TRANSLATION FAQ

Q: How do I choose a translation vendor?

A: Translation quality and cost can vary greatly between different vendors. At the lower end, some translation companies simply outsource translations to the cheapest freelancer and then pass on the translations to the client at a markup with minimal added value. Such companies usually do not remain in the business for long.

We believe that professional translation companies should have the minimum of the following: an experienced core management & linguistic team, established testing and certification policies for their translators, strict operational & quality control processes, sufficient technology resources and strong glossaries and reference materials.

The length of time the company has been in business, the type of clients and amount of long-term business that the company has are usually good indications of the quality of work you can expect.

Another thing to watch out for is that certain companies run their translation operations as a "sideline" and may be more focused on their core businesses such as web-site development, typesetting/design, printing or language learning. If what you want is a high quality translation, a firm that devotes most of its resources to providing good language translations may be a better choice.

Finally, you should pay attention to the size of the company. Large translation companies with many administrative functions usually find it hard to provide individual attention and accountability to each project that comes in, while small companies staffed by 1 or 2 persons may not be able to offer as comprehensive or as high a level of service. In our experience, medium-sized owner-operated companies usually offer the best combination of attention and service.

Q: Are there "accredited" translation companies?

A: The translation industry as a whole is not regulated and there is no international accreditation body for the translation profession. Where applicable, we ensure that our translators hold relevant local certification (for example, 100% of our China office staff hold official translator qualifications or relevant professional industry qualifications).

This has allowed us to be listed as "approved translation provider" by several government agencies, embassies and multinational organizations.

Q: Should I use a freelance translator instead of a translation company?

A: Although there are some extremely competent individual freelance translators, it is a recognized fact in the profession that almost all translations can be improved when checked or proofread by a second person. A good translation company screens, tests and trains its translators, implements a quality control process, provides a collaborative environment where linguistic, industry and technical support can be offered, as well as provides in-house glossaries, terminology databases and other resources.

These "ecological" factors that support the translator almost always allow for a higher quality of work, as well as savings in terms of time and cost.

Q: How do you ensure the quality of a translation?

A: Quality assurance begins with assigning the right translator to handle the assignment. Our translation teams handle a regular stream of work daily and usually specialize in only one or a few related domains. We have extremely strict translator recruitment standards and also believe strongly in the continual training and upgrading of our linguistic staff.

Client-specific glossaries and stylesheets are created for our regular clients to ensure consistency and quality.

Most translations go through a quality control process of "translation-proofreading-revision". For projects requiring a very high level of accuracy, we also provide back-translation and linguistic analysis services.

TECHNOLOGY FAQ

Q: Can I use translation software (machine translation) instead of human translators?

A: The Enterprise Translation Server that we offer is generally recognized as being one of the leading machine translation products in the world. Nonetheless, the richness and complexity of the human language mean that machine translation can probably never replace human translators. The breadth of human knowledge and the continual evolution of language mean that professional human translators will always be required.

Q: How accurate is machine translation?

A: Accuracy rates for even the best translation engines rarely exceed 75%, and only when used in restricted domains. Reading untuned machine translation output is not unlike trying to understand what a non-native speaker with a weak command of your language is trying to say to you.

Q: How can the quality be improved to a usable level?

A: Machine translation engines can be "tuned". In an ideal situation, linguistic analysis can be carried out on a customer's specific usage, and specialized glossaries and language rules can be developed to substantially enhance the accuracy rate. Customized ETS solutions have been used by large clients in certain domains very effectively this way.

Q: How else can machine translation be used effectively?

A: Our enterprise translation server can be easily integrated into most common applications including email, chat, instant messaging and browser programs. Since ETS can translate up to 3 million words an hour, this means that ETS can be a valuable tool in providing translations instantly, when only the "gist" meaning is required. It can be used effectively in facilitating electronic communications (email, chat, SMS), since it enables messages to be sent and received in both the source and target languages simultaneously.

In some cases, the sheer volume and variety of foreign language data to be looked at mean that human translation is not feasible because of time and cost. Machine translation allows such materials to be understood immediately and at an extremely low incremental cost to identify relevant content which can then be translated by professional human translators.

ETS is also used by some translation providers as a productivity tool to improve the speed and consistency of their translation work.

Q: What is localization?

A: Although it is commonly used interchangeably, localization is part of the process of globalization (which is internationalization and localization combined). Internationalization involves the optimization of materials for localization (i.e. the extraction of content that is specific to one language, culture or territory) to allow it to be easily converted to various local versions.Localization involves the modification of the materials to suit a specific territory, either in terms of language, culture, regulations or other variables. Thus, translation is the most basic form of localization