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My friend contacted me to help him to translate a slogan into English. The slogan is for the company, that is manufacturing food under its own brand. And the slogan in Russian ("едим сами, кормим семьи, советуем вам") says something like: "we eat it ourselves, we feed our families with it, we recommend it to you". How to make it sound native? Some variants we have in mind:

  • Eating it ourselves, feeding families, advising to you
  • We eat <brand>, we feed <brand> to our families, we offer <brand> to you
  • We eat <brand>, our families eat <brand>, now we offer <brand> to you

but I'm not sure which of them (or none?) is more stylish and correct. What's your opinion? In particular "to feed to families" jars my ear on some reason. I don't like how it sounds. Can you help?

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    You're repeating your core statement. I prefer something like "The makers of this <brand> and their families like this so much, we eat this ourselves" for some punch. Just my opinion. I can see you're looking for a proper translation of the original.
    – JoseK
    Sep 5, 2011 at 12:54
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    I think you need to be careful of cultural differences here. The broad substance of the slogan comes down to "It's good enough for us, so you should be glad to have it too". Unless your company already has established credibility, you'd probably be better off avoiding the entire concept. Microsoft, for example, could promote Word for Windows by saying they use it themselves, but (some would say) they are credible to endorse their own products. Your company probably isn't.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 5, 2011 at 12:55
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    "Eating ourselves" would be self-cannibalism. You need to say "Eating it ourselves." or "We eat <brand> ourselves."
    – Peter Shor
    Sep 5, 2011 at 12:56
  • @JoseK Thanks, I will think about your suggestion. But it would be great for the sentence to sound as a slogan, not just a simple sentence. It should be short, active and clear.
    – Vladislav Rastrusny
    Sep 5, 2011 at 13:03
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    @Otavio Macedo: I don't see how you can think the slogan doesn't depend on the company's credibility. The potential customer is being asked to accept without question that (a) the company is a reliable judge of whether what they give their families is safe/healthy; and (b) that the company is being reliable and honest when they make that claim. I say this is a cultural issue because it partly rests on the assumption that "company" = "rich and powerful", which may be credible to Russians new to capitalism, but is probably not to jaded Westerners.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 5, 2011 at 15:24

2 Answers 2

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We eat <brand> -- Our families eat <brand> -- You should eat <brand>

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Try this: we eat our own dogfood.

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  • Is that a joke or a mockery?
    – Vladislav Rastrusny
    Sep 5, 2011 at 14:44
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    Neither. It's commonly used in the software industry to show that a company is confident in its own product: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food
    – user12549
    Sep 5, 2011 at 14:46
  • +1 for not only making more succinctly the same point I've been pushing in comments to the question, but for having that link to prove that it's a genuine issue.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 5, 2011 at 15:27

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