The first thing you have to do to start business in Japan is to have contents translated into Japanese. There are a lot of sites machine translated and ended up with awkward contents, and I would say it is a bad practice. Let me explain how translation agency works in general, and few things you should keep in mind when creating effective marketing messages.
How Translation Agency Works in General
The job of general translation agency is to precisely translate original English to Japanese. Here are the generic rules in translation:
- Precise in grammar
- Consistent in sentence
- Do not change the expression
- Same words to be translated into same results
Translation agencies use translation software. The most popular example is SDL Trados. It has database for each different clients, which memorize patterns of word or sentence of English to Japanese pairs, so that it saves time and avoid errors. If you feedback to your translation agency to use certain patterns, they will use the same English expression for exact phrasing so the quality improves through working with the same agency. It works well in most of the cases. However, I would say, it is always not always the case for marketing.
Difference in Grammar
When you compose long sentence, you unconsciously use your English technique. For example, you start writing from the beginning to make the audience predict what proceeds. Then, you put something different from what they may expect. This technique is common in both English and Japanese to create strong impression so that they would memorize. Because of the difference of the grammar, if it is properly translated, it may be ended up that what is supposed to betray audiences' expectation comes first of the sentence. In that case, we usually separate into 2 or more sentences to keep the writers's intention. It is not following the rule of general translation, but is should be so for neuromarketing perspective.
Localization of Wording Choice
Humor and irony are the most difficult part in marketing localization, not to mention you have to convert the currency when expressing about costs. Here, I found a nice example.
It reads "Mass Production is for Soda Pop & Automobiles" as an irony that this particular bass was beautifully hand-crafted. I love this expression. When we read it, "Soda Pop" and "Automobiles" based on American history, remind us Coca-cola and Ford. I would use different examples which remind Japanese people of mass production when using this copy for marketing.
How marketing translation should be?
What attracts people's attention should differ in each culture and country. Correct translation does not always works well for marketing. Because of the recent changes in buying behavior, how you express are getting more important for people may decide do or do not make purchase by looking at your ads or website contents. In order to make them effectve, human work is required. Our service includes not only translation but also includes localization of materials for effective marketing campaign. Please see our "Services" page for more information.
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