Comments on: Translation vs. Transcreation

By: Wide Angle » 4 Lessons from Great Tech Campaigns

Wide Angle » 4 Lessons from Great Tech Campaigns — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:23:37 +0000

[...] that connects the audience to it. Apple transcreates it’s messages, and not just translates them. Transcreation is a process of capturing the essence and spirit of a message, transforming it into one that is [...]

By: Lingua Franca | KEXINO

Lingua Franca | KEXINO — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:58:40 +0000

[...] what’s “transcreation”? Well, a good explanation can be found here. Fundamentally, it’s taking a document’s content from one language and totally re-creating [...]

By: Transcreation: This is what I do, and now there’s a word for it – Bad Language » Life and language

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:09:18 +0000

[...] between translation and transcreation, read this more detailed post from writer’s blog Bad Language. Category: Language You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You [...]

By: What's the difference between localization and translation? Just more marketing rubbish? - Quora

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:35:26 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Kyoko Atsumi

Kyoko Atsumi — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:32:54 +0000

Dear Mathew,
I just wanted to leave a little comment on translation.
“Translators should only ever translate into their mother tongue, regardless of how fluent they are in another language. ”

I agree with your comment above to some extent. However, when a Japanese document was translated into English by a native English speaker, it is often not translated in a correct sense. Japanese language can be very vague and subtle. You need to read not only between the lines but between words. Only native Japanese speakers can detect the hidden meanings in a word or sentence. For translating Japanese into to English (or any other languages), I think it would bring the best result if a native Japanese speaker with a good command of English (or other languages) translates the document and a native speaker of the target language proofreads the translation.

Please do not get offended. It is not criticism. It’s just something I noticed from my experience.

Kind regards,
Kyoko Atsumi

By: Ute

Ute — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 10:21:38 +0000

“… most clients will want the ‘feel’ of the original text to be maintained.”

Of course there is also the case where the original message is considered so strong that it does not need to be translated for an international audience. Certain German car manufacturers run ads on Irish TV (and perhaps in other countries too) that end with phrases like “DAS Auto” or “Vorsprung durch Technik”.

By: David Parry

David Parry — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:31:59 +0000

To comment on the comments; it is a good idea to have a non-native speaker of English look at a document to find things that are mystifying to him, even though they are clear to a native, but I would never recommend anything other than translating into your own language.
“Transcreation is only for untrained Translators: the ones who do literal translation because they have not learned the techniques of Translation.”
Not true. What is called transcreation here is really no more than copywriting based on an original idea. In my own translation work I have done some of this – albeit reluctantly, but in every case I have pointed out to the client that they need to start over. In many cases the original theme just does not come over, or is too culturally specific to the original language.

By: TransABC

TransABC — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:28:43 +0000

A very good article on the differences between translation and transcreation.

TransABC

By: Julie B

Julie B — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:23:48 +0000

Translation vs. Transcreation

I’m a professional translator (qualified too….) and I’d never heard of transcreation until today.

Personally I would view this as doing your job properly if you are a translator specialising in marketing.

I have done marketing text translation before and was allowed to “edit” the text – ie take some liberties to make it look better/more appropriate in the target language, which is the only appropriate thing to do with some marketing.

Thanks for the explanation though! I’ve learnt a new word for my own work.

Best regards

Julie

By: Claude folanguer

Claude folanguer — Sat, 15 May 2010 14:42:58 +0000

Good for you, Matthew,

You were doing a true professional Translation. As we have for several millenia.
Transcreation is only for untrained Translators: the ones who do literal translation because they have not learned the techniques of Translation.

One of the techniques IS to choose the words according to the messge and the intent of the message. Bad translators abound, i.e., the gey market, because Agencies want to make profits rather than pay trained Translators.

Translation and Interpreting are professions – Trained Language Specialists pay high tuition fees at various Universities to get their diploma.

Agencies are feeding the grey market and companies, who do not know the difference. As comparison: we all know how to cook but few of us ever become Chefs. Chefs learn, among other techniques, the chemical reaction of one food element with another, etc.

As for Localization: it is not Translation of the text, it is the translation of the graphical and technical elements. Problem is, computer lingo had assigned the term Translation to something new, from one computer language to another. So, they could not keep the original term and meaning of Translation. Now, Localization means both — to them.

Best,
Veronique