German seminar on transcreation (adaptive translation)

On 23 February 2019 I attended a day-long seminar on transcreation and learned a lot about this highly interesting field of work for especially creative translators. The seminar was organised by the German translators’ Association BDÜ, Chapter Rhineland-Palatinate, and presented by Nina Sattler-Hovdar, English-to-German and Norwegian-to-German translator from Austria.

The concept of transcreation

After the participants introduced themselves, as usual, the seminar started with definitions of key concepts; the presenter explained what transcreation actually is – and what it isn’t.

Transcreation combines the services of translation and copywriting, and comprehensive consulting is also an indispensable part of it. That requires competence not not only as a translator, but also as a copywriter and a consultant. Soon it became clear that not every translator can automatically be a good transcreator.

The basis for translation is the source text, whereas the basis for transcreation is a briefing document (minutes of a consultation with the client, containing the client specifications and wishes). Transcreation, however, should not be viewed as less precise than translation, as is simply focuses on a different goal, which is achieving the same effect of the source text in the target language even if elements of the source text are lost in the process. Therefore, communicating a message – as opposed to translating the words of the source text – plays an important role.

On the other hand, transcreation is also distinct from the concepts of creativity and copywriting. After all, transcreating generates no original text; instead, an existing text is translated and adapted.

The transcreation process

After that, the presenter gave us a comprehensive description of transcreation as a process. This includes, among other things, writing the briefing document, researching, performing a rough translation and going through different stages of association of ideas and verification of the transcreated content.

She also gave attendees plenty of practical advice for a successful consultation with the client, how to write the briefing document and how to research and collect ideas.

Special attention was given to creativity and transcreation techniques (such as mind mapping, brainwriting, swipe files), examples and recommendations based on transcreation experience as well as different approaches to transcreating PR and marketing texts.

Pricing for transcreation projects

This was followed by a long discussion on transcreation pricing, how to deal with client questions and feedback as well as how to estimate working time in transcreation projects. In the end, the presenter answered questions that the attendees had sent her in advance.

Transcreation as a market niche

The seminar not only offered great content, but also gave us a solid basis for tapping transcreation as a market niche.

It was extremely useful even for me as a legal and financial translator. I translate not only jargon-heavy content with strict terminological and stylistic specifications, but also texts that contribute to a company’s image (for instance, law firm websites) or are intended as PR or marketing materials – in situations like these a certain creative approach to translating may be valuable.

Also, I want to invest more time in customer acquisition and actual jobs in the field of transcreation into Brazilian Portuguese. Now that I learned so much in this seminar, I feel well-prepared to achieve these goals.

Event details