When do I need a translation?

The answer to this question is more complicated than you might think. The need for translations come up all the time in business, especially those operating internationally, but the reasons to need a translation can be quite varied. 

You need a translation of marketing materials

This is the first and most common category for translations. All businesses operating internationally will need some kind of web-presence that is capable of appealing to multiple different markets, through various different languages. This could include blogs, websites, adverts, pricelists as well as social media ad campaigns and so forth. It goes without saying that translations for materials of this type must be of the highest standards and totally flawless. Not only that but they have to express a high degree of understanding of native phrasing and expression to avoid any awkwardness when it comes to promoting and selling in foreign markets. Certain wordings and slogans that might work in one place might be either clunky or even sound slightly ridiculous without a good professional translator writing in their native language. So in some cases, for example large international corporations doing business across the globe, this one element can represent extensive amounts of work.

Translating legal contracts

Here is another area which frequently comes up. There are all manner of circumstances where you might need a translation in legal areas, for instance in the above case of  businesses that promote their goods or services on an international basis. Legal contracts are likely to pop up all over the place, related to wholesale and distribution deals, government licences and so forth. But there are other areas such as collaborations with foreign companies or individuals, sub-contracting and licensing deals for merchandise, use of brands and logos etc. All of these can require contracts, which potentially could be in any one of dozens of languages, not just English.

So contracts will certainly require translations, if only for the purpose of  understanding the content and all the fine print. It can easily be seen that this is one of the more vital and sensitive areas of translations. Legal contracts are inevitably written in ‘legalese’, which is oddly consistent in a lot of languages. The words and their meanings are written according to a certain style and formula, and can be fairly weighty in terms of consequences. This is why we have certified translators of legal documents who are able to officially sign for their veracity. These translations are often used simply so that all parties know and understand what they are signing, not necessarily as an original document in its own right.

Day to day translations

Under this category might fall translations of emails, minutes of meetings or any other documents that come up on a day-to-day basis and would be needed simply to process and understand information quickly. This can of course be highly important, especially in some collaboration with a foreign business partner, or perhaps a client during the process of a large sale. Here again, highly levels of comprehension are required, but translations can usually be done much more rapidly since the objective is that the material be merely understood and is not actually being published.

Translating technical manuals

Here is another area that comes up again and again. We have all seen user manuals translated into umpteen different  languages for customers all over the world, usually all contained within the same manual.

BigTranslation services

Here at BigTranslation we are specialists and highly experienced in all of the above areas of corporate translations and we pride ourselves in the highest quality, even under tight time restraints. So if you are looking for a comprehensive corporate translations service for any and all of the topics covered here, don’t hesitate to get in touch.