10 Tips for Buying Translation Services

For non-linguists or people not familiar with translation services buying foreign language translation services can be frustrating.  There are a few things to think about before translating all your documents.

1.  Decide which information really needs to be translated for your global employees, distributors and customers.  Be sure to translate only the relevant information in your documentation so that you produce shorter text and minimize your translation costs and timing.

2.  Use of pictures, charts, graphs and diagrams can help your communication be more straight forward and understood.  This will aid in technical translations and trying to get just the right term in the foreign language as well as reduce the amount of words that need to be translated. Only use text when absolutely necessary.

3.  Do not create materials without thinking of your global audience.  Don’t use puns, and culturally specific terms in your English versions – these do NOT translate well and become very awkward when translated. 

4.  Calculate how much time you spent creating your English documents, this is a good idea for the how long the translation process will take. 

5.  Do you need a translator or a translation agency?  An agency will help with the translator selection, project management, quality control, file conversations, standardized presentation of multiple projects.  Thus a translation agency will be more costly than an individual translator. 

6.  Determine if you need a translation and if it will be used for reference (for-information)or if it needs to be rewritten/adapted (for-publication)to be used for sales.  This will affect timing and costs for the project.  In addition, share with the translation company who the audience will be for the translation and what output or medium will be used.

7.  Resist the temptation to have your documents translated by an internal person who speaks the language in need.  This is dangerous as speaking is NOT writing.  Just because a person has oral fluency does not guarantee smooth, stylish writing. 

8.  Provide your final version – do not provide a draft and make changes along the way.  This will cost you more and cause issues in fluidity of the translation.

9.  Machine translation is perfect if you are pressed for time and want to get just the gist of the meaning of a document.  However…do NOT use raw computer output for anything outbound. 

10.  Use local schools and universities with caution.  These could work for inbound translations to get a general sense of the meaning but translating a foreign language is an art.  Would you have your company’s business plan or financial documents done by a university business student?

Getting yourself up to speed on the subject of translations is not that difficult.  We are here to help you feel more comfortable with the process.  This can be a fun and very rewarding part of your job, let us help you look good.