St. Jerome, born around year 347, was a scholar, a theologian and the first truly accomplished translator we are aware of. He translated the Bible into Latin – the Old Testament from Hebrew and the New Testament from Greek. He very much thought about his target audience, just like every good translator should, and did not choose just any version of Latin. He used the one people actually used and spoke at the time, the “Vulgate” Latin. Vulgate means “language of of the common people”. St. Jerome died on September 30, (year 420), hence the celebration of the International Day of Translators on 9/30.
There are many timeless quotes that have been attributed to St. Jerome: “A friend is long sought, hardly found, and with difficulty kept”. “Why do you not practice what you preach”. “True friendship ought never to conceal what it thinks”. My favorite by far, though, is this one:
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is best.”
The reason I love this quote is because it describes the attitude so many translators actually embody. Most of them probably never heard about this quote but, still, their passion for learning and improvement permeates their professional careers. Translators often work on a freelance basis, from their homes, far removed from anything that looks or feels like a team that could provide some motivation and support. And yet they live in a highly competitive environment where one needs to work very hard to succeed. The translators we have come to know as our own work family show great self-discipline and desire to go above and beyond. It is amazing, sometimes, to see just how much effort they put into their work and making their skills better – and we are honored to be able to call them our colleagues.
Our vision for what drives our business is similar – continuous learning and improvement – that lead us to achieving success for our clients. If something worked yesterday, it does not mean it will also work tomorrow. What works for one client may not be the best solution for another one. And the technology we did not think could exist is now here and we need to adapt and learn to use it for our client’s benefit. There are countless examples of how we get better each day, how we learn and apply what we know so we can make our “good” far “better” and turn the “better” into the “best” so we can always be proud of what we do.
And so we celebrate all lovers of language who were fortunate enough, just like us, to be able to turn their passion into their profession. But above all, we celebrate and are proud of all those who never stop learning, growing, and achieving. Here is a big thank you and cheers to them!
A friend and a mentor of mine owns a construction company. A lot of their work is in pouring concrete. Lots of it. The roadways, bridges and buildings they build each represent a multimillion dollar project. One of the most important steps in their process is “hand off”. This is where the head office communicates to the field crew exactly what needs to be done, where, when and how. If even a smallest detail of such specifications gets lost in this communication, it may result in ripping up concrete. An expensive, utterly unnecessary exercise, and a failure to execute, as you can imagine.
When I heard my friend speak about this I thought of our own industry and how very important “Hand Off” is for us. I never thought translation and pouring concrete had that much in common. From the process standpoint, they clearly do.
Hand off matters, even though our projects do not reach millions of dollars in value. We would not want to find out that we translated your document into Portuguese instead of French because someone did not pay attention to your specifications. We would rather avoid being late and missing an important deadline of yours. And what good would it be for you to receive your document in MS Word when you asked for a Power Point document? All these mistakes require expensive time to be fixed and we all hate rework.
“Hand off” that is 100% successful has become one of the key performance indicators we now measure. “No rework” is the mantra of our Project Managers and their translation teams as they work their way through dozens of different projects each week and juggle the specifics of each. We are finding new ways of communicating and confirming that our messages were received and our instructions understood.
Staying with the concrete theme, we are making sure that our clients travel with us on an Autobahn where the traffic moves quickly and yet smoothly, safely and predictably. The back roads that are full of pot holes, detours and “under construction” signs are not for us.
In the translation industry, and I imagine in many others, we often work closely with people we have never really met. Sure, we know their name and where they live, what language they speak and in what specializations they excel. Sometimes we know that they are married, have kids and that they are getting ready to go on vacation. And maybe, just maybe, we may find out about more intimate things: that they practice yoga in the morning, that they don’t drink coffee and that they are actually much older than we imagined.
But we don’t really KNOW them. We don’t know things about them that we do know about our regular coworkers. We have no idea what their voice sounds like when they are happy or angry, or what makes them laugh. We can only imagine how much emotion is reflected in their face and if they make gestures when they speak.
It is said that 60% of all communication is non-verbal. And yet, we are limited not only to just verbal communication but, to make matters worst, nearly ALL of our communication is written. The fact that for at least one side of the equation English is usually not the native language only adds insult to injury.
