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How Professional Language Translation Services Can Help your Business

globeProfessional language translation services can help any businesses gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

But when it comes to translating, most companies do it wrong.

You’ll see why, and how to fix it so you too can have the advantage many companies enjoy.

What Most Companies Do to Translate

Translation services are necessary for any company doing business in more than one languages, whether the company is expanding globally, reaching new markets locally, or employes a multi-lingual staff.

To save money, most companies begin the translation process by delegating the translation tasks to their own bilingual employees.

However, these employees are almost never trained in linguistics. They lack the skills, training, and knowledge to effectively translate content correctly and clearly.

Even worse, many times they rely on free online translation software.

While these companies do save money in the short run, it can lead to disasters which could end up costing much, much more in the long run.

As an example, here are some of the problems companies have run into with subpar translations.

The Pitfalls of Improper Translations

At the least destructive level, translation errors may cause miscommunication in inter-company communications or contracts with vendors and clients.

But the worst is when it causes huge marketing problems.

Here are a few major translation errors in marketing that occurred with large brands. They are humorous, but caused the companies many issues:

1) KFC translated the phrase “finger lickin’ good” into Chinese, but it came out meaning “eat your fingers off.”

2) “Got Milk?” was being advertised in Mexico and was translated to “Are You Lactating?”

3) Pepsi translated “Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation” into Chinese: “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave”

4) Coors’ slogan “Turn It Loose” translated into Spanish as: “Suffer from Diarrhea”

(for more translation blunders, click here)

These 4 examples are humorous, but here’s one which had dire consequences:

5) Two baby food products had instructions improperly translated from English to Spanish. When prepared according to the incorrect Spanish translation, the products caused seizures, irregular heartbeat, renal failure, and even death.

So you can see just how important proper translation is.

To avoid these mistakes, companies need to avoid insourcing language translation and instead partner with experienced translation agencies.

Hiring a Translation Agency

Rather than using software to translate, translation agencies employ accredited translators to work on every single project that comes through the door.

A translation agency has access to a large pool of professional linguists and translators that can be assigned to your job.

They have specialists in almost every language and numerous fields (legal, medical, etc.).

These translators not only know the language, but also the subtle cultural nuances that can help avoid many of the blunders in the examples above.

They can make sure that every document and marketing material your company produces is translated idiomatically and verifiably correct.

While your competition is struggling with their translations from insourcing, you can have the competitive edge as your market knows you are speaking directly to them and not just using some online translation software or people with little or no experience.

How to Hire Us

We are Executive Linguist Agency, and we provide just this type of service.

We have a team of linguists ready to translate for all your business needs, including:

  • Marketing Material

  • Employee manuals

  • Technical documents

To find out more about our services and request a free quote, click here.

You can also call us at 800-522-2320.

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