It’s that time of year again – summer is here! Everything’s in bloom and the sun is shining. But the heat is on… to make sure your translation projects are completed accurately and on time! Translating your materials into different languages is a big step in planting the seed for your global marketing initiatives to help grow your business overseas. As a client, you might have concerns for your vendor about quick turnaround time, large volume projects, and accuracy. We have some tips for you to avoid these small obstacles so they do not become larger ones. Think of these obstacles as kinks in the hose as you water your garden; they can easily become unkinked! Here’s how:
1. Teamwork for quick turnaround time
The average linguist can translate about 2,000-3,000 words per day. That’s great – but what happens when you have a large volume of words that you needed yesterday? You have your own deadlines to complete a project for publishing, distribution, release, or general use. As your multilingual solutions partner, E-ging works with your deadline. Therefore, it is important that we collaborate to make sure projects are completed accurately and on time.
How do we do so? The short answer is planning – on both ends. As a client, communicate with your account manager ahead of time when you think a large project is in the pipeline. This allows us to align our resources. It is always good to be proactive, rather than reactive. In order to turn around a project quickly and efficiently, communication between the client, account manager, and project management team is key!
For a real-world example of a large project with a tight turnaround, check out our case studyon how we translated 2.4 million words in 20 days!
2. Many linguists equals many voices
We already mentioned translator capacity. What happens if you need 20,000 words completed in 2 days? We would have to put together a team of linguists to complete this. Don’t fret about consistency. We know that every person has their own style and voice, and your brand’s style and voice should not be lost because of this. How do we un-kink?
First, it is always great to have up-to-date, relevant reference materials. Recently, a team of linguists had some questions about business terms during the translation of materials for a first time client. The issue was that certain economic terms can mean different things in different contexts. The client was able to provide us with reference material in a timely manner to make sure we used their preferred terms. Providing this up front will help, too.
Second, translation memory (TM) not only helps reduce cost, but also helps to ensure consistency and efficiency over time. MemoQ picks up things such as grammar and punctuation. Translation memory is updated real time, so a rich database of terms is constantly being built. Eskimos have about 50 ways to say snow, and we want to make sure that we have the right way. Once a correct term is used, it will continue to be used until you say otherwise!
Third, your work is not just translated, but edited and proofread by another linguist. We try to use the same proofreader for consistency. It’s like writing an article yourself, and then having another trusted colleague read it for accuracy, grammar, etc. before publishing. It’s often hard to proofread your own work!
3. Is that your final answer?
This saying was made popular by the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” But it applies here, too. Make sure that the version of the source you provide is final. Any updates to the source while the translation stage is taking place will put a kink in workflow. As always, if a change occurs, let us know as soon as possible, so we can make the change on our end as soon as possible.
