Translation is a complex task and can become really confusing at times. Sometimes even the most experienced translators can make mistakes in their documents. It does not necessarily have to do with their lack of experience or expertise. But the language itself can pose many difficulties in the translation. A lot of new translators may take this task for granted because of the reliance on technology. Many parts of a document are still impossible to translate even after using technology. Often machine translation is very easily recognized because of some fixated patterns and algorithms. Therefore, it is strictly recommended that all translators understand the language, the culture, and the local trends of the target region's language.
Translating your materials can be a rough ride sometimes. Let's take a look at nine bumps on your road to quality translation. Buckle up, your translation quality assurance help is on the way!
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The initial communication with your client is the most critical part of the task. High-quality translation is impossible without it. Making things clear with your language service provider (LSP) in this part means making the whole job simple for yourself. It is often observed that when a freelance translator is handed over a project of translation, they don't ask many questions to look more professional.
Professional translators ask many questions from the client initially because they are not worried about their reputation, which is already doing good for them. They are more worried about the quality of their work. Thus, it is required for any linguist to ask as many questions as possible to clear things up.
Suppose someone is hesitant in the initial communication when you present your brief of the project. In that case, they may be trying to come up with some solutions on their own. It may sound very humble in an ethical sense, but it is something to be avoided altogether in reality. Whether freelance or a professional organization employee, any translator needs to understand every part of the client's requirement before starting the task. This will ensure that there are no glitches or setbacks during the task.
Many questions from your potential localization partner don't mean they don't know their job. Quite the opposite. It's always a good sign!
A typical translation task involves translating the document from the source language to the target language without changing the original meaning.
"Without changing the original meaning" refers to the preservation of the language's most important components such as idioms, expressions, local references, or any other way of saying things in the source language. And the flow.
It is impossible to take care of the elements mentioned above if the translation is done "word for word," i.e., "literal translation." Even some of the advanced translation bots are now capable of avoiding literal translation. What this type of translation does is that it loses the real sense of the source document and the original text it contains. For example, content written in English might contain humor or sarcasm, but after a 'literal translation,' it might come out as being toneless, dry, boring, or even offensive.
Every language has its unique style of sentence structure, grammar, syntax, and other essential elements. Some languages use verbs in a very different manner than other languages. Some languages have gender allocation for even inanimate objects. Unlike English, many languages make use of gender allocation repeatedly for such items. Then there is the subject-verb agreement, which is very important to make sense in any language. This grammatical syntax may differ from language to language in a broad scope.
For example, in Arabic, there are approximately 40 different words for a tiger. If the tiger is sitting, it will have another name than if the tiger is angry. Yes, their vocabulary collection is enormous. And other languages also have some fascinating facts that cannot all be listed here.
Context provides a suitable background knowledge that helps in understanding the meaning of the said words. Suppose the translator loses the context because of a lack of experience. In that case, it can become very complicated for you to achieve any goals with the translated document.
Many words, expressions, or phrases in a language have no equivalent in any other language. It is sometimes impossible to translate a phrase from one language to another without losing the context. What to do in such a case? An experienced translator will know precisely what to do in such a situation. They will ask their client directly about some other alternatives for the considered phrase. Or they will keep it in the original language for the audience to explore the meaning on their own. An inexperienced translator may go out of their way to make something up for the phrase to look more like an expert. What this concoction will do is it will ruin the whole sense of the words and also make the target document look very immature.
Some languages are composed of other languages and may include some of the commonly used expressions or words directly from their source language. Some languages may also not have appropriate words for various objects. For example, in Urdu, there is no word for Television. They simply call it TV. Now, a translator has to translate an English document into Urdu. The translator tries to translate the word "Television" into their language employing their made-up word. You can only imagine what mess they will be making.
There is a word in Japanese, "Otsukaresama." If you try and translate this word using Google Translate, you will get "Good work" as the translated result. But only a Japanese will be able to tell you that the word "Otsukaresama" means nothing even near to the translated words. It means "You are tired," according to Japanese grammar. Now you may have an idea why it is crucial to hire a translator who is an expert in both languages, i.e., the source language and the target language. And also, why it is so vital to preserve the context of the source document.
Remember what captain Gabriel Lorca said in one of the Star Trek episodes? "Context is for kings."
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How do you overstate things in English? By adding some adjectives that are not meant to be there or making it sound like something out of the world.
For example, someone recommends some food to their friend saying, "dude, you gotta taste this! I bet you have never tasted ANYTHING like this ever in your life." Also, something could be bigger than a dinosaur or smaller than an ant.
Reading this, you may already feel what is meant by "Overstating" things.
Every language has its method of overstating and exaggerating things. When something is exaggerated on purpose in the source document and the person who is translating it doesn't regard it as an overstatement. And considers it a fact or something meaningful, they might be missing out on the context. While trying to translate an exaggerated statement, it is essential to find out how things are usually exaggerated in the translated language.
