Translation Quality

When you spend money on a localization project, you expect a level of translation quality that matches your investment. Clients have every right to be upset when their agency delivers what appears to be sub-standard work.

When things go wrong, the natural impulse is to assume incompetence and blame the translator. But this isn’t always the case. On the contrary, most translation errors are the result of bad planning. Projects fail when client and supplier don’t communicate effectively.

Better dialogue and more preparation are the keys to improving translation quality. The first step is to find common problems and then take the necessary steps to fix them.

Problems From the Client Perspective 

• Poor use of language. The translated text is out of step with the client’s style and branding. This creates the impression that the agency hasn’t bothered to learn the client’s domain or doesn’t understand the intended audience. 

• Literal translation. The linguists have taken a word-for-word approach to translation, producing content that is technically correct but loses most of its original meaning. 

• Pedantic reviewing. The editing phase is excessively rigid, focusing on small details at the cost of overall quality and time efficiency. 

• The human factor. Different linguists often have different approaches, even within the same agency, this can lead to linguistic inconsistencies in translations of similar source texts. 

Problems From the Agency Perspective

• Corporate secrecy. Protection of intellectual property restricts communication between client and agency, making it difficult to develop a translation memory and improve on previous efforts.

• Development cycles. When updates are released often, it’s difficult for translators to keep up with the evolving terminology. Agencies feel as if they’re being left out of the development process and scrambling to catch up at the last-minute.

Improving Your Translation Workflow

The issues outlined here are procedural and can be addressed with better work habits. These are the key areas where both client and agency should focus their energies to improve translation quality.

Better Communication 

1. Building relationships. Long-term partnerships will always deliver better results than one-off projects with various agencies. You’ll enjoy far greater success by picking one good supplier and sticking with them.
2. Regular contact. When everything is running smoothly there’s a tendency to forget about your agency altogether. It’s only when things go wrong that clients pick up the phone. This is a mistake. Set aside time each week to touch base with your project manager and keep everyone in the loop.
   
   
3. Comprehensive briefing. Your perception of translation quality may differ from that of the translators. Are accuracy and detail your main priorities? Or should the linguists take creative license to preserve meaning and emotion? Don’t leave these things to chance; it’s critical that you define what you want before the project begins.
   
   
4. Define the review process. Don’t give your editing team an open brief; explain exactly how far and how deep the process should go. Give plenty of examples of what you consider serious errors that need attention, and smaller issues that can be safely ignored.

Better Work Processes

1. Optimize Your Source Text. Accurate translation depends on the original content being readily understandable. You can make your text translation-friendly by using controlled language and a standardized vocabulary. Develop an in-house style guide for your content creators and share it with your agency.
   
   
2. Start early. Localization strategy is often left until the end of a product development cycle, giving translators a limited amount of time to ask questions and refine their approach. By integrating language support more deeply into the planning of your product or service, the linguists have more time to achieve the best results.
   
   
3. Measure constantly. There’s no “set and forget” approach to good translation; you need to constantly monitor and measure your efforts. Identify what’s working well and how you can expand on those gains.

For more information on how you can improve translation quality for your organization, get in touch with Milengo today.

7 Tips For Improved Translation Quality

This raises an ominous question for translation agencies: Is there a future for our industry? Or will automated processes make the human linguist obsolete?

Many techno-enthusiasts predict a slow death for specialist translation services. But before we consign human professionals to the trash heap, it’s worth taking a sober look at what machine translation can and can’t do.

The Rise of MT

Machine Translation is really an umbrella term for various technologies. The most widely used approach today is statistical MT where translations are generated on the basis of statistical models built from an analysis of bilingual text.

MT requires the “training” of a computer model by first feeding it large volumes of bilingual data, and then analyzing and correcting the output. The output is then fed back into the engine allowing it to learn. The more text the engine is fed during training and the more feedback it receives, the more accurately it can produce output in the target language.

