Übelsetzung - Mistranslation awards...

The Mistranslation award for 2008 – how not to do it.

Well. I got this a while back; it was forwarded to me from my business partner Martina Müllner. Initially we both laughed. But soon we were not laughing any more as we come across similar translation errors on almost a daily basis.

Not only that, we often have to sit and ponder for quite some time to find out what an author, who may not be an English native but perhaps Dutch or Italian, wanted to say using English as their universal means of communication.

When I first started TWCA I wanted to make a point of the fact that I am not running a regular translation agency. This is because your standard translation agency will not spend all that much time on a project or get someone else to proofread the content. They might say they do but the reality is they don’t.

Also, I figured that if you have a website and you are looking to attract a certain customer from, say, the UK, you have to find a way of speaking that customer’s language. You have to look at the cultural background and online search behavior of the customer and at what he or she might find great about your business.

If you do not know which clients you are looking to attract and what kind of language they speak – what they are looking for when they use the search engines – then even very best translated version of your website will still not work.

It’s a rather simple principle and I have to remind myself on a daily basis not to forget about it:
If you do not know what is important to your customers and what are their base line criteria for each particular product they are offering, you will not be able to attract them to your website. More importantly, you will not be able to get them to commit to you and your products.

My business is web copy. Copy for SEO and online content. I find the right words for my clients in a number of different languages. But before I can go and write a single line I have to find out what is important to each client.
What you are looking to communicate with your website; what corporate identity you have created and which products are selling (as opposed to which products aren't selling).
If I don’t understand what a client is looking to express, looking to sell, or even what type of customer they are looking to attract, then the very best web copy will not work. It's as simple as that.

So, how not to do it: Do not expect someone else to be able to find the right words for you if you have not answered any of these questions for yourself. No matter what language.