Finally, the time has come to tackle that matter that you left for later because it was “simple thing”: make your product / service multilingual. Now that the deadlines are starting to run, your partners expect a much more consistent response from you than the general idea that has been in your head until now.
The good news is that preparing to consume translation services requires only a methodical approach, and other information that you have not yet stopped to acquire. It is not trivial, but it is also no mystery.
In this article, we will clarify some essential points regarding the location of products and services, considering what happens when you go beyond the relationship of buying and selling small volumes of translated text, and you need a process that fits your needs. business goals, ensuring that your company’s message reaches speakers of other languages.
Choose quality first
The reason for choosing a translation service with quality first is simple: think of your translated product as an “ambassador” for your brand. If he makes gross mistakes, informs badly or even offends his potential foreign customer, goodbye business!
Big companies have been there, like Mitsubishi. When selling his 4 × 4 “Pajero” in Spain, he soon had to change the name of the vehicle to “Montero”. The expression “Pajero” in Spanish means “masturbador”. A simple review of a native speaker, preferably inserted in the target market, would have freed the company from being too embarrassed.
If your product uses a technical or heavily specialized language, the most prudent option is to choose a company with professionals who are knowledgeable about the topic. Quality at this specific point is no longer a matter of better or worse, it is a matter of viable or unfeasible. Imagine an instruction manual for industrial equipment with inaccurate instructions, and the scenario will be incredibly clear.
The same applies to promotional material in general. Your company has invested a few thousand reais in a good advertising agency with a great capacity to produce persuasive texts, and all this investment can go down the drain if there is not the same care in the choice of translators. The specific knowledge of persuasive writing – copywriting – will be the difference between engaging potential customers in another language or sinking into sales.
Another factor involved in the quality of any translation is the use of more than one professional within the process. As with programming and writing, the writer should not revise the text itself. In translation, it is better to have a translator, an editor and a proofreader. Thus, it is easier to find and correct errors that the translator would have missed by working alone.
Assessing the quality of a translation is a subjective matter. A good starting point would be to consider content that communicates with the target audience of the text without errors in grammar, syntax or punctuation as being of quality. If it conveys to the reader the ideas you have planned to communicate, taking into account the reader’s current culture and reality, even better. And, ideally, all of this within standards of style and tone that are consistent with your company’s native writing.
Understand what affects translation timeframe
The first thought that occurs when talking about the text localization term is “volume”. More text, more time. But in practice, this is not a linear relationship. There are other factors with a direct impact on delivery time.
To have a better idea of the deadlines in your projects, quantify. On average, a translator working alone is able to translate two thousand words a day. If your project has 20,000 words, you can safely estimate the effort in ten days just for the translation. Remember to include editing and review time there.
If the final response time is not satisfactory, you can include more translators in the effort. The key here is to find a response time that meets your needs. Some projects are urgent and others do not have a defined deadline, so it is your deadlines and the available budget that will define the rules.
The complexity of the content dictates a good part of the effort. In the first few projects, you will notice that the number of words translated per day for each translator will vary significantly. An expert on the subject to be located will take much less time to complete the job. Have specialists on your topic available or hire a company with the necessary expertise.
Another strong point is the decision to use machine translation or not. The response time is very fast, but with a heavy impact on the quality and reliability of the text. Would you trust your company’s reputation to a machine? It is best to use assisted translation, where the automatically translated text is proofread by a competent professional.
Automated translation software in general is expensive and, in most cases, is an investment that is not your company’s priority. At this time, it is good to have a good translation service provider that has this feature.
Now let’s talk about costs
Well, by now it should have become a little clearer that after a certain point, translation is not a task, it is a process. When considering the investment to be made, you can already take into account the essential criteria to achieve your goals with this activity: volume, level of difficulty and precision of the text. You also know the risks of exchanging price for quality, after all, it is your company’s communication, only aimed at speakers of another language.
A good translation services company can free you from virtually all complexities, effectively turning cost into investment. If this company uses an integrated online platform, costs can go even lower, as time is saved in preparing, sending and receiving translated content.
In some cases, it is necessary that the translation be sworn, that is, the one presented together with a foreign document in order to have a legal effect. These translations are generally more expensive, and follow tables defined by the Commercial Boards of the States of the Union. They can only be performed by a public translator and commercial interpreter duly approved in a specific public tender and made official in the function. But this is a case limited to the need for documents with public faith.
Design your work process calmly and you will see that, while it is not trivial, translating your company’s message to speakers of other languages is no profound mystery. It is enough to have planning and a better knowledge of what is involved in this activity.
