A reader asks: I come across lots of bad translations in my language pairs. How can I use these to pitch my freelance services to new clients without sounding like a hyper-critical tattletale?
This is a regular topic of conversation among translators who work with direct clients, and bad translations can be a great marketing tool if you handle them correctly. Let’s say you come across a slick website, one that indicates that the company or government department has put a lot of time and money into its marketing efforts, but where the translation falls short. There are no shortage of these; in French to English, I recently came across the official site of the Paris Vélib program (“Bikes conceived and improved for your safety and your comfort!”) and the Montreux Jazz Festival (“an ideal platform and an intimate setting for the duration of its two weeks…”) as examples of great programs with great websites and not-great translations. Chris Durban regularly sends me examples of consumer enterprises in France that need better translations. So, there’s no shortage of material out there.
The key here is a three-step process. Before beginning, you have to expunge the “hyper-critical tattletale” part of your personality. If you’re like most translators, you regularly engage in behaviors like refusing to order misspelled items on restaurant menus, because won’t condone that type of behavior. I personally avoid the express lanes at my neighborhood supermarket, as a silent act of protest against their signs that read “15 items or less” instead of “15 items or fewer.” So, first have your judgmental moment, then move on to constructive marketing.
Step 1: Compliment the effort, maybe like this: “Very few U.S. museums attempt to reach out to the non-English speaking public, and I really admire your willingness to do that.” “During a recent trip to Paris, I was impressed by your efforts to create a multilingual rental system for your bike fleet.” “Your recent press release caught my eye; congratulations on your efforts to invite international exhibitors to your trade fair.”
Step 2: Provide a carefully-worded reality check. When I’m writing these kinds of pitches, I try to keep in mind that a) the person I’m writing to may be the author of the bad translation, and b) the person I’m writing to may have no clue that the translation is bad. So, maybe something like this: “As a professional translator, I know how challenging it can be to get a multilingual website right. I noticed that your site’s current English version has some translation glitches, and therefore doesn’t convey the same impression of your film festival that the Italian version does,” or “You’ve clearly put a great deal of effort into the graphic design and French text for your wine labels; as a professional translator, I’d love to help you bring that same quality to the English version,” or “Your slogan is the first thing that people notice about your company, and I’d love to help you create a German slogan that better reflects your mission and values.”
Step 3: Give them a little something for free. I’ve heard this referred to as “the free sample approach,” “the taste my truffles approach,” the get them hooked on you approach,”…you get the picture! Like this: “As an example of what professional translation services could do for you, I’ve taken the liberty of re-translating your home page, and I’m including it here for your perusal.” Or, “I’ve included three Portuguese slogans that better convey the spirit of your music festival. Feel free to run them by your Portuguese-speaking colleagues to get their take,” or “As a professional translator specializing in your industry, I’ve re-translated your press release using more consistent technical terminology. Feel free to take a look and let me know if this approach might help you in the future.”
Then of course, you wait, and then you follow up. You accept that the person on the receiving end of your pitch might know that the translations are sub-par and might not care, that the person might not “get” why good translations are important, or might have absolutely no budget with which to do better. For what it’s worth, I’ve received all three of those responses to pitches that I’ve sent to potential clients. However, you also have a chance to improve your pitch every time, and you have a good chance of landing a good direct client who really appreciates your work.
Readers, any tips or illustrative examples on this topic?
Spot on!
Great, thank you!
Love this post! I recently used a bad (machine) translation as a marketing tool: I sent the client a table with three columns: an excerpt of the original, carefully crafted English version, their current German “translation” (Google translate plugin I believe) and what I would consider a proper German translation. The client was actually delighted and has since placed several orders with me. 🙂 It definitely pays off to provide some value for free before asking for anything!
Thanks Moira! The three-column table is a great idea!
Agreed. 🙂
Brilliant post and fantastic tips!
Worthwhile thoughts! (And a good follow-up example, Moira.)
Excellent tips that I will definitely refer to. I’ve come up against this type of situation recently and was wondering what would be the best approach! Thanks, Corinne. I also let an agency that I work for know that one of their client’s websites could use some fresh English air blown into it as the wording was choppy and difficult. They really appreciated it!
