Your file’s journey through the translation process

Not every client wants to know what exactly a language service provider (LSP) does when translating a typical document.  Other clients think they already know. We want to be as transparent as possible – including posting our processes on our website.  Below is a simplified look of every activity in a typical translation project:

1. Risk Assessment
2. Pre-production
3. Translation
4. Linguistic Quality Control
5. Post-production
6. Total Quality Control
7. Delivery
8. Debrief

Translation is the heart of the process.  All steps before and after translation are purely to allow translation to take place in a cost-effective manner with minimal risk.  

Risk Assessment

Prior to accepting a project, a risk assessment is performed to determine feasibility and threats to the project’s success, including file permission access, unexpected scope creep, confirm source language, terminology domain, layout complexity, text in the form of graphics or screenshots, and general parameters that would affect the amount of effort required to translate the file.  

All risk is addressed, typically through inquiry with the client.  Any remaining risk is reviewed by the Production Manager, who then addresses the remaining risk if possible, taking into account feasibility of recruiting qualified vendors, and ensuring any unmitigated risk is properly communicated to the client.

In our case, all the effort is to ensure quality and accurate work parameters. One of BURG’s guarantees include contract fulfillment.  

Pre-production

Pre-production includes everything that has to take place prior to the actual translation, including any admin work, technical prep work or linguistic work.  In some cases, minimal pre-production work needs to take place. In other cases, such as the translation of eLearning courses, pre-production work is quite extensive, including hours of video transcription and other tasks.  

Admin work refers to proper documentation of the project.  This can include proposal writing, contractual agreements, project scope, client instructions, vendor selection and vendor management. General project management is included in this category of work.   A lot of this work is skipped in less structured organizations as it impeds efficiency, however, this documentation is used to mitigate risk in the first place as well as diagnose problems and create corrective and preventative actions later if necessary.  

Technical prep work involves any kind of preparation that requires technology, including formatting files or text extraction for use with a computer-aided translation (CAT) tool. There are times when clients request for only parts of documents to be translated.  The act of extracting only the text for translation would fall in this category of prep work. In very large projects, such as eLearning or other projects with lots of files, technical prep work can constitute a large part of the project.   

Linguistic prep work is broad and captures any linguistic work, including transcription, that needs to take place prior to actual translation.  It also includes the creation and management of any linguistic tools, such as a glossary or style guide.  

Translation

ISO 17100 5.3.1 defines translation as:

• Compliance with specific domain and client terminology and/or other relevant material provided and ensuring teminological consistency during translation. 
• Semantic accuracy of the target language content.  
• Appropriate syntax, spelling, punctuation, diacritical marks, and other orthographical conventions of the target language.
• Lexical cohesion and phraseology.  
• Compliance with any proprietary and/or client style guide including domain, language, register, and language variants.  
• Locale and any applicable standards.  
• Formatting.  
• Target audience and purpose of the target language content.  

The translator shall raise any uncertainty as a query with the project manager. 

This is the middle of the file journey.  The entire file journey revolves around this activity.  

Linguistic Quality Control

As translations is a human endeavor, the inclusion of human error is expected.  Human error can be mitigated (but never eliminated in theory) through repeated revision.  The first review is done by the translator, checking for semantic, grammatical and spelling issues and for omissions and other errors while also ensuring compliance with any relevant specifications.  

In companies certified in the ISO 17100, a second level of review should take place.  A revisor, who is a person other than the translator, with the same competences as the translator, examines the target language against the source for any errors and ensures its suitability for purpose.  Any changes will be implemented immediately and shared with the translator.  

Finally, a proofreader, who makes one final pass of the target language only, repeats the exercise of the revisor.

Post-production

Post-production involved any task that takes place after translation.  The task can be as straightforward as formatting and layout or as complicated as course building, software compiling, and various audio/video engineering tasks.  Post-production is the part of the project where files are essentially packaged back into a functional format and prepared for use.

Translation as a service can be relatively inexpensive compared to neighboring services such as pre- or post- production activities.  This can confuse clients because they may feel they are coming to an LSP for translations, not realizing all the auxiliary work that goes into being able to translate a document in the first place – you essentially have to unpack, translate, and repack files.  

Total Quality Control

In theory, quality control is any measure we take to ensure that an expectation is met and should be conducted at every opportunity.  Observations taken during the pre-production step can be compared against the translated form of the files to ensure quality. In practice, total quality control varies depending on the file type and the client’s budget.    

Standard quality control of typical word documents includes a review of every page by header, body and footer.  The person conducting quality control checks the following:

• Paragraphs: Ensure paragraphs are identically formatted.
• Font: Ensure words are identically formatted.
• Numbers: Numbers are identical or correctly converted.
• Non-translatables: Titles and other proper nouns are not translated if applicable.
• Scope: Ensure no text is hidden or left untranslated (unless specified by the client)
• Style: If a table of contents or index was used, make sure it’s updated.

In more complex projects such as eLearning courses and video games, testing takes place.  QA specialists run through every user permutation searching for issues such as untranslated content or translations that can be improved within the context of the user experience.  

Regardless of the level of quality control, there should always be documentation to show that quality control was conducted.  

Delivery

Submitting deliverables is non-trivial. The culmination of all work leads to this activity.  This step signifies the closing of the project and the time to invoice (in most cases). Any auxiliary files, such as quality control documents, certifications, linguistic tools, etc. are submitted.  

Debrief

After the deliverables have been submitted and the client has had the opportunity to digest and use the files, a debrief is an opportune moment to seek feedback regarding the quality of the project and overall service.  Typically, there is either something to learn to finetune efficiency or an opportunity to seek a formal review for promotional reasons or growth your engagement with a client.  

Seeking feedback after a project conveys to the client that you are serious about delivering 5-star service.  At a minimum you must seek confirmation that 5-star service was delivered. At most, any dissatisfaction from the client creates an opportunity to impress them with your client service and commitment to total client satisfaction.  

Summary

The file journey described here is typical, but not the only journey.  Steps can be skipped, marginalized or enhanced. A proper risk assessment does not have to take place, but it has a purpose.  Quality control does not have to take place, but it has a purpose too. In the end, the quality of the translation and service will reflect the budget and time constraints of the client or the policies of the LSP. Whatever LSP you use, understand their process and request proof.     

If you’d like to learn more about how BURG Translations helps you ensure high-quality translations, contact us today.