“Nid wyf yn y swyddfa…”

If you’ve ever worked on a proposal where content’s had to be translated between different languages, you’ll know this can be time-consuming, expensive, risky and fraught.

You need to find translators with a truly excellent command of each of the languages concerned – whilst adding in great proposal writing ability. And using translation agencies can be tricky for the unwary. Take the following example, from a different context:

I am not in the office

See, all road signs in Wales have to be bilingual. The team working on the project all spoke English. They emailed the council seeking a translation, and added the reply to the sign.

Only the reply wasn’t a translation of their text warning about trucks. It was an automated message explaining: “I am not in the office at the moment…”

This article was written by Jon and filed under Musings. If you found it useful, you can with others. To receive automatic updates, subscribe to The Proposal Guys via RSS or Email.