Why translate marketing materials – one language does not rule them all

 

[ring*]

It seems so straightforward. Prepare top notch marketing material in English. Given that English is spoken at one level or another by some 1.5 billion people worldwide and is effectively the lingua franca of the world at this time, it should be cost-effective.  In practice, that approach is as relevant as “one size fits all”. While it is true that much of the world can somehow express themselves orally in English, far fewer can read effectively in English. Many non-native readers even avoid reading complicated materials in their second language as they find themselves spending more time and energy with less effective results when trying to decipher them. Visual elements, such as different letters and direction, significantly increase that difficulty. Thus, if a person or company wishes to reach a target audience, it is significantly more effective to prepare marketing material in the native language of their customers.

Ranking languages by native language readers leads to rather different result than that for speaking, native or non-native. The most dominant languages, at least in terms of numbers, are limited to a few countries. For example, Russian and Chinese are almost entirely spoken and read in the Russian Federation and China, respectively, while English as a native language is limited to a handful of countries, primarily the UK, the United States, South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Even in those countries, a meaningful part of the country does not read English fluently whether because they are immigrants, children of immigrants or live in areas where another language is dominant. This phenomenon is not limited to the English-speaking countries as immigrants have reached every country on the globe, including Scandinavia and Germany, or multiple local languages coexist, as in many parts of Africa and India. Even the same language can have significant different local versions, as it the case of Spanish and Arabic. Therefore, the number of native language readers in English or any other language is significantly less than speakers, first or second language.

This distinction is meaningful to businesses because non-native readers are much less effective in grasping written text. First, they read slower to one degree or another as even fluent speakers of foreign languages have experienced. Second, scanning in a second language requires much more effort with less success. Of great importance is the fact that Internet users scan much more quickly in their native language than in their second language regardless of their familiarity with the latter. A difference in letters and/or direction(Hebrew/Arabic vs English/Spanish) further encumbers the scanning process. Furthermore, non-native speakers often miss direct or indirect messages due to a lack of familiarity with the nuances and cultural references. Psychologically, it is often so much effort to read a (relatively) long text in a foreign language that even high-level  foreign speakers prefer to avoid such texts. That second-language learners may be able to read that language does not necessarily mean that they can efficiently and effectively understand it or even choose to.

As a personal example, my native language is English but I am quite fluent in both French and Hebrew. During my recent trip to France, I found plowing through the French sites slower and “heavier” than if they had been English. As for Hebrew, a language that I live in and use every day, including translate from, I am quite slow in skimming websites,  not to mention longer texts, and dread receiving long emails in Hebrew as I know that I will have truly concentrate. For that reason, I don’t read Hebrew books for the pleasure before I go to bed, preferring English or French. In practice, notwithstanding my oral ability, my reading in my second languages is less effective and requires more effort.

For a business or individual desiring to reach a certain customer, it is important for the written material to be in the most transparent form, one in which the language of choice does not interfere with the message. If the readers are expending significant energy on trying to decipher the language, it is at the expense of considering the product or service. Yes, their English may be sufficient to basically understand the content but they are probably not going to act on it as there is little mental energy left for the effort even if they read to the end. Thus, translation is not “extra” expense but an essential marketing tool.

Today, it is quite tempting to use machine translation, whether a “Google Translate” tool of some kind or a ChatGPT result, to save money and achieve a seemingly acceptable result. Some 20 years of machine translation have left behind a long trail of failed and even embarrassing marketing efforts, even by large companies, that tried to save money and made themselves into a laughing stock, not the desired result. It is far more cost-effective to pay a human being a proper amount to a proper job. The increased sales almost always surpass the expense and create a positive company image, the purposes of marketing. As my father said, anything worth doing is worth doing well.

In summary, when conducting a marketing campaign, identity the native reading language of your customer and have a human professional translate the written texts. When it comes to making your written marketing material effective, no language, not even English, comes close to ruling them all.

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

Picture credit

The sound and the fury? Interpreting foreign pitch and volume

 

[multiple converations*]

Consider these two scenes: (1) I remember hearing my ex-neighbors, of Iranian and Tunisian background with four kids, always speaking very loudly, giving me the impression that they were screaming all the time. In fact, I came to understand that was their normal tone of voice; they reserved a much louder tone for their fights; (2) My wife and I are enjoying a delicious goulash in a Budapest restaurant and sitting at a table just outside the party hall of the restaurant where some 30 Hungarians are busy drinking. I have heard more heated discussions at a funeral.

I bring up these examples, maybe extreme, to illustrate how difficult it is to interpret the pitch, linguistically referred to as the intonation, and volume of foreign cultures, not to mention to imitate them. Normal conversation tone varies from culture to culture and language to language and defies any universal rules. One person’s argument is another person’s small talk. A person wanting to correctly interpret the mood of a discussion has to be acquainted with the pitch and volume patterns of that language and culture. Over time and with enough practice, it is sometimes possible to adopt and apply those patterns.

