You will be very lucky if you can find a translator who would be willing to work together with you on your source marketing text to rework it for the foreign buyers liking first and only then to start translating. And as we have already mentioned the best foreign language providers for marketing real estate would be those who know real estate and write well in the target language.
It goes without discussion that the real estate marketing texts to be presented online need the highest quality “for publication” and also they require localization according to the cultural preferences of the foreign buyers in the country you target. Any good translators will definitely include localization in their work – changing measurements to the form appropriate in the target country, properly describing the cultural differences between the source and target countries and avoiding any misunderstanding and “lost in translation” items in this regard.
Do you remember the ill-famous case when the U.S. Secretary of States presented the Russian Foreign Minister a symbolic button with the word “Overwhelming” in Russian instead of “Resetting” as it was supposed to be to start the new era of relationships between the two countries? No good professionals working in the Foreign Department???
One more good thing that a good foreign language provider will do for you: If the translated text is for publishing on your website, it can happen that it does not fit into the format of some features (headlines, photos descriptions and the like) when your webmaster starts building a foreign webpage, then the translator will work with the webmaster to rewrite some pieces if required.
In any circumstances the last and final proofreading of any and all marketing material – online or ready for printing – should be done by the qualified translator, not anybody else even if they claim knowing the language, then the professional would be happy to sign his or her name under the text translated if appropriate.
The cost of a good translating job with localization is so low in comparison with the revenue you get even from a single property sale for the foreign buyers while the cost of a bad translating job is actually much higher – you spend some money, time and effort and get no sales.
As the American Translators Association states in its guide for consumers Translation. Getting It Right: “There are hundreds of ways a project can go off track: Ridiculous deadlines, ambiguities in source text amplified by the provider not asking questions, misapplied MT (machine translating), no proofreading of typeset text by a native speaker, blissful unawareness of an over-confident provider operating in a vacuum, poor coordination of large projects, poor cheap freelancer, poor expensive freelancer, poor cheap translation company, poor expensive translation company, no client input, and on and on. By applying even half the tips in this guide, you will improve your chances of getting a translated text that works.”
Interpreting for your foreign buyers during their visit to see your property and possibly close the deal is an easier task, but anyway, it is also important not to lose the sale at this last stage. You can hire a bilingual person residing in your neighborhood to do interpreting.
A summary: Saving on translation is okay at the expense of rewriting and shortening the initial marketing text if required, but not okay at the expense of the quality of the translated text; real estate marketing texts for the foreign buyers are “for publication” and thus the most demanding.
Copyright © 2017 by Olga Kellen
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Secrets of Selling Real Estate to Foreign Buyers 