Someday a colleague of mine asked me for the resource of transcreation. Since it was my first time to hear of the word, I was quite confused and had no clue what was transcreation at all.

Then I told her I had resources of translators and copywriters and asked which resource she wanted on earth. She didn’t give me a firm answer so I tried to learn the true meaning of transcreation by myself.

From below 3 aspects, I think it could help you have a thorough knowledge and understanding of the true concept and definition of transcreation.

1. Transcreation=trans+creation.

From the strucutre of the word itself you could guess it probably means translate creatively or creative translaliton. Actually, there are many terms with meanings similar to transcreation including “cross market copywriting”, “international copy adaptaion”, and “localization”. For each of these words and phrases, the common process is to take the essence of a message and recreate it in another language or dialect.

You could say that transcreation is to translate what copywriter is to write or edit the copy what translator is to translate. Actually transcreation engages in a bundle of services consisting of the complete set of translation, localization and copyediting services. Transcreated material is supposed to voke the same emotions and carries the same implications in the target language as it does in the source language.

2. What industry calls for transcreation service and why?

Increasingly, transcreation is used in global marketing and advertising campaign and the bulk of transcreative work performed to date has been in the advertising industry in media such as brochures,TV and radio ads aimed at end clients. You must wonder why advertising industry calls for transcreation specially.

Here you need to understand the difference between translation and transcreation. One could argue that any translation job is a transcreation job, since a good translation always try to reflect all these aspects of the source text. This is of course true.

But one important quality is lost in translation which applied in professional copywriting, the capacity to relate to the target people and motivate them to action. Transcreation expands upon translation by focusing not so much on the literal text, but on discerning the emotional reponce by viewers in the source language and working to elicit the same responce from viewers in the target market. Transcreation is to translate a brand’s essence into another language.

3.What qualities should a transcreator have?

In addition to creativity, a transcreator should also have an excellent knowledge of both the source language and the target language, a thorough knowledge of cultural backgrounds and be familiar with the product being advertised and be able to write about it enthusiastically.

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