Technical translations and localization services have long established their domain in the automotive industry field. Growing in a fast-changing global industry compels every business to keep up with customers’ demands. And to this end, efficiently providing information in the language of each customer, manufacturer, or dealership becomes paramount.
According to a recent report by Market Research Future, the automotive sector is the fourth-largest industry worldwide. And it’s worth mentioning the great impact electric vehicles development has had in the industry, representing an unprecedented technological breakthrough in recent years. This considerable market’s maturation sets the demand for translation services.
But the question is: What exactly does translation and localization mean in the automotive industry?
In this post, you’ll find the features and the benefits of automotive industry translation and localization, alongside some insightful tips about automotive localization solutions.
Let’s get into it.
Table of Content
- Automotive Industry Translation & Localization: A Recap
- Most Common Types Of Automotive Industry Translation & Localization
- 4 Main Benefits Of Automotive Industry Translation & Localization
- 3 Invaluable Tips to Accurate Automotive Industry Translation & Localization Solution
- Choose The Best Language Service Provider
Automotive Industry Translation & Localization: a Recap
The automotive industry translation and localization is the adaptation of all automotive related documents to a target audience’s language, considering not only technical and terminological accuracy standards, but also possible audience’s interests, demands, and needs on a culturally relevant and highly-personalized level.
The role of localization is to give your automotive content the effective contextual approach needed to reproduce a positive impact on target audiences. Cultural adaptation ensures not only that your audience feels a familiar feature in the product, but also makes production processes and worldwide collaborations easier and smoother.
Now that we’ve established what automotive translation & localization are, let’s get into their most common types.
Most Common Types Of Automotive Industry Translation & Localization
These are the most common types of documents that require translation and localization in the manufacturing and sales process:
- Design & Manufacturing Processes
- User Manuals
- Marketing Materials & Advertisement
- Safety Documentation
- In-car Software
1- Design & Manufacturing Processes
With the entire automotive industry configuration being set to international divisions, vehicle designers and manufactures worldwide require translation and localization services to observe the same production methods and sustain quality assurance.
Design teams, for example, work alongside translators specialized in different languages. In these issues, language-nuance incomprehension can lead to several internal communication problems. CAD drawings are one example of these design documents that frequently require being translated to multiple languages.
2- User Manuals
Owner’s manuals, service portfolios, brochures, and other printed materials are translated and localized to provide users and technicians around the world with clear and detailed information about the cars’ features. Car user manuals, for example, are often lengthy and contain a large number of instructions. Small translation errors can lead to misinterpretations and risk the consumer’s experience.
3- Marketing Materials and Advertisement
It’s no secret that the vehicle industry is a worldwide complex. Thus, the demand for accurate translations has become a matter of the utmost importance.
Automotive companies require the translation of a great variety of advertisements and product promotions. And it’s essential to accurately localize all marketing materials, be it printed or digital.
4- Safety Documentation
Design and manufacturing processes produce a large number of safety documents. When working with tools of any kind, all personnel involved must be aware of procedures and their potential risks. That’s why reports, technical documentation, and safety guidelines need to be effectively translated as well.
5- In-car Software
The increasing digitalization of vehicle’s systems has developed a brand new niche of software car solutions that require, as the vast majority of software, a localization stage.
GPS navigation, audio control, climate control, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, human-machine interfaces, smartphone applications: every connectivity aspect must be culturally adapted and accordingly regulated to achieve the safest and most comfortable user experience in foreign markets.
localization in the automotive industry?
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4 Main Benefits of Automotive Industry Translation & Localization
The automotive industry infrastructure is an intricate and complex system. From research and development to production, assembly, sales, and marketing, every stage in the production and sale of a vehicle is integrated worldwide.
For instance, a vehicle designed in Germany is built in the Philippines and marketed in Canada. Thus, there is a multiplicity of languages involved in each stage of the production chain and sale phases.
This said, if you want to successfully expand your business in the automotive industry, specialized automotive translation is a must. A solid and effective localization strategy can enhance your product’s image, just as a poorly thought-out strategy can ruin it.
The localized version of all your automotive content shows a deep understanding of the cultural nuances of your target market. In an industry where safety comes first, your audience will notice that you care. A professional automotive translation service will help you achieve this.
Automotive industry translation and localization should concern you for 4 reasons:
1- Trust and Confidence
When potential customers enter your company’s website, they want to read all the content in their native language. So, a well-implemented localization becomes effective and increases the confidence new and old customers have in you.
Confusing messages or misleading cultural references can ruin UX and cause you to lose potential customers. A seasoned automotive translation company has the cultural know-how to operate in every market.
2- Transparent Messaging
Your product’s message and the way you can convey it to your audience are the keys to your product’s success.
