“la parole exportée”

How important is translation for your marketing?

I had previously missed this e-mail because it was caught by my e-mail account’s spam filter, and I noticed the heading just as I was deleting the whole lot in one go.

But thanks to spamming stupidity, it was here today again and I opened it.

Yes I know this was risky, considering some recent experience, but I am of a curious disposition and willing to take risks, and how could I resist the lure of this heading?

Nous avons beaucoup de programme de la lange FRANCAISES!

Because most of my readers are anglophones, let me try to be creative -I just love allowing myself to make mistakes!- and craft a fairly reasonable equivalent:

We have many program of the ENGLISHES langage!

In other words: three linguistic errors, and one formatting error in a 9-word heading.

Interestingly, the organization that blasts these e-mails out has a website, and I checked it. They use the same marketing hype there, but it has been edited and looks slightly better. Pity they haven’t thought of updating their marketing e-mails.

Now I have two unrelated questions, and your answers will be greatly appreciated:

1. Would you feel confident to buy some expensive software products in your language version, from a provider that crammed 4 errors in a 9-word heading?

2. And incidentally, would you feel confident to buy some expensive software from a provider that offered (for some) up to 95% discounts on the *standart* (their mistake, not mine) price?

If you value your foreign customers, how do you show it to them?

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