Translation tips
If you’re thinking of commissioning a professional translation, we’d like to help you out by offering a few suggestions – covering the reasons to engage a professional translation service as well as a few pointers to help you prepare your written material for translation.
Why use a local professional translation service?
- Employ a qualified specialist with years of experience, knowledge of specialist vocabulary and who works exclusively into their mother tongue. A bilingual member of staff may be able to speak, read and write two languages very well, but they are not trained to ensure that complex language and subtle meaning remain intact across a lengthy translation.
- The importance of clear understanding cannot be underestimated. A high quality translation tells foreign clients that you value their business and respect their ways of communicating – a poor translation causes misunderstanding and a bad impression of your business.
- Internet-based translation companies often spend more money on flashy websites and promotional campaigns than they do on recruiting the best translators. In order to offer you rock-bottom prices, your important translation might be outsourced to smaller agencies operating in countries without data protection legislation or even basic security.
Tips for translation
Our business is communication, so we can best help you realise your translation project if you are able to discuss your needs with us before we assign your work to one of our translators. We aim to work to your timescale wherever possible, and to anticipate any difficulties that may arise over the course of the project. We’re always happy to discuss the progress of your job, and you can help us by providing some of the following information:
- Your target audience: one of the benefits of a professional translator is their skill in localising texts to a specific audience. This might mean a country, business area or type of media, or it might just mean you telling us how you want the document to read.
- Reference material, glossaries and websites: if you have any relevant material in either the target or the source language, let us know. We won’t even translate things you don’t need, and these materials can enhance your project with both accuracy and speed.
- Your timescale: Translat is always happy to work to your deadline, but we work best if we know the ideal time at which you will require your translation.
How you can help us to improve the quality of service:
Set a reasonable time frame for the project – rushed work can compromise the quality – allow time for research, checking any problems that may arise.