I really enjoy the tips on taking a diplomatic tone. When I was newbie this was my main tactic for gaining experience. I contacted hotel websites and offered to fix their bad translations. Now I still occasionally write to websites, but, perhaps in relationship to the time I put into crafting my critique, I don’t get much response. Next time, I’ll try out your tone!
Hi Corinne,
I loved your post and I must say it’s one of the most useful posts I’ve read recently. My approach is similar to yours and it really makes a difference when you market your services this way.
Really good post and great tips! I will make the most of them in my next pitch and let you know if they worked 🙂
Thanks for giving such practical advice. This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for years but shied away from for two main reasons. You’ve dealt with one of them in your article.
The other is that although I am confident about my ability to produce a far better translation than the ones I see, I know that my written Portuguese (I translate from Portuguese to English) is not 100% perfect and therefore not acceptable for such an approach. Given that the companies I would like to approach are Portuguese, how acceptable do you think it is to write to them in English to offer my services?
I can’t afford to have someone proofread all my correspondence in Portuguese although I am thinking of having a page of my website explaining exactly this kind of service in Portuguese, which I will pay to have checked properly. Do you think it would work if I emailed in English along the lines that you suggest in your article and add a link to the Portuguese webpage that has an explanation of the importance of decent translation and examples of the difference I could make?
Julie, thanks for your question. I do think it would be a good investment to have a Portuguese translator (native PT speaker) write a cover letter/cover e-mail for you that you could tailor to the potential client you’re approaching. That would strike me a as a very good marketing investment, and not necessarily outrageously expensive. It depends on the target culture, but I would not contact the prospective clients in English unless you are sure that they are fluent English speakers; otherwise I think that you’re defeating part of your purpose, which is to make them comfortable communicating with you. Let me know how it goes!!
Thanks for confirming what I was thinking. I don’t think it’s a good idea to contact them in English but I need to sound professional. Perhaps I could ask for a standard letter with some mix and match phrases I can use according to the situation. I also like Andie’s idea of pairing up with a native Portuguese speaker.
Julie, I have the same issue as you. I am thinking of partnering with someone in my language pair but the opposite direction so that we could translate correspondence for each other.
Andie, I think that’s the perfect solution: find a translator who does the opposite language direction from you and who is also actively marketing to direct clients, then trade editing services.
Andie, I think that’s a great idea, as long as you can find someone who’s reliable and will be able to check correspondence quickly enough. I have a couple of people in mind so I’ll see how it goes. Good luck!
Corinne, thank you so much for this real lesson on business diplomacy, you are the best!
As I was reading the string of comments, I could relate to Julie’s issue; then I thought about suggesting her to exchange editing with a colleague who translates on the other direction, as Andie ended up saying.
Julie, as you have may noticed, English is my second language, so what I do is, I ask my husband to edit my texts in English, but he is not always available. If your target language is Br-Por, how would you like to try partner for editing?
Hi Corrine,
Great article, as per usual. I can see good things coming from this type of tactic. Think about 20 years from now, more websites will have higher quality translations, which will lead to less language barriers. The way I see it, this tactic will benefit everyone in the long term.
Corrine, thank you for this article, and generally for a great blog! This is something I’ve also often wondered about as I come across many, many examples of this in my combination (German to English). I’ve often thought about pitching along these lines but haven’t ever done so as I could never decide on a tactful way to go about it. However, I’ll definitely bear your tips in mind for future use!
Thanks for this Corinne. I think your respectful approach is absolutely right, because it’s tricky to try and form a business relationship by starting to point out a flaw in a potential client’s way of doing things. I recently contacted a prospect whose translation leaves a lot to be desired, but I completely chickened out and didn’t mention the problems I’d noticed, because I just couldn’t find the right tone. I wish I’d read your post before. No answer as yet 🙂
Génial! I have used a similar approach… and landed a big contract. Sometimes it pays to go out of our way. Thank you for writing this. From a Canadian, Eng-Fr translator and copy editor. 🙂
I honestly do not think this is worth the time investment on unqualified leads. Personally, I would get my foot in the door with a qualified lead (get introduced, follow up after meeting someone at an event, etc.), get in for an initial meeting, and THEN do this kind of pitch, either directly to the person or by getting the person you’ve met to pass it (the “corrected” translation and your rationale) up to a C-level. I have tried this on fairly unqualified leads, and I don’t think you can expect any better return than you would mass-mailing a brochure. So, if you are going to spend the time to choose your targets wisely, then spend a little extra time working your network to get a personal introduction before going any further…
I also dislike the sign at the express check-out lane. The “less” vs. “fewer” distinction is eroding away before our very eyes. English tends to exhibit this long-term trend of simplifying its grammar in all places where it can get away with it and not sacrifice meaning. Also witness the virtual disappearance of case from the language except for the personal pronouns. Even the “who” (nominative) vs. “whom” (the old dative, now the objective case) distinction is going the way of the Dodo.