So imagine how easy it is to get worked up over a string of a few seemingly insensitive words someone has said in an email while working remotely from the comfort, but also the isolation, of your home. How simple it would be to try to joke only to find out the joke was not understood, or was interpreted altogether. Or think of how laborious it may be to discuss difficult topics such as compensation or confidentiality agreements when they need to be discussed: right at the start of a relationship when we have had zero chance to get to know one another. And how very painful it would be to deal with something neither of the parties imagined they would ever want to face: a serious complaint or conflict resolution.
Make information about yourself readily available: if you are a company, post information about the business, complete with physical address and pictures of your location, if possible. Share information about what you do, how you do it and why. Make it easy for others to verify not only your existence but also your reputation. If you are a freelancer, do the same for your customer. We all understand that nowadays there are shady characters roaming the web who are after your identity and even your credentials. But once you have verified you are communicating with an actual customer, see what you can do to let them into your world. Share your profile, including your picture, let them have access to your references and information on your past projects. Wherever an actual handshake or look into one’s eyes is not possible, information is power. Make sure there is plenty to go around.
Make it visual: You may not physically come to work to your client’s location but you can certainly ask for a face-to-face meeting using a service like Skype, Go To Meeting, or Zoom. There are many options out there and plenty of them are free. Your client will gladly take 5 minutes to actually have a “visual” of you, and have a face to go with your name.
Keep communication honest and open: Always be honest when communicating with one another. If you put too much on your plate and will have trouble completing the assignment, tell your client immediately. If you, as a client, need to “move the goal post” on your freelancer and change the project’s parameters, let them know, including why, and explain the situation in as much detail as possible. As a freelancer, do not embellish your experience and skill, it is a shortsigheted strategy that others will see right through. As a client, be honest about what you really need. Do not promise to keep your translator for a year while all you have at the moment is a one page document.
As a final thought, keep your communication, and especially any requests, proportionate to the “size” of the context. We recently contacted a freelancer with less than two pages of text that we needed back, urgently. He promised to take on the assignment but then started performing his “due diligence” – or verification of our existence – and the feasibility of a business partnership with us. The usual online resources and our ProZ Blue Board record were not enough. When this got to the point of him requesting we mail him a copy of our business incorporation documents via registered mail (and the translation was yet to be touched) we went shopping elsewhere.
Trust is a finicky thing under the best of circumstances. It cannot be rushed and once it is lost it may never be restored. Take your time and proceed with caution: it is all worth it in the end.
What matters the most to you as a translation buyer? That you get your quote quickly and know we start processing your documents right away? The speed of our responses? Communication in general?
To some, the cost is the most important thing. To others, it is all the additional services they can get from us, like desktop publishing.
Let me tell you a secret. No matter how well we run our business, no matter how much attention we pay to customer service, what matters the most is whom we hire to do the actual translation.
As you know, we cannot have native speakers of 130+ languages at the office translating for us. Instead, we have spent years growing a network of freelance translators who live all over the world. Yes, we actually need them to live in the country where their language is spoken. And this is where the rubber hits the road.
Operating on such long distance basis, it is pretty hard to uncover the gems in an industry where everybody who is at least partially bilingual wants to translate. It takes time to find, qualify and recruit people if you cannot have them come by your office to introduce themselves. It is time consuming and expensive to verify references and test people. And, it is cumbersome, to say the least, to monitor quality of their performance throughout their lifetime with the company.
Altogether, this process is so hard and sometimes so ineffective that most of our peers do not bother with it at all. Jobs are offered and awarded on job sites where hiring resembles speed dating. If the translator has a good looking profile, they get the job.
To us, quality translators are the foundation of the business. Sure, there will be a rotten apple or two in every bucket. But we find them and separate them out quickly. Our reputation, your satisfaction and our future stand or fall with the team we put together. Our team consists of the best of the best. And to us, that is the one thing that matters the most in what we do.
In business, things happen fast. You could not get a hold of your partner in Hong Kong for a week but now they are here, available and ready to sit down for a quick meeting. It is too late to call an interpreter to come to the office and things are definitely way too important to let your distributor interpret during this particular meeting.
There is something you can definitely do, though – arrange for an Over the Phone (OPI) interpreter. You will eliminate travel time needed for an in-person service and for most business meeting scenarios, OPI works very well.
Working with an OPI interpreter is usually easy but there are a few things that deserve special attention. Here they are:
1. Location. Arrange for the meeting to take place in an enclosed room, preferably with a conference telephone (speakerphone).
2. Noise. Take great care to eliminate background noise. If other people are present, ask them to be quiet. Ambient noise can be very distracting to the interpreter and prevent them from doing their job properly.
