After spending weeks or months finalizing their documents, many clients believe they can toss them to a translation firm for a quick "conversion" to multiple languages. If only it were that simple! Providing accurate and audience appropriate translations is a meticulous process. The better you understand what goes into translations, the more prepared you will be to work with your Language Service Provider to realistically estimate timelines and costs. Below is a summary:

Isolate text to be translated
The most common tools used in the translation process interface well with MS Word. If your files are in other formats, i.e. InDesign, Quark, Illustrator, PhotoShop, or even hard copy “scans” they will need to be prepared for translation so the translator can access the text. Therefore, “prepping” your files to identify the relevant text is often necessary. Correctly preparing the files for translation directly impacts the time, cost and quality of the translation.

Identify resources, by language and subject matter expertise
A team of language experts, a translator and a proof reader for each language and a project manager to schedule and coordinate their activities is assigned to your project. You may also require a team for multilingual desktop publishing and you'll need a quality control expert to double check the final files prior to delivery. All must be committed to meeting the agreed upon timeline for your project.

Pulling an experienced team together on short notice can be challenging, especially if the best resources for your specific needs are already working on other projects. A qualified, available resource pool and the ability of your translation provider to accurately schedule and manage the project are critical to the successful and timely completion of your project.

Share files and information
Coordinating team activities and communicating relevant information is a key component of project management. For multiple language projects, this means keeping all the translators and proof readers informed. Files must move seamlessly from translator to proof reader and if discrepancies arise in interpreting the text, they must be resolved and communicated across the entire team. Few clients truly appreciate how many hands are involved in completing their project. A 4-language project with formatting may involve a dozen or more individuals. You can see why making even minor changes to your copy halfway through a project can create a ripple effect that risks introduction of errors or missing your deadline.

Translate
Word by word, line by line, translators mimic your style and follow industry guidelines to make the text flow without editorializing your content. Translators are so meticulous that they will frequently discover previously unidentified errors in the source document. These must then be checked with the client and corrected. Time to translate depends on the length of the document (measured in words) and the degree of difficulty. Highly technical material takes longer to translate than general information.

Proof read
Proof readers follow the same process as translators. Starting with the source language, they review the translation, looking for errors, inconsistencies and accuracy of terminology. This second set of eyes on your project ensures that your translation is an accurate and an audience appropriate representation of your message.

Format
Completed translations must be restored to their original format, using the source files you provide. Desktop publishing expertise is necessary for each language to ensure that graphics match up with text, line and page breaks are in their correct places and no characters are corrupted.

Quality Check
Files require a careful review before they are returned to you. Details matter, whether it's a misplaced page number, alphabetizing a glossary, matching chapter headers, or an 800 number that needs to be replaced with a local number. These details are essential to making the final document look and feel like the original source text, and not a cheap “conversion”.

Update translation memory
Once the completed project has been accepted by you, the client, translated phrases are stored using translation memory for use in your future projects. This is especially critical for your industry-specific terms so that you are guaranteed consistency over time. If you reuse blocks of text frequently, this can save you money and substantially reduce time lines for future projects.

The translation itself is just one of the many components comprising your overall project. Coordination and quality control are equally important. Your translation provider must allow for the everyday glitches which can and do happen (storms that knock out power, national holidays, files that get corrupted during electronic transmission). You should be able to pass your project to your vendor, confident that you will receive it back correct and ready to use by the agreed upon deadline. By being familiar with the translation process, you can help ensure that your projects go smoothly and hopefully avoid anything that might disrupt the process or make timely completion of your project more challenging.

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