With the world becoming increasingly connected, the number of businesses requiring translation services is growing. As a result, the language services industry has doubled in size in the last 10 years. If you work for one of the many businesses with global engagement, it’s important to do your homework so you pick the right translation partner.
Localization of larger projects may take months to complete. If you get weeks into localizing a project and then realize your language service partner isn’t a good fit, bringing in a new one mid-project may result in significant additional costs and inconvenient overruns of deadlines. In such a scenario, you might have to spend significant time getting a new partner up to speed, and they may end up having to redo inadequate localization work completed by your former provider.
In order to help you avoid such pitfalls, we’ve put together a list of questions you can ask potential translation partners before you select one. Here are the Questions You Should Ask When Choosing a Translation Partner.
1. Do you do localization as well as translation?
You may know you need a translation service, but not everyone knows they should get their media and documents localized as well. Translation will make sure your text is translated into another language, but localization will recreate your text, images, and advertising concepts so that they will be well-received by specific locales. For example, Spanish is spoken worldwide in many countries, but the Spanish spoken in Spain can be very different from the Spanish spoken in Mexico. Likewise, the Spanish in one part of Mexico can be distinct from the Spanish in another part of Mexico. Not only are there multiple dialects for each language, but every area has its own slang and colloquialisms. Your media ought to be translated to suit the people in the particular area you’re expanding to.
2. Do you translate/localize more than text?
It’s frequently not enough to just translate the words in your documents, lessons, games or marketing materials. Images with text and video subtitles often need to be localized, too. Occasionally, the images themselves may not make sense to speakers of a foreign language or could even be offensive to them. As for videos, the plots or concepts presented in them will need to be comprehensible to a new audience in another country and should be culturally appropriate as well. Make sure your translation provider has a plan to localize those materials.
3. Do you support internal client review of your translations?
Perhaps you’ve turned to your foreign-language staff before for localizing materials and communications. After all, who better to determine the most appropriate translation of key terms than the people who work with them every day? Of course, foreign-language staff are busy with their jobs and may not have much time for translation work. What to do? Why not leave the bulk of the localizing work to a qualified language service company, yet have your foreign-language staff review translations to make sure everything looks right? Under the right conditions, this can be a win-win solution. And with the right language service partner, this internal review process can be seamlessly integrated into your organization’s standard workflow for rolling out new content.
4. What translation technology do you use (such as memory tools)?
The most qualified professional translation providers know how best to leverage the latest translation tech, such as computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools. Let’s say you’ve authored an e-learning course – there are certain key terms in the course that are probably used and reused over and over. CAT tools can “remember” words, phrases and segments that have been translated already, and can automatically insert them as they appear within the text, all under the careful supervision of a qualified human linguist. This makes it unnecessary to translate the same text over and over, thereby saving you money and time.
5. What experience do you have translating projects similar to ours?
Translation providers often have their specialties. For example, TrueLanguage has extensive experience localizing material such as websites, e-learning courses and business documents, to name a few areas. So, if you needed a website localized, you’d want a provider with experience in that specific area. An appropriately qualified language service company would help you streamline the process of localizing your website content, would work in close coordination with your developers and would be comfortable handling the file types involved. In summary, each kind of translation project comes with its own particular set of requirements, which an unqualified provider might fail to meet.
6. Do you have client reviews/testimonies? Who are your past clients?
In these times when online reviews are increasingly important, any well-established translation provider will be able to share with you public feedback or testimonials from past clients. Additional commentary about individual translation companies can often be found on social media, since even when a business doesn’t ask for reviews, people will quite frequently share their thoughts somewhere online. You could probably find the relevant testimonies yourself without too much trouble. You might start by asking who some of their customers have been. An appropriately qualified language service should be able to share with you the names of a couple of businesses like yours.
7. How do you need us to prepare documents for localization?
The way you share your materials for localization can make a translation provider’s job harder or easier. So, when you ask this question, you should receive in reply specific guidelines for how you’ll need to share documents. You may have a lot to organize and prepare before you can get the ball rolling with your localization project.
8. How long will it take to complete this project?
The translation and localization of a project can take a considerable amount of time since there are typically many steps involved. Once you provide the details of your project, your provider can give you an estimate of how long it will take. Some companies may be able to complete the project quicker than others depending upon their resources and current workload. This is important to keep in mind if you have time constraints.
If you’re looking for an experienced and reliable translation partner, please feel free to contact us at TrueLanguage and ask us any of these questions. For many years, our localization experts have been helping businesses like yours initiate or expand global outreach. We’ll be happy to provide you with a cost-free, no-obligation quote. We look forward to hearing from you!
