In the early days, your business dreams may only extend as far as hiring on some staff or landing that dream client. Anything beyond that feels too much like a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. What if the unimaginable happens and your business actually takes off.
As you scale up and then expand in your home country, you may find opportunities to expand abroad as well. Of course, expanding abroad also means translating every business document that will face a customer or foreign partner. So, how do you go about translating those documents in a way that won’t leave those customers and partners scratching their heads?
Keep reading for six tips on effective business document translations.
Table of Contents
1. Write with Translation in Mind
If you know or even strongly suspect that you will expand into a foreign market, you can do yourself a favor early on. Writing with translation in mind.
Keeping your writing simple and straightforward with important documents. Skip things like metaphors, which almost never translate.
2. Research Your Target Market
You likely did a lot of research for your target market in your home country. You need to do just as much research for a foreign target market, if not more. Needs and wants don’t always transfer from culture to culture.
You also need to get a feel for the cultural norms, so you don’t inadvertently offend people.
3. Find an Agency
Yes, there is translation software out there. No, you don’t want it writing the copy for your website and brochure. Automated translating often comes across as stilted and errors are common.
An agency will use human translators who possess at least professional working fluency and, ideally, native proficiency. That means you’ll get translation services that provide results that read like a person wrote them.
4. Find a Translator
If you don’t mind shelling out for it, you can hire a translator yourself. Of course, you should opt for people who have native or near-native proficiency.
5. Test
You should test the quality of a translator or agency. Have them translate a small document as a trial run. Then, show the translation to someone you know is bilingual with the target language.
If they sign off, you’re probably in good hands.
6. Special Cases – Legal Documents
Legal documents are a special case since many terms have specific and special meanings. You’ll want translation companies or a translator who specializes in legal documents for contracts and similar documents.
Ideally, you’ll find one who provides on-site translation services. Having them on-site enhances privacy and security.
Translating Business Documents
Expanding into foreign markets isn’t just about throwing up a website and arranging for shipping options. You need all of your business documents from contracts to web copy translated. The good news is that there are steps you can take to get effective translations.
Research your target market. Work with professional translators, either through an agency or that you hire directly. Write for future translation.
Do a test project and ask someone fluent to read the results.
Looking for more tips to help you manage business expansions? Check out the posts in our Business section.
