Author Archives: Terralíngua

Best Practices for Software Localization

Software localization – where your software is customized to suit a specific language or region – is a great way of expanding your business. But if you are not prepared, it may cause many hassles such as garbled text, wrong encoding, and crashes. All these frustrations may be avoided if you prepare well for the localization.

Plan In Advance

More often than not, the reason software applications fall apart at attempts on localization is because the application was not conceptualized with localization in mind. As a result, there were no provisions created for language change or other modifications required for localization. Planning in advance can prevent this.

Design your software with provisions for localization like character support for different languages, so that the grammar of these languages can also be incorporated. Along with content localization, you should also focus on testing localization so that your software localization is more effective. Build a detailed testing plan in English and use the same plan in the localized tests also.

Remember that the feel of your software should be like the locally built software for native users. They should be able to use it without feeling like it was built by someone unfamiliar with their culture. Planning ahead will ensure that your software has this local feel.

Leave Provision for Text Expansion

Languages other than English have a more extended character set, so just using English standards will not be enough if you want to make truly localized software. Using UTF-8 standards always is the best practice for software localization. This prevents extra conversion and garbling of text. Keeping provision for dynamic expansion of UI is also a good practice.

Never use hard coded strings, especially for date and time formats. This is because different countries use different date and time formats. Same goes with currency. Naming conventions may also be different for different countries. Some write the given name before the family name, and some the opposite. Some cultures even have just one name for a person.

Grammar varies from language to language. “Red pencil” in English translates to “crayon rouge” in French. So if you are thinking of concatenating strings, it will not work out for software localization. Keep in mind, no string should ever be overused.

Other Considerations

The GUI and other aspects of the software will be translated by professional translators, and not by your engineers. So if you make the context and the meanings of the translatable parts clear to them through comments, they will be able to do it more easily. Furthermore, they will be consistent with the context right from the beginning to the end of the translation.

Make sure that the translation company you choose is an experienced and expert one, so that they can help with the translation of your software as well as help in documentation and at the same time maintain consistency between the two.

Always remember changing the language does not fully localize the software unless you use the full locale for that region. For example, if the software is supposed to be in English, it can be used in the America or in Britain, but then the spelling and naming conventions would change for software localization, even though the language remains the same (color vs. colour, or elevator vs. lift). Internalization support is also important in your software. It will allow the native formats for currency, date, and time for individual regions to be shown in a way familiar to the region-specific users.

As is evident from this article, software localization is never complete unless it is aligned to the local customs, conventions, and culture of the region it is being localized for. While planning and designing your software, keep provisions for not only language support, but also for other region-specific local conventions to avoid last minute worries.

Choose the Right Medical Sworn Translator

A sworn translator is supposed to translate a document accurately from an original. So what is the need of sworn translation in medicine? Medical documents need to be translated appropriately into any language, which is why you should make sure that you have the best translation company you can get.

Inquire About the Translator’s Qualification

Translation companiesmay seem to vary in the services they provide to different people. This is because of the inconsistency of translators: some translators in the company may be good, while others may not be very proficient. The best way to make sure that you get the appropriate sworn translation is by verifying the qualification of the translator who has been allocated to you.

Make sure that the person has a major in the translation technique that he/she is supposed to be working on. If required, you may also ask for proof of his/her diploma or degree. Verify that the translator is appropriate for you and has enough knowledge about what you want him/her to do for you. After all, you are not investing your money on sworn translation to get negative returns. Research different translation companies or the backgrounds of different translators in order to make sure that you get the value for your money.

Experience

Experience is always important in any field. When it comes to sworn translation in medicine specifically, you should make sure that you settle for nothing but the best. Remember to verify whether the company’s translators have had any prior work experience. It would be even better if the translator assigned to the job has had experience in medical translation – because that is what you are going to make the translator do. The more experienced translators the company has, the better it is for you.

You are using sworn translation because simple accuracy is just not enough. This is another reason why you should choose a company whose translators have proven their mettle beforehand. You should also get someone who already knows the proper tricks of the trade so that you do not have to waste time explaining it to them, and no one but an experienced translator can give you this. While it may seem experience is not mandatory, it is definitely a recommended quality in a medical sworn translator.

