Case Study: Translating into English for Major German Trailer Manufacturer SPIER
As everybody knows, the German automotive sector is huge and has a long history of combining technical expertise with design flair. Its impressive range of products are in demand the world over.
Spier is a German vehicle company that is typical of this very important branch of German industry. It belongs to that key section of the German economy known as the Mittelstand which we in the United Kingdom are envious of and wish to emulate. Founded in 1872 Spier GmbH & Co. Fahrzeugwerk KG is a family-run business presently in the capable hands of the fourth generation. It specialises in the manufacturing of bespoke vehicle bodies and trailers.
Like so many German businesses it has built up export markets throughout the world. And just as it sets quality and efficiency as its key criteria in the development of transport concepts to meet the varied logistics needs of a vast range of haulage and delivery firms, so it demands the highest standards in the precision and clarity of its English language brochures and website.
This is where we at Eureko Associates stepped in. In 2014 Spier put the translation of the entire website out to tender, and chose our company to carry out the specialist work which ran to some 30,000 words in total.
Our highly experienced, bilingual three person team approached the task in the following rigorous way. Alexandra Wood and Tony Waine, English native speakers, carried out the initial translation, with each one then critically reading through the other’s first draft. The primary aim of Tony and Alex was to achieve accuracy and authenticity so that anyone reading the English version would automatically assume that this text was indeed the original with absolutely no traces of German idiom, tone or style still audible.
Eureko’s Managing Director, Vivien Hacker, a native German speaker who has lived in England since 1998 and has a fluent command of the English language too, checked this translation against the original at every stage. Only when she was perfectly satisfied that the English translators had done full justice to every last nuance of the technical German, was it passed on to Spier.
To ensure the complete satisfaction of Spier Fahrzeugwerk with our work, Vivien Hacker was in regular contact with Mr Andreas Fast, Spier’s Sales Department and Marketing Manager. He would always supply us with full verbal and visual information wherever Eureko sought linguistic perfection. Excellent communications between Germany and the UK regarding every aspect of the product led to the project becoming a genuinely productive collaboration between our two companies.
What did SPIER think of Eureko?
“When looking for an agency / supplier to translate our brochures and website we searched for one who showed they had a very good command of both languages, German and English, in all their subtleties, including the technical concepts. We found that Eureko offered all these things. Throughout the entire duration of the project a very high degree of specialist knowledge and an excellent level of punctuality regarding deadlines were displayed.”
Andreas Fast, Leiter Vertriebssteuerung und Marketing, SPIER GmbH & Co. Fahrzeugwerk KG
Posted: 24th January 2016
