INSIGHT: Five types of automotive translation

洞察:汽车翻译的五种类型

2020-04-12 21:50 Star Transit NXT

本文共964个字,阅读需10分钟

阅读模式 切换至中文

If you know anything about the STAR Group and its history, you’ll know that one of our earliest customer partnerships was formed with the automotive giant BMW, way back in the 1980s. Our first Asian subsidiary was formed in Japan in order to support BMW and Mercedes with automotive translations into Japanese. Now, I don’t say any of these to brag, though I think they are impressive. I say this because I want to highlight that automotive translations are a key part of the work we do here at STAR. Our Middle East office based in Cairo works almost exclusively on automotive translations for customers such as Renault and Daimler. It’s in our DNA, if you will. Today I wanted to look at the range of automotive translation projects that we work on for various clients and highlight some areas that you might not have thought about. The obvious one – technical manuals Automotive translation = car manuals, right?! In a way, yes. Automotive translation and car manuals are an obvious pairing. It is a legal requirement that car manufacturers provide translations of car manuals and other safety information to protect drivers and third parties. Today, many large car manufacturers use machine translation engines and human post-editing to for these automotive translations. Car manuals often use simpler language and are highly similar to previous versions so they are the ideal material for machine translation. Slightly less obvious – training materials for mechanics Hopefully not completely out of left field when it comes to automotive translations, anyone that works on cars in any capacity will need to be familiar with the systems that they use. As an example, in recent years, the rise in popularity of hybrid and electric vehicles has led to a corresponding increase in training manuals. Christiani, a technical vocational training specialist based in Germany, chose STAR to work on the translations for their training materials on the subject of alternative drive systems and high-voltage batteries. Similarly, if you are launching your brand into a new geographical area, you need to make sure that the workshops that support your dealerships are familiar with your cars and their workings. Rolls-Royce, who really need to no other introduction, chose STAR for their automotive translation project to localise materials for new markets in Russia, China and Japan. Sometimes over looked – Original Equipment Manufacturers It’s easy to rattle off a list of car manufacturers: their logos are actually everywhere and we can’t escape from their marketing efforts on billboards, on the television and even on the roads as we drive past others. Yet, these names do not manufacture every component in their cars. This is where the OE manufacturers come in. Components like spark plugs, shock absorbers, batteries and brake pads are often supplied by other manufacturers. And unsurprisingly, they also need automotive translations. STAR has worked with TRW aftermarket and ZF on automotive translations for their website and marketing campaigns. Not super obvious, yet hugely visible – marketing translations Marketing materials that require automotive translations are a large part of the work that we carry out for our customers. Content creation is a buzzword in marketing nowadays and the automotive industry is no different. Marketing translations are often offered in a separate category by translation suppliers, yet, in my opinion, there are few cases where marketing translations do not require some kind of specialist knowledge. Yes, marketing translations require creative flair but they also require accurate terminology and an understanding of the technologies involved. STAR has a long-standing partnership with several digital agencies who outsource translations to us for their automotive