For small businesses, which have limited resources, accurate translation ranks pretty low on the priority list.
Coupled with a DIY mentality, this is a recipe for disaster! The image below is a web landing page marketing the wares of a small business in Japan.
Do you feel motivated to click and find out more?
I could slip in a catchy one liner here, but I won’t. There are many websites dedicated to this genre of hilarious translation bloopers. Try engrish.com - copy & paste the URL in your browser for some light-hearted entertainment from the otherwise staid translation industry. Go ahead, you’ll enjoy!
How does poor quality Japanese translation make it to market?
The common thread in these translation strategies is a desire to save money, with little regard to quality.
In researching the concept of COPQ (Cost of Poor Quality) for a previous article, I happened across an extremely interesting case study. A company with 250 million dollars in annual sales realized the need to improve quality by doing the job right first time round after analysis showed the company losing USD100,000 a day to poor quality!
So, what is a small company with few resources to do? Contact professional Japanese translators and negotiate; there’s always a deal to be had! At the very least solicit opinions from professionals in the translation industry, which is often freely given.
If you believe you have the best translation blooper ever, then share it! Let our readers put it to the vote to find out if you really have the best translation error of all time! Simply contact us with the details, and we’ll post your blooper on our translation &DISCUSS blog.
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