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As you know, I was recently delighted to be asked by EF & Partners Art Consultants to translate their website.  My work’s not yet visible, but I’ll let you know when it is!

Late last week, I was asked by Go Outdoor (a great outdoor adventure company based just down the road from me in Penela), to look over a few of the pages on their website,  as they weren’t convinced of the quality of the English used.

Now, I’m not a qualified translator and my fees reflect that.  However, I do have very good English language and grammar skills.  This, coupled with a good understanding of Portuguese, makes me ideal to translate websites from Portuguese to English or review sites that have been translated to check on spelling, grammar and general word use or colloquialisms.

Recently, I saw a page from FC Porto’s website, which had been so badly translated that it was barely understandable by someone whose first language is English, let alone by someone whose first language is Japanese or Swedish. I really must write to FC Porto and ask if I can re-do their site.  Maybe they’ll give me season tickets…

I digress.

This got me thinking.  You can throw thousands of €€€’s at a website (or any marketing material for that matter) and still get it wrong, and this projects such a bad image of a company or product.  It really does say, “We think having English on our website is good, but we can’t be bothered to check whether what’s up there is usable & understandable.”

And so I suggest the following:

1. Check whether your translator has experience of English and in what context.
2. Use a mother-tongue English speaker to look over the text before publishing and ensure that the word is used in the correct context (e.g. hear/here, there/their, cheque/check).
3. Decide which market your English is for and write accordingly.  There are many differences between UK English & American English (like colour/color, travelling, traveling etc.) that a non-English person may not be aware of.

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out more at http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com