By Sarajmorries When you need an important document translated into another language, it’s essential to get it done accurately. A poor translation can lead to miscommunications and embarrassing mistakes. That’s why many businesses and individuals turn to professional document translation services rather than relying on software or bilingual employees.
But what exactly goes into producing a high-quality translation? Today we’ll pull back the curtain and walk through the multi-step process that reputable translation services follow to ensure accuracy and effectiveness.
Step 1: Receive Source Document
The first step is receiving the document or content that needs to be translated. This could be anything from a contract or user manual to a website or marketing materials. The project manager at the translation agency carefully reviews the document to understand the subject matter, context, and any special requirements.
Step 2: Analyze and Prepare Files
Before any actual translation work begins, the files need to be prepared. This includes extracting text from PDFs, spreadsheets, or other file formats so the words can be translated. Graphics with text are isolated so the text can be updated later. The project manager also checks for any special formatting, tables, graphics or other elements that need to be handled a certain way.
Step 3: Assign to a Subject Matter Expert
Once the files are prepped, the project is assigned to a professional human translator who is a native speaker of the target language and has expertise in that specific subject matter. For example, a legal document would go to a translator with a background in law. This ensures they understand all relevant terminology and context.
Step 4: Skilled Translation Process
The experienced linguist then goes through and translates all the text from the source language to the target language. They rely on their language expertise along with specialized software tools and database memories to ensure consistency across the document and with previous translations.
But translation involves much more than just swapping words. The translator must also properly adapt to the cultural context to capture the right meaning, tone and style in the new language. They restructure sentences as needed while adhering to customer preferences on formality levels, reading levels and other requirements.
Step 5: Critical Review Process
After the initial translation is complete, the document goes through a multi-step review process to verify accuracy:
- Editing – A separate native translator proofreads the translation to catch any small errors
- Quality Check – The translation agency has its own quality control team that reviews the formatting, language quality and other aspects
- Client Review Option – Many document translation services companies give their clients an opportunity to review the translations for feedback
Any issues discovered get corrected by editing the translation files. This rigorous multi-step review process ensures an accurate translation before final file delivery.
Step 6: Format and Desktop Publishing
After client verification and final edits, the agency’s desktop publishing team integrates the translations back into the original document layout. They update any graphics, charts or tables containing translated text to preserve the original formatting and image quality as much as possible.
For documents like websites or software programs, coding teams implement the translations directly into the development files to maintain design and functionality.
Step 7: Final Quality Assurance
As a last quality control measure, the formatted documents go through one final review to verify completeness and accuracy against the original source files. Once approved, the translation projects are ready for delivery to clients.
Step 8: Secure Delivery of Translated Files
Depending on the client’s needs, the agency delivers the newly translated document files via secure methods such as encrypted email, FTP upload or private customer portals. Printed document translations may also be shipped directly if required.
And there you have it – the specialized step-by-step process that professional translation services follow to produce accurate, high-quality document translations their clients can depend on.
From assigning subject matter experts to rigorous review cycles, no step is skipped when it comes to ensuring your translation is error-free and effective. This thorough process is what separates professional translation companies from rudimentary machine translation or general language services.
So the next time you need document translation services for an important business document, website, manual or any other critical content, you can be confident that reputable translation agencies will go the extra mile to get it right. Their specialized linguists, quality control teams and meticulous processes are designed to eliminate guesswork and deliver translation perfection every time.
