Why the EU Is a Prime Target for Multilingual Business Expansion

As the world’s largest single market, the European Union market is in a prime position that many businesses want to expand to and target its population of approximately 450 million. It is also a linguistically rich region with 24 official languages. Its widely spoken languages include English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, as well as others like Finnish, Greek, Czech, and more. With the language diversity in the EU, businesses often need to adopt multilingual localization, instead of just one or two major target languages to localize into like in other markets, to enter this market full of potential.

The Challenge of Multilingual Localization

More Languages, More Complexity: Why European Localization Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

However, things can get complicated with the rise in numbers, and so do scaling multilingual content. You will certainly need way more intensive resources than localization for only one or two languages, requiring skilled linguists in many languages. The linguistic nuances could be thorny when you deal with different grammar rules and cultural expressions of various languages. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to handle localization for all your target languages, so it is most likely you have to set up dedicated teams for each language, and they would not be a small team, considering the full localization process (translation, editing, and proofreading). It is demanding in both time and cost.

Maintaining Brand Voice Across Markets

Keeping Consistency Across Multiple Languages and Cultures

After you have come up with the content for different languages, you have to align among all the localized content to maintain consistency—to ensure all versions convey the same brand image, tone, and style that you wish to show. A successful multilingual localization is like keeping the same character, but only speaking different languages. This is not an easy task, as you can imagine how hard it could be even to maintain consistency in just one language, not to mention multilingual content and the need to maintain quality at scale.

What Is MTPE and How Does It Work?

Machine Translation Post Editing (MTPE): The Smarter Way to Scale

With that said, localization for multilingual regions like the EU could be easier in the age of AI. MTPE, namely Machine Translation Post Editing, is a cost-effective solution for large-scale European localization. This solution, as you can see from its name, makes use of Machine Translation (MT) to generate a first-pass translation, followed by human post-editing for quality refinement. This can greatly reduce the time required for the first step of localization while ensuring a certain standard of final output under the review of professional linguists. You can also save significant costs with MTPE as well without sacrificing quality by combining the best of MT and human translators, with the low cost of MT balancing the higher cost of hiring human translators, and the expertise and precision of linguists to solve the lack of accuracy of MT. With the localization process sped up at a lower cost and the workload for human translators reduced, MTPE provides scalability for large-volume content in multiple languages, helping your business development in the multilingual market of the EU.

Benefits of MTPE in the EU Context

Why MTPE Is the Key to Fast, Cost-Effective Localization in Europe

MTPE also helps with brand consistency across different EU languages. With predefined translation memories (TMs), glossaries, and brand style guides used in MT tools and provided to the post-editing localization team, the MTPE solution can maintain consistency in voice, tone, and key terminology not just within the same locale, but across various languages. With the advance of AI technology, some modern neural machine translation engines can be trained with brand-specific data to improve output quality, one that carries more of your brand character. Together with human editors as the final gatekeepers to ensure quality and align the expressions, you can scale your content with multilingual localization by MTPE with fewer worries about inconsistencies.

MTPE for Brand Consistency Across EU Languages – Achieve Unified Messaging with AI-Powered Localization + Human Expertise

To sum it up, MTPE in Europe is a way that businesses can consider if they wish to expand in the EU market. This AI-powered translation solution could be an answer to the challenges of scaling multilingual localization in the EU, by saving you time and cost while keeping a certain standard of quality and brand consistency. You can enter and develop your business in the EU way easier than before.

Final Thoughts: A Scalable Strategy for EU Expansion

If you are interested in MTPE, LangLink can be your trusted partner. We offer two types of MTPE solutions to meet your quality and budget needs. No matter which solution you choose, there will be pre-and-post-processing of content and further quality assurance steps to ensure high quality in the deliverables. Contact us today to learn more and embark on your business expansion journey with our expertise.

Reference List  

European Commission. (2022). EU position in world trade. Policy.trade.ec.europa.eu. https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/eu-position-world-trade_en

 European Union. (n.d.). Languages. European-Union.europa.eu. https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/languages_en