Extensive research and development has produced a number of innovations in statistical MT. The most well-known example of statistical MT is Google Translate, a cloud-based service available free of charge.

Google Translate is excellent for “gist translation” (getting a rough idea idea of meaning), but the platform has obvious limitations since its scope is extremely broad. Since the source text used to train Google Translate comes from a huge pool of users and covers a huge range of topics output accuracy is generally poor. From a business point of view Google Translate also lacks project management tools and is unable to manage the kinds of volumes that professional translation and localization projects require.

Customized MT is a more advanced solution for business projects. Engines can be trained to produce translations for a particular industry or company allowing tight control over linguistic style and easily incorporating specific terminology or industry language.

For example, if you’re an engineering firm with operations in the UK and Brazil, your translation agency could train an MT engine to quickly translate documentation from English to Brazilian Portuguese, with much greater speed and accuracy than general services like Google Translate.

Techincal Yes, Creative No

Machine translation can only be truly effective when the source language is formulaic and controlled. Technical documents use a standard vocabulary that can be readily interpreted by a computer, but creative writing is an entirely different scenario.

Software can translate words and sentences, but it can’t understand the intended meaning behind them. Even the most advanced MT engine can’t interpret things like humor, metaphor and irony. Automated translation is inadequate for marketing and advertising copy, where the text must be adapted to a different cultural environment. Creative translation projects will always require professional linguists and copywriters to keep the original message intact.

There’s also a legal dimension to some translation projects that precludes the use of machine translation. Documents that require certification of accuracy, such as medical texts, cannot lawfully be translated by a computer.

It’s Not Man vs. Machine

Some argue that MT will gradually steal business from specialist translation agencies, but this analysis is flawed. In fact, as the demand for customized MT grows, so too does the need for trained professionals. MT software must be developed and calibrated by skilled programmers, and most projects include a human post-editing phase, to improve quality and consistency in the final product.

Automation should therefore be seen as an aid—not a threat—to professional translation agencies. Rather than taking human translators out of the picture, computers are simply making their work faster and more efficient. For companies that rely on translation services, this can only be good news.

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Could MT Spell The End For Traditional Translation Agencies?

‘The new office is great and will allow us to further expand our team in the future’ said Bjoern Lux, Sales Director at Milengo ‘Being located in Argentina means we’re ideally placed to serve both European and North American customers, and the weather’s pretty good too’!

Joining Bjoern at the new office are Business Development Managers Tim Furlong and Rachel Osborne. With the new office established and the sales team growing Milengo is set on the path for future growth.

Milengo Expands Global Sales Team

Software Localization

While English is commonly accepted as a standard means of international communications, research has shown that most people prefer to use software in their native language. Therefore, if you are planning to enter the European market you should include localization-ready code into the functional scope of your solution. With more and more companies focusing on user experience and functionality to give them a competitive edge, writing localization-ready code is often overlooked or not taken seriously. This approach deprives many companies of a significant number of potential clients which would otherwise have been interested and possibly purchased the product.  The best option for improving this situation is to use the services of professional localization agencies. Companies like Milengo have the necessary experience to adapt your software to look and feel completely local, taking into account all the idiosyncrasies that come with different software platforms, code bases and character sets. Tight cooperation with your translation agency at the beginning of the localization process and the provision of detailed information about your customers, your market, and the functionality of your product will make sure that localization leads to sales success.

Where to start?

Clearly the biggest advantage of investing the time and resources into software localization is that it drastically increases the size of the potential market and the scope of opportunities you secure with it. But how do you start the process? With software becoming increasingly more complex, especially at the enterprise level, there are often many stakeholders involved in the development process so it’s vital to engage them early on, and align the localization process with development cycles. Agile development also presents a unique set of challenges since code freezes are often short or don’t happen at all, which means linguistic elements need to be finalized early to avoid significant changes. If your software is already mature and runs to many millions of lines of code, dealing with legacy localization issues can present a significant challenge, requiring fundamental changes to architecture to make sure language support is successful. Therefore if your products share a similar architecture, it may be necessary to make sure your code base is properly internationalized before translation and localization begins. Internationalization is another area Milengo can help with. We partner with leading service providers who can audit your code and highlight the amount of work that needs to be undertaken before localization begins. This helps save long-term costs since any potential language issues thrown up during testing can easily be avoided.

