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Karen Beaman
Multi-Cultural Talentforce - Language Translations
One of the biggest challenges in working across cultures is clearly language. It never ceases to amaze me that, in the effort to save some money, companies often choose to do translations of corporate documents in-house using local staff. But translation is a discipline of its own and just because someone speaks the language doesn’t make them a good translator. In fact, often the opposite is true!
Consider these anecdotes from Gary Ferraro, The Cultural Dimensions of International Business (2005):
- An American airline offering service to Brazil advertised its “rendezvous lounges” in its business class section. They failed to realize that the word rendezvous in Portuguese refers to a room for illicit sexual encounters.
- The American Dairy Association’s successful ad “Got Milk?” was unfortunately translated in Mexico as “Are you lactating?”
- An American ink manufacturer attempted to sell bottled ink in Mexico through their advertisement that they could “avoid embarrassment” (from stains) through their brand of ink. However, the Spanish word used for “embarrassed” was “embarazar” (a “false friend”) which means to become pregnant. People thought the company was selling a contraceptive device.
These very embarrassing situations can easily be avoided through good translation services using native speakers, not someone who learned the language in school. It is only a native speaker who can understand the subtle messages that are being conveyed by the use of one word or phrase over another. And forget automated translation tools, such as Babelfish. While it’s a theoretically interesting concept, and many people have been busy for many years in the field of artificial intelligence trying to figure this out, the field of machine translation is still in its infancy.
HR should help the business identify the types of skills needed for different types of activities. For example, the ability to speak the language is clearly important for sales and marketing activities, whereas it is less important for a highly technical positions where the individual will be working with internal staff. Tying competencies and abilities to individual assignments (project-based on regular) — not just to specific job roles — is fundamental to working successfully internationally.
Great Blog! I really enjoyed the examples.
I would add one complexity that in some circumstances it even is not enough to have a native speaker, translating documents. You should also require business understanding or experience from the translater. My experience is that if you translate HR related content e.g. from English into German, you only will be successful, if the translator understands the HR content. Especially if it is critical content, like HR policies or contracts, where you anyway have a large variaty of interpretations, you should assure that the translation is precise and correct.
Comment by Christian Adlung — May 21, 2008 @ 12:33 am
Telling message. A couple of vignettes to add to the discussion:
Another classic misstep by an American firm took place in the 1970s when GM introduced its Nova subcompact in Mexico. Sales never took off, despite apparently good price/feature fit with Mexican upper-middle class consumers. After investigating, the GM marketers learned that Nova was read as ‘no va’, meaning no go in Mexican Spanish. No one would buy a car that meant no go.
English has emerged as the language of business in many places, partly due to the apparent preeminence of US multinationals around the world, and the reliance on the US dollar as a preferred means of foreign exchange. But, another powerful reason springs from the same language dynamic Karen mentions. Talking outside one’s mother tongue places the speaker at a distinct disadvantage with someone talking in their own mother tongue. Rather than allowing such a power imbalance to take place, business people will frequently pick a convenient third language to use, in which both parties have a relatively equal communication disadvantage. That third language is usually English, and the 19th-century British colonial impact has affected the use of English in this way just as much as American commercial success in the post-war era of the past 60 years. Hence, many European and Asian multinationals have selected English as the official ‘language of business’ across their organization!
The ‘Ugly American’ first written about 50 years ago has reemerged in the past 6-8 years, though now embodied in negative views about American political leadership and international policies, more so than attitudes about individual American travelers. Yet, the stereotype lives in many places, and for good reason. I still see many American travelers and expatriates lacking the skills Karen mentions and many others relating to cross-cultural competence. Unfortunately, they misinterpret the prevalence of English language skill around the world as an affirmation of the superiority of American culture. Far from it, many other peoples see American culture as violent, arrogant, naive, shallow, and self-absorbed to an extreme, in addition to more positive attributes like optimistic, positive, and idealistic. They know and use English for many other reasons including the power neutrality I describe.
Comment by Ken Hedberg — May 21, 2008 @ 4:53 am