Background in Medicine

So finally you have got a companyfor your sworn translation jobs and that company has translators as qualified and experienced as you might want them to be. But is that enough? The answer is no. To get most out of your translation jobs, you must also make sure that the people you are hiring have relevant working experience – more precisely, the translators should have previously worked in the medical field.

It would be even better if the translator assigned to the job is an expert in a specific field related to medicine. Novice translators – even those with translation experience in fields other than medicine may not be able to understand the complicated scientific nomenclature that medical sworn translation uses. But understanding these scientific terms is a basic prerequisite of hiring a translator, so you may need careful deliberation before you invest your money on a company.

This is also true for the tricks of the trade. Medical translators may need to do the work in a different manner than a legal translator. So, translator who has previously done the job will be able to perform it better without any investment on training on your part. For all these reasons, when you hire a company, make sure that its translators not only have experience, but ample relevant experience in the field.

There are a lot of institutions and companies who might claim to provide the best medical sworn translation personnel, but don’t just go on their claims. Make sure you verify everything and get the best that you can; because it is not just the amount of money you are investing, but it is also a fact that medicine is a critical field and needs only the best.

Choosing the Right Translation Services for Localization

The rapid globalization of businesses has meant increased translation and localization needs. Most of the businesses are in acute need of a translation agency and the services it provides. However, there are several issues that they face in their attempt to find a perfect match between their needs and the service providers even as there are a plethora of language service companies.

Right translation methods

The best form of translation is done by a professional translation company where a translator probably does the job of translation. They can give quality. However, there are several issues which human translations alone cannot meet. These issues include the need for bulk translation, the number of languages needed, and the need for faster turnaround.

There are several methods of translation such as human and machine translation. In addition there also exists human aided machine translation. Crowd sourcing is yet another recent approach to translation. However, nothing can work better for the localization needs than human translation. But then there are challenges with human translation as mentioned above.

The need for quick turnaround and the huge quantum of data necessitates enterprises to adopt more strategies than just a single one. So, a combination of several translation methods is often used by the companies that need translations urgently. The use of multiple methods also helps to keep the project cost reasonable.

Method of implementation

Enterprises needing bulk translation are also faced with some other challenges. This has more to do with the technology. Translation service is not a solo effort, nor is localization possible without collaboration. So, the eBusiness professionals are faced with the challenge of integrating translation solutions into the web content management integration systems platform.

More specifically, the challenge is whether or not to go ahead with web content management integration, and if yes, how to go about it. Yet another issue is that of the budget. While technology facilitates the task of integration, the use of human translators can prove extremely cost prohibitive for many enterprises.

In view of the budgetary and IT resource challenges, a popular method gaining increasingly more prominence is translations that are proxy based. Website content can be easily translated using this method because it comes easily and at a high speed. However, direct in house localization using eCommerce or WCMS platform offers more control.

Translation of media

Translation projects are increasingly getting complex. There is a huge motivation in translation to expand the global reach across cultures. Moreover, it is not just the textual content that is critical in translation needs. Contents come in multiple forms such as video, flash and images, apart from the textual content.

Evidently then translation and localization projects have huge stakes for service providers as well as for eCommerce sites. Therefore, there is a mutual need that each of them must endeavor to fulfill. If the eCommerce professionals begin to handle it on their own, they will be faced with multiple problems because of rapidly populating content on their sites.

Therefore, managing the in-house content strategy can be a real task that most of them will find difficult to cope up with losing focus from their main area. The alternative to this strategy is to get the help of a vendor to meet the translation needs. However, there are several top level language service providers so that necessary caution must be applied in choosing the vendor that can, not only meet the requirements, but meet them suitably. Of course, the first thing you may want to look in them is their past experience of having performed similar tasks before.

The increasing globalization of businesses and emergence of hundreds of thousands of eCommerce sites have necessitated the need for localization and translation. However, there are several factors that have made the task of translation quite a challenge for the enterprises. The alternative for them is to look for an external language vendor to whom they can outsource the task of translation.

