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What Cheap English to Swedish Translation Really Costs You!

High quality and accurate Swedish translation of your site may be amongst the most vital measures to take in the overall improvement of conversion rates if you are aiming for customers in Sweden.

Some companies just cannot afford cheap translation. The long-term costs of lackluster translations often exceed the peanuts saved in the short term. It is just too risky. This is especially true in industries where lives are at stake. Let’s go through the real costs of bad English to Swedish translation!

Common Translation Failures

A handful of the largest organizations compromised their quality and learned a good deal about why they tried saving money on translations and received cheap translation services, and ended up getting what they paid for—poor quality.

Especially with documents like legal or medical texts or how-to manuals, having professional translation services which take language, as well as culture and dialect into consideration is imperative.

Creative translation can also be tricky, as direct translations aren’t as logical as they seem, especially when it comes to marketing. Some big-name translation failures include:

The Chevrolet Nova didn’t appeal to Hispanic markets because “No va” means “It Doesn’t Go.”
Coors failed to attract Spanish-speaking audiences with their direct translation of the “Turn It Loose” tagline, which roughly means “Suffer from Diarrhea” in Spanish.
Pepsi’s iconic “brings you back to life” slogan didn’t go over well with Chinese audiences, who took the phrase to mean “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead.”

The Incalculable Costs of Cheap Translation

There’s no telling what kind of profit losses these translations caused their companies, but one thing is certain:

Cheap translation is bad for business. Translation errors have killed people, crippled patients, and destroyed multi-million-dollar pieces of machinery.

Here are some negative consequences of getting it wrong:

Getting Slapped with a Lawsuit is Not Fun.

It is inconvenient and not something on the top of a company’s Christmas list. But, they’re usually preferable to customer death or destroying priceless equipment. Here are four tragedies that resulted from erroneous translations:

The Destruction of The Mars Orbiter.

Not all translations are linguistic. There is sometimes some math involved. A translator’s failure to properly convert English measurements to the metric system resulted in a catastrophic failure that sent the 125-million-dollar satellite careening off course. The planet’s harsh atmosphere tore the brand-new satellite to pieces. Not really a “cheap translation.”

Radiation Poisoning at a French Hospital.

In what was likely an attempt to save money, a US manufacturer of radiation machines did not offer dosage information in French. Administrative staff at the French hospital relied on bilingual coworkers to translate the English information. This lead to four deaths and dozens of cases of severe radiation poisoning.

Serial Knee Implant Failures at a German Hospital.

A US maker of knee prosthesis made two different models for their German customers. Though the company offered instructions in German, the product’s outer packaging was only available in English. After asking a coworker to translate the packaging, these prosthetics were incorrectly marked as non-cemented. This labeling error led to 47 failed surgeries and millions in compensation claims.

The Dropping of the Hiroshima Bomb.

Japanese is a complex language. Many words have multiple meanings and the correct one often depends upon surrounding content. After the US and allies demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan, they made it clear that any “any negative answer from Japan would invite “prompt and utter destruction.” When journalists pressed Japan’s Prime Minister for comment, he said that he was currently withholding comment. The government had yet to reach a final decision and he was unable to relay anything substantial. But, international news agencies mistakenly quoted him as saying that the ultimatum was ‘not worthy of comment.’

How Much Should English to Swedish Translation Cost?

No company is immune from translation failures. But investing in proper English to Swedish translation services can give you the best chance of attracting your target market and avoid becoming an example of the cost of poor translation.

Though the definition of translation is straightforward, businesses are often surprised to find that not all translation services and options are created equal. Cheap services like those offered by freelance translators can offer lower price points on English to Swedish translation, but again, quality issues are called into play. The translations may be linguistically accurate, but they may fail to incorporate other elements that can add impact to your message.

Why Choose a Professional Translator

As you can see, translation errors are so much more than something to snicker at on your lunchbreak. Cheap translations are sometimes the quickest way to sign someone’s death warrant. These cautionary tales should remind you of the dangers of subpar and machine-based translation. If your product can change someone’s life, it is vital to hire a reliable translator.

Utilizing a professional translator with expertise in your business may result in more than an improved document and a more complete understanding, it may result in bigger return on your investment. Utilizing something less may result in mistakes, errors, and misunderstandings which might cost you lost business or a client.

