Every product that is launched on the market must come with an instruction manual that has been translated into enough languages to guarantee its comprehension by an adequate number of customers.
Having instruction manuals translated is therefore of key importance when looking to access new markets. In this article, we will be looking at some of the main reasons why it is so important to have instruction/product manuals translated into as many languages as possible.
Everyday hundreds of new products are launched on the global market and the tipping point between success and failure can depend on whether a product can be used at once or not.
Translating product instructions in all a target market’s languages could initially seem like a waste of time and money, however, very often a product’s success doesn’t just come down to its quality or its functions, but also to whether it is easy to understand how to use it. The intuitive use of a product is fundamental but where that doesn’t stem from an intuitive design, it can be gained via a well-written instruction manual.
That is why it is so important to rely on professional translators for the translation of instruction manuals. An expert translator knows, for example, how to structure sentences so that they will be understood by the target audience and knows the correct terminology to make the instructions clear and comprehensible for end users.
An instruction manual should ideally be translated into all the languages used in the markets where it will be launched. Obviously, that is not always possible, also because it is difficult to forecast exactly where a product will be made available.
As a result, it is necessary to focus on the larger language groups. In terms of Europe, there is an inevitable need to have manuals translated into FIGS, and we can’t overlook Polish and Romanian as well. Russian is also worth considering; although spoken by many people, the Russian market currently raises a number of issues.
Thinking about the Americas, it is more straightforward: translate into LATAM Spanish (a standardised Latin-American Spanish); US English, and Brazilian Portuguese, and then it is possible to reuse the French and Dutch versions that you made for the European market (Careful! If will market in Canada, you will want to consider a localisation into Québec French when working with Canada).
The Asian market is more fragmented; however, it is dominated by two major languages, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi, followed closely by Bahasa Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Urdu, Persian and obviously Arabic.
Africa is more challenging. Although on the one hand Wolof and Swahili are probably the most marketable “local” languages, on the other the majority of African populations speak or at least understand the respective colonial languages. That means it is generally enough to have content translated into English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.
In most cases, instruction manuals are short and concise. Having them translated shouldn’t therefore be an excessively costly project for manufacturers; if anything, it is an added value and a way to distinguish a product from a swathe of lower-quality products saturating the market. Thanks to the internet, it is possible to offer customers product manuals in their language without taking up space in the product packaging.
A plausible solution is to insert a quick guide in the manual in the main market languages (in general FIGS plus Chinese, Arabic and Russian) and then have a product QR code that leads the customer to a website with a comprehensive version of the instructions and a quick guide in all languages.
At one point we’ve all been in the position of not being able to understand a product manual because the instructions were littered with mistakes or just didn’t make sense. When that happens, the image of both the product and the manufacturer goes decidedly down and is more often than not totally negative.
Using a professional translation agency that guarantees quality across all languages is a two-fold winning choice: on the one hand it means that users will easily and quickly grasp how to use a product and on the other, the manufacturer will be perceived as serious and professional, hence increasing loyalty and consolidating indirect marketing.
Traducendo Ltd can help you with the translation of instruction manuals in all the languages you need. Please contact us for an immediate quote.
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