3. Use of speakerphone. After you establish connection with the interpreter, let him/her know how many people are in the room and whether or not you will be using a speakerphone.
4. Introductions. Introduce everyone in the room to the interpreter so he/she can write down their names since they will likely be used later in the conversation.
5. Mode of interpreting. The interpreting will be conducted in the consecutive mode, meaning that the interpreter listens to the speaker and after that interprets what was said to the listener. Please, make sure the increments of speech for interpretation are no longer than about 2-3 sentences.
6. First person. Speak in the first person only – i.e. do not say “Interpreter, ask Mr. XY how he is doing today” but instead say “Mr. XY, how are you doing today?” If your client says “I don’t know”, that is exactly what the interpreter will say.
7. One at a time. Make sure only one person in the rooms talks at any given time.
8. Description. Bear in mind the interpreter cannot see visual aids, paperwork, etc. If you are using those, describe them to the interpreter.
9. Slow reading. If reading written passages, do so slowly. When reading, people to speed up their speech, making it difficult for the interpreter to follow.
Most interpreters readily subscribe to the strictest standards of confidentiality and ethics used in our profession but it never hurts to state your expectations at the beginning of the meeting. Also keep in mind that a big part of every conversation is non-verbal. Not seeing the people in the room and not being able to see what they are looking at makes the OPI interpreter’s job more difficult, in a way. Anything you can do to help the interpreter see what you see will be much appreciated and will, in turn, help make your event a success.
Translators and interpreters are two different sides of one coin. They both facilitate communication between audiences using different languages. But this is where the commonality ends.
Translators work on translating written word only. The output is written word in the target language. Interpreters, on the other hand, work only with spoken language. The output is always spoken word.
Aside from perfect bilingualism, which is a given, each of these professions relies on a different set of additional skills. While translators have time to research and consult dictionaries to make their final product perfect, interpreters have to rely on their short term memory and be fast on their feet. They do not have the luxury of going back and redoing anything.
While translators typically translate only into their mother tongue, interpreters must be comfortable with going both ways. How else could they interpret a conversation between two people?
Translators must be comfortable working in isolation while interpreters typically are outgoing folks who enjoy being surrounded by new people and new experiences.
Consider what type of a message or communication you need to deliver to someone speaking a different language and choose your solution accordingly.
For translation of manuals, instructions of use, marketing collateral or contracts, always look for a professional translator. Someone with background in translation and experience with your particular industry would be best. Look for proven record, background and skills. Consider using a professional agency/language services provider who has the ability to manage your projects, pair you up with specific translation resources and save you money using appropriate technologies. If you reputation and image matter to you, avoid using online free translation at all cost.
For a business meeting with your foreign partners or training bilingual employees you will need an interpreter working in consecutive mode. Look for someone well trained and experienced in the techniques of interpreting, including writing notes. Interpreting is not something you should ask a bilingual employee to do.
If you work in a setting like health care, community support, insurance, etc. consider over-the-phone interpretation services. Used only as needed and with virtually no notice, OPI is very popular these days. Again, this is not the place for bilingual employees or bilingual friends. Let the professionals get the work done for you.
For a conference, you will need a pair of interpreters working in simultaneous mode. Further, you will need technical equipment – a soundproof booth, microphone and transmitter for the interpreters and receivers/headsets for the audience. The interpreters both work for the duration of your event, taking turns every 20 minutes or so. Simultaneous interpreting is a mentally and physically demanding activity that no one person should endure for extended periods of time.
For translation of official documents you are looking for a translator or translation service who can provide certified translation. Read more about certified translation here.
The good news is that no matter what your task is, there is a professional translation or interpreting solution. The bad news is that so many still think that inadequate resources like online free translation and bilingual individuals can provide solutions that are adequate for the business environment.
Be smart about the translation choices you make – and you will see how translation can have a direct, unquestionable impact on your bottom line.
My business was once asked to translate an inscription on a public monument. We were beyond thrilled. Who can say their translation work is literally carved in stone?
So we did our best and covered our bases. We checked, double-checked, polished and shined. Our words, that is. The work on the actual stone was someone else’s job.
The translation was delivered as a Word document which our client then sent to the masons.The monument was installed, unveiled and dedicated. But before we could go down to actually see it, we received a complaint. A bilingual participant of the dedication noticed “horrible mistakes” in the text. She called our customer and complained that “the translators did an awful job”. Upon closer inspection, we did, in fact, confirm that the inscription on the monument had “typos” in it. There were letters added, letters missing and two words were joined into one.
