7 C’s of text types where humans translate best #4: ‘C’ is for Captivating

Welcome back to AST’s podcast series about the text types that are best suited to human translation. In this episode, our Managing Director Andrew Schlich discusses texts that are crafted to Captivate the reader. Enjoy!

As always, don’t forget to share your insights by emailing us at office@astls.co.uk.

Please find the transcript of this episode below:

Texts that are designed to captivate differ quite significantly in aim and style to other text types covered so far. Complex and compliance-related documents are needed to transmit important technical concepts unambiguously. Especially for legal and medical texts, clarity and matter-of-fact copy is critical, trumping every other factor in the translation process.

Captivating copy, however, serves a different purpose and comes in a wide range of different formats, including audio and video. From film to video games, TV adverts to billboards, captivating texts serve a different purpose, aiming to hold the audience’s attention by enveloping them in an interesting and unique world.

Take video games, for instance. Captivating copy is essential to create an authentic reality that the player can become engrossed and invested in. From the street signs to the conversations between characters, the details count, and the copy needs to feed into a wider story of the circumstances of the game environment and the origin-stories of the characters. Crafting a narrative depends on the judicious selection of words that together create a specific environment and feelings relating to that environment.

This is also true for business. There are TV adverts that we all repeat for years because of a specific turn of phrase, or because they depict something entertaining or unusual in an otherwise relatable, everyday situation. I’m thinking of scenes like a family sitting down for dinner, or friends watching a football match. Creating those moments that hold an audience’s attention requires a full understanding of that audience, and of the references and cultural norms that they’re exposed to in their daily lives.

Generating an attachment between an audience and entertainment content requires expert human writers who understand the impact of word choices and know their audience. Telling your business’ story and the impact of your products is one thing but captivating your audience with your business’ culture and offering an authentic and entertaining depiction of how your product fits into their daily lives is what really compels them and creates a story that they’ll remember.

The issue with AI is that it doesn’t emote, so it can’t manage, and even manipulate, an audience’s feelings. Instead, it knows patterns and makes probabilistic pairings, occasionally hallucinating, omitting content, and rendering less-than-optimal translations.

This results in AI translations missing the mark when it comes to captivating audiences because they come across as flat, inauthentic and formulaic. AI translations lack originality, feeling and sparkle, creating copy according to a one-size-fits-all approach. In other words, AI texts sound and read like AI texts. If your aim is to engage your audience, show you understand them and their interests, then it’s best to use specialist human writers who will make your texts come alive and lift off the page. There’s an added dimension of skill when it comes to captivation that AI severely lacks.

To craft compelling texts that enable you to connect with your intended audiences, you need content that is written and translated with flair and a deep understanding of cultural nuances, tone and emotion. At AST, our translation experts have the know-how, experience and attention to detail to convey your message in your tone of voice to captivate international audiences and users.

Our next mini-podcast will cover text type #5 of the 7 C’s: C is for business-Critical.

Thanks for listening!