Optimize your multilingual content and translation strategy to reach a wider audience
90% of data on the internet was created after 2016, and translation budgets simply can’t keep up with this pace of growth. So the question isn’t whether you should translate or not. Ultimately, you need to take a strategic approach to your content, work within your budget constraints and decide which content is most important to your target audience.
Does it demand high-quality human translation? Does it have a shorter life cycle and may be suitable for machine translation, i.e. rolling social media content? Getting the right translation strategy in place will answer these questions.
Build a Smarter Translation Strategy
Not all content is created equal. By carrying out a complete evaluation of your content we can help you decide what requires maximum attention from skilled professional translators and transcreators, and what content may be suitable for machine translation, either with or without human editing. Taking a smarter approach to translation allows you to maximize the impact of a finite translation budget.
Professional translation, backed by technology
Your highest value content deserves skilled, human translation. We select dedicated translation teams for each of our customers based on their areas of expertise and writing styles. This helps the team tune into your content and maintain accuracy while maximizing impact.
Applying technologies such as Translation Memory and Terminology Management supports the translation process by searching for and applying previously translated “content matches” in order to expedite the translation process even when using professional translators for the job.
Professional human translation is most relevant for long-life and high-profile content, for example printed content like brochures or online content. This can also be useful for high-value translations such as contracts and presentations.
Machine translation, backed by professional translators
Machine Translation (MT) is getting better all the time, and whether it’s content you might otherwise not translate, or high-volume content well-suited to MT, it’s time to take Machine Translation seriously.
We use customer-specific translation engines to power our Machine Translation process. Your existing translations and terminology help us build a high-quality Machine Translation Engine (MTE) that will do a better job translating your content category and house style. Professional translation teams edit your machine translations to correct any errors in style, syntax or terminology.
Our proprietary Translation Laundry technology helps to turn even smaller Translation Memories and Terminology Databases into usable machine training data. Combined with our clever Terminology Management software, we think you’ll be impressed.
Wo(man) and machine, in perfect harmony?
An optimized translation strategy uses a mixture of human, machine and hybrid translation workflows to power your multilingual strategy. This approach gives you the best shot at meeting tough deadlines while staying on budget.
The translation process is more than just the actual translation activity. Integrating translation into your marketing workflow and ensuring a frictionless process is key to your strategy. If you’re ready to build a translation strategy that will help you reach your goals, talk to us today.
Our free Translation Strategy consultation will provide you a clear, achievable translation strategy for us to build together.
What else do you need to consider?
Actually translating your content is of course the key area we focus on, but how do you know whether what you have written in your own language is going to have the same resonance in another language?
Tone of voice, cultural references and sensitivities need to be taken into account, and that is where transcreation comes in.
Translation or Transcreation?
Content with a long “life cycle” in prominent locations – your website, for example – needs professional human translation. The question is whether to translate or transcreate.
This is partly a question of budget (transcreation costs more), but first you need to consider whether your content will be suitable for your target market after it has been translated. The main question is whether your content needs adaptation to take into account cultural references, humor or taste. If so you need to set aside a bit more of your budget for transcreation.
If not, human translation with the right guidance around terminology and context will do just fine.
What about SEO? Print?
There are a lot of different scenarios that probably apply to your business. Consider International SEO, for instance. Maybe you’ve thought about translating your keywords. To have a successful search strategy in your target markets you also need to consider local keyword research as an integral part of your broader translation strategy.
If you get involved with print materials like packaging, merchandising or brochures you will also need to take into account a finite physical print area. These are all challenges that we can help you weave into a smarter translation strategy.
Is this really different from translating my online content?
Absolutely! Translating printed content brings with it a whole new set of challenges.
One common problem is the so-called expansion rate – the tendency for a translation to be longer than the original text. German, for example, often contains wonderful but long compound nouns like Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän – which translates roughly to “Danube steamship company captain”! Managing the space available may mean that creative editing of the source text is required. Conversely when translating into Japanese, a single character can sometimes replace an entire European word, resulting in the text taking up far less room in your design.
Finally, integration with cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox or Sharepoint allows us to seamlessly edit your files in their native format and save translated documents into the same storage locations.
Ready to develop your translation strategy?
Technology is moving forward at a breakneck pace, but can you trust it to deliver the results you need? What role should human translation play in your overall strategy? How can you improve your translation workflow?
Our free Translation Strategy Review will provide you with a clear, achievable translation strategy that we can build together.
Book a free Translation Strategy Review
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