Bilingual employee or relative translate at your own risk

Have you ever turned to your bilingual employee or relative to provide a business translation for you? If the answer is yes, you could be making a huge and costly mistake.

You wouldn’t have your company’s tax returns prepared by business students to save money? Nor would you approve of medical students performing minor surgeries!

Our example:

A well-known St. Louis university received a grant from a technology company to create a language translation lab and employ graduate students to translate highly technical software. Not having any knowledge of the high-level technical background required, the graduate students were pulled from the project and AAA Translation stepped in and provided tailor-made translation & localization services.

It is important to know that there are vast differences between bilingual employees and translators and recognizing the difference between the two will help you avoid costly mistakes.

Professional translators are writers who produce texts that read as they were produced in the target language. Translators are fluent in their source language and are subject matter experts. They are above all effective bridges between the languages they work in; they can render the message of the original text, with appropriate style and terminology, in their native language.

The American Translators Association (ATA) gives this example of a marketing translation by a bilingual employee:

• Lina’s, a pricey French sandwich chain, advertised for franchisees abroad with a text concocted by a self-proclaimed bilingual employee.
• Slogan: “Tomorrow, we will expect on your dynamism.”
• Response: Zero.

Ultimately, the price of failing to produce quality translations is significantly higher than performing the translations appropriately at the onset. The best way to prevent costly translation errors is to have your documents translated by professional translators. This guarantees that documents are prepared properly and will be able to withstand thorough examination. Remember, while high-quality translation services can be more expensive, they are still far less expensive than translation errors that can literally cost you millions:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/48795/9-little-translation-mistakes-caused-big-problems

Client Testimonial: Just arrived in the office from the FESPA trade show in Germany.
The response to the banners your company interpreted for us was remarkable. Several individuals told me they were very good and accurate. One person asked if we had a partner in Germany, because they thought the German banner had been done by a local. Thank you AAA Tranlsation for the wonderful work your company provided - BBC Industries, Inc.