How to reduce your legal translation cost
In an industry where accuracy is essential, you can’t leave anything to chance. And when it comes to legal language translation, the smallest error could have significant consequences.
Even with the need for precise translation, one of the top reasons legal firms don’t seek assistance from a language service provider (LSP) is cost. What if you could get the professional legal translation you need, while keeping your costs under control? This post provides tips to help you to reduce your legal translations costs.
Speed legal translation time and reduce costs
In the legal industry, deadlines are critical. While faster legal document translation will reduce your translation cost, you also need to ensure that the documents are error-free. Here’s five ways you can improve translation turnaround times, reduce costs and ensure high-quality translations.
1. Use machine translation: Modern machine translation (MT) has been around since the 1950’s, with references to it dating as far back as the 17th century. But with its inability to provide 100% accuracy when should it be used and why?
The main advantage of using MT is its ability to quickly translate vast amounts of text. For litigators with a large quantity of material, MT can be used to translate the bulk of it to determine what is actually relevant and therefore needs to be translated by a professional translator. When this step is implemented, the majority of the content is machine translated, leaving less material that requires a professional translator – expediting the translation process and reducing costs.
2. Use enhanced machine translation (EMT): Use enhanced machine translation (EMT): Machine translation uses software to translate text from one language to another for fast and lower cost language translation. However, MT, while being incredibly fast, has considerable disadvantages, such as the lack of translation accuracy. This is especially true when text is complex. What if you could get the speed and cost-efficiencies of a machine and the accuracy of a professional translator?
You can with a hybrid approach that integrates MT, translation memory and professional translation services. EMT takes machine translation to the next level by combining machine speed with professional quality for accurate, yet cost-effective legal language translation.
3. Create a glossary: This cost-saving measure should be used when specific words and phrases are frequently used within your documents, which is often the case in the legal field. Created automatically or custom-made, a glossary ensures the standardization of your legal documents, as well as improves accuracy and decreases the translation time of a professional translator – saving you money in the long run.
4. Use a style guide: A translation guidebook consists of the client’s preferences with respect to many elements, including:
- Tone – formal vs. informal, passive vs. active, etc.
- Punctuation – use of spaces, rules for en dashes, question marks, quotation marks, etc.
- Localization – How to handle currencies, dates, units of measure, etc.
This guide improves legal document translation consistency and quality, regardless of the language. When a style guide is used, language translators are able to be more efficient which speeds translation time and ultimately reduces translation cost.
Are you thinking about using an LSP for your legal translation needs? If you’d like to learn more about how BURG Translations helps you ensure high quality legal translations, contact us today.