Mistakes to Avoid In Technical Translations

Most companies when dealing with overseas business will do everything right, but when it comes to technical translations, they will consider it as the most dispensable task. This is possibly because they think English is a nearly universal language, spoken and understood all over the world. It is important, however, that they offer safe operating guidelines in several languages.

Translating only to English

It is wrong to presume that English alone will serve the purpose. This fallacious assumption stems from the fact that many international managers are well versed in English. They can read, write and understand English. However, only because the top managers speak and understand English does not mean that every customer understands the language.

In fact most nations, including members of EU, have clear guidelines stating that user manuals, including safety documents, must come with technical translation into the first language of the country in which the product will be sold. Companies should consider this exercise as leading to customer satisfaction that would, in turn, lead to the acceptance of their products.

Cost Effective Is Not the Best Option

The companies that don’t value the importance of language in the product manual meant for consumers usually go ahead with free online translation program or hire a cheap translator. It is important to understand that technical translation is a value addition to your business that makes your company sustainable in the long run. So, the best companies do not go with the cheapest deal.

Companies should ideally give time and attention to the task of translation because it brings them value. They can begin by interviewing translation professionals or companies and then enquiring from them about their process and how they maintain quality and standardization.

Asking the Dealer to Translate It

It is ridiculous that some companies leave the task of translation on the hands of their country specific dealers. There is a huge difference in the quality of work that dealers will perform and the ones performed by the professional translators. It is quite possible that the dealers speak English, but the point is that they may not be as proficient in the language as a qualified translator.

It is important to keep in mind that technical translation is quite a challenging task involving the translation of user manual, sales sheets and safety instructions. If at all, a company has to take the assistance of the dealers – they should be consulted for the useful material in their locality.

Take Metric System into Account

Manuals and documents that use gallons, miles, feet and yards tend to confuse international consumers. The metric system is used nearly in every nation except in North America. North American companies that prepare technical documents or use manuals for international consumers usually overlook this aspect. This could be a minor lapse with huge implications.

An important lesson that companies can learn from this lapse is to take metric system into account in pretty much all overseas technical translation and in the creation of new source documents.

Plan Ahead

Companies consign huge resources to advance planning. They have teams exclusively devoted to this task and nearly every aspect of their business moves like a clockwork in a planned planner. However, translation, which is a critical aspect of nearly every multinational business, remains neglected. This short sightedness on the part of companies is strange and inexplicable.

How can products be sold without anyone giving a thought to the need for technical translation? The documents and user manuals will finally go in the hands of the end users. However, when the translation is rushed through the last moment the results are pretty much predictable. Therefore, the translation requires the same degree of pre-planning as the other aspects of the business.

Technical translation is one of the most important concerns that must be factored into doing overseas business by the companies. There are several important things to take note of when considering translation of documents and manuals. Right and appropriate translation adds to the value of the business and leads to consumer satisfaction.

Finding the Translation Service Provider

All language providers promise linguistic quality assurance. Ideally, even if they do not, they must. However, when you are looking for a quality provider, you need to know how one QA process from the provider is better or worse than the other. Secondly, you also need to know how the process suits your project.

The Overall Process

If you know the overall process in a translation project, it will save you from a lot of worries. You need to know if the quality of translation is free from errors and accurate. If you know the language of translation well enough, you will get some idea about the quality of work. The first question every client asks is: how they would know that the translation is up to the mark? The provider cannot offer linguistic quality assurance unless they are reputable and well established in their field of work. So, the client needs to know their credentials, the past record of their work, and the complaints against them in the past and how amicably the disputes with clients were resolved in the past.

If the provider is trustworthy, it is easy to rely on providers promise. You may interview the provider to learn about their overall process. If you have the slightest of doubts, it is best to hunt for the other providers. The process should take care of linguistic collaboration, editing, proof reading and final revisions. In other words bulk translation work requires collaboration and multi-tasking. It is a team work rather than an individual effort. When clients get an insight into their process, they can be reassured if the quality of their work will meet the expectations the clients have.

