Case 1

Several years ago we began working with one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers, who required the translation of various completely different documents: on-board documentation, automobile sales manuals, advertising brochures, accessory catalogs, press releases... On the one hand, everything seems fairly plain and obvious: a new car is being released, which means that, first of all, information about the car itself, the history of its creation, and its advantages must be presented in advertising brochures.  Then, dealership salesman must be taught to sell it: they have to see its advantages over its competitors, and know the “kicks” of this particular car.  And of course, legislative requirements have to be met: the automobile can’t be sold without a Russian-language owner’s manual.  Then, once the buyer has decided on a specific car, he or she begins thinking about how to give it personality, how to show who its owner is – and that’s when information on available additional accessories must be made accessible to the customer.

You may be thinking, “I don’t quite see what all this has to do with translation.”  Well, everything!  The translator’s first commandment is to consider WHO and for WHAT purpose their translation will be studied.  An owner’s manual is essential, firstly, so that the car owner can competently drive and take care of the car, and, secondly, to protect the manufacturer from careless drivers!  It is, in essence, a legal document, and everything it contains comprises the manufacturer's statement of what they are responsible for in producing the car.  It is precisely this – precision of expression, uniformity of terminology, absolute unambiguousness of interpretation – that we have in mind when we translate such materials.  A technical education is a prerequisite for those working with these kinds of documents.

Press releases and advertising materials are a completely different story.  Here, appearance and imagery, understandability and articulacy of linguistic expression take the fore.  As practice has shown, it’s easier to correct the technical inaccuracies of a translator out of a linguistic institution who uses a pleasing style and lovely metaphors than it is to rewrite the “bumpy”, sometimes amusing text of a hardcore techie.  The same is true for translation of accessory catalogs.  “How can you write, ‘Make your car perfect with…’?!  The car’s already perfect!” some marketing specialists and PR people have told us.  “Well, what are supposed to write?” asked the editors, throwing up their hands.  “Write whatever you want – just no direct suggestions that the car could somehow be perfected!”  In such cases we set aside the original text entirely and rewrote it ourselves.  Rewrote, not translated!  Only this earned us a positive appraisal from the customer.

Automobile sales manuals are exceedingly interesting to work with.  The purpose of such manuals is to codify knowledge obtained by dealers when learning how to sell the new car and test driving it, both usually organized by the official importer.  The dealer network employees are people called to describe, demonstrate, and convince – in a word, to sell.  This means that it is precisely they who must have the most complete knowledge of both technical and psychologically convincing information – what the manufacturer has come up with this time, what this model’s story is… The highly-competitive automobile market compels one to constantly stay fit and daily “run the extra mile”.

As these examples show, it’s impossible to create an expert translation of several types of documents for one and the same car without demonstrating flexibility, without understanding who the target audience is and the purpose of each document.  Only this can guarantee that our translation will enable people to show, sell, use properly, and enjoy ownership of the new car.