Strategic Marketing for Hispanics Online: Language Translation
As discussed in the previous article entitled Reaching the Hispanic Market Online, studies show that to fully reach the Hispanic community online you will need to communicate with them in Spanish. By now, the first thing that probably comes into mind is to work on your website. To do so, you may contemplate on having your complete website translated or just selected parts of it.
Take note though that translating text is not as easy as it seems, and you should make sure to choose carefully who does the translations for you.
Language translation
There are a number of options for language translation but each has its pros and cons as discussed below.
1. Translating with computer-generated translation services
This option is perhaps a desperate attempt to translate text and a number of people look into this mainly because it appears to be a “quick fix.� Not only can you find free versions of this on the web, but you may also be tempted to purchase software that will do the translating work for you.
While this may seem a cheaper alternative in the beginning, you may find out that this quick fix is not as easy and as reliable as you thought. The result of translating texts using this option will highly depend on how the software was programmed as well as how your text is phrased in a sentence, among other things.
To try this, look up a free translation website online and then have a few sentences translated into Spanish. Then, take the translation that was generated, and have it translated back into English with the free service. Read it, and you’ll see why it is not a good idea to use computer-generated translations for your marketing message.
Most likely, your texts will look unprofessional and less than competent to native speakers if text is translated with the use of computer-aided translations.
2. Delegating translation work to bilingual people within your organization
This may be a slightly better option than the previously mentioned tool, given that the assigned person to do the translation has a good grasp of the language. Even then, there is no assurance that just any native speaker can do a satisfactory translation. This is so, because there is more to translation than just knowing the language, just like the fact that not just anyone who can speak English can be considered a good writer.
Some companies with bilingual people in their workforce opt to assign translation work to the said individuals, not taking into consideration that not everyone who speaks Spanish will make a good translator.
If you want to have Spanish texts that sound professional you will probably want to work with professional translators.
3. Hiring a professional translation service provider
While this is the most reliable method of translating text, you are still tasked to find the best professional translation provider. There are literally thousands of translation businesses that vary considerably in size and professionalism. Below are a few things to consider in choosing a translation provider.
• Is the translation service provider working with translators who are native speakers of the source language?
It is very crucial that you have professional translators who are native speakers of the languages they translate. This is so because only native speakers have a perfect feel for their language. Working with native speakers will ensure that your translations sound natural and culturally appropriate to your audiences.
• Is the translation service assigning a translator that specializes in your industry?
This is important because translating for a law firm requires different expertise than translating for a consumer electronics website. Thus, the technical background or field of expertise of the translator will also greatly contribute to the degree of success of the translation project.
• Is there a follow up customer service for your clients?
In addition to the above-mentioned, you may also want to put some thought into how to handle communications when your website visitors actually contact you with a question in Spanish either by e-mail or phone. If you already have in-house bilingual people who can answer the said calls and e-mails, then there’s no cause of worry. If you don’t, make sure your translation provider is able and willing to help you promptly when these things come up.