Lovely brochure or website, great design, photography, spot-varnish, paper... but just read that English! It's often comical - unintentionally so. Why? Because there's no one at the top of the decision-making process that knows what good looks like. Yes, everyone can tell that's great design, photography and printing - but unless you're a native speaker of English*, you don't know whether what's been written in English will resonate in the intended way with the target audience.
A fellow London-born Pole, working in a state-owned institution, was upset by the poor quality of English-language output, aimed at businesses around the world. She took this up with Pani Prezes herself, who told her that "sprawdzone było przez tłumacza przysięgłego" (it was checked by a sworn translator). One could scream and tear out one's hair. That's ass-coveringly bad. Should anyone ever challenge her as to why the English was so poor, there will always be a piece of paper with which to protect yourself - your sworn translator's diploma. But that's not the point...
Another fellow London-born Pole runs a language school and was once asked by a producer of building materials to proof-read a short (around 40 words) text that was to go on an full-page advert destined for the outside back cover of a leading UK weekly magazine for the building trade. The cost of the year-long ad campaign would have run into the low hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yet the text was atrocious. Yes, it would have been memorable - but for the wrong reason. When my friend told the producer how much he wanted to get the slogan right, he was laughed at. "A hundred euro for a few sentences?" Yet the cost of not spending that money would have been vast in terms of reputation and lost opportunity. In the end, the producer saw the light and coughed up.
Very often it's a budget thing - translator A is cheaper than translator B. But it's not about translation - it's about transcreation. Taking things apart, getting at the core message, and rebuilding it in a manner that's familiar to your reader. Familiar means trustworthy and therefore persuasive. To do that, you need to know your readers, know the conventions and patterns of language to which they are familiar. This means immersion in that language for decades, if not since childhood.
Below: can you see the difference? If not, you don't know what good looks like, and you need to bring in a native-speaking copy editor.
You need to know how to be creative with the language - knowing the plays-on-words that will strike a chord. Knowing how to break rules for effect. Often a neat Polish phrase carries no meaning when translated literally into English - yet that's exactly what a sworn translator is paid to do - all well and good in a court of law, but not so clever in the context of marketing and advertising.
How many people in Poland are native speakers of Polish? Over 38 million. How many of those 38 million are professional copywriters or copy editors? Several thousand at best. Maybe 0.02% of the population. Now, how many native speakers of English are there in Poland. Ten thousand? How many of those are professional writers (ie. make a living by stringing together sentences in English?) A tiny handful - and most of those are gainfully employed in high-paying gigs.
* Yes, there are some outstanding Polish writers in English in Poland, who are not natives but who have have spent years studying English and applied linguistics and have working professionally for decades - and can do the job well. But again, we are in the realms of hundreds rather than tens of thousands in the whole of Poland.
There would be a gap in the market if only Pan or Pani Prezes knew what good looked like. Then, they'd be prepared to pay a price that reflects the value that decent copywriting and copy-editing in a foreign language delivers.
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9 comments:
The left is the more familiar to a "native Briton" or maybe an Indian or Pakistani - who are the innovators of the English language around the world.
And yes I know this goes against the familiar required of translation and translators.
Sometimes I found my prose was full of Polonisms due to being immersed in the characters.
I agree 100%. One does scream and tear out one's hair over this. It is a false economy in Poland and it is high time to follow the example of Germany and Scandinavia. The norm should be for translators to translate into their first language, however well qualified they may be in another language. Alternatively they should work in close co-operation with a native speaker. It is not enough to pass a translation on to a native speaker for "proof-reading," as the corrections usually need to be made at the syntactic level, which usually means substantial rewriting and is a far cry from the isolated correction of typographical errors.
The sworn translators are often useless even when transating legal documents. It's all abot context and familiarity and not having passed some exam. Actually worse than useless as I have seen instances where the meaning has been turned through 180 degrees.
