How translation services will help avoid translation fails
Whether you love or hate translation fails, whether you get offended or not one thing for sure is that they can be hilarious! But a translation fail is not a victimless act. Businesses that make these accidental translation errors will tell you this is no laughing matter, further proving why translation services from a professional translation agency is imperative to your business when either setting up operations in foreign markets or when trying to reach out to a specific community with language differences in your current geographical region. Any business worth its salt will tell you the same thing; leave the specialised subjects to the specialists! Here are 3 of the best reasons not to skimp on the cost for translations.
Could be costly
Sometimes you have to spend money to make money or at the very least make progress and when it comes to translations, getting it wrong could be a very costly mistake as chocolate makers Milka found out. Milka’s Oreo chocolate bar label had an ingredient “chocolate liquor” which is a cocoa paste, translated separately into “chocolate and alcohol” in Arabic in Dubai where although you can purchase alcohol it is considered haram (forbidden) in Islam. Although no alcohol was found in the product, Milka had to recall all of the bars which were sent out with this error. Financial translation = Ouch!
Negative brand image
As well as potentially having a detrimental effect on your businesses finances, making an error when translating into another language could affect the credibility of your business which could in theory cause current or potential clients and customers to lose faith in your brand. Also with the importance of social media in today’s society magnifying every aspect of life, a translation fail could also see a business labelled a laughing stock that without a big budget PR system could be hard to rectify. So please if you are a retail business please seek professional retail translation services.
Avoiding offence
Making an inaccurate translation due to poor translation services or more commonly machine translations could have more than a negative financial or marketing effect for a business. One little mistake could end up being something that causes offence which results in a business being blacklisted or boycotted by an entire community and sometimes a whole nation. To avoid this it is advised to seek localisation services to help even further adapt your operations to suit the needs and customs in a foreign market.
