"Technical Translations understood the brief, provided a rapid and competitive quote and then delivered against their commitment exactly as promised. ASI would have no hesitation in using them again"
"Excellent service offering translation and marketing services for specific business needs. I am pushed to find anything better!"
"The quality of the service we received was excellent, I was kept well informed as to the progress of our translation and the proofreading of the translated brochures before printing was a great reassurance."
"We found Technical Translations to be professional, proficient and we have enjoyed working with their staff. They have provided a good service and are competitive with pricing."
Technical Translations love horror stories just as well as anyone else, and last week we got wind of a particularly good story about a very bad decision that was made by a Japanese department store when they decided to use some trendy English words to promote their January sale. Oh to have been a fly on the boardroom wall when they came up with what will surely go down in Japanese retail history as a modern-day commercial hara-kiri!
When you think about how car manufacturers must agonise over the name for every new model, checking for possible double-entendres in all the major languages of the world, you begin to realise that something supposedly as simple as the matter of translating signage can make or break a brand. If you’re intending to translate a marketing statement into a language that is not your mother tongue, you need to get the experts in on the job.
OK, we’re coming to the point. It was a department store in Osaka, Japan. They probably wanted to use some cool English adjective to draw the crowds, and they probably mixed with the wrong people. The photograph of the shop front, which can been viewed at Gawker, really best illustrates the total carnage inflicted by the widespread and completely indiscriminate use of what has to be one of the world’s best known expletives. They decided it would be a good idea to call it a “Fuckin’ Sale” and call it a “Fuckin’ Sale” they did. The signage was on everything, in ******* enourmous letters - emblazoned across the window, hung in the window, hung over the door, hung from the ceiling, draped all over the mannequins; in fact, the eye could not escape from the offensive word for even half a second.
Every story has a moral, even horror stories, and the moral of this one is: If you have something you would like to say in another language, take your translation requirements to the professionals. Technical Translations specialise in marketing material and we have project managers on board who are also CIM qualified marketers. We would love to have a chat with you about any marketing concept you are thinking of having translated, including but not limited to your website, leaflets, exhibition signage, packaging and much, much more. Give us a call.
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