What is a bad translation?
And what are the consequences of a bad translation?
A bad translation does not sound good, communicates the same information, or contains spelling or other errors. Unfortunately, checking whether a translation is good or bad is not accessible if you do not know both languages well. The consequences of a bad translation are not pleasant at all.
“Pay now or pay later” is a good saying in the field of translation. Some put quality aside by prioritizing low costs, completely ignoring how much a bad translation can cost you. A poorly translated text can ultimately damage companies’ corporate image so hard to build and develop. And it could even affect sales negatively. And that’s to mention the milder cases.
People attracted to low-cost translations are not always aware that they may be sacrificing quality to pay a little less. Lower priced translations are often performed by inexperienced translators or those who prefer to collect more clients by translating in more languages (and may not know enough). Some companies even ditch human translators and replace them with various digital systems or tools, like Google Translate. These strategies can undoubtedly bring more harm than good.
Inexperienced translators and machine translation tools cannot give the text the cultural nuances that only a qualified translator can provide.
Poor quality of translated text can even impact the outcome of advertisements or digital marketing campaigns, as the ad’s ability to connect with the target audience is impaired.
No matter how fast technology advances, some things escape it, such as interpreting certain idiomatic or cultural subtleties, whether jokes, phrases, or puns, are most likely to get lost using machine translation tools.
That is one of the many reasons to choose translation agencies that consider the human factor, have native Spanish-speaking translators, etc.
If we choose to “save” some money, we will actually spend double (or more) because we will have to rehire the service again to get a job well done. So wouldn’t it be better to save ourselves that stress from the beginning?
What experiences do you have using machine translation tools?
We want to read them!