In my last post I talked about the differences between translation and transcreation (if you haven’t read it yet, click here to check it out!), and how it’s not just about swapping words. So I thought I’d share with you what the process looks like using a recent campaign we did as an example.
One of our clients launched a commercial in English, and asked us to transcreate subtitles for the videos. Because it is a commercial, videos are short, but that doesn’t make the work any easier, as sometimes words in Spanish are longer. (Literally like double the length sometimes.)
The main challenge in this project was their tagline, “Fight the good fight”. This is a common expression we say a lot in English in a bunch of different situations, but not in Spanish. We kicked it off research and a literal translation.
And to make things a little more fun (and difficult) there are so many words in Spanish that mean “fight” – Lucha, Batalla, Pelea. And all three can be interpreted differently!
“Pelea la buena batalla” was the most common translation we found in our research AND if we were only hired to translate (or we leaned on Google Translate) – our work would be done! ¡Voila!
BUT, we weren’t about to let our client get a bunch of WTFs!
Transcreation requires to dive deeper to deliver the message.
So we asked ourselves, what is our client trying to convey here? How do they want their audience to feel about the ad? Is it “we fight the good fight” or “you go fight the good fight”? What do we feel when we see the ad in English? When we speak in Spanish, what triggers the same feelings? Is “pelea la buena batalla” making us feel like that? Does anyone even say “pelea la buena batalla” in Spanish?
This is where our team brainstorms, answers all those questions, and comes up with different options. We get together, say it out loud to see what different accents sound like, and discuss the background of the words we’re considering.
After much deliberation, we decided to present the client with the following options:
- Pelea la buena batalla /Peleemos la buena batalla (you vs we) – Direct translation. 99% of published texts translated Fight the Good Fight to this, and all of those texts are biblically related. Beyond the bible’s mention, Fight the Good Fight is not commonly spoken in Spanish as we hear it in English all the time.
- Contigo en la lucha. With you in the (this) fight. If we were to assume what Renown is trying to convey with Fight the Good Fight this is the closest. It gives continuance to our word choice for fight, luchar. There are two words for “fight” in Spanish – pelear and luchar. Both are used interchangeably, but there are differences. Pelear is closer related to physical altercations/battles while luchar is more noble – to fight against a sickness, a cause, etc.
We made our case for Option #2 and the client was onboard!
It took hours, three people, and lots of research to successfully translate a 30-second commercial, but I bet you Google Translate would have never gotten here.