Changes in pitch vary from language to language. On the one extreme are the flat languages where no vocal emphasis is placed on any specific word or phrase. For example, normal Russian conversation typically has no ups or downs and disappears into the sunset at the end, often running out of gas before the last word. People add emotion and interrogation through even minor pitch changes. By contrast, Latin languages, including Spanish and French, involve multiple peaks and valleys with the exact pattern depending on the local variant. Natives often interpret flat speech as either angry or non-native. Language has a song ranging from rap to opera but its meaning is contextual.

Furthermore, some countries are louder than others. Some people by nature and convention naturally speak at a high volume than others. Of course, listeners from other countries may consider this level screaming. On the other hand, those used to high decibels find the relative quiet of English conversation, to name one example, a bit disconcerting as it seems so lifeless, even disinteresed.  Curiously enough, in some cultures high volume expresses anger while in others it is normal excitement. When abroad, wise travelers should avoid jumping to conclusions about the emotion behind the speech. It could be just a normal conversation or a pleasant chat. Your native language reference may be completely irrelevant.

If a person is planning to spend any significant time in a country and wants to effectively interact with the locals, it is good idea to listen and learn. There is no sin  in asking someone about the exact content and specific tone of a conversation. Within a short time, it become increasingly easier to interpret the situation. As for speaking like a native, that is a far longer process. To apply a foreign intonation, the learner must practice saying common phrases with the correct intonation. Overtime, the throat learns to modulate as a native speaker does but such training does take time and effort. Then, and only then, can a person truly speak a native.

Based on a person’s native tongue, it may seem that people in a foreign country are constantly furious or bored. However, as Sporting Life said in Porgy and Bess, it ain’t necessarily so. Conversational tone and volume are not universal.

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

Picture credit

Do you also speak English? – Why English as a second language is generally better in certain countries

 

[women showing confusion*]

Several years, I attended a conference in Valencia, the third largest city in Spain, and needed to talk to a bank in regards to a credit card issue. I entered a local management branch and asked the question “Does anybody speak English or French?”. Of the more than 20 executives, college graduates I presume, only one said that she could speak a little French. The less said about the Spanish taxi driver who could not even read an address, the better. By contrast, almost all Israelis, from taxi driver to bank executives,  speak quite passable English, some of them almost fluently. This contrast leads to the question of why in certain countries most people know, as compared to study, a second language, English being the most common and most useful, while in others the second language is truly foreign. As I see it, admittedly based on intuition, the following four factors influence absorption of English and other second languages to one degree or another:

Resemblance – Learning a foreign language, especially for adults, is a daunting jump into the unknown. Clearly, if a person’s native tongue and the second language have the same alphabet, even with small variations, the latter feels already seems a bit familiar. If the two languages share some roots, e.g., French/English and German/Dutch, people find it significantly easier to study and remember vocabulary, a vital step in learning language. Yet, having a different alphabet or different roots do not in themselves make a language unapproachable but merely add an element of difficulty.

Government policy – Most national education systems include English as part of their curriculum. However, the starting age, number of hours, training of the teacher and quality of the materials vary significantly. Clearly, the ideal is to start teaching a foreign language as early as possible since small children enjoy superior language learning capabilities. Ideally, locally produced learning materials are better as the cultural references better reflect the experience of the learners. Some governments use their power to influence television programming, choosing to produce and broadcast English language learning programs for various ages. English road signing as a matter of policy also increases exposure to the language. In this manner, English becomes a second language, not a foreign language.

Exposure – Regular exposure to a second language creates natural opportunities to use it. While many countries still dub movies and TV programs, those ‘forced” to hear the original English, even with subtitles, improve their listening and reading comprehension to one degree or another. The Internet era has clearly elevated English to an essential language in navigating the Net and accessing information. Searching, whether for information or products, clearly involves some English as the machine translation of sites in many languages can be extremely confusing. Academics in almost all fields depend on English language sources, whether written or oral presentations, to stay up to date. Regardless of their origin, the language of communication of most tourists is English, especially in countries with exotic languages. Where English is prevalent and useful, people see the need to learn it.

Willingness – The subjective element has an important influence . Specifically, people in some countries, in particular those that had great empires or are geographically isolated, feel great pride in their heritage and assume that others should speak their language as a matter of respect. They view speaking a foreign language as unnecessary and, to a certain degree, degrading. Clearly, not every citizen shares this attitude but often a large percentage of population do feel this way. By contrast, native speakers of statistically irrelevant languages, such as Hebrew and Islandic, know that outside of their country (and a few cities abroad in the case of Hebrew) they must speak English. It even becomes a matter of pride and high style to insert English in their native languages. A look at the store signs in Israel shows how highly English is esteemed. People have to be open to using a foreign language to make it a true second language.

