THE ‘DANGERS’ OF TRANSLATION
It may be sometimes difficult to distinguish between localisation and the translation of cultural concepts since the two may overlap. Generally, localisation includes the adaptation of details such as currencies, date/time formats or addresses/phone numbers according to the location. It is often applied in the marketing of products and services. Cultural adaptation is more commonly associated to the written translation process and it means recognising local sensitivities and thus paying attention to respecting local culture, customs, and common habits. Localisation errors during the process of translation, or more specifically cultural adaptation errors, refer to words or passages in the original text which are translated in a culturally inappropriate way. When this happens, such content may be construed as offensive. As seasoned translators would know, individual words do not always map word-for-word into another language. Some words do not have an equivalent in another language, wh