Detailed planning for software localization is paramount as updates and patches that make large changes to your code base will need comprehensive testing to reduce impact on end users. When choosing an agency for your localization project, it’s vital that the company you choose is not a translation bureau of a general profile, but a company like Milengo that specializes in software localization and technical translations. This ensures that there will be less time spent on building custom translation workflows or fixing bugs in testing, which will save you time and therefore money. By choosing a company with software localization experience you will not only reduce the number of translation inadequacies but also decrease the risk of unexpected bugs or compatibility issues since companies like Milengo have in-house software engineering resources to help avoid this.

Living in today’s world is impossible without being able to communicate your ideas to people from all over the world. International business is no exception – the more adequate and fast your response to your customers’ needs, the more your company will prosper. Attention to linguistic details and respect for your customer’s desire to use their native language are vital for a success in the global market. Teach your products speak the same language as your customers, and they will talk business with you!

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Beginning the Process of Software Localization

If there’s one lesson translation agencies can take from the financial turmoil of recent times, it’s that that the economic center of gravity is shifting, and fast. Europe is crippled by a severe debt crisis, and growth remains sluggish in the United States. Meanwhile, business is booming in emerging markets around the world, none of which speak English.

The most important of these are the “BRICs”: Brazil, Russia, India and China, which together account for more than 40 percent of the world’s population. It’s reckoned that within twenty years the BRIC economies will overtake the “G7” group of rich countries.

Anyone with a shred of business acumen knows that the emerging markets are where new fortunes will be made. But if you’re not already using translation agencies to help your business communicate effectively in Mandarin, Hindi, Russian, or Portuguese, you’ll be swept aside by the companies that are.

The logic of outsourcing your translation

Few doubt the importance of business translation; the question is how to go about it.  Should you manage your campaign internally, or seek outside assistance?

There are three simple arguments for outsourcing: It’s cheaper, faster and more effective. If you look at how a typical Fortune 500 company operates, you won’t find many translators on the payroll. Foreign language services are rarely performed by in-house teams, due to the highly-specialized nature of the work and are instead outsourced to translation agencies.

Outsourcing gives you access to the expertise and technical resources that translation requires, without having to invest in hiring and training your own staff. When you’re ready to launch an international campaign, you can engage dedicated translation agencies like Milengo, and tap into a network of professional linguists on three continents.

Forming long-term relationships with translation agencies

While outsourcing is certainly the most cost-effective way to handle your translation, beware the temptation to hire the cheapest agency for every project.

There’s no shortage of cut-rate translation agencies out there, but chasing the lowest bid on every job will do your company more harm than good. The quality of translation agencies are reflected in their price, and the first danger of this “race to the bottom” mindset is that you often get what you pay for.

The second and more pertinent issue is that you miss the opportunity to build a stable partnership. Trust and familiarity are the keys to success, and the best results happen when your translation agency has an intimate understanding of your business. The longer you work together, the more you learn from experience.

At Milengo we’ve worked with the same companies for many years, constantly tweaking and refining our processes to achieve ever-greater outcomes. Our clients come back to us time and again because they know we deliver results.

If you’ve got big plans for the global market, you need a strategic partner who’s in it for the long haul. Discover more about our business translation services.

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Why International Businesses Need Translation Agencies

These are two instances where companies have successfully repackaged their products and services for foreign markets, while preserving their instantly recognizable branding.

Localization isn’t a novelty exercise in this day and age; it’s a business necessity. With native English-speakers comprising just six percent of the global population, and burgeoning middle classes across much of the developing world, the future looks very dim for monolingual companies.