At least English has not had to suffer a spelling reform like Russian (or even German). I love the fact that words like “knight” and “knife” can still be spelled like they were pronounced in Old and Middle English. It at least allows the language to act as a museum for its past, if only for certain members of the lexicon. However, even here there is a popular attempt to do away with “through” at the “drive thru.”
Hi Corinne. Great post! I was just wondering how to use bad translations as a marketing tool, and you’ve shared some awesome tips. Thank you!
Well, Corinne, I have a pessimistic view of translation in general and my pair in particular. I’ve read a couple of splendid pieces of Polish-English or English-Polish translation, but as far as the market standard goes suffice to say I no longer tick editing or proofreading services as part of my offer in all those forms I fill in. I refuse to work with other people’s TM’s. I don’t want to read translations. And so on and so forth. But I’m afraid to use bad translations as a marketing tool because doing so would — in my opinion, and I may be wrong — basically undercut the legitimacy of the entire profession. I’d rather have a different USP/UAP than just being non-horrible, as much as I’ve had the nerve, twice, to tell a room full of suits that my translations differ from the market standard in not being awful. Instead, I’m trying to develop some ways of showing the difference between me and the average translator or even the somewhat good translator, someone who does a passable or even acceptable job while charging half my rates. Someone who has respectable credentials, just not the kind of credentials for which I’d like to charge a premium rate.
On the other hand, show me some bad translations by people who charge much more than I do, and I’ll very happily put them up on my website with appropriate commentary, somewhere in the Value section which I will create specifically for that occasion. 😉
Hi Corinne, I have used this approach a number of times and plan to do it very proactively this summer. The interesting thing about my language pair is that they seldom seem as concerned about whether the translation is quality but are far more concerned about the price. Your step 3 never occurred to me though, and now I’m going to try offering them something for free. Hopefully we’ll see some results. Thanks!
I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that you can stop boycotting supermarket express lines that say “X items or less”. As computational psycholinguist Gabe Doyle explained in a blog entry, “X items or less” is not a sign of slipping grammatical standards, and we can stop complaining about it.
Interesting, thank you very much!
Thanks for the ideas on how to best word things. I have not had great results from this in the past (I keep imagining the client angrily calling up the person who translated the texts to complain), but now I am thinking maybe the problem was how I pointed out the mistakes.
A few months ago, I sent a revised version of a snow removal contract to my snow removal company, mainly just as a nice gesture. They were so pleased that they gave me a large discount on my snow removal and kept my name for when they translate their Web site. That time, I mentioned how nice it was to receive the contract in French and English and that not many people do that. Proof that your approach works! I will also be adding the “as a professional translator” next time.
Thanks Anita; I do agree that this approach is *all about* the wording. We all have the urge to word it as, “Gotcha! Mistake!!,” but you really have to word it as, “I love your product so much that I want to help you reach out to the widest possible audience.” Good luck with your future efforts!
Great post! I liked the idea of “the free sample approach”.
That’s a really interesting approach! I’ve always avoided exploring bad translation for marketing purposes because people just hate being criticized, but you have a very clever and sensible way to deal with that. Definitely worth a try.
Thanks for this post! I did use that method (sort of) with a client I met at a technical fair. I sent him an e-mail afterward and gave him my rates. He told me that I was roughly 30% more expensive than their current provider. I sent him an e-mail saying that with the rate I ask, I wouldn’t leave a dozen bad typos on the main page of their website. But that I totally understood if they were on a restricted budget and that the level of services was ok with them. I offered to edit the typos for free if he offered me a trial translation, which he did. It was one year ago, and I have now translated half a dozen white papers, brochures and several website pages.
Wow, what a great example! Thanks for those details.