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6 Reasons Not to Use Software for Your Business Translations

While I am travelling across Europe with my family. I will feature a guest post that I really like. This one is authored and provided by Affordable Language Services, a Cincinnati-based business translation and interpreting company.

In today’s global economy, business translation is a must for companies wanting to extend their reach. To help keep costs down, however, some choose to use automated translation software instead of hiring the expertise of a professional business translator. While this choice is initially less expensive, the consequences of such a shortcut can be costly. Keep reading to learn why you should not use software for your business translation needs.

1. Translation software is never error-proof.

In 2010, a Reuters article told the world about the underlying dangers of relying on automated software for business translations. The news story highlighted a pharmacy that used such software to translate prescription labels that were written in English into Spanish. After reviewing the results in the medical journal Pediatrics, Julia Tse and Dr. Iman Sharif pointed out several deadly errors. For example, in English, the instructions told patients to take a pill “once a day.” The translating software failed to translate the word “once” into Spanish correctly and instructed patients to take the medication 11 times per day, as the word “once” in Spanish means “eleven.” A professional business translator would never make such a mistake.

In a separate incident, when a medical group used translating software for prostate medication labels, four prostate cancer patients in Epinal, France died because of the erroneous dosage instructions. Regardless of advances in technology, business translation software can never take the place or match the accuracy of an expert human business translator.

2. Translation software is not sensitive to idioms.

Language creates meaning as much as it conveys meaning. A culture in one part of the world thinks differently than the culture on the opposite end of the globe because of the ideas that differ between words and phrases. For example, the English phrase, “on the other hand,” does not mean “alternatively” in most other parts of the world.

When brewing company Coors once tried to sell its beer in Spain, it directly translated its marketing slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish. While English speakers in the U.S. understand the phrase as an encouragement to have a good time, the literal translation in Spanish relates more to the “loose” action one may encounter with diarrhea.

3. Some words simply don’t exist in other languages.

When a word doesn’t exist in the destination language, translation software cannot help. A business translation professional has an understanding of the culture that speaks the desired language, so he or she can accurately express the vocabulary and ideas. While an equivalent word may not exist from one language to the next, a business translator bridges the lexical gap with an appropriate phrase.

An example of such a word is gobbledygook, which exists only in the English language. Every language has its own unique words that automated translation software cannot translate. Such a translation blunder can hinder a company’s bottom line or encourage foreign prospects to not close a deal. Professional business translation services understand these circumstances as well as the culture of the language at hand, and can provide clients with high-quality translations that aid business communications.

4. Automated translation software is not dialect-specific.

In the U.S., the storage space in the back of a car is called a trunk. In the U.K, the same part of the car is called a boot. Language dialects differ around the world – and even by region. For example, some of the words used in Mexico have a different meaning in Spain. Among the 30 languages in India, there exist more than 2,000 dialects. These differences make business translation more challenging and create greater room for error when using translation software. Because business translations require specificity, a translator must know the differences among dialects to properly convey the intended meaning. Specificity and cultural knowledge are things that automated translation software lacks.

5. Literal translations usually don’t make sense.

There are a few occasions when you can successfully translate a phrase into another language word-for-word. For example, the Spanish phrase “sangre azul” means “blue blood,” and both phrases refer to wealthy individuals. Most of the time, however, literal translations make no sense and confuse the true meaning. Oftentimes, idiomatic phrases are to blame. For example, when you ask someone in Costa Rica how they are, they often say, “Pura vida,” which literally means, “Pure life.” “Pura vida” in this Latin American country is a statement that expresses one is well. Outside of the Costa Rican culture, saying one has a pure life can convey a handful of different meanings.

6. Translation software neglects sophisticated writing techniques.

Automated translation software does not pick up on wordplay, puns and metaphors the way a human business translator can. If you use software, you run the huge risk of having your ideas get literally lost in translation, which can ultimately make you look foolish, culturally insensitive or both.

Lynn Elfers is the CEO of Affordable Language Services, a Cincinnati-based business translation and interpreting company that specializes in business, legal and medical interpreting and translation services in over 150 languages and dialects. Lynn’s experience as a volunteer missionary for years in Central America ultimately led to starting her own translation service to help individuals bridge the language gap in crucial situations like the doctor’s office and court room. She has been providing language tutoring and translation services for over 16 years.