Translating
tourism
Have
you ever stood in front of a painting or an unfamiliar object
and wished
there was some one there to help explain what you’re
looking at?
Tourists who arrive in the UK see many lovely things around them.
They visit our famous destinations, our museums and galleries,
our playgrounds and palaces, and form their own opinions on what
they see. But how much knowledge and understanding of our tradition,
art and culture are these tourists able to take home with them?
Often they leave as mystified as they arrived, and haven’t
discovered enough about the UK to be able to recommend it to
others. There’s also the added sense of not really feeling
welcome here because no one spoke their language.
Statistics show that visitors are flocking to Britain in unprecedented
numbers with the fastest growth rate of 20% between 2003 and
2004 - or 5.4 million visitors - coming from markets outside
Western Europe and North America. Do they all speak English?
Do we welcome them in their own tongue? Or do they just have
to ‘stand and stare’ and work it out as well as they
can?
According
to VisitBritain’s CEO, Tom Wright, “Britain
must advance its position around the world by investing further
in developing markets. For 2005, VisitBritain will extend its presence
into the Czech republic, Greece, Hungary, Malaysia and Thailand…this
follows on from recent expansion into China, Poland, Russia and
South Korea”. None of these countries have English as their
first language!
It’s impossible to know how much business is lost to the
travel trade through our inability to receive visitors in their
own language but a damning report by the House of Lords, dated
14th April 2005, warns that Britain will be ‘severely hampered’ in
the global market place because language skills in the UK are falling
so far behind those of its competitors.
A
visitor’s first contact with their destination is often
on the internet from the comfort of home: a website in their own
language is far more seductive than one in English, however lovely
the pictures! Having clicked a request for information, they’d
like to receive a brochure in their language – including
all the accommodation details as many more tourists are now arriving
under their own steam than on organised tours. Once they reach
our shores, they’ll be setting out to explore: they’ll
need audio and written guides they can understand to get the most
from our wealth of hotels, restaurants, concerts, theatres, festivals,
galleries, museums…
Using
a qualified translator probably sounds like an expensive option
but once
you’ve had your basic material translated,
you can use it again and again. You can steal a march on your competitors
(especially as your site and information will be easier to find
on the web than non-translated material) and be certain of satisfied
visitors who’re more likely to recommend you to others.
It’s a little too tempting to turn to a friend or some one
who’s studied a little of another language, maybe even lived
somewhere overseas and ask them to do a translation on the cheap.
Don’t do it! Even people who are bi-lingual don’t necessarily
make good translators as they’re not sufficiently aware of
the nuances of the language, when to tailor text to a specific
audience instead of doing a direct translation. An understanding
of the subject matter is also important – some people are
good at technical translations whereas others are great at the
more flowery language of promotional print. You don’t want
your brochure to end up sounding more like an engineering text
book.
We’ve all enjoyed bad tourism translation on visits abroad.
You’ve probably seen a few like these:
In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the day.
During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.
In a Paris hotel room: Please leave your values at the front desk.
In a hotel in Athens: Visitors
are expected to complain at the office between the hours of
9 &11 am daily.
In a former Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with
pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.
Bangkok temple: It is forbidden to enter a woman even a foreigner
if dressed like a man.
Acapulco hotel: The manager has personally passed all the water
served here.
But if you prefer accuracy to amusement, choose a dependable translator
or agency. Make sure that the one you choose uses a single contact
manager and one who will offer only qualified mother-tongue translators
and voice-over artistes working regularly in the tourism field.
To ensure your brochures are accurate, choose a firm which uses
linguists to work on the page layout. If you simply drop the text
into a design, you might find that some of it has got separated
and is out of context. Make sure too that your chosen agency offers
a full checking service so that you know your text has been faithfully
interpreted.
Anne Woolmer
Director,
Andiamo! Language Services Limited
www.andiamo.co.uk
|
