Translations Are Complicated
The next time you’re watching the next international flick on Netflix or some other streaming service, think about the effort to translate the original script to English subtitles: idioms must be understood (which is impossible at times), the intent of the message has to be clear, the tone must be consistent, and the resulting translations must not be too long to read. These constraints can quickly complicate translating one line of dialogue. While translations can be done with a click of a Google Translate button, the accuracy behind such actions can be devastating.
When Things Go Wrong
Take for example, the United States Dairy Association (USDA). Their slogan, “Got Milk” was extremely successful decades ago and really did get people to drink more milk for most of the US. In fact, those who have seen their ads have had plenty of celebrity milk mustaches burned into our brains! However, it had the opposite effect for the Spanish speaking demographic. The reasoning boiled down to a large blunder when translating “Got Milk” into Spanish. “¿Tienes Leche?” was the resulting translation, which roughly translates to “Are You Lactating?” This was seen as offensive not only to Spanish speakers, but also to women and people who knew of women having difficulties producing breast milk. The Spanish translation oversight was a bad look for the USDA and did some serious damage to milk sales. Even forgetting who your target audience is, as Marriot did in China, can be costly in hotel booking.
Knowing The Difference
Notice, even large brands can make these mistakes, costing them millions in lost sales and damaging their brand. Obviously, not every incorrect translation is as devastating as the USDA or Marriot example. A lot of the times, poor translations can cause a slight disconnect with your customer, which can lead to missed opportunities. Fortunately, poor translations can be easily fixed with the right human intervention. The USDA could have easily collaborated with a native Spanish speaker to prevent “¿Tienes Leche?” from being the Spanish slogan. As marketers, we can only guess as to why the USDA failed to take that extra step to run it through a focus group.
Today, we know that not every translation uses human translators. Instead, some opt for machine translations. Perhaps this was the reason why the USDA faced the issues that they did. For those who don’t know, machine translation uses probability to predict the most likely translation. It is extremely accurate when translating shorter sentences that do not require any context, saving a lot of time and effort for translations. The challenge, however, is when the context is key. You start uncovering “Are You Lactating” and other incorrect translations through machine translations. Natural language processing has advanced translations and can demonstrate accuracy for these more complex translations. In addition to context, when marketing and copywriting come into play, humans are very much needed to build a captivating human message, and may never be replaced.
Getting It Right
Revisiting our Netflix example, we can confidently say that human translations are the answer for movie subtitles. In fact, when we can get language right like Netflix does in 190 countries, we unlock a captivated audience who will not only listen to your message, but also pay for your services over and over again. Not many companies operate at the same language scale as Netflix, but you get the point.
Unsure of what to think? Reach out to Uplancer for more information. We can help you understand whether translations are right for you and to see if there are issues with your existing translations.
