We live in an ultra-connected world where international business relations are seeing a dramatic rise. Both small and large organizations are now importing and exporting goods to countries across the planet.
As these companies look to remove language barriers while conducting massive transactions with their multinational partners, the growing need for financial translation services is quite understandable.
However, this kind of translation is nothing but a challenging job. It calls for excellent attention to detail and high-level knowledge of the subject matter. Otherwise, a translator, no matter their linguistic fluency, will make serious mistakes.
So, if your business or company plans to use financial translation solutions, you definitely will have some inquiries. Like what are some key errors that translators often run into? By having an answer to this question, you will be better equipped to avoid these errors and arrive at quality outcomes for your next project.
In this blog, we’ll first discuss what financial translation is and then will help you discover the answer to your question about common mistakes in financial translation.
What’s financial translation?
In a line, it deals with the translation of financial documents into a different language. These financial documents can include account audit reports, cash flow statements, balance sheets, and more.
These translations are often performed by a financial translation company for clients such as banks, large corporations, and financial institutions.
The goal of translating financial content is to ensure various multilingual stakeholders and partners can keep themselves abreast of financial records. Because linguistic barriers can be a problem for them, therefore, financial document translation removes such barriers.
The situations where financial translations prove very helpful may include international business transactions, mergers, and acquisitions. The translation allows all the involved parties to easily read the fine print and stay current on pertinent reports.
Here are examples of financial translation in various industries
The financial sector is very diverse. Due to this diversity, this kind of business translation services includes linguistic work in industries such as real estate, insurance, manufacturing, engineering, and more.
If it’s the insurance company, the translators would be working on the insurance documents. For manufacturing companies, they will be working on the expense reports. And if the project involves real estate procedures, they will be delivering their services related to income statements.
Examples of financial documents for translation across other industries are as follows:
- Tax reports, invoices, and tax clearance documents in the tax and accounting industry
- Annual reports, balance sheets, and shareholder reports are examples of financial documents in large corporations
- Bonds, equities, mutual funds, and prospectuses are the types of financial documents in an investment firm
Three common errors in financial translation solutions
If the translation involves any errors, these errors can damage and destroy the reputation of translators as well as the relevant stakeholders. So, you should be aware of some of the mistakes that commonly occur during the translation of financial documents. These mistakes could vary but we will enlist only the top three (3) of them that translators mostly make.
Number inaccuracies
This happens especially after a translator has spent hours and hours translating a text and has been looking at the screen for a long time. Regional differences in how numbers are displayed can add more to this complexity.
For instance, the majority of English-speaking nations use a comma to separate thousands. But when we come to countries like Germany, they separate thousands with a period, not a comma. English speakers don’t use a period for the separation of thousands but for the separation of decimals.
The way to separate thousands can differ as go to other countries. For example, people in Switzerland separate the thousands using an apostrophe. So, you can imagine how easy it is for a translator to mix up the numbers.
Use of inconsistent terminology
You have been reading and writing the English language. You know that many English words have a lot of alternatives or interchangeable synonyms. However, this creates problems during translation.
If the initial document contains excessive use of synonyms, it can create tremendous issues even for an experienced professional translation agency. The translators might find it difficult to understand that both words mean the same thing.
Take the following example for better understanding. The alternative for “bank statement” in English is “account statement”. Both terms refer to the same thing. However, if you use these terms interchangeably without prior explanation or warning to translators, they will find it confusing.
The best approach, in this case, is to use a terminology database that includes agreed-upon terms. Or you must stick to only one term in the document: it could be the bank statement or account statement, based on your preference.
Formatting issues
The way different countries can render numbers differently, they have formatting differences too. And errors become more frequent in the translated text if the financial documents have different formatting.
For instance, balance sheets and bank statements in the USA could have different formatting or feature distinct categories and sections compared to their European counterparts. If translators aren’t aware of such nuances, they would be unable to work effectively toward completing your project accurately and fast. Read More