To succeed in the global marketplace, you need to speak to your customers as they speak to each other. You need your message to be seen, understood and appreciated in as many languages as possible. This is where the art of Transcreation comes into play.

Coca Cola transcreation

Transcreation: More than translation

You can’t simply reproduce your ad copy word-for-word in a foreign tongue and expect the same outcome. Many companies have tried, with disastrous and sometimes amusing results. See for yourself.

Transcreation combines the science of translation with the art of interpretation. It’s about preserving the intended meaning of your message across vastly different linguistic and cultural environments. Transcreation reaches far beyond standard translation services, creatively adapting your communications to achieve the same effect in multiple languages.

That’s the carrot, now here’s the stick: Ignoring Transcreation is one of the biggest risks you can take in a foreign market.

At best, a failed translation campaign is a waste of money. At worst, you’re faced with a PR catastrophe that does irreparable damage to your brand. Some of the world’s top companies have lost billions in market share as a result of translations gone horribly wrong. Investing in professional Transcreation services protects your company from the nightmare scenario.

Foreign language marketing: Where to begin

Your company faces some important questions before it embarks on a marketing venture abroad. How much of your campaign do you intend to translate? How many channels will you be targeting, e.g. web, TV, radio? Which investments are likely to bring the greatest returns in a society very different from your own?

Answering these questions will be difficult, but getting them wrong can turn your campaign into an expensive misadventure.

This is where we come into the picture. Milengo is more than a translation agency; we’re an indispensable partner in global business. We educate our clients on what it takes to succeed in a foreign market.

When you’re ready to move forward, Milengo is here to make it happen. Our Transcreation and marketing translation services let your campaign run seamlessly from one language to the next. If you’re ready to expand your company’s horizons, find out more about how Milengo can help.

Transcreation and Copywriting for Foreign Markets

Quality Translation

In the world of translation, defining ‘good quality translation’ is often the subject of heated debates and discussions, often causes controversy and many times sees 2 sides pitted against each other in a David and Goliath struggle. Much of this has been covered on the translation portal Proz.

On one side sit the translators, the purveyors of quality translation. A community of highly trained professional linguists, often with strong academic backgrounds and years of experience in the fields of language and communication. On the other side, sit the big corporations, buyers of translation, who have a need for huge volumes of work to be completed to strict deadlines and tight budgets. Often the two sides have a view of each other that is less than complimentary and when it comes to the issue of quality translation, what is good work, and how much quality is worth, the two sides often see things very differently.

The translators see increasing pressure from large buyers comoditize the language market as a threat to their livelihoods. Many see this increasing pressure on price as the cause of a decrease in translation quality, with the end product becoming a simple collection of words, devoid of their original meaning and irrelevant to the intended audience.

Buyers however, see their role as one of a broker, trying to get the most from translation for the least amount of money. They know that the rest of their organization probably doesn’t see professional translation as an important factor in their international business strategy, and rather as a necessary evil of doing business overseas. With budgets continually being cut in the face of an economic downturn, translation buyers are faced with a stark choice, do more with less by drastically cutting costs.

In the long run though, is this approach really sustainable? If you flip the process on its head and view the problem from the viewpoint of the reader, the end-user, the client or the customer, then the issue of translation quality becomes acutely clear. For businesses wanting to compete overseas, especially in markets with established local players, the quality of their communication must be equal to, if not better than their competitors to gain an edge.

It’s precisely here that highly trained and experienced linguists can make a difference. Many translators have subject matter expertise, understand the terminology of the client, and often have technical understanding of the products and services that they are translating. This level of expertise makes a huge difference to the readability and ultimately the engagement of the reader with the translated text. It can also prove just as much of a cost saver in the long run to go with quality as opposed to going with the cheapest price per word. Since high quality translation requires less review and less post editing when compared to low costs solutions, it often works out the same in terms of price. If buyers could be guaranteed reasonable turnaround, at high quality with little correction and review for a higher price per word, vs many hours back and forth reviewing, re translating to get the low-cost solution ‘right’, surely then it makes sense to make quality translation a high priority.

