My Philosophy on Writing and Translation

Rome wasn’t built in a day. Good writing and/or translation takes time. The subject must be researched; questions must be answered. No writer is an expert on every subject; most have a limited range of specialties. Only an author who truly understands the material can produce effective copy. Expect a good writer to ask lots of questions no matter how detailed your briefing is.

Only a native speaker writes like a native speaker. Every press release, brochure, and tech manual should be written by a native speaker for native speakers. “Our customers are not native speakers, so we’re happy if they can just understand it,” is the wrong attitude. If you’re marketing to people in China, and they can’t comprehend native-level English, you should address them in Chinese. Potential customers who struggle with your brochure will toss it aside. Your advertising does you no good if it isn’t being read. If a reader can tell the text was written by someone who does not master the language, something is wrong.

Those who grew up immersed in the language will use words, phrases, and even punctuation that look strange to non-natives. Engineers are subject matter expects, not linguists. Corporate executives are business experts, not linguists. Do not allow changes or “corrections” to a finished text before consulting with the author.

You get what you pay for. More often than not, low cost means low quality. No freelancer in the Western world can live on $0.05 per word. Rates like that certainly don’t encourage them to do a good job, either. No marketing copywriter can produce 20 pages of high-quality, finalized text per day—not to mention overnight—regardless of how much you pay them. When was the last time you paid a professional plumber or auto mechanic in the U.S. or Europe $1.50 an hour? Why should qualified copywriters work for peanuts? There is a saying in English: "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys."

There is no such thing as perfectly “bilingual”. Translators who claim they can translate into languages that are not their mother tongue are overestimating their abilities. Choose your translator wisely. Anyone professing to be a “native” speaker of five, six, or more languages is full of crap.

Want to ensure a good translation? Then give your translator the resources he or she needs to understand as much context as possible. If you provide them with a glossary, style guide, support materials, and contextual information, they can produce translations of much higher quality than if you just e-mail them a text with no background info.

Most "translation errors" come from a source text that is poorly written or unclear. When a sentence is ambiguous, translators have to make an educated guess about what you actually meant. Allow them to talk to the author and ask what that person means. Translators rely on research skills and professional experience in an effort to figure out the intended meaning, but that is not the best approach and can lead to a translation that does not meet their standards or yours. If you send your translator a text with spelling errors, don’t complain if you get one back that also has typos in it. You expect a perfect product from the translator. It’s only fair for the translator to expect the same from you.

Communication is a two-way street. If the source message isn't clear, the translation often won't be either. Good translators will refuse to write wishy-washy text just because they don’t feel like taking the time to learn what your true message is. Sadly, that is how many translators work, and that is how clients get away with paying them so little. A translator who takes a different approach deserves to be paid more.

If your text is not the final version, don’t send it to your translator. If you know in advance that your original will be revised within the next few days or weeks by other departments or executives, it is not ready to be translated. You wouldn’t want your translator sending you four or five different versions of the translation. Why do you expect a translator to work with your rough version and then do the job all over again after your text has been heavily edited? Save yourself some money, and do both yourself and your translator a favor. Plan enough time to finalize your text before having it translated. Remember: a self-respecting translator will charge you for the entire text each time you submit it, and rush jobs ought to cost you twice as much.

If you don’t know English well enough to translate yourself, you don’t know it well enough to alter your language service provider’s translations.

If you think there is only one English translation for Ziel, then use Google Translate. Depending on context, it will be target, goal, aim, objective, or destination. In compound words, it may be something completely unexpected. A Zielvereinbarung is NOT a target agreement, but a performance plan. Just accept the fact that context determines translation, and you and your translator will get along fine. If the terminology for your corporate structure includes Unternemensbereiche and Divisionen, it is actually kind of screwy. You have used two different words for the same thing. The translator can work with business units and divisions, but most companies in the English-speaking world just have divisions.

If you think you know English well enough to do translations yourself, you are probably wrong. Show your translator a text you wrote in English yourself. If he or she can’t find at least five major errors in it, the translator should buy you a case of beer.