COMMERCIAL COPYWRITING AND TRANSLATION

I offer commercial writing support in terms of translation and copy writing for websites, newsletters, press releases, and blogs. For translations, the original text may be in French, Spanish, or German. All translations are into English.

The considerations for translation or copywriting of a commercial text can be described as being somewhere between what is needed for creative and academic texts. Clarity is essential but so too is emotional power.

Do you want to attract the English market? 

It is critical that your text sounds like it was written by a native English speaker. Technically correct advertising copy can come off as being stilted, as though written by a computer or someone who knows the language without having grown up in it, and lived it. This is true both when the copy has been originally written in English or if it has been translated. Modern English may seem like a very simple language, but the subtlety of its idioms are far from evident.

The aim of the best ad copy, whether an original text or a translation, is to communicate the client’s message. In the case of translation, it should aim to sound to the audience in the target language as it does to the original audience.

Even given all the history that French and English share, each culture has very different expectations. As a very general example, French culture in recent years allows for more abstraction. English culture prizes concreteness and specificity. 

I work to find the balance, so that your text conveys your message and maintains an emotional connection with the audience.

Sometimes translation is not enough and the text would benefit from being reworked as an original document in English, so that it appeals to native speakers on an intuitive level. I can also help with that. 

Q: Why do you recommend “feeling” translations?
A: Simply because that's what I believe in. There are already a lot of other people offering technically proficient translations but I find that these do not communicate to people as well as translations that feel like they were originally written in English. Online, every word counts. For a small translation that only serves as an in-house memo, a technically correct translation may not be necessary. For anything that is going to be read by a larger public, that public will have more faith in companies that have language that sound like native English. 

Q: I've already translated my text but I need someone to review it. What is your process?
A: This depends on how confident you are in the translation. If it is a language we work with, we are happy to compare the translated text with the English text as we go. Be aware that this is a slower process and will result in more billable hours. 

An example of recent, publicly available, work:

In 2018, I completed a full revision of the website text for Angry Monkey MMA, a popular martial arts gym in the Montreal borough of Verdun: http://www.angrymonkeymma.com