With this in mind, there appears to be an opportunity to educate translation buyers as to the real benefit of choosing translation quality over quantity, and the beginnings of a movement to do this have begun with a new site, qualityintranslation.org. The site sets out a manifesto aiming to promote the idea of quality translation to translation buyers and is already gaining attention in the industry. There also exists a need to educate translators in how to sell the quantifiable and tangible benefits that ‘quality’ translation offers. I hope that through dialogue and initiatives like qualityintranslation.org, that buyers and translators can reach a common agreement on the role of quality, and why it should be a high priority when choosing a vendor for translation services.

Does Quality Translation Really Matter?

Linguistic Services

Linguistic services cover pretty much everything language related that isn’t translation, and there’s more to this than you might at first think. If you’ve already developed a robust localization strategy for your company then the linguistic services we’ll look at probably aren’t new. However, for some, services like Transcreation or translation certification might be new, so we’ll cover them here in this post.

Editing and Proofreading

We’ll start with the most straightforward of linguistic services, review and editing. When you spec a translation project this is included, however there may be situations where you would want review and editing as a standalone service. Why? Well, let’s say you have a bunch of Spanish documentation that was translated a couple of years back, perhaps it was done by an intern and might not be the best quality, or you’ve noticed some errors or mistakes. Rather than re-translate tens of thousands of words, a review and edit would be much more cost-effective. Review and editing can help take sub-standard translations and improve their quality dramatically, making them feel more natural and easier to read.

Transcription

Another addition to linguistic services is transcription, converting speech into text. Transcription may be required for a number of situations, most commonly either legal proceedings or events and seminars. One of the most common transcription requests is coverage of Annual General Meetings where the proceedings are filmed and audio transcribed across a range of languages. The films are then subtitled and the translated transcripts often included in company communications to shareholders in their preferred language. At Milengo we’ve undertaken a number of transcription projects, one of the most notable being the transcription and translation of JFK’s inaugural speech across a range of languages for a well-known Museum.

Translation Memory Management

If you’re managing very large translation projects across multiple languages and you’re not using a translation memory (TM), chances are you’re wasting a huge amount of money and resources duplicating translations. A translation memory is an essential to a good localization strategy as it enables you to reuse translated text (matches), saving you time and money. At Milengo we can help you build a translation memory from pre-translated content. As long as you have the source and translated documents our engineers can segment and align the bilingual content to create a new TM.

Terminology and Glossary Building

Translation is just changing text from one language to another isn’t it’? You might ask. Well, yes and no. Terminology and Glossary Building are two other important linguistic services that help improve the translation process. Terminology Bases and Glossaries can be built from existing translation assets to define commonality across languages where  functions, tasks or product specific information needs to stay consistent. Glossaries and terms bases help translators give accurate translations where words or phrases don’t already exist in the target language. This is especially important for very technical or scientific content.

Technical Writing

Technical writing falls squarely under the content creation side of linguistic services and often serves to compliment technical translation. Usually this takes the form of product descriptions or operating instructions where none exist before. These can then form the basis for translation into other languages allowing the creation of multilingual product manuals.

Copy writing

Copy writing is similar in scope to technical writing in the grand scheme of linguistic services; however it differs in that the subject matter tends to be broader. Copy writing can cover a variety of media, from print to online and may also include scriptwriting for TV or radio adverts. Copy writing can be carried out in each target language separately to a creative brief, which allows for distinct local flavours of text, or a source text can be created from which translations can be derived if consistency across languages is required.

Transcreation

Another of the linguistic services Milengo offers is Transcreation. This differs from straightforward translations as it is a mixture of copy writing and translation used specifically for to translate Sales, Marketing, Advertising or PR materials. Adapting text to convey the meaning of the original is key here. Transcreation requires that the translator understands the product or service, the target audience and the market, to create a translation that is effective in communicating a concept, idea or motivation to action. Transcreation requires a different linguistic approach and is usually undertaken by senior translators with backgrounds in sales and marketing.

