Sunny greetings, dear reader!
Today, in this mini post series for writers, I discuss what you need to consider when preparing content for translation.
Context is crucial for translation, as it ensures high-quality results.
What do I mean by context? For example, if you have content for a webpage, provide the URL to the original webpage so translators can understand where the content lives. If it’s a help article, share the URL to the original article. For a guide, share the URL or PDF of the original document. For UI string content, include screenshots and, if applicable, provide descriptive keys alongside the UI strings.
For instance, if you have a button and a title labeled “Buy,” using descriptive keys will clarify which string is the title and which is the button for the translator.1
Or if you only have a single word for translation, you need to provide context for where it will appear and how it’s used. Think of the word “date”. How would you interpret it without context? It can have many different meanings, such as the day of the month, a romantic appointment, the person with whom one has a romantic engagement, a fruit, or even a verb.
Context is incredibly important for translation. Without it, the translator is essentially working blindfolded, and the results can be questionable.
In addition, instruct translators on how to handle formats and metrics such as numbers, amounts, currencies, phone numbers, addresses, and names. Specify how to manage URLs or references to other sources like white papers or presentations, ensuring all references are accessible to the target audience. If a reference or URL content is only available in the original language but not in the translated one, you need to think of how you like to have those handled. Should these references be kept? Is an addition required in the translated content, such as “only available in Greek”? Let translators know if there are space constraints, inform them about character limits.
Prepare a glossary of key terms and have it translated beforehand. Ensure you have style guides for each language and provide relevant instructions for your content. If working with a vendor, they can assist in establishing a brand glossary and language-specific style guides.
Like I mentioned in my previous post, if you have icons, screenshots, and images, if they contain text or letters, prepare them as well to be translated. Imagery can be easily forgotten, but it makes a difference for your target audience if it is in their language as well. It makes it so much more user-friendly.
Set clear expectations. For legal content, enlist the expertise of legal translation professionals. For marketing content, expect transcreation2 to adapt your message effectively. For UI content, rely on experienced translators who can provide feedback on context issues and ensure compatibility with their language.
Let the translation agency or your translators know what this task includes: translation3, reviewing, proofreading, quality assurance, and/or DTP.
Also, never forget that languages have flavors, like French. There is French spoken in France and French in Canada. Similarly, there’s Spanish in Spain and Spanish in Mexico. These are different, so if you want to engage your audience effectively, choose the right flavor for your content.
Keep your files organized! With many files coming back from translation, it’s important to stay organized to avoid wasting time opening each file to identify the language. Add language codes to the files; translators or the translation agency can assist with this, often using their translation management system to automate the process.
If you have a voice-over project, ensure native speakers handle the recordings, not just someone who happens to speak the language.
As you can tell, localization and translation are complex processes that should ideally be handled by professionals.
That’s it for today. Next time, I’ll discuss what can happen after you hand your content over for translation.
Writers lost in translation series
- Translation and time planning
- Documentation life cycle and translation timing
- Preparing content for translation
- Things that can happen after translation kick-off and completing the translation project
- You will need two separate strings for “buy” in this case because in English it is the same word but in translation it might not be the same ↩︎
- Transcreation is the merger of the words “translation” and “creation” and it is the process of adapting a concept from one language and fully reimagining it in another ↩︎
- Setting expectations about what needs to be done: translation, localization or transcreation? ↩︎