Dear Martha,
The Risks and Rewards of Translated Communications
They say that communication is a two-way street, meaning that when all the messages are coming from one sender and nothing is being returned in the way of feedback, then no communication has taken place. But it is also true that no feedback is possible until someone unilaterally sends a message. Unless you speak first, no one knows that you want to communicate.
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What They Don't Know Can Hurt You -
That first step can be a little intimidating. Suppose you say the wrong thing. Suppose you are misunderstood. Suppose your message turns recipients away instead of turning them into listeners. These are the risks of reaching out. You may be rejected despite your best intentions. The landscape of Advertising and Public Relations is littered with the wreckage of communications gone awry. A mistranslated phrase turns out to mean something absolutely scatological instead of describing an important feature of your product. An important policy is interpreted to mean the opposite of what is intended. Customers are lost, human and financial resources are wasted, reputation is ruined.
But if you don't speak to them in their language, they don't know about your product and they won't buy it. If they don't know about the program you so carefully designed for them, they won't sign up. If they don't know about the new safety procedure they can't follow it. If they don't know how to read that important manual, they won't. If they don't know how to put it together the product won't work. If they don't know how to talk to you, they don't.
Business is about taking risks in order to overcome them and reap the reward for doing so. Which does not, of course, mean taking foolish risks, or risks for which the rewards are too small to be worth the chance that things may go wrong. A good business risk is one in which the downside can be protected against and the upside has lots of reward potential.
When you reach out to a foreign language market, or to employees who speak a foreign language, you can protect yourself against all the ills listed above simply by making sure that you have worked closely with a professional translation services provider - a company that utilizes professionally trained native-born speakers who are familiar not only with the target and source languages but also with their many cultural variations.
The upside is that you can increase the markets for your products and services, increase the commitment and productivity of your employees, and reap the rewards that come from overcoming that reluctance to be the first to speak. Come on, speak up! They are just waiting to hear from you.
See you soon.
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Hispanic Americans Online.
Almost 25 million by 2011.
See latest report from emarketer.
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About Us
Galindo Publicidad, Inc. (GPI), Specializes in translating English business-related materials into and from Spanish and Portuguese, while also providing translations in Arabic, German, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Creole, Russian and others.
Using its select network of native professionals, GPI guarantees linguistically accurate, reliable, and confidential translations performed with sensitivity and cultural respect.
Galindo Publicidad, Inc., winner of multiple awards, has been selected twice as a Florida 100 company by the University of Florida, a top honor recognizing rapidly growing, privately owned companies in the state of Florida.
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http://www.translationsandmore.com
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Martha E. Galindo
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