Belcart Translations |
By Hector D. Calabia English is so international and so widely spoken that often native speakers of English wonder if there is a real need for translating English documents, websites, or even advertising into other languages. Sometimes, this reluctance is compounded at the highest levels of corporate management. Executives are used to speaking in English, and being understood, wherever they go in the world. They send out letters, brochures and documentation in English, and apparently, they are perfectly well received at the other side, even in countries that speak languages very far removed from English. The answers they receive are sometimes written in faulty English, with flawed grammar or spelling, and on the phone the speakers may sound "funny", but that’s all. There is mutual understanding, and that’s what counts. This optimistic outlook, however, hides the true picture: there are billions of people who do not understand English at all, and there are hundreds of millions who understand it only partially. As the media business has known for decades, there is no substitute for speaking to people in their own language. Since the first decades of the 20th century, there has been a strong flow of media products flowing from the English speaking countries (the U.S. mainly) into most countries of the world: movies, magazines and TV programs. There would have been no way for their success other than having them properly translated and localized. Partial understanding is an even more serious problem, because it gives the appearance of understanding, but the real comprehension is flawed. This can be very disruptive for business. What can translators do that my bilingual secretary cannot? For normal, run-of-the-mill business transactions, a bilingual secretary will do. But most of the bilingual (or tri-lingual) assistants are not prepared to cope with the complexities and nuances of translating and localizing products and/or delicate contracts and business agreements. This is the realm of the specialist translator. In the same way that just any doctor cannot perform cardiovascular surgery, just a few bilinguals are equipped for translating delicate business transactions, manuals or advertising. The fact is that a professional translator is a dedicated expert. He or she is constantly investigating the most effective ways of conveying your meaning into a foreign language and culture. A translator is not a sort of living electronic dictionary. He is a specialist in intercultural communication. He does not translate words, he translates meaning, and he does so in the manner that is more culturally appropriate to the receiver. In this way, he serves in the best possible way both the original sender of the message (you) and the intended audience. But I can use an automatic translation software package, can’t I? Yes, you can. Only if you want to have a very rough idea of something written in another language. But no more. Machine translation (MT) has progressed enormously in the last few years, but it simply cannot be compared to a human translator. Just do an experiment: have any sentence in this article translated into any foreign language by an automatic translator, and then have the result translated back into English again. You see? You simply cannot trust an automatic translator. At the most, they are useful for gisting the meaning of foreign texts, but no more. For more details about this, read the article "By all means get a human translator!" on this website. "Translation is a process of cross-cultural communication that requires understanding the meaning and intent of the original in order to convey that message accurately and faithfully in the reader's language", says Kevin Hendzel, head of a translation bureau. "Business users of translation services who have reason to be concerned about their business image with current and potential customers in foreign markets should be cautioned on the limitations of translation software on the web lest their serious commercial messages become unintentional sources of humor." You cannot afford to save in translation, because you cannot afford losing business.
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