The hidden complexities of translation

​It’s easy to think that translation is a simple process - most people assume you just need to somewhat “know” the language and translate word for word and you’re all set.

Believe me, it’s not.

Picture this:

👉🏼 After months of careful planning, branding, positioning, refining your product and marketing strategy, your brand’s copy reads like it was written by a drunk robot using a dictionary (Yes, I’m looking at you, Google translate).
👉🏼 You write an email – the meaning might even somehow be there, but you missed the greetings, the tone, the email etiquette that are inherent to the target culture. The recipient thinks you might be a scammer, that you didn’t even take the time to write a proper email and ultimately, that you are rude (did you know Italians are super formal in their written communications?).
👉🏼You craft the perfect website to sell your product/service, but when translated, something is not quite right – the product wasn’t localized for this audience, the content is clearly not authentic, and you ruin your brand’s credibility and reputation.

As you can see, there’s a lot more than goes on behind the scenes, and this is setting aside all the complexities of different grammar, word order, different sentence structure, idioms etc. What might come off as a simple, merely linguistic and straightforward process is actually much more nuanced than that.

To be a professional, you not only need to have an excellent knowledge of BOTH source and target language - you need to have subject matter knowledge and other professional skills (marketing, computer, research skills, to name a few) that you need both time and money to obtain.
This is not something you achieve overnight, and this is not something you improvise.
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So, if you find your perfect translator hold them dear and remember to value their hard work!
...And if you still haven't found your perfect into-Italian translator and are looking for one... Make sure to contact me and we can talk.