Today’s business culture is becoming more and more of a global playing field. It’s important to know and understand how to make your business viable in the global community. Whether you want to introduce a product in a new region or open a satellite office abroad, you will want to consider producing literature and collateral in the language native to that region.

At first glance, translations may sound like a simple concept (everyone has heard of the free translation sites on the internet, right?). If you dig a little deeper, however, you will find that much more goes into translating a piece of literature than matching and replacing word-for-word. There are many levels to what is most commonly referred to as “translation”.  The level of service you require depends on your specific needs:

-       Basic Translation is similar to what you would find on the free internet sites — word-for-word representations of your native language text. This is most useful when handling instruction manuals or directions where the exact message of the original piece needs to be carried over into the translation.

-       In Localization, the language, and even subtle nuances, are interpreted and “localized” to make sense for the target market. While it’s not a word-for-word representation, localization focuses on transferring the original meaning into the new language. For example, take the phrase “If you dig a little deeper”. It is quite possible that this English expression may not make any sense when converted to another language. Localization would translate this to the target text and maintain the basic meaning.

-       Internationalization deals with more of the technical end of things. If you are creating a website that you eventually plan to launch in a second language, you will need to make sure that your scripts and codes, as well as your basic layout, can accommodate the additional space some languages require. Similar to printed materials, it’s important to structure your original projects knowing that you may at some time need additional space. It makes sense at this level to review your original document and possibly rewrite or remove any idioms or expressions that are English-specific (or American-specific). This will relieve the burden of having the meanings of these translated incorrectly later on.

-       Globalization is the catch-all term that encompasses the first three definitions above. For a true globalization process, one needs to not only be fluent in the target language, but adequately familiar with the culture in which that language is spoken to be sure it translates clearly and succinctly to the entire target audience.

While international projects aren’t always as clear-cut as you would hope, the benefits of spreading your message to a wider audience is well worth the effort.  It’s important to research and choose the right translation partner for your specific projects. Be sure to find out what type of clients they have worked for in the past (retail, industrial, manufacturing, etc.) and ask for samples that you can share with your international colleagues. Often times, translation companies will do a test on a small sample of your own material to give you an idea of their process, quality, and timelines.