Looking at the spectrum of use of English throughout the world, we can see, on the one hand, countries where the English-speaking tourist has no problem managing with a sprinkling of the local language and large portion of English. On the other hand, there are places where tourists have to resort to sign language and pictures, such as in many parts of China and even a few countries in East Europe. The reasons for this variance are far from simple and involve government policy, the international reality and intrinsic attitudes. The result, among others, is that not all countries are created equal in tems of foreign language accessibility.

* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.

Picture credit

Blended family: native, mother’s and adopted tongues

 

[love in many languages*]

Last week, I had a language awareness moment. I was making some phone calls to France to arrange details to attend a conference of the SFT, the French Translators Association, in August. As I finished my last conversation in French, I suddenly realized that it felt very natural to speak French. To explain, my native tongue is English, the language of the society in which I grew up in and the educational system that framed my communication. My mother’s native language is French, which we often spoke at home. I reinforced my French through formal studies in high school and a short stint in France as well as teaching credentials. However, for the last 34 years, I have resided and worked in Israel, functioning and working in Hebrew on a daily basis. I have rarely used French during that period. Consequently, I was surprised to notice that it felt more natural to speak French than Hebrew. French has remained more instinctive than Hebrew.

Clearly, a person’s native language remains dominant in the brain. It is the language of preferred speaking when one is tired and also of counting. In general, speaking a native language is a bit of a non-brainer in a certain sense of the word. However, it would seem logical that an adopted language used daily for an extended period would eventually become natural, especially as compared to a neglected childhood language, buried and rusty.

Alas, a few conversations were all that I needed to resurrect those brain connections and return French to the family fold. The words flowed instinctively, albeit not always accurately, even more than in my adopted language, regardless of how well I speak it. Apparently, blood is thicker than water, i.e., a person absorbs a language learned in one’s early years better than one learned as an adult. If you think about, there is no shame, to have a brain with a blended family. After all, there is enough love of languages for all types of children.

Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet

Picture credit: Pixabay

Necessity is the step-mother of (language) invention

In his blog on tennis players and language proficiency, http://www.jeromejerome.fr/en/Blog/tennis-and-languages, Jérôme Osselaer cited Novak Djokovic in regards to the reasons for his knowing so many languages as saying that he understood that Serbian is a minor language.  This polyglot was in strong contrast with most other players, who only know their own native tongue.  This comparison begs the question of why certain people learn many languages.

Let’s start with the assumption that, aside from some “weirdos” who like learning another tongue for its own sake, most people learn what they need to learn, i.e. necessity is the main motivation for actually learning something.  In support of this hypothesis, go to a country speaking an exotic language, such as Iceland, Finland, and Israel, the level of English in the street is quite good.  The average person is rather proficient in conducting a standard conversion in at least one foreign language, albeit with a strong accent and occasionally faulty grammar.  The example of German is interesting since English is highly emphasized in Germany, with even some job interviews being conducted in English.  This tendency may be explained by the fact that, outside of Austria and parts of Switzerland, German is not the first language in any other country as well as the bad connotation the German language had/has with the older generation. In Switzerland, the home of another polyglot tennis player, Rodger Federer, it is quite useful to speak at least three languages given the linguistic diversity of this physically small country.  On the same level, Spanish proficiency is required in many jobs in the US states adjoining the Mexican border, encouraging a wide knowledge of that language.

By contrast, visit a medium sized city in any of the countries speaking a prevalent first language such as English, Spanish or French, the difference between studying and knowing is striking.  Most people cannot give directions in a foreign language.  Of course, the reasons for this ignorance vary.  In some cases, such as in much of the United States, the assumption is that everybody knows English.  Therefore, learning a foreign language is superfluous.  In poor countries, most of the population does not have the income to travel abroad, in fact rendering a foreign language superfluous for travel but not business purposes.  Some countries have extremely poor education systems, such as France, increasing the gap between learning and using.  Finally, some countries have been politically isolated, with active discouragement of foreign languages, as is the case of parts of Eastern Europe.  In Budapest, the capital city of Hungary, relatively few people over the age of 40 understand English (or choose not to understand Russian).  In these places, the mother tongue is considered all that is necessary.

Younger computer users quite interestingly may have a solid reading knowledge of English due to the latter’s status as the lingua franca of the Internet. It is unclear how this comprehension translated into speaking ability. Yet, it is clear that the need to understand English strongly motivates this group to learn English, even in a non-systematic manner.

So, imploring people to learn a foreign language is not very effective.  Linking the world, physically or virtually, seems to provide the “reality” they need to actually go out and learn it.