Whether the international market represents a completely new challenge or you have recently started the exporting your products and services overseas, the importance of competent translation services is not to be underestimated.
What’s more, you may have been surprised by just how many translation companies exist and a prevalence of freelancers, each touting themselves as offering 100% accurate translation services. Here we advise how to sort the wheat from the linguistic chaff, helping you making the right choice in communicating your message in any language.
Reputation, Reputation, Reputation
First and foremost you should consider a company’s reputation. Today, previous consumer experiences are more accessible than ever through review websites and gaining an insight into a translation company’s services can be but a matter of clicks away.
Specific Engineering Sector Experience
Few industries can be as specialised as engineering, where there are a seemingly endless amount of sub industries. This requires a translation company that knows your business and, more importantly, appreciates the specialist language that you speak.
As a rule – it’s always good to choose a translation service with a deep experience in your sector. Like your added-value products and services, translation has the same concept. Sector experience helps by ensuring that the translator understands the real meaning of what they’re translating and can choose the right linguistic nuances to suit the document.
It also helps the “acclimatisation” and could save time.
It is important to choose translations services from professionals who will be able to optimise your copy – not just replicate it into another language word for word.
Complex technical documents are great for really adding value and showing deep expertise in your field. A consideration for these documents is that they are often a more specialist translation task, sometimes taking a little longer and you can’t simply “get a quote online” to benchmark your translation service cost.
One of our pharmaceutical clients fell into this pitfall having planned to use a local Chinese translation agency, their chosen supplier advised that they would be unable to meet the deadline due to the material’s complex and varied subject matter! (We helped them out and hit the deadline!)
Most of our clients believe that their material is highly specialist, whether it’s marketing or technical. With over 3,800 translators however, we just apply the right translator for the job and it’s not necessarily harder!
Task Experience
In addition to the sector experience, the actual task and the purpose of task at hand such as website translation or keyword research is equally important. Translating marketing literature may be seen as “simpler” than technical documents – but a great translation agency has marketing graduates who really understand the discipline and can provide the necessary context for the translation.
The vocabulary is completely different dependent on the task. Language fluency is not finite – technical translation requires fact, marketing translation requires flair!
It’s also worth bearing in mind that marketing translations are more open to stylistic preferences, and more subjective than technical translations. As such, ensure any quote you get is for the entirety of the job and until you’re happy – this is something that new clients have had poor experiences with in the past, when dealing with freelancers.
Additionally, you may be seeking translation services for content upon which your staff’s or consumer’s safety relies. Competent translation can then literally become a matter between life and death – so always look for professional indemnity insurance too.
In addition to experience within your industry and for the actual translation task, it’s also important to use a company that has been established for a considerable period; after all, there can be no better a recommendation than a company who has kept clients happy over a sustained period. (Our top 50 clients have stayed with us for over 5 years on average…)
Communication
An expert translation company will appreciate the importance of communication. They’ll offer multiple ways of contacting them and always provide a single point of contact for your project.
Contemplating case studies & test the testimonial!
Many high quality translation companies will have worked with plenty of clients where projects have been considerably complex and/or specialist. These are then frequently displayed on their websites in the way of case studies and testimonials. Reading through these will give you a great idea of the company’s pliability and, more importantly, the types of projects that they are frequently entrusted with.
If it’s too good to be true…
Whilst we’d like to stay away from clichés there can be no more apt a phrase than this to describe how you should approach seemingly impossible translation service pricing.
And where, in practically all industries, you could judge the quality of the end service or product, you are often using translation services blindly as it’s practically impossible to judge whether the text you receive is of good quality, or even if it makes any sense at all!
The impact upon your company’s reputation, can be huge when nonsensical text has been deployed. At best, you can hope for confused consumers who abandon your website, and at worst, it can see marketing materials that become the butt of all jokes. Not in the engineering sector, but Coors found when their beer was launched in Spain. Their slogan of “Turn it loose” translated as “Suffer from diarrhoea” and it didn’t go down too well!
This is a worthy reminder of what’s at stake – especially when you pride yourself on precision as an engineering company!
How we work…
At Bubble Translation Services, we have over 3,800 translators speaking over 280 languages. We can take on demanding, challenging projects – in fact, we thrive on it!
We work with the biggest and most discerning engineering companies in the world to deliver translation services that compel consumers into action and perfect customer experiences with technical manuals.
Our ability to understand and interpret complex documents allows us to relate to your audience – no matter where in the world they are. We have a wealth of experience in translating technical documents and can offer this service for your engineering business.