The key to good translation is objective revisions to ensure linguistic quality assurance. On the other hand subjective changes are best refrained from. In other words, process can give an insight into the quality.

The Tools Used

At the time of interview, you may like to learn about the tools the provider use. The tools used by the provider offers an insight into linguistic quality assurance. Some of the tools to look for are style guide, translation memories, and glossaries specific to the client. Ask them if they are willing to work with reviewers in your country. Additionally, you may like to learn from the clients the evaluation of linguists they have in place and how do they conduct reevaluation of their work.

The purpose of tools in the translation industry is to bring about standardization in the work they perform. In other words, no matter who performs the translation job, the final result should be comparable. While this can be easily achieved in translation of scientific and technical documents, it may not be so easy in the translation of literary and cultural works. Yet, the hall mark of linguistic quality assurance is a certain level of standardization in the work process, tools used and the final outcome to meet the linguistic quality assurance.

These are some of the tips that will assist you in understanding the quality assurance and the translation process of the provider you have chosen to work with. All industries have quality assurance in place and the translation industry is no exception. If your quality assurance provider doesn’t answer your queries, you may look for the other providers. A good quality assurance has a well defined process in combination with right tools to take care of your translation needs.

Finding the right translation provider is not going to be difficult if you can put some pertinent questions on the process and quality assurance to them. The good providers have a process in place to meet the linguistic quality assurance. In addition, they should have the right set of tools to work with.

Translation in Business Communications

In today’s global business environment, businesses can either operate in multiple countries and geographical/linguistic areas, or operate out of one country or linguistic region while providing services to clients in other regions. As a result, there is a market for various types of translation such as technical, financial, and legal translation. The market for this activity is growing rapidly as newer translation requirements are emerging.

How Translation Has Evolved

Translation is, roughly speaking, the process of converting written or spoken words from one language to another. Globalization paved the way to a number of companies to expand their business to other countries, creating an opportunity to profit on the demand for their products and services. It may also be that businesses can find a resource they need at a much cheaper rate in another region than their own.

In any case, businesses are faced with the barrier of ignorance of a foreign language when they take the step to operate outside of their own countries or regions. To address this, many businesses necessarily hire translators to translate communications, whether with governments, other businesses or consumers, or with literary translations, technical, commercial, or any other type of translation. Due to this, the translation industry is a rapidly growing one.

Business Translations across Cultures

It is rarely easy to translate a communication between different languages. Translation is not as simple a task as referring a dictionary or using the internet. Even if language can be translated without a hitch, there may be several cultural differences that the translator needs to be aware of in order to effectively translate it or there may be a risk the message gets lost in translation, often to a humorous degree.

As an example, a message intended to mean “2nd Expo of Social Service Businesses” (“2ième Salon des Entreprises d’Économie Sociale”) was translated from French to German meaning “Two Living Rooms from Business Economy Companies.” Examples of translations from native languages to English gone awry include a message at an Asian dry cleaner that reads “Drop your trousers here for best results.”

The Role Played by a Translator

In business, the translator performs as a liaison between a business and the target audience. The accuracy of his/her translations can impact the expected result of the communication to a great extent and so, it is important for a translator to be well versed with the literal language and with the nuances unique to its spoken counterpart, slang, and dialects. Wrong translations, regardless of their industry, can have unintended consequences from embarrassing a business to causing it large scale losses.

The Goal of Translation

A business translator’s goal is to faithfully reproduce the intention of the business’s communication in the language into which he/she is translating it. Often, the translator may have to deal with a lack of one to one equivalents between elements of a message in the source language to that in the target language. The purpose of the message is to be assessed by the translator and use his/her creative skills to make a message in the target language that can bring about the same effect in the source language.

Maintaining Quality and Avoiding Mistakes

Avoiding translational embarrassments in technical translations is the key to keep a business afloat in a foreign market and possibly avoid disastrous consequences arising out of misinterpreted laws or mistranslated directions for the usage of a product. Businesses hire translators and have the translated messages re-translated into the original language by other translators to verify the accuracy of the translation, though this process may not always work, especially for messages making use of puns, catch phrases, and idioms unique to a culture.