And Michał will remember the hilarious translations on packaged Italian food imported into the UK.
I have a simple rule, get a native speaker and then a representative of the target audience to check.
Lastly year ago I checked the English homework of the then 12 year old son of a cousin. Poor lad got a trója as the teachers grasp of English as she is spoke was non existent.
A Czech friend recently gave me an attractive printed booklet about the history of his local area. The English was excellent because, as my friend proudly told me, a native speaker living out there had been employed to help. There is hope...
This is absolutely spot on.
True but ... As a Pole who spent 10 years proofreading in the lower circles of hell at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young, and another 16 teaching, ghostwriting speeches, proofreading and translating for same and others of their ilk, I have learnt to regard my craft with a bit more distance. According to your post, I shouldn’t be doing it - I’m not English, I’m a fraud. But they pay, I have to eat, so I do. I always wonder how much longer I’ll be able to string it out - 13 years before I hang up my hat!
Does it actually matter how good is good? The examples you cite are marketing language or ... dross, to most people. When is the last time you bought something on the quality of the marketing language alone or boycotted a purchase because the marketing language was not up to scratch? 99 per cent of the times you bin marketing messages mentally the moment you clap your eyes on them. Where the translation matters is where, on its strength alone, you have to decide, for example, which end first to insert a tube into a patient. Even so, our tolerance threshold for reading is very low today. Everyone is tired of reading. There is too much to read. If I can’t work something out by trial and error within, say, 1min, I ditch it. It’s not worth the read.
Second, genuine business is pragmatic. Funny translations are fit for the News Quiz on Radio 4 - and how we laugh! But few people will stand on ceremony if they have to choose between price and presentation. Business pragmatism entails intellectual generosity and humility - you goof up today, I goof up tomorrow.
Third, in my practice I have seen business people mangle the language of the deal most horribly. And yet, money changed hands and both sides beamed, while I stood by, trouser pockets turned inside out, passing judgment. People get by because they cooperate. Cooperation, not competition, drives communication. Propagandists, consultants and communication theory experts bamboozle us into thinking of communication as taking place in plush offices, between smartly dressed men and women with good teeth using modern gizmos. History will not record, I suppose, the heroic translation efforts of thousands of traders at the open air market, now mostly defunct, down where the National Stadium is today, but the fact that it lasted for so long and was so popular is in no small measure due to the translation skills of the multilingual multitudes, acquired on the hoof. I bet there were plenty of goofs, but did they matter?
At the end of the day, you have that cup of coffee and I have my dollar, and I need your coffee more than I need my dollar, while you need my dollar more than ...
@Jacek Koba
Jacek - I wrote this sentence with you (and about two other people) in mind: "Yes, there are some outstanding Polish writers in English in Poland, who are not natives but who have studied English and linguistics and have immersed themselves for decades - and can do the job well."
I'm thinking less of corporates here than of Poland; this post was triggered by some piss-poor stuff coming out of PAIH which, when read by the native-English target audience, leaves them with a worse impression of Poland than they had when they began reading it. (Just have a look at the PAIH website and compare it to that of CzechInvest, SARIO or the Vilnius inward-investment agency).
Marketing language does matter. It either makes the grade or it doesn't; the stuff that doesn't is the iceberg under the surface, no one notices it. The stuff at eye level or above is what counts. Persuasive language - that's the goal.
I'm so glad to see a native speaker of English express their appreciation for Jacek Koba's linguistic skills. Reading Tip of the Week made me curious about its author so I googled and found this blog and now I'm even more impressed having learnt the author is a non-native speaker of English.
I'm in two minds about the quality of translation vs first impressions.
I totally agree with the comments about the PAIH website - at this level the quality of translation should be perfect. On the other hand, perhaps perfection, if at all, is for perfectionists only?
@konstancja
The aim is not perfection, but familiarity and clarity, on that basis you can build a relationship with the reader based on trust. Your writing can only then become persuasive.
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