Translation Certification

Translation Certification is one of the more niche linguistic services that Milengo provides as it is usually only relevant for the legal and medical industries. Since both these areas are highly regulated and have strict legal oversight often the translation of texts requires certification to comply with either legal or industry regulations. In these cases a senior local linguist with the proper legal or regulatory authority is sought to offer final review and certification of the translated text.

Regional Adaptation

Sometimes text that has already been translated needs further refinement to account for distinct regional variations in language. Regional Adaptation is the last of the linguistic services we’ll cover. Spanish is often the most often adapted of the languages we translate since, although it is spoken widely round the world there are many different flavours. We often adapt Spanish text into the following regional varieties; Caribbean Spanish, Central American Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Southern Cone Spanish, Mid Atlantic Spanish, US Spanish and International Spanish. This granularity of approach when translating into Spanish adds an extra level of authenticity to the translations and ensures that when read by local readers, that the text doesn’t feel like a translation. This can be important when connecting with your customers through marketing or sales materials since text that is clearly recognized as a ‘translation’ can often have a negative impact on the message conveyed.

Interested in learning some more tips on translation? Download our free guide below!

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Linguistic Services: More Than Just Translation

Native speakers are generally held to be indisputable authorities on translation issues. This leads us to the first myth about the translation business:

The native speaker is infallible.

At Milengo we know that most customers, especially the more advanced, demand that the translation be done by a native speaker, on the assumption that a native speaker is automatically a good writer. This isn’t always the case. While there may be over a billion native speakers of English worldwide, only a fraction of them can be relied upon to possess the judgment it takes to decide whether a translation is linguistically sound in a given business context. Therefore we don’t automatically assume that a native speaker is a good writer in his own language, and even less that he is a good translator. For one thing, translation requires thorough insight into the source language as well as the target language. When we hire translators, we never forget that while a good translator is usually a native speaker of the target language, not all native speakers are good translators. That’s why we use a fairly rigorous selection procedure that includes a round of tests before we select a translator to add to our talent pool.

The second myth has to do with accuracy and review, or more specifically that;

You can verify accuracy using back translations.

A common misconception is that the effectiveness of a translation can be reviewed by having a second translator re-translate it back into the source language. The source text and back translation are reviewed, sometimes word for word, and a judgment is made on how well the translation compares the source text. However this approach is fraught with problems since in fact the reverse is true; the poorer the translation, the closer the back translation will stick to the original. The cause for this is that poor translations usually follow the wording of the original very closely, but not the meaning. No adaptation takes place, the subtleties and nuances of the target language are in no way woven into the translated text and the translation reads exactly as that, ‘a translation’. Effective translations are those where the linguist has adapted the text so it reads and feels as if it has been written by a local. With effective translation the reader shouldn’t realize it’s a translation at all.

The third myth about the translation business has to do with client priorities, and the assumption that more than anything else:

Clients want quality.

People can be excused for taking this myth seriously. Anyone in his right mind would expect that the client’s main concern when engaging a professional translation agency is to get a high-quality translation. Not so. Studies have shown that most clients are in fact more interested in speed than in quality. This is not to say that clients are pleased to accept any trash as long as they get it fast; the point is that quality standards in a business context are different from those in an academic context, and may be overshadowed by practical concerns. University students are trained to achieve linguistic perfection, to produce translations formulated with impeccable grammar and a superbly neutral style. Yet the fruits of such training may not be to the client’s taste. In fact, there are probably as many tastes as there are clients. A lawyer will expect you first to build unambiguous clauses and use proper legalese; a machine manufacturer requires technical insight and authentic technical jargon; and the publisher of a general interest magazine needs articles that are simply a good read. What all clients tend to have in common, however, is a reverence for deadlines. After all, when a foreign client has arrived to sign a contract, there should be something to sign; when a magazine has been advertised to appear, it should be available when the market expects it. In a business environment, many parties may be involved in the production of a single document, which means that delays will accumulate fast and may have grave financial consequences.

