in Localization Tips, Translation

A lot of companies have employees who can speak foreign languages to help review content after it’s been translated by the company’s translation provider, or LSP (Language Service Provider). If this is the case for your company, here are 4 tips to keep in mind.

Have a glossary.

Meeting a reviewer’s expectations can only be accomplished by clear communication with your language service provider. The best way to communicate terminology is by using a reviewer-approved glossary with brand names and specific terminology that has been used or is expected to be used during the translation process.

Know your language service provider reviewer.

A company reviewer can be anyone from a professional translator to someone who just speaks a second language. It is important to understand the linguistic quality of your reviewer since they are the ones who will have the final say on your company’s foreign language content.

There are instances where reviewers have rejected a translated word because they had never heard of it. If professional translations are of a certain linguistic quality, they run the risk of having that quality reduced to match the linguistic quality of the reviewer.

Subjective or objective?

Translation is an art, not a science. A single sentence can be translated in many different ways so please keep this in mind when your reviewer fills up the page with tracked changes.

When assessing quality, it is important to keep in mind whether changes are subjective or objective. If the reviewer finds objective errors (incorrect grammar, mistranslations, etc.) they should be flagged immediately and the language service provider should investigate the root cause for the errors and fix accordingly.

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Subjective changes mainly represent preferences in translation style. In time, the language service provider should be able to assimilate the reviewer’s style so there is less to edit as the relationship grows.

Implement changes by working with a language service provider.

Implementing reviewer changes is time-consuming; so adequate time and budget should be allocated. After receiving reviewer edits and assuming there are no objective errors, your LSP must first check to make sure the edits are grammatically correct, consistent, and typo free. After this assessment, your language service provider then needs to make sure that edits are implemented globally throughout the file or files to ensure consistency.

If there are any errors in the reviewer’s feedbacks, then the LSP needs to prepare a report and send it back to you explaining the LSP’s concern with the reviewer’s changes.  These 5 tips will see you on the right path to taking control of the review process and improving the quality of your content in foreign languages.

Written by Martin Balaguer – Account Manager at CSOFT International

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