Machine translation is increasingly employed at companies for internal communication and to help employees understand incoming messages and documents. Using machine translation services such as Deepl can save time and money, but the texts they generate are not accurate enough in terms of intended meaning or emotional impact for marketing purposes or other critical communication. While a full translation will still give you the best results, having your machine-translated texts checked by an expert is relatively inexpensive and makes a world of difference.
For potential customers your website, blog posts, user manuals and marketing campaign messages provide an insight into the heart and soul of your company. Make sure that these texts are aligned with your mission and meet your own high standards.
I have had the pleasure of editing and translating well over a thousand documents for around 50 companies, from renowned multinational corporations to local service providers in a wide range of sectors, including automotive, IT, engineering, insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
At the end of last year, I launched my Deepl plus Editing service, which has grown in popularity as Deepl has been adopted by more companies and communication issues have arisen. I deal with these issues on a daily basis. Apart from choosing incorrect vocabulary for the context, one of areas where machine-translated texts perform poorly is when using words that imply a negative or positive attitude towards a topic. Another is setting the level of emotion that should be conveyed. For instance, in English we don’t “incur” something positive. While “repercussion” and “impact” may carry the same basic meaning, one is always negative while the other is not necessarily. Such connotations are embedded in the meaning of the word. The tendency with machine-translated texts is to revert to the more neutral option. This leaves texts sounding dry and emotionless, exactly what you are trying to avoid in your marketing communication.
So the job of editing machine-translated texts is not simply to search for obvious errors, but also to bring the message to life by adding color and shades of meaning. As machine translation becomes more pervasive, this is sure to becoming a point of differentiation between companies and the reason why some succeed in reaching their target audiences, while others fall short.
What a company needs, is a long-lasting relationship with an experienced, trusted editor who takes time to get to know the company’s culture and objectives. If you are interested in finding out how this could work for your company, please get in touch with me.