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I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Why I won't use the Finnish language translation of your service
One of my biggest projects this year, Stylebook, has a newsletter list on MailChimp. Anyone can subscribe to it through our website.
The newsletters, as our service, are in Finnish. And because MailChimp offers Finnish translation for their basic forms and confirmation emails, we've turned that on.
We already had noticed that some of the automatic translations are a bit funny. Unfortunately it also appears they cannot be changed manually anywhere.
Yesterday my business partner pointed out another rather comical translation mistake: The form where you can update your subscription options is titled "Päivitä mieltymykset". It's a pretty straightforward translation from "Update preferences" and it really doesn't work in Finnish. This Finnish version now says something like "update tastes". Not quite right, is it?
Many services have multiple translations. You are likely to be able to use Twitter, Google products, Facebook and others in your preferred language.
Often the translations have mistakes, which of course is understandable, especially when the language options are new. However the mistakes aren't the only problem I have with these translations.
Use the force?
My biggest problem is the forced nature of many of these translations. The language tends to be stiff, especially with the technical terms or new terminology.
The city of Helsinki officials recently instructed (the city employees) not to use the word hashtag. Instead, they said, everyone should use Finnish translations, aihetunniste or avainsana. The first one could be again translated as subject identifier and latter as keyword.
Both are slightly off, because hashtags are more than subject identifiers or keywords. They are a way of grouping messages, a little bit like categories (but not quite), sort of metadata tags.
A little while back, when tablets started to become a common thing someone had a brilliant idea. He or she wanted to call a tablet in Finnish as sormitietokone, a "finger computer". Good thing is that didn't fly and was just left to everyone's memory as a mistake to make fun about.
Even though my Google settings are set to English, for a while Google Analytics was turned in Finnish for me. Not by my choice, but because of my country settings, I assume.
Firstly it's silly to assume that everyone in Finland is Finnish speaking. There are Swedish speaking folks around here (as a matter of fact it's the other national language) and lots of people whose native language is something else than Finnish.
Location isn't a language selection.
Secondly it just didn't work for me. I was used to see my stats in English and quite frankly understood many of those things much better in English.
Let's not kill a living language
At this point someone will be going (with a manic look in their eyes): "But you are Finnish speaking and it's your language and you need to maintain it and protect it!"
True, it is my language. I'm pretty good at it too. I just don't think everything translates very well in Finnish.
Besides, protecting a language is killing it, making it unchanged, not letting outside influence in and using only the familiar words and expressions to describe new things. Do you really want to kill Finnish language?
If Finnish had always been protected, we wouldn't have the word auto to mean a car. How about televisio for television, or radio, Internet or casually netti. Can we really talk about things such as jugurtti (yoghurt) or biologia (biology)? Even the more "traditional" Finnish language consists of words and sayings that have got inserted and modified to the language from Swedish, Russian and many others.
In the same way as some things work better in Finnish, some things don't. It's easier to talk about different types of snow or snowing in my native language than in English.
How would Finns feel if the word sauna was all of a sudden forced to some silly translation in English (and other languages currently using it)?
Own preferences, own tastes
I don't mean the translations shouldn't be there. They are needed for those who don't speak English at all or are unsure with the language. They are an important part of accessibility.
I do think forcing translations to things like hashtag is silly. Silly, useless and sure way to create more confusion.
That said the subject of this post is "Why I won't use the Finnish language translation of your service". The reason is that I understand English and often the translations only annoy me. I don't need them, I don't see the point of using them.
However if the translation works better for you, I get it. It's your choice to make and there's nothing wrong with it. As long as you don't force me to translate everything that doesn't need to be translated.
Do you like to switch different services, such as Facebook, Google products, Twitter and more in your native language or some completely other language? Why or why not? Do you find the translations good and easy to use? What sort of funny translations have you seen around? Do tell in the comments section!
Edit just moments later: Interested in Finnish words for snow and other frozen things? See this list of Finnish words for snow.
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