In some cases, the idioms used for this purpose may mean something very different in the other language. For example, it's raining cats and dogs translates to "it's pouring like from the buckets" in German. The French version of the same idiom would be "It's raining buckets." You can easily understand how German and French are trying to say the same thing with entirely different words. And if someone makes the mistake of translating anything like this literally, it would be a disaster (not literally). Therefore, it is advised to go back to the client whenever such a scenario comes. The translator doesn't need to pretend to "know it all."
The tone is an element of language that is often regarded in speech. But writing has its tone too. Every writer has their original tone that can be reflected throughout the text. While translating a document, it is essential to ask the client about the required style. The source document's tone may be friendly or casual, but it becomes very formal when the translation is done.
An experienced translator must have the ability to adapt their tone according to the source text and the client's requirements. Otherwise, an article written in a friendly tone after the translation may sound like an instruction manual in the translated language. If you hand over some piece of document to a translator, make sure you discuss the tone and the overall delivery of the text beforehand.
Voice, tone and style guides are indispensable here if you want your translated content to pass the QA stage and work precisely as you want in your target markets.
Bilingual freelance content writers often grab those translation projects where the language of translation is their native language. They think it will all come to them naturally, and they will handle the task without using any tools.
That is a mistake that many freelance translators make. CAT (Computer-Aided/Assisted Translation) is used by professional translators all the time. If it is completely ignored, there is a good chance of missing out on many things that make the source document's overall sense. After all, translation memories (TM) are critical business assets for a reason. Thanks to them, companies can get their multilingual content faster, better, and cheaper. Together with properly implemented machine translation (MT) and quality standards in place, they can do wonders for your international presence and how your original content works in different languages on local markets globally.
Every language has its distinctive technical terminologies. There is a high probability that the language to which the content is translated does not have many technical terms. Then you need to preserve some of those terms as they are in the translated document. Suppose your project is about App development. There is a country where the technology has not been doing very well; they don't have words used in app development. For example, Backend development, Bootstrap, Bug, Cache, Git, etc., are part of the developers' basic glossary.
For this reason, before you even start your translation work, you have to discuss your specific terminology with your translation provider. The quality of translation depends not only on the translation skills of translation companies and subject matter experts you work with but also on the term bases they can use. Grammar mistakes and omissions in the target text look bad. Errors in the layout of the document that slipped through the cracks at the DTP stage look bad. But nothing looks as bad as a misplaced term that happened to be there because your translation agency hasn't been able to convince you to create glossaries in the first place.
Many freelance content writers are successful translators are because they have developed some skills in a very particular area. For example, a writer is an expert in psychology and medicine, and now they are into translation. Would you trust them with your instructional article on Web development? You should not. Rather wait until you have some medical translations to outsource.
They may claim that they are very good at research and can develop high-quality articles or blogs. Still, they can make mistakes that can damage your reputation in the Web development market. Your search for a translator must include two things. First off, the translator must be a native speaker of the target language and they must be proficient in the source language. The second important factor is the area of expertise. As mentioned above, a translation provider must have experience and expertise in a given area.
Proofreading comes at the end of the process but is one of the most important steps in achieving great translation quality. After a document is translated, proofreaders go through it carefully and look for any errors. In translation, you need to get your translated document proofread by a native language speaker. Even if a native writer has done the task, you still need to get it checked by another experienced writer of the same language who specializes in the subject matter of the translated materials.
If there is anything in the translated document that may be ambiguous for the target audience, it needs to be corrected. Then it is essential to either completely get rid of it or replace it with something more sensible. This is the stage for any linguistic or industry-specific errors to be corrected.
A dedicated team of proofreaders may always save you last-minute changes. Many professional companies that are into translation have their in-house and external translators and localization partners for this task. This helps them handle problematic jobs on a much more manageable level. Proofreading by a native writer may also help eliminate the common typos, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, sentence structures, and more so that your content looks and feels great to end users.
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Oh yes, it does! But you may come across something totally unpredictable on your translation journey. So, it's always better to know the potential pitfalls before getting your materials translated into other languages.
For this reason, quality translation needs serious work by serious professionals. Sometimes it may become localization or even transcreation. Nothing is impossible but you need a professional translation service provider to achieve that.
So, what do you need to get a good translation? Quality assurance (QA) by a professional reviewer who is a native speaker of the target language and knows the industry they're dealing with is certainly the way to go. Together with the other elements of the quality control part of the translation process, for instance, editing (also called revision), it ensures consistency and high-quality translation.
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There are different ways to achieve accurate translations. But one thing is certain: best quality demands best practices. Without them in place, you're bound to lose a lot of time fixing misinterpretations, ambiguity, phrasing, and other nuances of the original document that matter in your international use case scenarios. The higher the content visibility, the more painful the results of lacking translation quality assurance procedures. And these, in turn, cannot be built and implemented effectively without being aware of these 9 biggest bumps on your road to quality translation. Now, as you know them, you can go and grow.
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