Network Languages | Translation Tips

Sheighla is going to run through a few of the essential top tips you might want to think about before presenting your documentation for translation.

Hello and welcome to Network Languages.

Today we are going to talk about Translation Tips.

We are just going to run through a few of the top tips you might want to think about before presenting your documentation for translation.

1. first and foremost – if you are going to have your work checked by a regional office, make sure that they sign-off the source text before you send it for translation.

Very often regional offices will want to say completely different things to their markets that you will want to say to yours, and they may well like a completely different style or tone to what you produce for your own needs.

If you don’t get the source copy approved, don’t be surprised if the regional office then changes the text once they have seen the translation   they won’t be criticising the translation, they will be rewriting the text so that it is different from the source copy.

2. Supply approved reference material and glossaries where possible especially to clarify in-house preferences and acronyms.

3. Include any other related material that might help to clarify specialist terminology.

4. Advise the translation company if any words (usually product names) are to be left in English as internationally recognised terms.

5. Indicate where conversions (eg. miles to kilometres, or pounds to kilograms) are to be done by the translator or not.

6. Advise the translation company who the material is aimed at for example for end-users, for engineers etc. this will help the translators use the appropriate style.

7. Avoid puns they never do translate well and usually have completely different meanings in the target language.

8. Allow ample lead-time in your scheduling.  Most translators complete 1,500 – 2000 words of translation per day dependent upon the complexity of the source text. Therefore allow enough time for the work to be translated well and to be checked afterwards or accuracy.

That brings us to the end of the top tips for today.

If you have any questions for Network Languages or any documentation you want translating, then please do get in contact. Call (+44) 1344 870700 or email Network Languages’ language translation specialists.