Choosing a Translation Company

What to look for when employing a translation company

Translation Companies

• Should only place projects with fully qualified and experienced translators working into their mother-tongue
• Should thoroughly vet and assess all translators before allowing them to work on your projects
• Should have management systems to continually assess and reassess the quality of work delivered by translators, ensuring that strict performance criteria are met at all times in terms of accuracy, fluency and delivering work to agreed schedules
• Should have management systems to track and update hundreds of files accurately for on-going projects
• Should maintain client confidentiality at all times
• Should have binding agreements governing non-disclosure and confidentiality of all documentation
• Should make sure that all work is stored securely
• Should be willing to be bound by specific terms of contract, subject to agreement
• Should refuse a commission that they do not have the expertise to deliver

Translation Objectives

• Translations should not read like translations
• Work should read as if it had been written first-hand for the target market audience
• All work should be fully localised so that it reflects current in-country style and terminology
• Over a series of projects, the translation agency should work increasingly closely to each client’s preferred style, learning in-house preferences and vocabulary

Translators

• Should only work into their mother-tongue language
• Should have internationally recognised academic and professional qualifications
• Should ideally work in teams, where one translator translates and the second edits and proofs the work
• Should have membership of one or more professional body
• Should have specific subject experience for your industry field
• Should preferably be living and working in their mother-tongue countries, giving you access to current language styles and current terminology

Translation Tips

• Be prepared to invest in quality – it offers the best value for money in the long run. All translations are not the same. You get what you pay for. It is better not to translate a text in the first place than to buy a cheap translation
• Beware of machine translations – only human beings know how to speak to each other. Machine translations are acceptable for gist understanding, but if you need a professional document to communicate your company’s message, use a human being
• Build a long-term relationship with your translation company – they help you with translator selection and assessment, offer access to vast international resources, have project management skills, quality control procedures, the ability to run various file conversions, offer standardised document presentation, etc
• Beware of agencies that have in-house teams of translators. The risk is for the project managers to give the in-house staff every job that comes in just to keep them busy, irrespective of whether they have the requisite skills or not. Look for agencies who work with freelance translators and who place work according to your needs (rather than with an eye on their own overheads)
• Do not do the translation work using your own company’s resources. Whilst your staff may be good at their day-to-day jobs, they are not trained translators and they may not even be that competent as linguists when writing in their mother-tongue
• Do not use a language teacher from your local school to translate a document. Translating is completely different to teaching. You would not expect a singing teacher to be able to sing like an opera diva, and you cannot expect a language teacher to know how to translate like a professional translator – different skills, so always use a specialist
• Do not use a language student to complete your translations. You would not let a student do a big new product launch for your company, so do not let a student work on your company’s important documentation
• A translation is a working document. Expect your regional office to want to make some changes. Even a perfect document can be changed. Give a “perfect” document that you have written to one of your colleagues and ask them to proof and edit it for you. The likelihood is that they will find some things that they want to change to reflect their own style or personal preferences
• Only give the translation company final copy to translate. It does not help to start translators off working with your draft files as it only leads to confusion and adds significantly to costs