After spending a lifetime in language, I had really become accustomed to the idea that “language” was the human interface. The connection between reality and the mind. To understand and to connect to products, technology, healthcare, anything, we need words. I built a career on the idea that some words had meaning and value. The words, spoken or written, connect products to people, technology to users, and healthcare outcomes to its members.
Factoring Culture into the Equation
But something was wrong with the equation. Over the years, I saw multiple instances where a translated word, despite being an accurate translation, did not achieve the intended outcome of the translation. As an example, I saw interpreters ask Vietnamese-speaking patients to “take their medication”. The translation was accurate and professional, but the patient didn’t take the medication. I saw a $20m software contract be held up as two lawyers argued the correct use of two competing Spanish terms – both accurate, but only one could complete the contract negotiation. The words were not at fault, the words being used were not wrong, but the words were not achieving the outcome or solution desired.
Being in a human-powered industry, we constantly discuss and face quality issues. Yet factual mistakes, spelling errors, or grammar errors typically only make up 1% of those quality challenges; this is an extremely high level of quality for a human-powered industry.
When I looked at the collective data of 25 years in the language business, I concluded that words are not the human interface. Words are not the way we connect (translated or otherwise). They are just a medium the connection is made through. Words are an expression of the intent and engagement, just as paint is to a picture. Culture is the actual point of the user interface, the actual connection to the inner mind and motivations. We use words to express the inner culture and make a connection through the culture to the mind. This is the same way that the paint creates a picture, but it is the picture that speaks to us and connects to our inner selves.
Translating Culture
When we translate we are not only translating words but trying to translate the cultural intent of the engagement. When we have quality issues, we statistically have a problem with cultural connectivity (voice tone and style of the words) vastly more than we do formal linguistic accuracy of the translated words. If we are successful, we overcome the cultural barrier. If we fall short, we fail to deliver the intended message no matter how accurate the translation is.
Consider our example of translating “please take your medication” – you can translate in many ways in Vietnamese, but none of those ways would encourage a refugee from provincial Vietnam to take the medication. The quality issue was not in the words used but in understanding the Vietnamese culture. The refugee understands the instructions; it is the cultural concept that western medicine will cause harm we need to overcome to help them. It is culture that connects us to engagement, intent, and purpose.
But what does this mean in everyday business and interaction terms?
Cultural Solutions
In a recent article, we positioned we are a Language Solutions industry, not a service industry. I would amend this – we are a cultural solutions industry; perhaps language is only part of that. When I look at the groundbreaking work we are doing with customers, it’s almost all about the intersection of language and culture.
The newest work we do includes cultural impact assessment of e-Learning course content that delivers direct native language support outreach. For a product to sell, the words and culture need to be considered deeply. We also see this in the SEO support we provide; large-scale enterprises trying to focus in and connect to the cultural evolution of terms and phrases that mark customer intent and interest.
At the beginning of my career, getting a product translated was enough to secure a market. Later on, it was making the product locally attractive with extended features and support. I believe the next industrial wave has begun and today, we need to focus on understanding and connecting to the culture we want to sell to and effectively finding ways to use Culture as the Human User interface.
-Nic McMahon, Head of Localization at Propio
