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Expert tips to help get your message across.
Distributing foreign language marketing materials can increase profits and brand awareness, but the translation process is often a frustrating one for marketing communicators. Translation, by its very nature, comes at the end of the process, and time and patience are often in short supply as deadlines loom. The translation process is often an afterthought, and problems and challenges may crop up at the most inopportune times. Very often these are the result of file, font, or art problems with the source language desktop publishing files.
Below we offer some suggestions to marketing professionals who have not had much exposure to the translation industry. Our strategy requires that you start planning for translation before your source language document is ereated, specifically through the creation of a multilingual template.
When we talk about a multilingual template, we are referring to the creation of a translation- ready document in your native language, whatever that language may be. Creating multilingual templates can lead to lower translation and desktop publishing costs and facilitate the creation of more readable, culturally sensitive documents for your target audience. The tips below will help you to create translation-ready templates in any source language.
Content: writing for the world
Marketing and advertising material is, of course, highly sensitive to style in any source language. Translators try to provide a translation that mirrors not only the content, but also the style, of the source document. When you are designing and writing documents for a global audience, it is even more important to communicate your message in an effective manner.
Write in an active, not passive voice. Use short, clear sentences. Eliminate regional colloquialisms and other informal vocabulary that may not translate well. If you use acronyms, spell out the full phrase the first time you use it-what is obvious to you may baffle a customer in Beijing or a sales associate in São Paulo.
Quite often, source-language documents containing specific domestic market information or disclaimers are sent for translation, even though a user in Italy doesn't care about the paragraph that discusses California...