It’s important to be sure that when you entrust your important documents, correspondence, or marketing material to a professional translator that you have chosen someone you can trust. Many translators work for a translation company and this does mean that these companies probably have certain standards which apply to the translators they employ.
If your business has expanded and you now need to translate a lot of your marketing material into a number of other languages, you may be wondering whether you really need a professional translation service to do it. You may be asking yourself whether you can just use one of the free online translation services like the Google Translate tool for all your translation needs.
When you need a translation the first thing that most likely goes through your mind is, how long does it take to translate a document by an experienced translator? This is important because most people charge by the hour when they complete a job for someone else. This is not quite the same with translation work as most translators charge by the word not the hour.
In German there are always German words that have no English translation. Some words are so embedded in their cultural context that there is no equivalent word or phrase in any other language. There are also German words with no English translation and English words with no German translation.
Most translators, especially professional ones, will understand the difference between transcreation and translation, but the former is still very much an unknown term outside of translation circles. In reality, transcreation and translation differences are not of great interest except for those who want to get their marketing messages, audio recordings and apps translated. Transcreation is basically translation together with some modification to suit a specific audience. A website that is translated, but not transcreated, might not resonate with potential customers, but why?
Translation is an extremely challenging task as it requires a deep and rich understanding of not just the grammar of both the source and target languages but the culture of those who use the language as well.
Think about a Bavarian drinking a beer who is very somber and is never late for anything put together with a young surfer who had a Vegemite breakfast while lying on a beach.
When it comes to Germany vs Australia the weather in Germany is never nice, but in Australia, there is never a wet day. When talking about Australia, everyone is supposed to be great at surfing, Australia is the land of opportunity
If you have ever wondered if translation is important these days with electronic translation tools like Google Translate, you may be surprised to know that there is more demand for document translation services than ever before. The American Translators Association (ATA) currently has on its books more than 500 registered members and PROZ.com boasts a database of 59,179, which covers document translation services from around the world. This is no doubt the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the many translation services that are available to carry out translations. It is not uncommon to find that translators are passionate about their job which makes translation jobs far easier.
Unless you have a need for a professional translator, you will probably find that the quality of smart phone assistant translators is good enough and they seem to be getting better all the time. It’s unlikely that they will replace a human translator any time soon when the importance of accuracy is paramount, such as a legal document translation or a medical document translation but for all non-commercial and amateur translation needs their accuracy is sufficient.
Everyone has had the experience of chuckling or being amazed at how just a few words that have not been translated properly have led to quite a different meaning than intended. It’s common when you go on holiday to see unprofessionally translated signs and tourist literature. In fact, some newspapers and magazines make it one of their regular features to display some poor hapless translated sign that is unintelligible or downright funny or just daft.
