How to Check the Quality of Translations
If you are forced to invite a translator for the next project, then you would like to receive a high-quality professional translation but are not able to do it yourself. This is a wise decision. Pies should be baked by a pastry maker, and boots should be sewn, respectively, by a shoemaker.
The decision to invite a professional is the right one. There are only a couple of questions left:
how to choose the right translator?
how to make sure the quality of the received translation?
The answers to them are important because if you need to translate a legal act, a commercial contract, a technical document… which is a text for which the slightest misinterpretation or replacement of words with inaccurate synonyms can have disastrous consequences. So you need to get a thorough translation of the source text into the target language, which requires experience, education, knowledge of the technical nuances and subtleties of the language.
TRANSLATION IS A DIFFICULT EXERCISE
Translation is a responsible job that requires knowledge and experience. This is especially true for specialized translations – technical, medical, scientific, financial, and legal. Because for this job, the translator must be proficient in precise terminology and professional slang, as well as have a deep knowledge in the relevant field of knowledge. And he needs to learn all this in two languages and in two cultures. Take the example of legal translations: texts must comply with the laws of the respective countries, that is, they must be “equivalents”, and not just “interlinear”.
Before hiring a translator, you should define the structure of the assignment, providing the translator with everything that will allow him to familiarize himself with the document to be translated, the cost of his work, and in what format you would like to see the results.
THE WORK OF TRANSLATORS REQUIRES CERTAIN QUALITIES
Translation of special texts requires a certain level of professional skills. Therefore, before entrusting your translation project to one or another specialist, it is useful for you to know the main criteria for assessing the quality of a translator. Also: as a master, teacher or surgeon, the translator has tools that he must be able to handle professionally. It is this possession that guarantees the quality of the work performed.
Good Translator
Translates into his native language and speaks foreign languages in addition to being fluent in the language, he is familiar with the intricacies and peculiarities of the language, knows the nuances, idioms, proverbs, winged words…
He may have a professional education (and not just a diploma from a language university) in the field of activity in which he works. This applies, for example, to legal or financial translations where special vocabulary is used. some professional translators who are licensed as “sworn” translators have the right to certify their translations in the field of law.
He has a meticulous, pedantic, and sharp pen… he knows how to adapt to the style of presentation required by a particular document.
CHOOSING A TRANSLATOR: ADVANTAGES OF A TRANSLATION AGENCY
All the qualities listed above are characteristic of good professional translators. But in fact, there are a lot of translators on the market. But many have very specific training. For example, technical translators often have a second diploma, which allows them to work in a certain field of activity (economics, science, medicine, law, etc.)
HOW TO CHECK THE QUALITY OF A TRANSLATION?
You are sure that you have invited a good translator, but you would like more: to make sure that the resulting translation matches the source text. And this is understandable, the correspondence of the texts is of paramount importance.
If you work with a professional legal translation agency, you can be sure that an experienced translator has worked on your prop, but you still want to check the quality of the text. This third-party verification is an important element of control.
A professional translation agency offers, in addition to a team of carefully selected translators, proofreading by proof-readers as a standard quality control step. This is an important process. Therefore, before placing an order, find out how the quality of the translation agency you have chosen ensures.
Of course, you can turn to online translation tools such as the famous Google Translate (there are even automatic proof-readers for professionals) but spelling and grammar are not the only elements of the text that need to be checked. It is more important to control its content: the correctness of the use of expressions, technical terms, speech patterns, etc. In a word, the subtleties that determine the discrepancy between the source and target text are important.
If this is not your first translation of documents for this project, you can also use translation memory software (or ask your translators to do so). This linguistic database allows you to save the completed translation for reuse of previously translated content, such as repeated expressions. Please note that serious translation agencies and experienced freelance translators often use these types of tools to ensure consistency in the use of terminology and increase productivity.