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TRANSLATION

CAN MAKE OR

BREAK YOUR

CROSS-BORDER

BUSINESS

Author: Richard van Welie // Photo’s: iStock

For many e-commerce companies, especially the ones in smaller markets, expanding their
business cross-border is a chance – and sometimes even a necessity – to spur their growth. Still,
selling in other countries is not an easy enterprise and involves a lot of effort and costs. In order

to save some money, people often tend to cut costs in translation and localisation. This is quite
unfortunate as it may result in much more damage to a company than you may think.

hen you want to sell products and/or such as Google Translate is largely to blame. Admittedly,
services to customers in their respective these tools can indeed be very helpful when translating texts,
Wcountries, you must take several aspects but only when they are used by people who understand the
into account. Just think of differing legislation, tax target language. Google Translate’s output still has to be
rules and foreign payment and logistical solutions. checked by a real person; the tool tends to translate your
This all requires time, effort and money, which is why input literally, so it may very well miss any nuance or cultural
it is understandable that several companies try to differences, for example.
find ways to cut some corners and save money in the
process. And the costs for translating your texts, such In fact, until recently Google translated the Dutch sentence
as your product descriptions and website texts, are an ‘Er klopt niets van deze vertaling’ into ‘There is nothing
easy target in this regard. wrong with this translation,’ ‘Es ist nichts falsch mit dieser
Übersetzung,’ and ‘Il n’y a rien de mal avec cette traduction.’
The risk of using Google Translate Luckily, Google Translate has improved a lot over the years
What makes translation and editing such an appealing target and its translations are getting better and better. Now, the
for cost-cutting? The growing popularity of translation tools Dutch sentence above should be correctly translated into

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