With top-level localization, customer interactions become more meaningful. If your brand reaches potential consumers with a natural and narratively relatable message that they can identify with, it will give them a reason to choose you among many others.
3- Brand Consistency
Expanding linguistic accessibility gives you greater control over the message you are trying to convey and how your audience interacts with it. With an effective localization strategy, localization efforts will reach foreign cultures without compromising your brand’s tone and identity.
For example, in the case of Audi, the slogan in its original language is Vorsprung Durch Technik, while in English it is translated as Truth in Engineering. While the literal translation from German to English is ‘’Lead by technology’’, both phrases maintain the communicational intent.
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4- Better Internal Workflow
While a flawless customer experience is crucial, your team experience is something you should also take care of. An effective translation and localization strategy provides each international team member with a solid translation of all the necessary information to dynamize and ease internal workflows.
3 Invaluable Tips for Accurate Automotive Industry Translation & Localization Solutions
Whether you are an active member of the automotive industry or a language professional in training, this section holds great value for you. There are three fundamental tips for an effective translation solution for the automotive sector:
1- Define a Translation Style
Depending on the type of document or marketing material you need to translate and localize, you have two options:
1. Marketing translation and localization: marketing documents or materials will be translated and adapted to resonate deeply within your target audience. With a strategy designed with your needs in mind, the language professional will take care of adapting dates, time formats, colors, images, graphics, and layouts.
The final result must not only respect the cultural and legal requirements of the foreign market, but also the specific terminology used in the automotive industry, avoiding the risks of mistranslation.
For instance, a recent research compares the Russian and French automotive websites’ main pages of the French version of the Renault Group site. There, we can find sentences like:
- Découvrez tous nos masters. / Discover all our masters.
- Entrez dans l’univers initiale Paris. / Enter the initial universe Paris.
- Vivez l’émotion et éprouvez chaque jour les sensations de la conduite sportive au quotidien. / Experience the excitement and discover every day the sensations of sports driving.
In the French version of the Renault website, we observe an active use of imperative constructions in the target language to attract the attention of the potential customer. Even, at times, without the apparent intention of selling the product, but by providing relevant features.
However, in the website localization to Russian of the French Citroen, imperative constructions are also used but to a lesser extent:
- Пройди тест драйв и получи выгоду. Записывайтесь на обслуживание в любое время. Рассчитайте стоимость обслуживания в несколько кликов. Откройте для себя мир Citroёn. / Take the test drive and get the benefit. Register for service at any time. Calculate the cost of service in a few clicks. Discover the world of Citroën.
And the CTAs are also expressed in infinitive constructions:
- Связаться снами. Записаться на сервис. / To contact us. To sign up for a service.
While international companies introduce similar copywriting ideas on both their home (French) and localized (Russian) sites, there are notorious cultural, economic, and social adaptations. Automotive content in Russian tends to be direct, whereas texts in French aim to create a more complex positive image and influence consumers’ feelings.
2. Marketing transcreation: automotive localization seeks to impact the audience in a deeper way and for that, it transcends mere word-for-word literal translation. Transcreation marketing was created for this purpose.
Transcreation is a process by which transcreators transform the brand’s marketing material while maintaining the essence of the original message. This process makes the service offered at a global level uniquely tailored to a local audience. Thus, your content will appear as a local project to the eyes of your target audiences.
Transcreation professionals have the creative freedom to design content that preserves the same emotional impact on both the target audience and the source audience.
2- Interest in Language Particularities
Each piece of your content (from advertisements, to car software manuals and tech documentation) should be adapted to the context in which it will be used or displayed.
You should always attend to customers’ comprehension of the product nuances. It’s fundamental to avoid the mention of any product’s technical aspect that may be beyond their knowledge.
At bayantech, we offer cutting-edge technical translation services that achieve complete precision and consistency through the development of state-of-the-art translation tools.
Our terminology databases contain updated glossaries, style guides, client pre-approved translations, and translation memories that allow us to perfectly maintain the documents’ structure at technical, stylistic, and lexical levels.
3- Look at the Cultural Aspects
Cultural adaptation of the visual components (from symbols to images and videos) is also very essential.
Translation companies will know how to adapt the visual style of your products to match the cultural sensitivity of your target audiences. To do so, they work with professional native-speaking automotive experts.
The combination of subject-matter expertise and local cultural background makes the linguistic professional the most appropriate person to do the job.
Choose The Best Language Service Provider
At bayantech, we will give you much more than just a professional translation. Our company gathers almost 20 years of experience in the field, specializing in the automotive industry translation services using the best practices of ISO certification and strictly complying with international quality and safety standards.
Our goal is to provide you with the best linguistic service, combining the latest in translation technologies, the expertise of our professionals, and rigorous step-by-step quality assurance. Always respecting delivery times, at a cost-effective final price.
Contact us now and get a free translation services quote that fits your automotive translation project.
