The Translation Process from A to Z
A great translation goes through many steps.
Have you ever wondered what goes into a great translation? Which steps does your material go through from start to finish? And what tools do the translation team and project manager use when working with your material?
Your request for a translation quote is the beginning of a complex process (please see our guide on how to place an order). Once the text is uploaded to our system, it goes through the following steps:
The translation process: Step by step
1
Analysing file type, form and content
When we receive a translation project, we start by determining the file type, form and content. We can work with all kinds of common file types (e.g. PowerPoint, Excel, Word, InDesign, etc.). However, we prefer working in the original format, rather than in PDF. Next, we consider the following:
- Genre of the translation (e.g. medicine, law, technology, marketing, finance, IT)
- Text type (e.g. press release, SoMe post, manual)
2
Calculating the quote and delivery time
Once we have analysed your material, the project manager will calculate a price and delivery time for you. Pricing and delivery time depend on a number of factors, including:
- number of words
- language combinations
- availability and capacity of our translators and proofreaders
3
Choosing the translation team
One of our project managers will review your material and put together a suitable translation team. Our large network of translators covers a wide range of specialities and subject areas, so we can always find the right team for your project. Each translator has a unique linguistic style, including their own idiolect (personal way of writing and speaking), so some translators may be a better fit for certain types of texts and clients than others. The same is true for proofreaders, who should be chosen carefully as well. Even when a proofreader is objectively skilled, this does not mean that they can proofread all translators – there should be a good “linguistic match".
If you place multiple orders, we’ll try to use the same translation team whenever possible – this ensures that your translated texts are not only objectively consistent, but also share similar wording and tone of voice.
You’ll always be met by a team that takes special requests into account, such as informal/formal language, fixed terms, localisation, etc.
What tools do the translation team and project manager use?
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Research
Translators often spend time reading up on a topic, searching for images of your products and scrutinising your linguistic style and tone. Major languages such as English and German have a much larger repertoire of words and meanings compared to e.g. Danish.
For example, where Danish may use a single word for a specific concept, other languages may have multiple possibilities, and therefore potential for error. Producing quality translations requires not only vast knowledge of the language, culture, norms and topic in question, but also thorough research.
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Search engines
We use many different search engines to ensure correct terminology and consistency in your translation. Search engines are great tools for:
- Seeking knowledge of subject- and industry-specific terms.
- Examining whether a particular phrase or term occurs frequently in similar contexts and genres.
- Searching for images of a product or object to confirm that we have translated it correctly.
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Translation memory
The translation memory is a database of all the translations we have done for you. It is a brilliant tool for ensuring the quality of your translated material. Checking the translation memory to search for occurrences and matches of terms and phrases in the texts we have previously translated for you helps us ensure that you receive consistent translations with correct and uniform terminology.
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Dictionaries
We use both bilingual (e.g. Danish-English) and monolingual (e.g. English-English) dictionaries. Monolingual dictionaries are often richer in examples and explanations of the different contextual meanings of words. Some projects require translators to have access to specific dictionaries and references with specialised terminology. We also consult various online dictionaries (e.g. glosbe.com), where we can often find identical or similar-in-use examples of words and phrases.
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Term database and reference material
We can use our intelligent translation software to create a personalised term database, so our translators know which specific words they should always use for your translations.. If the translator or proofreader hasn’t used the terms agreed upon, the project manager will be alerted and can check whether the translation should be changed. That way you’ll always receive consistent translations with uniform terminology.
You are also welcome to include reference material (e.g. texts and images from your website) when ordering so that we can familiarise ourselves with the material to ensure consistent and correct terminology.
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Localisation
When we adapt your text to the target language, we also take into account those pesky details like units of measurement, characters that look almost the same but aren't, and different conventions for things as trivial as spaces. If you're EXTREMELY nerdy, you can read about the most common characters we localise (i.e. adapt to the target language) in the section below (you can also read our article on differences between American and British English).
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Assessment, assessment and more assessment
Every translation involves a wide range of assessments and creative choices, and each time a translator chooses A, it is also a rejection of the possibilities B, C and D in terms of tone, wording and terminology. That's why there is often a comment thread between the translation team and the project manager throughout the process to ensure consistency in your product.
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QA (quality assurance)
QA stands for quality assurance. The project manager is responsible for this step in the process. QA combines manual quality checks with automated alerts, which we’ll cover in this section.
The automated QA check
The automatic QA checks are generated by comparing specific parameters of the source and target text. This is where our intelligent translation software picks up on things like:
- spelling and typing errors
- inconsistent use of numbers and other character units
- inconsistencies with the term database
- any comments from translator and proofreader
- double spaces, repeated words, and leading or trailing spaces.
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Information for the real nerds
The intelligent translation system is also encoded with the language-specific conventions and rules for the use of written language characters such as quotation marks, hyphens, commas, etc.
The qualitative, manual QA check
Now we come to the part that really takes time. Project managers go through the text manually to check the translator’s and the proofreader’s work. We always try to match your tastes and preferences in terms of wording, tone of voice and terminology , so sometimes we’ll roll back a proofreader's correction(s) if we think you would prefer the translator's variant, or if we think the translator's variant is more appropriate.
In collaboration with our intelligent translation software, project managers also detect inconsistent use of upper and lower case letters or capitalisation (e.g. for product names, company names, etc.), as well as differences in punctuation and grammar.
Back translation
Back translation is one of the tools project managers use when we need to assess the quality and accuracy of a translation in a language we can't evaluate ourselves. The Translated By Us production team understands (and speaks) a wide range of European languages, which gives us a great starting point for perfecting translations.
Back translation involves machine translating a translation back into the original language and comparing the result to the source text to see if they are roughly identical. Back translation is thus used as an indicator that shows us significant deviations from the source text and helps us spot any misinterpretations.
This collaboration between man and machine not only gives us a good starting point for delivering consistent texts without errors or omissions, it also means you get great quality and value for your money.
Sources
Buhl, O., 2005. OVERSÆTTELSE fra teori til praksis. 1st edition, 2nd printing [KBH]: Hans Reitzels Forlag.
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