malpractice settlement of $71 million.

2. YOUR LUSTS FOR THE FUTURE
Another example from Okrent: When President Carter traveled to Poland in 1977, a Russian interpreter was hired who knew Polish but was not used to interpreting professionally in that language. Through the interpreter, Carter ended up saying things in Polish like "when I abandoned the United States" (for "when I left the United States") and "your lusts for the future" (for "your desires for the future").

3. ACCIDENTAL BROTHEL AD
The Max Planck Institute is one of Germany’s top scientific institutions. For a special issue on research in China, published in December 2008, it printed what it thought was a “classical poem” on the cover (a text that certainly looks Chinese to the non-Chinese speaker). The editing team didn’t realize that the text they chose was a handbill for a Macau strip club, and it said “hot housewives in action,” “enchanting and coquettish performance.”

4. JUST DO IT
Nike aired a commercial in the United States that showed multiple people from various countries repeating the company’s “Just Do It” slogan. They failed to verify that the words were actually adequate translations, and it was discovered that the Samburu tribesman was actually saying: “I don’t want these, give me big shoes.”

Click here to read more examples.