The Importance of Foreign Language Transcription

Have you ever tried translating any non-English poem straight to English? If yes, then you probably know how the translation often takes away the elegance and grace of the original version. This is a phenomenon that happens with any attempt of translation, including in content creation.

Besides proving the importance of learning foreign languages, this demonstrates why companies and content creators still look for foreign language transcription services. Foreign language transcription is far more complex than plopping your current transcripts in Google Translate - it requires a deep understanding of both the language and those who speak it natively.

While it may be tedious and requires a lot of resources to learn, foreign language transcription yields a lot of benefits for your brand. Here are some reasons why:

Expands your audience

Transcribing to a single language has the clear drawback of limiting your audience only to those who understand that language. With foreign language transcription, you can drastically expand the potential audience of your content.

The benefits of foreign language transcription last much longer if you’re consistent with using it. It establishes your brand as one that people from multiple countries can consume. In the long run, your content can reach far and wide in terms of engagement.

Facilitates the exchange of ideas

Language barriers are a huge obstacle when sharing ideas. Even the most compelling or interesting ideas become stuck to only a certain few people if they come in a language that only those people understand. This can especially be tragic if you want your content to be the kind that invites people to discuss.

Foreign language transcriptions do more than letting more people understand your content. They can also bridge the gap between two or more demographics. An example of this is when your content contains guests or speakers from various languages. When you use foreign language transcriptions, it invites viewers from different languages to interact with each other, regardless of language barriers.

Allows for larger and far-reaching decisions

Foreign language transcriptions allow you to make sweeping changes to your structure or product line. Oftentimes, brands start out with a single language to streamline their efforts. However, this can lead to efforts that focus only on those who understand that certain language.

With foreign language transcriptions, you can expand your major decision-making with your brand. Besides having content that viewers from different languages can understand, you can cater your content to those viewers. Plus, you can also develop relationships with content creators or brands from other languages.

Engages the hearts and minds of people

Using foreign language transcriptions to expand your reach is an oversimplification of what it can do - it hits much more on an intimate level. Learning a whole new language is a large undertaking that takes up a lot of time and resources. Thus, it’s hard to come across content with more than one language option.

Even if your transcription has errors in translation, it nevertheless gives the impression that you were at least exerting the effort of trying to translate your content for a certain audience. This establishes a welcoming image of your brand and, on an unconscious level, brings you closer to your audience.

In a world where digital translation is easily available, it is easy to doubt the importance of foreign language transcriptions. However, they’re always an investment worth making if you want to expand your audience and drive your decision-making with your brand.

Of course, transcriptions on their own are challenging to do - foreign language transcriptions, even more so. For best effect, consider relying on a transcription service like TranscriptionWing so you can expand the reach of your content without the hassle.