The last myth prevalent among many professionals who don’t have direct, daily contact with translation or localization projects is that:

Translation is a relatively simple task.

Translation is intricate, complex and sometimes arduous work. Continuously moving between two languages and contexts, especially where complex technical information is concerned, is a mentally strenuous activity. A translator must first read and register source information, construct meaning and context for the source text and understand all the nuances and intricacies the source language contains. Then all this non-linguistic information has to be adapted and presented accurately in the target language. This means not only having an excellent vocabulary and appreciating phrases, metaphors, tone and intention but also being able to understand the relationship between these constructs in 2 different languages. Fluency in both languages with native fluency in the target language is a must to be able to really understand how the translation is received. Translation exists as a profession for this very reason, since the experience required to translate from one language to another is something gained over time and requires constant study and knowledge of more than just words.

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4 Persistent Myths of Professional Translation

If you don’t speak the target language and can’t review the quality of a translation, you can make sure that:

1. The document you are submitting for translation is of the highest quality possible. Controlled authoring and standardized terminology will help a great deal when tightening up the quality of your source text.

2. The translation team should be comprised of native speakers, and if possible use a subject matter expert with experience in your field of business.

Before handing off your source files:

1. Run a simple spelling and grammar check: An obvious step but sometimes overlooked. Remember, if your document is error free, there will be fewer translation errors to deal with!

2. Keep a copy of the document with you: This might seem like a superfluous suggestion but a number of people forget to do so! When a review is needed or a translator has a question, having your source files at hand ensures any questions can be dealt with quickly.

3. Document content and language style: Keep sentences short and clear and avoid using abbreviations. For technical language or specific terminology, make sure a glossary is available to the translators as certain industry terms and phrases may not have direct translations, and will require some creative adaptation.

Deciding on the translation provider:

1. Cheap is not best. Your intern who took a French class last year abroad might be able to flaunt their French connection but translation is a professional calling. Paying less might turn out to be very costly in the long run.

2. Choose a language service provider who has a large number of years of experience in translating into the language you are seeking.

3. Translators should be native speakers of the language and must be conversant with the culture and minutiae of the language they are translating into.

4. The translator should also be able to understand the finer nuances of the language he/she is translating from.

5. Choose a translation agency that offers to take the complete project – from translation to editing, proofreading and even desktop publishing.

After handing over:

Handing over documents is only the beginning of the translation process. Your input will be important during the entire translation process. Time invested here will help to ensure error free documents of the highest quality.

1. Make sure you have a detailed discussion about your project with the service provider to explain your requirements and to understand his/her concerns. For large or long term projects, consider a formal RFI (Request For Information), a detailed document that sets out your requirements, from company structure, to review processes, to language requirements.

2. Always be accessible to answer concerns and questions whenever the translation agency requires you.

Some more things:

1. Never press the agency to rush a job. Think through your project well and build in time for assessments and review properly.

2. Select a good reviewer with the help of your agency. This can be either someone internal in your company or a senior level linguist with editorial experience.

3. Don’t submit half-finished documents. Translating corrections and additions can be pricey and may introduce errors. Make sure you implement a file freeze so that anyone else in your organization responsible for contributing to your document knows not to change or update it.

4. Never try to piece together bits of translated material on your own.

Ensuring the quality of translated documents is as much your responsibility as that of your translation agency. You can ensure the highest quality by insisting on 2^nd level editing as well as additional rounds of QA if required.

You also need to make sure you share any supporting documents like references and glossaries with your translator to enable him/her to do the best possible job. Most of all, you must set realistic turnaround time for your project. The more time you give to planning and preparation the better the final translations will be.

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Document Translation: Ensuring the Best Quality Output