customers. We have worked on the automotive translations for regular press releases, point-of-sale collateral, Google adverts and YouTube videos among other things. The one you might not have considered – HMI HMI stands for Human Machine Interface, and I have to confess, this is my favourite one of the five. If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you’ll know that I have a bit of a geeky fascination for engineering and technology and I love the fact that this job gives me an insight into how certain things work. STAR has been working with VW for over 8 years on their in-car and app texts. These automotive translations are slightly unusual as they usually take the form of software strings. If you have a newer car, you will be familiar with on-board sat nav systems, perhaps the interactive sound systems, or you might even be able to sync your phone and your car. Our translators have had to consider which are the most obvious voice commands you might use to interact with your car, as well as all of the other options that you might use. It’s an automotive translation task that takes two translators several hours a week – along with a few informal office polls for what we might say in a similar situation! Have you ever spotted an automotive translation? As the end user, you probably haven’t noticed automotive translations, and that’s how it should be. If you notice that a text is a translation, something has gone wrong somewhere. Billions are spent worldwide on automotive translations and one of the main aims is that every text sounds like it was created in that language. Aside from the cost of inaccurate translations that cause delays, there are safety implications to documents containing terminology or factual mistakes. Companies in the automotive industry need a translation supplier that they can trust, and one that has the global expertise to support wherever and whenever you need it. If you have an upcoming automotive translation project, speak to one of our team about how one of our bespoke translation workflows can help you.
如果你对明星集团及其历史有所了解,你就会知道我们最早的客户合作伙伴之一是早在20世纪80年代就与汽车巨头宝马公司建立的。 我们的第一个亚洲子公司在日本成立,以支持宝马和梅赛德斯汽车翻译成日文。 现在,我说这些并不是为了吹牛,尽管我认为它们令人印象深刻。 我这样说是因为我想强调汽车翻译是我们在STAR所做工作的一个关键部分。 我们位于开罗的中东办事处几乎专门为雷诺和戴姆勒等客户提供汽车翻译服务。 这是我们的DNA,如果你愿意的话。 今天,我想看看我们为不同客户所做的汽车翻译项目的范围,并强调一些您可能没有想到的领域。 显而易见的一个--技术手册 汽车翻译=汽车手册,对吧?! 在某种程度上,是的。 汽车翻译和汽车手册是一个明显的配对。 汽车制造商提供汽车手册和其他安全信息的翻译,以保护驾驶者和第三方,这是一项法律要求。 今天,许多大型汽车制造商使用机器翻译引擎和人工后期编辑来进行这些汽车翻译。 汽车手册通常使用更简单的语言,并且与以前的版本高度相似,因此它们是机器翻译的理想材料。 略微不明显--机械训练材料 希望在汽车翻译方面没有完全超出左视野,任何从事汽车翻译工作的人都需要熟悉他们所使用的系统。 例如,近年来,混合动力和电动汽车普及程度的上升导致培训手册相应增加。 Christiani是一位驻德国的技术职业培训专家,他选择STAR为他们的培训材料翻译有关替代驱动系统和高压电池的主题。 同样,如果你要把你的品牌推广到一个新的地理区域,你需要确保支持你的经销商的车间熟悉你的汽车及其工作原理。 劳斯莱斯(Rolls-Royce),谁真的不需要其他介绍,选择STAR为他们的汽车翻译项目本地化材料,在俄罗斯,中国和日本的新市场。 有时会忽略原来的设备制造商 我们很容易就能说出一个汽车制造商的名单:他们的标识实际上无处不在,我们无法逃脱他们在广告牌,电视上甚至在我们开车经过别人的路上所做的营销努力。 然而,这些公司并不是生产汽车的每一个部件。 这就是OE制造商的用武之地。 像火花塞,减震器,电池和刹车片这样的部件通常由其他制造商提供。 不出所料,它们也需要自动翻译。 STAR曾与TRW Fastmarket和ZF合作,为他们的网站和营销活动提供汽车翻译。 不是很明显,但却非常明显--营销翻译 需要汽车翻译的营销材料是我们为客户所做工作的很大一部分。 内容创造是当今市场营销中的一个时髦词,汽车行业也不例外。 市场营销翻译通常是由翻译供应商单独提供的,然而,在我看来,很少有市场营销翻译不需要某种专业知识的情况。 是的,营销翻译需要创造性的天赋,但也需要准确的术语和对所涉及的技术的理解。 STAR与几家数字代理公司有着长期的合作关系,这些代理公司为他们的汽车客户将翻译外包给我们。 我们曾为定期新闻稿,销售点抵押品,谷歌广告和YouTube视频等做过汽车翻译工作。 你可能没有考虑过的那个-HMI HMI代表人机界面,我不得不承认,这是我最喜欢的五个界面之一。 如果你读过我以前的博客,你就会知道我对工程和技术有几分极客的迷恋,我喜欢这份工作让我洞察到某些事情是如何工作的。 STAR已经与大众合作了超过8年的车内文本和应用程序文本。 这些自动转换略显不寻常,因为它们通常采用软件字符串的形式。 如果你有一辆较新的汽车,你会熟悉车载卫星导航系统,也许是交互式音响系统,或者你甚至可以同步你的手机和你的汽车。 我们的翻译必须考虑哪些是最明显的语音命令,您可能会使用与您的汽车互动,以及所有其他选项,您可能会使用。 这是一项汽车翻译任务,需要两个翻译每周花几个小时--同时还要进行一些非正式的办公室调查,以了解我们在类似情况下可能会说些什么! 你见过汽车翻译吗? 作为最终用户,您可能还没有注意到汽车翻译,这是应该的。 如果你注意到一个文本是翻译,说明某处出了问题。 全世界都在汽车翻译上花费了数十亿美元,其中一个主要目标就是让每一个文本听起来都像是用那门语言创作的。 除了造成延误的不准确翻译的费用之外,包含术语或事实错误的文件也涉及安全问题。 汽车行业的公司需要一个他们可以信赖的翻译供应商,一个拥有全球专业知识的供应商,无论何时何地,只要你有需要,都可以提供支持。 如果您有一个即将到来的汽车翻译项目,请与我们的团队中的一个讨论我们的定制翻译工作流程如何帮助您。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

阅读原文