Spanish Translations: Good enough?

Last Thursday at the “Business After Hours Grand Expo” I collected a few brochures from various booths. I was glad to see that many businesses provide information in English and in Spanish; unfortunately a few of these brochures were literal Spanish translations from their English information.

I say unfortunately for two main reasons: one, a couple of translations did not make sense. The message generated from these translations was not consistent in both languages. The majority of the translations were of good quality – meaning that if they would be translated back into English after being translated into Spanish we would find the same use of English words from the original document - but some failed to communicate the actual value of the business itself. Even the jargon was translated, which made it even worse.

Many people asked me that evening: “how can I communicate with Hispanics if I don’t speak Spanish?” Based on these brochures I can confidently say that communicating to Hispanics in Spanish may not be the key to success per se. A translator is not necessarily a marketer, and in order for translations to be successful the translator has to have a keen sense of the intended audience.

Businesses should think of “conversion” instead of “translation” when marketing to Hispanics. Even though conversion and translation might be used as synonyms, the subtle difference between them is worth knowing. Conversion focuses on the message while translation focuses on the actual words. Obviously, the message is much more important. The best thing would be to create the messages in Spanish from scratch to be sure that the totality of the message is being delivered not only correctly but also in a meaningful way.

This brings me to my second reason why literal translations from English to Spanish often come up short. No matter how good a translation is, the majority of the time it is evident that Spanish was not the original language of the message. From a psychological standpoint, the message sent is that Spanish-speakers were not the intended recipients for the products or services offered by a particular business. If it is evident that the content is a mere literal translation, the Hispanic consumer might not feel as valued and conclude that the message does not apply directly to them. It is important to understand that the Spanish language –as any other language- carries cultural values and experiences making it extremely important not to think of words just as “words.” To grasp this concept, ask yourself how you feel when someone reads you a sonnet from Shakespeare, versus how you feel when someone writes you a poem inspired specifically by you.