As previously noted, successful branding relies on consistently conveying the brand values, even when the brand is speaking a foreign language. A good translator will always go the extra mile to familiarise themselves with your company, your brand(s), your products and your services but translation buyers can help to ensure consistency in all company communications by providing various information and resources.
- Background information on the company and brand(s)
Information on the company’s structure, mission and values, including details of the brand values and the company’s USP, if possible. Organisational charts are particularly helpful if the texts to be translated involve a lot of job titles and the names of departments and divisions.
- Marketing materials and publications
Brochures, leaflets, advertisements, guides and other publications, including press releases, will help the translator to get a feel for the style and register of your marketing copy, as well as for the products and services that the publication is promoting or explaining. If these materials and publications have been translated, provide both the original version and the translated document for the translator’s reference.
- Corporate style guide or house style guide
If you have a corporate style guide, sometimes also known as a house style guide, for all your company publications and communications, be sure to give your translator a copy so that they can familiarise themselves with your style and layout conventions. If you have documents translated into a particular language or languages frequently, consider arranging for a style guide to be produced for these languages, which you can then give to all your translators working into them, helping to encourage consistency.
- Glossaries
Glossaries explaining company-specific, product-specific or technical terms aid comprehension of the document(s) you want to be translated and provide a useful basis on which the translator can compile their own multilingual glossaries to help them with each text that they translate for your company. Again, if you commission translations on a regular basis, consider having a multilingual glossary compiled and distribute it to all the translators that you work with.
- Terminology lists and databases
Bilingual or multilingual databases of company-specific terms and their translations will help to make sure that each term is translated using the same term in the target language, every time. Give the translator a copy of any term banks that you have in your terminology management system, e.g. MultiTerm, or any other terminology lists that are available.
Most importantly, to really be sure that you get a good quality, consistent translation, make sure that you are available to help the translator with any questions they may have regarding terminology, concepts, your products, your brand or your company.
Further reading:
Translation buyer’s checklist– how to brief your translator
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
A great piece of client education there, Serena! This post should be prescribed reading for all translation buyers.
Thanks, Tom. Translation is often somewhat unknown and daunting territory for translation buyers, especially those who are commissioning translations for the first time. I hope that some of the posts and comments on this blog will help to make things a little bit easier for all those involved in the translation process.