Have your translations done by people who know your business

When our translation agency was founded in 1989, I had just stopped working for a construction machinery manufacturer.

I was searching for consumers for translations. I telephoned hundreds of them. It’s in no way an effortless operation. It is really tough to get past the switchboard operator – and e-mail was only just coming in at that time.

Then 1 day I thought  “I’m going to try contacting the company I employed to work for” (I don’t know why it took me so long to believe of it). So I contacted the business and we received plenty of translation work from that organization.

Our agency expanded. It managed to weather three recessions (one in the UK, one in the USA and yet another one in France). We translated mostly engineering documents, user guides, operator manuals, service manuals, job code manuals and the like, for manufacturers of construction equipment and agricultural machinery, plus technical documents for numerous engineering organizations.

It was still difficult to discover enough new buyers.

Then I suddenly understood that the reason why we received so a lot work from construction and agricultural machinery manufacturers was because I had worked in that company and consequently I had been able to develop up a team of translators who had also been in that company. Our consumers had confidence in our expertise and we had been supplying exactly what they required. .

What our consumers wanted were translators who had practical knowledge of the business or profession concerned. Not merely individuals who have a degree in the language concerned, but folks such as engineers, programmers, doctors, accountants, geologists, lawyers, scientists, technicians and bankers, folks who know the enterprise and who also speak the two languages concerned. That is our definition of a “professional translator”.

We then had to come up with a process for obtaining such experts. It took time, but soon after all the tests were completed we had assembled a huge team of translators with practical information of the fields concerned. We now knew that we could satisfy our clients and that they could be confident that our translations would present correct info to their buyers.

Our enterprise has progressed really well over the last few years – and a wonderful component of the increased organization has come from our policy of using translators who have practical encounter in the business or profession concerned. We have also developed new systems and taken on new translation technologies which not only reduces expenses for our clients but also offers a standard vocabulary throughout a lengthy translation.

Employing the very same word for the very same thing might appear fairly obvious, but some translated handbooks never manage to use regular vocabulary.

A translation memory system ensures that there is by no means any confusion in the mind of the user – he or she is in no way going to wonder no matter whether the screw mentioned on page 6 is the very same as the bolt mentioned on page 8.

I’m certain that individuals in companies who are responsible for technical or commercial literature would be very interested to discover about translation memories, which can cut translation expenses and improve vocabulary consistency in their documentation.

And then we come to the appearance of the translation and the way the pages are set up:

Buyers usually send the original text to be translated in DTP form and of course, all the nicely-recognized DTP programs are offered. The DTP personnel are employed to working with all languages – not just the most typical European languages but also the languages of Eastern Europe and the Middle and Far East. Often the type face has to be adjusted, because one language takes up more or much less space than the original language.

We work extremely closely with the customer to make sure that the end product has the needed appearance. Good appearance gives confidence in the product.

Please contact us for any questions you may have about translation. We are often interested in your opinions and also in the newest technology – both as regards translation and the technology of words in general. info@technical-translation.co.uk