For some translation or proofreading projects, polishing the written word is only part of the job. In many cases, a text can stand alone. But there are documents that interact with the world entirely differently. Some are made speech through an intermediary. Dramatic texts for a theater production or movie come to mind. Others straddle the oral and visual worlds, appealing to a readership and requiring interpretation. A few examples from my work include: restaurant menus, corporate presentations, guided tours.

Restaurant menus–like recipes–are notoriously resistant to translation. A culinary tradition is rooted in a place, the specific ingredients at times only available in a local setting, the techniques honed over a long history. France has been a capital of gastronomy for centuries, and many dishes and foods are now familiar to travelers. Coq au vin, boeuf bourguignon, quiche lorraine. These terms don’t need translation, only perhaps a brief explanation in the subtitle to the menu entry. Other dishes pistou, aioli, panisse (can you tell I live in Marseille?), though not as well known, should be treated the same way: no translation in the title, but perhaps a brief description in the subtitle. Aioli, for instance, is a complete dish in the south of France, consisting of a bevy of steamed/boiled vegetables, hard boiled eggs, cod, and the famous garlicky/mayonnaise sauce–what Anglophones think of when we see the word aioli.

Okay for local dish names. What to do with terminology like boeuf charolais? Many foreign diners would be interested to know that this is an AOC beef from a breed raised with all the savoir-faire of its terroir (the Gallicisms start to feel inevitable)–Charolles in eastern France. But too much annotation can turn a menu into an academic paper.

One of my best restaurant experiences in France while dining out with non-French speakers was at a little restaurant in Cours Julien–Marseille’s cool-kid restaurant scene. The service was friendly–enthusiastic even. And the waiter did not content himself with handing out translated menus and taking orders. When he found out New Yorkers, Californians, and Oregonians were in the house, he made a point of coming around to discuss the menu, describing the dishes, the ingredient origins, and the culinary techniques. And this practice went beyond a single excited waiter. When I returned with another group of foreigners, the waitress had changed but the experience was identical. This was restaurant policy.

The experience inspired me to develop a bundled service for these types of intermediary texts: translation and/or proofreading + targeted language coaching. I work closely with restaurants to create menus in English that best convey their aesthetic to Anglophone diners. And then I spend time with their teams, coaching them on ‘restaurant English’, teaching them the vocabulary that’s relevant to the menu, and giving them the tools to best represent their restaurant and culinary tradition.

Menus, PowerPoint presentations, cultural brochures: These are all documents that should be written or translated accurately, flawlessly, and with native flow. However, these materials do not stay on the page. They are brought into an interplay where a waiter, presenter, or tour guide will act as an authority. That can be daunting for some professionals, even those with a good mastery of English. A bundled translation/proofreading + coaching service gives professionals the confidence to act as ambassadors for their brands.