The need for translation is inevitable in today’s world where it is increasingly common to see countries and businesses looking outside their home borders to expand their economic potential and increase their coffers. In such a world, translators—whether handling medical translations, technical translations, or computer translations—could be considered as ambassadors facilitating the exchange between cultures, bringing the world closer with every translated line.

Best Practices for Translation

Any business catering to a global audience needs to be multilingual. It is a well-known fact that a large percentage of global population speaks English, but since it is not their first language, some of them face issues related to written communication in English. By making communication multilingual, you can create goodwill and open up your business to new audiences. You can become multilingual by resorting to the aid of bilingual employees or by hiring a translation company.

Reasons Why You Should Hire Professional Translation Services

Using bilingual employees to translate communication is cheap but not the best route. A bilingual employee may have excellent verbal skills but generally not a satisfactory written skill. This may lead to inaccuracies in communication, which can be harmful especially with regard to legal documents.

There are multiple benefits in engaging a translation company. The first one is that a translation company will have translators for multiple languages and, therefore, you will get all your work done through one source. Second, translation companies must be aware of cultural sensitivity in terms of language and are able to prevent messy missteps. Third, your employees stay focused on the tasks for which you hired them.

The Essential Best Practices to Be Followed for Translation

Whether bilingual employees or a translation company is handling your multilingual efforts, there are some practices you should follow:

1. Do not choose an employee or translation company at random. Scrutinize their work, their policies and past quality before making your choice.
2. Do not just choose random languages. Make language additions that will benefit your business.
3. Standardize vital documents to ensure consistency over multiple channels.
4. Appoint a coordinator, set a budget and plan the translation process. A coordinator ensures someone is responsible for achieving your goals and ensures that you do not exceed your budget. Documentation reduces redundancy and ensures a smoother process in case of future additions.

The Importance of Writing and Designing Documents Appropriately

The purpose of any document is to communicate a concept or knowledge to the end client, in order to invoke an action or a thought process. Using language that requires a PHD to understand will only cause setbacks. Follow the KISS principle (Keep it Short and Simple) when writing and design documents. Ensuring that information is easy to read and understand reduces the need for additional personal contact with the customer. It will even make documents easier to translate. In case of documents requiring certain wording for legal purposes, keep the language simple and crisp.

Increasing the Overall Quality and Consistency of Your Documents

Transforming an operation from single language to a multilingual process does not change your business or your goals or values. Every document needs to carry the same essence or tone, irrespective of the language. The best way to ensure consistency is to create style guides and glossaries. A style guide lets translators know your linguistic and stylistic preferences. A glossary contains important terms with your preferred translations. These guides and glossaries do not affect costs nor increase timelines. They just ensure that translation companies use languages that best suit your business. Multilingual communication will help increase the overall quality and consistency of your documents.

You Can Play a Role Too in the Translation Process

Once you have hired a translation company, decided on the processes and created style guides and glossaries, you can step back and wait for the results or you can be proactive. Get the most out of translation companies by taking part of the process, which does not mean hovering until the work is done. Just be available to answer any questions or queries the translation company may ask. Join organizations to be aware of any changes in laws, so that changes can be implemented across all languages simultaneously. These processes will help you reach new markets, so, make sure to make the most of them.

Increasing globalization has made multilingual communication necessary for any business seeking to capture new audiences and markets. The best way to go from single language communication to multilingual communication is with the aid of a good translation company. Choose a translation company carefully and ensure that the best practices of translation are followed.

The Importance of Accurate Legal and Technical Translations

Technology has improved leaps and bounds through the years. Innovative ideas are constantly being shared worldwide with enhancements and innovation in lots of technical fields. A key element to the advancements has been the ability to accurately and quickly share information related to any technology. With greater control over sharing, responding, and understanding information in real time, it has become possible to avoid many pitfalls of the past.

