The golden rule of translation: translators must only work into their mother tongue.

What is your ‘mother tongue’?

“The first language that you learn when you are a baby, rather than a language learned at school or as an adult”

1. Mother tongue translation is the most authentic

Unfortunately, when someone writes in their L2 – second language – no matter how skilled, there are almost always giveaway signs that occasionally creep in, betraying that they are not operating in their mother tongue. This can damage the authenticity of theessage.

The understanding of nuance and complexity that comes as a native speaker is very hard to replicate in a learned language. Your L1 is the language in which you have the strongest grasp of cultural nuances and the widest vocabulary, by far. In a long, complex piece of translation, there usually reaches a point where a ‘mother tongue’ understanding is needed.

2. Mother tongue speakers are most likely to nail your pitch

When you navigate a poorly translated website, you’re never totally instilled with confidence in what the company is offering. We don’t want this to be the case for our clients; even very occasional errors in vocabulary or grammar can be red flags for customers and harm your bottom line. This is a risk that is taken out of the equation by having the job done by a native speaker of the target language.

3. Localisation is crucial

It’s not just trust signals, either. Shoddily-translated websites can even be offensive – certainly not the message you want to be conveying to new marketplaces. A ‘mother tongue’ translator will have the best chance of nailing all the cultural nuances. This means, for example, using a Vietnamese translator for a localization project of German products into Vietnamese. Those localisations, taking cultural sensitivity into account, make all the difference.

4. Mother tongue translators might help you out on Google…

It’s no secret that a bad user experience can harm your placement on Google search pages. Spelling and grammar errors form part of this – and a mother tongue translator can help you out here. Behind the arcane algorithms dictating your placement on a Google search page, there does seem to be credibility to the claim that error-laden translated content, such as that being pushed by spammers, can penalise you. Choose mother tongue – your SEO will thank you.

Source: alexika.com