Creativity is at the heart of the creative translation process. In this article, we will discuss simple ways to translate creatively and improve quality in your creative translation workflow.
Tips for Successful Creative Translation
Understand the purpose of creative translation
Creative translation is about recreating emotional impact and satisfying content goals from one language to another. Creative translation is not only about converting languages, but also about conveying meaning. This means that we need to reach the new piece of content created for the target market.
When creatively translating a piece of content, a process must be followed. Content creation always has a goal, whether it's a thought-provoking goal or part of a marketing campaign to promote a new product.
Similarly, creative translation has a purpose in the local market, which can be anything from increasing brand awareness or generating new sales. Once the purpose of the creatively translated content has been determined, the next step is to find the right competencies.
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Appropriate creative translation competence
The creative translation process requires more dedication than translation. Consider the level of collaboration required to create source copy, do market research, understand consumer needs, the purpose of the message, and the communication goals of the content.
While creative translators don't necessarily need to start from a blank page (with no experience), they still need to understand everything including the target market, audience, and purpose of the content. They then need to take that information and apply what they know about the local culture, language, publication medium, and content goals to ensure the desired message is communicated.
The creative translator stands between two worlds, the linguistic world of translation and the creative world of text editing. Both represent different skills, but these three are perhaps the most important to look for in a creative translator:
Creative writing skills
Content is often published with specific criteria. These can help improve your online presence with search engine optimization, increase sales with advertising, or build a brand community on social media. Good copywriters have experience writing for these goals, which means they often make great creative translators. They know how to create purposeful local copy and can also follow limited layout or media while their readers are their primary concern.
Cultural understanding
The text has a clear purpose that the target audience can understand. Creative translators need deep cultural and linguistic experience in all languages so they can identify and translate the nuances of the source to the target – whether they are working with financial reports. details or creative digital marketing campaigns.
Research skills
A skill common to both translators and copywriters is research, which should never be underestimated. Knowledge of the target audience, market, competitors and a thorough understanding of what needs to be achieved are central to the success of the creative translation process.
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Measuring Creative Translation Quality
Creative translators may have roots and they have the flexibility to move from there, but without clear instructions on what to do, they can easily fall into awkward situations.
Like creating content in the first place, you should consider why the content was created in the first place and why it needs to be creatively translated, who will read it, and what should local readers do? Once it's all in place, you can put together metrics to help you measure the quality of your creative translation. These may include some of the following:
Create a creative translation summary
A summary of the creative translation process explaining the brand's values and how the product or brand should be perceived locally will help translators understand what they need to do to meet their communication goals. in the local market. For example, marketing materials for an established product in one market may require a different approach to penetrate another. Without this guide, translators would have no choice but to do what they have. If they only have the source, chances are the end result will be more like a translation or won't convince local readers.
Summarizing the creative translation process is key to defining quality principles, but it requires open collaboration between project managers and translators to have an impact. For translation buyers, the general process is to submit the source, possibly answer a few questions, and receive a complete translation. In contrast, the creative translation process is a combination of creativity and translation that often requires collaborative feedback from the client before the text is ready for publication.
Check before publishing
Most translated copies can be quality checked prior to publication using readability measurement tools. This can be as simple as using the proofing tools in Microsoft Office to check readability or using a passive sentence. If the translated copy is for online use, you should review the content to make sure it follows Google's best practices for local SEO.
Post-Publishing Supervision
Post-publish measurement requires collaboration and depends on the marketing objective of the content, whether it's to drive leads, drive customer engagement, brand awareness, and so on. brand or increase conversions and sales. In an ideal scenario, creative translation should be checked before publication, then validated and adjusted after publication based on content target metrics for each market.
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Start translating creatively
The overall success of the creative translation process all stems from the communication strategy for the targeted languages and cultures and the content to be achieved. Once defined, this provides a solid foundation for the creative translation process to produce local copies. They know what they need to achieve and they use their language skills, cultural understanding and research to make it happen.
When you're ready to start converting, you'll need an expert partner to help you capture the linguistic and cultural nuances of content in your target market. At translation Idichthuat, we've spent 20 years using innovative translation to help businesses connect with their customers globally. Contact us today to discuss how our conversion services can help you achieve global success.
Nguyen Trung Khang - Talented interpreter and translator, passionate about translation
Nguyen Trung Khang is a talented interpreter and translator, with many years of experience in the field of translation and linguistics. He graduated from Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, majoring in Linguistics in 2015.
After graduating, Mr. Khang participated in a professional interpretation and interpretation training course at the University of Foreign Languages - Hanoi National University. He achieved a high-level certificate in interpreting and interpreting, and was also awarded a master's degree in linguistics.