Accurate Technical Translations

Accurate technical translations have been an important factor in the various technological advancements through the years. Scientific languages can be very specific and complex. Most of the technical terms in such a field are fairly uncommon in general language use. Therefore, interpreting such words can be a very challenging task. Technical translations also have to be very accurate in terms of specific terminologies. Errors in the technical translation can lead to dangerous situations, issues, failure, and setbacks to the project.

Technical translations, when left to automated/machine translation software, are bound to cause many errors to come up in the translated file. While such software can be quite useful in case of translating general conversational languages, technical translations are usually beyond the scope of the software. Human translators with sufficient level of proficiency in both of the languages as well as the concerned technical field can guarantee a very high degree of accuracy in the translation projects.

Technical data available in safety manuals, operations manuals, technical proposals, websites, science journals, and patents have to be accurately and professionally worked upon for translation projects. Some of the terminologies in technical translations need to be changed for the benefit of the public. Interpreting technical terms to a form which is easily understandable for the people not informed about the concerned technical field requires the services of a professional translation company with skilled translators and sufficient background in the technical field. This is translating the data twice, once with the proper translation, and again with the easily understandable terms in the foreign language. This type of translation service is far beyond what any translational software can achieve.

The point here is that, when looking for a translational service provider for your technical translation needs, you should go for service providers with strong background in both the languages as well as the technical field of the project.

Tips on Choosing a Legal Foreign Language Translation Company

Legal and technical translations have to be very accurate or else they can cause huge complications in proceedings. Wrongly translated documents can be the difference between winning and losing a case. The following tips will help you in choosing the right legal translation company for your translation needs:

– Avoid hiring a translation company whose technical translators are not native speakers of the foreign language in consideration. Below par court interpretations and badly translated documents can change the course of a case, affect a firm’s global reputation, and can even attract new lawsuits. The translated document literally has the reputation of a firm at stake.
– Foreign language translation should not be compared with simply typing in a different language. Specific languages have different language and word twists that need to be taken into consideration while translating a document.
– Avoid hiring companies that offer “universal translator” for your translational needs, as well as using software or other devices for legal translations. These can have disastrous results on your project. The reputation of a language service provider can see serious harm if the provider puts up some wrong legal or technical translation for the world to see.
– Fast and cheap legal translation should not be chosen just because of what they claim to offer. Cheap translations can potentially harm your firm in the long run, and so should be avoided.

The bottom line here is to extensively survey the options available before deciding on a technical translation service vendor.

The Importance of Linguistic Quality Assurance

Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) forms an essential phase in every successful translation project, whether it is document translation or website translation. Clients deserve and expect high-quality language translation for their projects. Errors in the final translation can affect the customer’s confidence in the service vendor’s professionalism and the integrity of their project. Therefore, it is imperative for service providers to do the projects without any linguistic mistakes.

LQA Teams

The translation or localization service provider you choose will have a linguistic quality assurance team on their list of professionals. The service provider should ensure that the proofreader and the linguistic editor who worked on the project during the editing and quality assurance are not the same ones who did the original translation. Some linguists may try to perform self copy editing and proofreading. This does not guarantee a high-quality content for the customer.

Translation and editing are two steps done by different linguists. In this process, an editor is tasked with checking and proofreading the original content from the translator for accuracy and completeness. Next comes the linguistic quality assurance process, which forms the final quality checking step. Service providers should implement the linguistic quality assurance process, which reviews the translated content for linguistic, industry, and technical correctness. This will ensure that the customer has a successful and perfect translation delivered to him in all multimedia, software localization, website, and document projects.

During the linguistic quality assurance process, an expert ensures that the final transcript is accurate technically, that is it should have appropriate tense, proper collocations/word use, no spelling errors, proper grammatical structure, and style as well as grammar consistency.

Purpose of Linguistic Quality Assurance

The linguistic quality assurance step is also done to review the translation for correct usage of linguistic phrasing such as terminology, cultural accuracy, idiomatic expressions, and local terms. Doing this ensures that the final work is a perfect rendition for target markets, and that it also seems as natural to the audience in the target locale as the source content did to the original audience. Linguistic quality assurance also makes sure that the final content does not seem like an awkward and stilted literal translation.

