Posts

Video Translation – Keeping Up With Multilingual Content in 2022

in , ,

It’s no secret that videos have become the most popular choice for content consumption today. Barely a day will go by without you watching a video, whether it’s on your smartphone when commuting to work, or on your laptop at home.

YouTube has over two billion users with more than one billion videos watched per day, so it’s no surprise we are bombarded with content. 86% of online marketers rely on videos to promote their content, while according to Hubspot, 61% of businesses used video as a marketing tool in 2016, but that number has now increased to 86% in 2022.

Multilingual content

With all this content being created, it’s no wonder that the demand for video translation is also rising. There’s no point in having great video marketing content about your company if the people in your target market can’t understand what you’re saying!

Video translation is quite a complex process that differs from simple text translation, and normally requires a team of experts. First and foremost, you need professional translators, one for each language you want to translate your video into. As with all professional translation projects, you’ll want people translating into their mother tongues.

For most online uses, subtitles or closed captions at the bottom of the video is the preferred option. According to Facebook, 85% of the videos viewed on its site are watched without sound, so captions are crucial for being able to follow what is said (subtitles assume the audience can hear the audio, while closed captioning assumes the audience cannot hear the audio).

How does it work?

There are various steps to the video translation process:

  • Transcription: first you have to transcribe the dialogue as well as any other relevant on-screen text in your video.
  • Timestamping: when your transcribed file is ready, you need to timestamp the text to make sure it appears at the right time in your video.
  • Translation: the transcribed text is then translated into your target language, and adjusted to make sure the target text also appears at the right time in your video.
  • Subtitle/caption files: once you have the text in the target language, it needs to be put into subtitle files so that the text can be displayed on the screen as the video plays.
  • Video editing: the last step is to integrate the translated files into your video file.

This is quite a simple overview of the video translation process, but it shows that there is quite a significant difference between this and a simple text translation. And we haven’t even delved into voice-overs either!

In an earlier blog post, we talked about transcreation, and with promotional texts or adverts in video format, you may find that this is what you need to get the message across, adding another facet to the translation process.

Whatever your requirements, if you want to broaden the reach of your video content, get in touch with us at EDMF to see how we can help you conquer those foreign markets.

Transcreation – How Cross-Market Copywriting Helps Businesses Globally

Transcreation – How Cross-Market Copywriting Helps Businesses Globally

in , ,

Industries evolve over time. It’s a must, because if you don’t, or can’t, you find yourself left by the wayside.

While transcreation isn’t a new concept in global business, it is certainly now much more in demand by our clients at EDMF. Let’s take a look at why.

What is transcreation?

Coined from the words “translation” and “creation”, transcreation could be construed to mean creative translation, or perhaps cross-market copywriting. In reality, you have translation on the one side, transcreation on the other, and between the two you will find marketing translation.

Sometimes, just translating the words you see in front of you is the right idea. This can be the best approach when translating a technical manual, when what matters is that the reader understands what the exact equivalent of a particular component is in their language.

Yet other times, opting to translate like this will bring you up very short indeed. It’s not only the meaning that needs conveyed, you have to take into account cultural differences and harness them for mostly marketing purposes. It is no surprise that this is often required mostly with advertising or promotional texts, and also with websites. A complex website translation, for example, may well require translation, marketing translation and transcreation, and can involve several translators working together.

Why do I need it?

When you ask for a text to be translated, you obviously want it to have the same impact on your target-reader audience as it does with your original audience. That’s a given. But sometimes finding the equivalent word is not enough. Transcreation digs that bit further and looks at the emotional reaction triggered by a text, with a view to eliciting the same response in the translated language.

This is where the language professional is given freer rein than they might with conventional translations. Since it’s not so much the words and their literal meaning that count, but what effect they have on the reader, the transcreator is able to stray from the original text in order to achieve that goal, possibly even recreating everything if need be.

Transcreation in practice

One good example of transcreation is Intel, who changed its English slogan, “Intel: Sponsors of Tomorrow”, to “Intel: In Love with the Future” for its slogan in Brazil, because they had realised that in Portuguese this would otherwise imply the company would not deliver promptly as promised.

Transcreation in websites can also involve using different colour schemes or layouts, and sometimes it can even impact on the product. Red Bull, for example, changed the colours of its energy drink when entering the Chinese market. It switched to red and gold because these colours are deemed to bring good fortune in China.

I need transcreation. Where should I go?

There are many examples of companies who failed to do their research and had to rebrand newly launched products as a result, throwing money out of the window in the process. But with a bit of forethought, and the right partner, you can avoid the pitfalls with taking your product or service to other countries.

Contact EDMF today to find out more about how we can help promote your brand in today’s global market.