5 reasons why bilingual staff shouldn’t do translations
For most companies, bilingual executives are a great asset, as they can conduct business in more than one language. However, there is one task that you should never ask them to perform and that is to do your translations for business purposes, such as translating your company information, business contracts, brochures, sales letters, newsletters, websites, or even advertisements.
Here are 5 reasons why your top bilingual executives shouldn’t be doing translations!
1 – They have better things to do than perform translation tasks.
Without a doubt, your employees are highly qualified professionals, otherwise they would not be part of your team. However, if they are bilingual, all too often they are asked to perform translation tasks for their own department and, worse, for other departments.
Without a doubt, the fact that they are bilingual is one of their assets and you should make the most of it, but their experience lies in another field, be it commercial, marketing, accounting, project management, advertising, HR, research or any other. assigned functions.
Let me ask you a question: “Would you ask your CFO to do your HR recruiting just because he’s good with people?” Well, this is the same with bilingual staff unless they are experienced, trained or qualified as translators; Let them shine in their area of expertise while using their language skills to their advantage in other circumstances, such as negotiating, presenting, leading projects abroad, etc.
2 – They are not professional translators
It may sound obvious but I will repeat it: they are not professional translators. There is a reason why it takes a minimum of 3 years of study and a couple of years of experience to be qualified to translate accurately. It takes even more time to become an expert in a specific field, such as medical, computer or legal translations.
Professional translators also use specific tools and a translation memory (similar to a glossary or dictionary but with their own input) to ensure consistency in the use of their company’s jargon and to ensure that all their material displays a writing style. coherent. Translators are up-to-date with the latest language changes, such as new additions to official dictionaries or grammatical changes published by language authorities.
Often professional translators can also format your documents after translation (also called DTP – or desktop publishing) so that they are ready for final use, whether for printing, for your PowerPoint presentation or for uploading to your website.
3 – It is not because you master a foreign language that you can accurately translate into that language.
Perhaps you master or even reach a near-native level in a language that is not your mother tongue, but that does not mean that you will know how to accurately translate words and expressions in that language, even if you fully understand their meaning and use. . Your employee may have become fluent in a couple of languages, but informally and without constant reference to their own language.
For example, they may have learned the meaning in that language by looking at the definitions and meanings of words rather than their translations. And this does not make them capable of translating these languages into their mother tongue to the level of a professional translator who has been trained and is continually dissecting and reviewing the meaning and the various possible translations of any word.
4 – Native speakers are capable of transmitting the subtleties of a language.
Translating is also conveying subtleties of words and thoughts, adapting the text to perfectly match the original document, and most importantly, adapting it to your cultural and technical environment. Professional translators always translate into their mother tongue and, in a way, are the guardians of their language; They spend their time studying, researching and keeping up with its evolution.
As you know, there are many variations in the English language depending on whether you are from the US, UK or any other English speaking country, and the same goes for Spanish (US, Spain and Latin American countries) , French (France, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, etc.), Portuguese (Brazil, Portugal). Professional translators can partner with other linguists around the world, as proofreaders, to ensure that translations have the right feel and sound for the desired country or region.
5 – Your bilingual staff to save time will certainly be tempted to use free online translation tools.
Let me ask you another question: “Would you use a free online recruiting tool instead of your dedicated HR team to select and hire new staff without interviewing them?”
Machine translation and free translation tools have their purposes, but they should be used wisely, otherwise you are likely to make some translation mistakes. Like this:
Russian prisoners at Lincoln Prison in England were given a pamphlet informing them about the prison facilities, including an “execution yard.” They were almost certainly relieved to learn that “execution yard” was actually a poor English to Russian translation of “exercise yard.”
A human translator would have picked it up right away!
You wouldn’t want your company to be mentioned in the news for bad translation, would you? Bad translations could result in the loss of a contract with a foreign supplier or worse, the loss of a customer!
These 5 points highlight some of the reasons why you should not ask your bilingual staff to translate your communication pieces or any other official documents. But more importantly, consider the risks you are taking by asking your bilingual staff to perform a task they are not necessarily qualified for rather than using professional translators. You can see that in the end this is counterproductive and you are putting your company’s reputation and growth at risk for pseudo cost savings. Therefore, be sure to always hire professional translators to meet your language needs and make the most of your bilingual staff in your business operations.