With Active Languages Translation agency, save money, save (a little) time, but most importantly, save face!
Have you seen a rise in overseas customers hitting the “unsubscribe” button on your newsletters? Have your international sales dropped off a cliff? Are most of your queries from non-native visitors asking for information you know should be in the product description? Is nobody “liking” or “commenting” on your copy in other languages on social media?
First things first: you’re not alone.
Lots of companies, big and small, jumped on the machine translation bandwagon as soon as it appeared with the promise of saving businesses money AND time. What people failed to realise is just what sort of impact an AI-generated translation can have. Let’s take a look at some of the common problems with using a machine to translate your copy and how it affects your clients.
#1 Know your audience
We could dedicate thousands and thousands of words to this section, but we’re going to try to keep it short and sweet (promise!). Active Languages provides translations for a French fashion brand aimed at the 30-50 age bracket. We ensure all their newsletters and product descriptions are appropriate and relevant to their specific target market. One of their competitors, in France at least, recently launched in the UK but their machine-translated content seems to have missed the mark. Why? The source language screams “affordable luxury”, but the English uses words like “hot” to describe an outfit or “cheap” to describe a skirt. Yes, there is certainly a market for the company, but just not the one it’s targeting. Just like, as many a parent out there will know, the word “cool” is no longer “cool”, the words you use have to not only be localised to suit the language but also adapted to suit the person you want to buy your product.
#2 A tough read
Translation is often described as “invisible”. What we mean by that is that you should be able to read a translation without realising it was ever translated in the first place. The idea that you translate “word for word” verges on the offensive for translators, as we focus on capturing your message and meaning in the target language rather than taking everything you write literally. A good, real-life example is when you visit a website for, let’s say, a museum that you’re planning to visit during your next holiday overseas. When you click the English flag, an automatic translation appears. Realistically, how much of the text do you read? How much of it do you understand? How much do you relate to the content and engage with it? How much does it make you want to put it on your to-do list? Chances are that a clunky and unnatural text will put you off devoting any more time to reading what’s on offer and may even put you off visiting at all. So, think about your customers. How do you think your AI-generated translation sounds to them? Is it appealing? Does it speak to them in their language? Does it pique their curiosity? Check your customer engagement data for the answers.
#3 Punctuation problems
Active Languages was asked to proofread an AI-generated translation for a European brand wanting to break into the UK market. Since it’s very hard to spot issues in a non-native language (no matter how well you speak it), we were surprised that they had noticed the problems and assumed their customers must have mentioned them. We were wrong: the brand had realised something was off when they spotted American English spelling and “native” punctuation. What do we mean by native punctuation? Take French for example. The French leave a space in front of their question marks, exclamation marks, colons, semi-colons etc. which we don’t in English. They also use «» as speech marks. This was the sort of punctuation that the machine translation failed to localise and made it glaringly obvious that it was a translation.
#4 Social media slip-ups
POV the Italian version of your Instagram account just launched but your analytics aren’t even close to what you were expecting. Are you using AI-generated translation? The problem is that social media terms like “POV”, “IYKYK” and “photo dump” have to either be localised in the target language or left in English… and you need a human translator who understands both your target audience and product to get it right. Let’s say that you want to use “POV” to promote your attendance at a trade fair in Spain. Yes, it’s trendy in the UK, but is it appropriate for a corporate audience in Spain? Does your Spanish audience understand what “POV” means given you’re probably targeting people who spend more time on LinkedIn than TikTok? Does “POV” actually stand for something else entirely in Spanish and risk making you the subject of ridicule? Social media can make or break a promotional campaign, so you don’t risk all your hard work on an AI-generated translation that could send your customers to the hills.
#5 Inconsistencies
Active Languages was asked to post-edit a machine translation for a French campsite and spent most of the time correcting the English translation for “emplacement”. If you’ve ever been to a campsite in France, you’ll know that “emplacement” means a “pitch” either for your tent or your campervan. Unfortunately for the machine though, “emplacement” doesn’t just mean “pitch” in French. Although “pitch” did get a look in at some points, the English translation managed to cover every possible rendering of “emplacement” with “location”, “site”, “spot”, “place”, “parking space”… you get the picture. Would you want to book your holiday at a campsite that can’t tell its camping pitches from its parking spaces? Although AI-generated translations should be able to localise to suit context, it doesn’t always happen or the result can be confusing as the machine attempts to cover every possible base. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, does it?
And there’s the rub. If your content is hard to read, leaves your audience scratching their heads, makes them question how accurate your information is or doesn’t stop them from doomscrolling, it’s only natural that they are unsubscribing from your newsletters, unfollowing your social media, shopping elsewhere or avoiding your business.
What’s the solution?
You’ve got your machine translation now. Why don’t you let a human translator proofread it? Yes, it would have been simpler to just come to us direct and have it translated from scratch. And yes, it may well take almost as long for us to proofread it as it would have done to translate it ourselves depending on how bad the AI translation is. But the situation can be remedied if you just let our language experts take a look at it. The bottom line is that proofreading is cheaper than translation and retaining, or even boosting your customer base is priceless.
Save money, save (a little) time, but most importantly, save face.
Contact info@activelanguages.co.uk and let us help you.
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