Creating a consistent image is one of the best ways to ensure that your message is clearly understood by customers, business partners, and other stakeholders. And consistency often boils down to attention to detail.
A couple of interesting cases have come across my desk recently — two examples of lack of attention to detail and one near miss, to be precise — that highlight how easy it is to get it wrong. The good news is that it isn’t all that difficult to get it right if you involve your translator or copywriter in your project from the early stages.
Case 1: Institution has website copy translated, but fails to involve professional translators in overall site localization, resulting in numerous “small” errors like “connect yourself” (a direct translation from the French “se connecter“) instead of “log in” or “login”.
Case 2: Corporate communications department has content of employee magazine translated (i.e. the articles) but neglects to have a professional translator or copywriter review the page layouts. The final draft ends up a patchwork of English content and franglais for the masthead, section titles, etc. One — again, seemingly small — example is leaving “N°” (the French abbreviation for “number”) for the issue number rather than translating it as “issue” or “No.”
Case 3: (The “near miss”.) A services business needs a new brochure for an upcoming trade fair. At the last minute, staff members cut and paste from a variety of sources, some written by a native English speaker, others not. Fortunately, someone decides to call in a professional on the day the brochure is scheduled to go to print. The good news is that, at around 500 words, the professional is able to rewrite the content (correcting the English as needed, homogenizing the style gaps due to the cut-and-paste origins of the copy, and rendering the text more customer-focused and less technical) before the printer’s deadline.
A major blooper is also avoided (“Few references” as a heading to a client list — a literal albeit erroneous translation of the French “quelques références” — rather than “A few references”, or better yet “Selected customers”).
The moral of the story? Calling in a professional in the early stages of your project can help you avoid these pitfalls. An accumulation of errors that may appear minor can add serious dissonance to your message and make your organization look amateurish to foreign stakeholders. When it comes to presenting a polished, professional image, consistency is key. And consistency is often in the details.
