Some Ways a German Language Marketing Translation Go Sour

The German culture is known for many things, including a love of sauerkraut, but one lesser known fact is how exacting and precise is the language. As Mark Twain once wrote of a language student, in Stuttgart "he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective." How right he was! The same culture that crafts world famous cars to extreme tolerances makes equally exacting demands on their spoken and written language. It's no surprise then that even large companies sometimes get it horribly wrong when attempting to convey their message in German.

Let's look at some examples where the absence of professional editing can sour the message and spoil a corporate image:

Take for instance the current website of Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. As one of their page headlines, they're using the phrase "Betorender Glanz". Certainly if you were to check a dictionary, it would confirm that it does mean "stunning glamour".

What a dictionary will not tell you is that the word "Betorend" was commonly used in the 50's – it's a rather dated word and would, in a sales context, have exactly the opposite effect than what was intended. Spotting and correcting such an error requires what translators call intercultural editing, an aspect of translation that includes a deep understanding of contemporary usage and context.

Intercultural editing is most useful when a translation is technically accurate but ineffective, that is, it does a lousy job of selling because the phrasing is inappropriate in a sales context.

Take for example a translation done for water company, Ecoloblue, which wants to express a product benefit. First the English: "An attractive alternative to the logistics and expense of bottled water". It's a sentence that is simple, clear and concise." Now the German: "Eine attraktive Alternative für alle Logistik Probleme und hohe Kosten von Wasser in Flaschen".

The sentence is literally correct but also implies awkwardly that water costs in bottles are physically high, and that the logistics of hauling bottles is a serious issue. Ok, you can argue that the words carry the meaning, but you end up having the reader take a second or two to parse the sentence in order to understand it. This short pause will kill half your sales. A much better translation would be: "Eine kostensparende und bequem Alternative zu Flaschen Wasser". Much better - it's simple, clear, and best of all, it SELLS!

Besides diction and sentence structure, the other big problem area is message strategy. There are significant differences in the way Germans perceive a selling communication, and more importantly how they make buying decisions. For example, in the U.S. "low price" or "free" has a very powerful persuasion factor. In Germany it is exactly the opposite.

Words like "kostenlos" (free) or "am billigsten" (cheapest price) will work against you, driving customers away because Germans value quality and durability much higher than price. Include "am billigsten" in your message and the meaning will be communicated that the product has no quality, and therefore it's "cheap".

As Mark Twain knew many years ago, German is not an easy language to translate. For a translation to be correct, to be effective, the translator must have a deep and contemporary understanding of not only the target language (always mother tongue), but also the target culture. Failure to recognize this important distinction can make any translation, not just a German one, go very sour indeed.