The quality of translation is often seen as highly personal. Often, there isn’t a single “right” way to translate a piece of text. Translators and clients may find it challenging to evaluate the quality objectively due to the subjective nature of the process. Most experts in translation and clients would concur that a successful translation conveys the same message and intent as the source text, yet it sounds as though it was originally written in the target language. However, how can a client ensure top-notch translation services?
Before you submit your text for translation, here are a few steps you can take in just five minutes to assist your translator in producing a quick and high-quality translation.
Offer as much information as possible
The most effective way to aid your translator in producing a high-quality translation is to supply as much background information as you can. Ensure your translator has all the necessary details by answering the following questions.
- Who is the intended audience?
- What kind of content is it?
- Is the tone or style informal or formal?
- What platform will you use to share the translated text?
- If the text pertains to your company, what is your position and specific duties within the company?
Ensure the source material is of high quality
It’s crucial that the material you provide is clear and concise. Avoid utilizing content that has been previously translated by machines. These translations often lack the quality found in human translations. Before submitting the material for translation, it’s important to review it for any errors. In wording or structure in your way to ensure top-notch translation services.
Create a style guide
Style guides offer guidelines for translators on how to use language, structure, and spelling. These guides can be used to inform the translator about your desired language style, vocabulary selection, capitalization rules, punctuation, spelling, and grammar to ensure top-notch translation services. Additionally, you can indicate whether you prefer translations in American or British English. Or whether the tone should be formal or casual to ensure top-notch translation services.
Style guides also play a role in maintaining a consistent tone throughout the document. If your goal is simply to ensure the document has a uniform tone. You might consider asking the translator to adhere to a well-established style guide. Such as The Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press Stylebook, or Cube Localization Style Guide, rather than developing your own guide from the ground up.
Create a glossary
A glossary is a compilation of frequently used terms, phrases, and specific words that appear in both the source and target languages. It’s helpful for ensuring that a single term consistently represents a particular concept. For instance, if your document focuses on blog posts, you can specify in the glossary that the term “blog post” should always be used instead of other terms like blog, post, article, entry, or piece. At Cube Localization, we’ve also developed glossaries tailored to specific industries in various languages to help you keep consistency across different documents and to assist translators in producing high-quality work more efficiently.
Maintain open communication with the client
The highest quality is often the result of effective communication between the client and the translator. Consider being available for the translator’s questions and working together to ensure the translation meets your project’s requirements.
Allocate time for preparing the original document
A thoroughly prepared original document serves as the cornerstone for a superior translation. This may appear self-evident, yet it’s essential to identify and rectify any spelling mistakes, grammatical inaccuracies, or inconsistencies within the original document. Aim for straightforward and succinct language in the original document. It’s advisable to steer clear of complex jargon or convoluted sentence structures. Using simpler language makes it easier for translators to comprehend and accurately convey the message to ensure top-notch translation services.
Ensure the original document has uniform formatting and straightforward sentence structures to facilitate accurate parsing by both humans and machines. Occasionally, the original document might be ambiguous or heavily dependent on context. In such instances, it’s beneficial to include supplementary information or annotations that can aid the translator in grasping the intended message.
Select the appropriate translation method
Various translation methods cater to different needs and goals. The choice of translation method should be tailored to the context, audience, and objective of the document. Depending on these factors, the right translation approach can significantly improve the effectiveness and quality of the final output. Methods such as adaptation, localization, transcreation, direct translation, literary translation, and more are available.
Understanding the purpose of the document, the intended audience, and the desired result is crucial in determining the suitable translation method. For instance, localization ensures that the content is culturally appropriate by adapting idioms, metaphors, and cultural references. This is particularly important for products and services being introduced into new markets.
Select the appropriate translation tools
The tools you employ can significantly elevate the quality of the translation. Translation memory (TM) tools keep track of previously translated segments to ensure consistency and efficiency across various projects. Reusing translations not only saves time but also reduces translation costs, especially for content that is repetitive, such as user manuals, contracts, or website content.
Terminology management is equally critical; the creation and upkeep of glossaries and termbases standardize terminology and maintain the accuracy of translations. Additionally, machine translation (MT) systems like Google Translate, DeepL, or Azure AI Translator can be invaluable when drafting the initial version of the document..
Gather and implement feedback
By methodically gathering input from customers, users, and colleagues, and implementing specific changes based on this input, translators can consistently enhance their performance. This leads to an overall improvement in the quality of translations. The procedure includes gathering insights from customers and users, examining this input to pinpoint areas needing improvement, and implementing the required changes to better future translations.
You can collect input through different methods such as questionnaires and surveys, discussion sessions, user testing, group discussions, and feedback sections. Involving fresh perspectives from other translators or language experts to review your work and offer constructive criticism can also aid in spotting language and stylistic flaws that might be missed.