Lastly, the LQA phase reviews the translated file for industrial accuracy, whether the content has corresponding industrial jargon or terminology of any specific subject. For instance, different industries like hospitality, technology, food, and so on have industry-specific terminologies that will have to be inducted into the final content to make it more compatible with the target audience.

Skills Desired in LQA Professionals

A linguistic quality assurance professional is generally expected to have the following skills:

English Proficiency: Testing the localized products needs a strong understand of the original language, which often is English.

Target Language Proficiency: An LQA tester should have a strong base in the target language. The testers not only have to be experts in the target language, but also remain up–to-date in the language.

Computer Knowledge: Testers generally have to report defects, test product functionality, or take screenshots of the final product. Proficiency in operating computers ensures that the LQA tester does not get stuck with simple troubleshooting tasks.

Internet Skills: Verifying texts and specific terminologies, as well as searching for common expressions and terms requires solid research skills and also common sense. An expert tester is one who can pay attention to details and find exactly what he or she is looking for.

When searching for a localization service provider, you should look for someone who is as committed to providing careful localization for the products as you are. Linguistic quality assurance should be done at every stage of the project so as to ensure that the vendor meets the expectations for the final product or service.

Translation of Technical Data and Source Texts

Many companies hire professional services for translation and/or localization of their websites, technical documents, and marketing materials without previously checking the competency of these services. This can lead to unintelligible or unprofessional translations, which can in turn affect the brand image of your company. When it comes to technical documents, errors can lead to potential liability issues for a company. Therefore, it becomes important to get the translation right the first time.

Companies are often not aware of the low-quality of translations until a native speaker points it out to them. In such cases, companies are left with just one option: scrap the document and redo the translation, which turns out to be an additional cost, as leaving it in its current state is just not an option.

Any type of technical translation, such as certificates, industry papers, websites, and so on has to be accurately done by professionals. The key here is to have professionals working on the translation who preferably have advanced degree in the source language or in translation itself. Also, they should have substantial experience in industry-specific translation, as putting the translation of licenses and patent documents in inexperienced hands can be harmful.

Another important consideration is to look for professionals who are experts in their field. For instance, professional medical translators should typically have advanced degree in the source language and also a medical degree or comprehensive knowledge about the subject from years of working in the medical field. Technical field expertise involves understanding and knowledge of the specific terminology of a particular industry and ensuring that the translation conveys the meaning intended by the author.

Creating Finer Source Documents

There are a number of technical documentation departments that try to cut the costs of source documents to reduce overall costs. This should not be done by compromising the quality of the translation. Thus, you should handle source documents with greater consideration.

A lot of cost optimization has taken place in the translation industry during the last decade. This has included trained translators, sophisticated software, quick communication routes, and better planned process management, which reduce costs. What we are missing here is the potential for further optimizing the costs by giving more consideration to the preparation of the source text. The reason for this is that source texts are key documents that help to optimize the costs and quality of translations.

Source documents that are well designed for proper translation generate added value and provide cost reduction. When you optimize source documents, the target document translation costs are optimized as a consequence. Also, this reduces processing time, as well as a lot of preliminary and post-processing work for the technical translators and writers.

Consistent source documents, whether it is technical documentation, or marketing and press texts, can also help consolidate the brand image of any organization, as they give a comprehensive impression which makes the company’s public image a memorable one. That is true in every case, and it is the reason why, in an ideal scenario, a standard language should be used in every type of text.

The key benefit of neat source texts, though, is this: better and more intelligible content leads to fewer misunderstandings. This provides, therefore, a clear benefit in the present times when products have a larger spectrum with most of the similar product features. These aspects argue in favor of more intelligible and, consequently, consumer-friendly products. To get finer source documents, you can follow the tips below:

– identify error sources
– introduce and implement review process
– document processes and rules
– provide tool support

Technical content can be very tricky to translate into foreign languages, as translators need to be well versed in the various nuances in both source and target languages, and also in the technical field of the document.