We showed our customer the final version of our product which was flawless. The attention turned to the masons who then agreed to replace an entire slab of granite for no additional charge. The excuse was that no one at the masonry shop spoke Spanish so they could not double check what they carved into the stone.
The point of this story is that translators should always have the last look at any text that is about to go public. Sure, the granite story is sort of a nightmare-ish scenario but we have had our share of similar experiences: a translated book that went into print with a last minute mistake on the cover page inserted by the client’s employee; brochures printed by the thousands where a graphic designer accidentally missed the fact that not all text was showing; posters printed with missing diacritical marks because the print shop employee did not know the font used for typesetting did not support the target language.
It would have been easy to prevent such mistakes. Instead, these organizations were faced with having to recover from these mishaps, often at very high cost.
Let the translators have the last word next time. You will be happy you did.
Using technology available in our industry, native graphic file formats are easy to translate. Long gone are the days when you had to worry about having to ask your graphic designer for assistance with extracting the text for translation and then reconstructing the file in the target language.
We very much prefer working with a native file format – rather than a PDF document – and you can receive a print-ready result that does not require any additional work on your end.
Translation of text in file formats such as Adobe InDesign or Illustrator generally includes the following steps:
– Extraction of the text for translation (usually in an interchange format such idml) – Translation, linguistic review and quality assurance of the text – Reconstruction of the graphic file with translated text, including text within images – Adjustments for expansion or reduction of text space, selection of the correct language, font, and updating links – Final desktop publishing quality assurance
If the target language is one that is written right-to-left, such as Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew or Urdu, the final document must be processed in the ME (Middle Eastern) version of the graphic design software. .
In short, graphic file formats are easy to process and having your translation provider handle them for you not only represents a time saving measure but also limits your risks.
If we handle translation only, without the graphic file, your graphic designer will have to be the one to insert the text into the file. Since they are likely not a speaker of the target language they can easily skip, misplace or inappropriately separate text. They will also not be able to see if all diacritical marks are displayed correctly. Just remember you will need final quality assurance done on the target language text and it should definitely be completed by he same service who provided the translation.
I am a translator by background. I did actively practice translation for over 20 years. Now, as someone who runs a translation business, I am still deeply involved with every aspect of the translation process, even if i do not actually translate anymore.
There is a great deal I miss about actually translating. The solitude of uninterrupted, focused work, for example. How it feels to be the only one responsible for stringing words together just the right way. Doing research and letting myself go down interesting rabbit trails that would take me away from the issue on hand but still deliver the delicious result of learning something new.
There are things I do not miss as much. Like learning the hard way that words can in fact be loaded weapons, as Jean-Paul Sartre once observed.
I was once contacted by a young lady who was looking for someone to translate a bunch of emails for her. She called and nearly cried on the phone when I told her I was in the middle of a large project and would not be able to take a look for a couple of days. Thinking that maybe I could come up with a shortcut, I asked her if she needed them all typed up or if she just needed to know what’s in them. She said “I only need a simple translation. Just knowing what’s in them will do”.
So I quickly read through them and knew right away. There were two parties to the email conversation. One was the woman’s husband, a native of a European country, the other was his lover in that country. His wife here in the U.S. suspected there was more to his business dealings there than just selling electronics products. So she got a hold of some emails from his account and looked for someone to translate them.
When I finished the last email, I took a few minutes to think. Mostly to see if I could avoid the unavoidable and only to find out that I could not. So I called her back. Yes, there is a woman. Yes, they are planning a future together. He will be moving there this summer. Wait, it gets worse. She is pregnant.
The woman on the other end of the line got quiet and then took a deep breath. “What do I owe you?”
“Nothing”, I said. How do you charge someone after you just ruined their life? “Thank you”, she said. “I will go pack my bags now”.
I will never forget this story and how being an unwilling but crucial participant in it has made me feel. It has stayed with me as an example of how translation can touch and completely transform lives. Sitting by the computer, accompanied only by the glow of the screen in front of us and pondering the best tweak to the sentence we just typed up, it is sometimes easy to forget the context of it all. May we always be reminded of the potential of each and every word.
Website translation – or, in the language of our industry, “website localization”, is the first logical step when reaching new audiences and expanding to new markets. Offering services or products in your customer’s native language wildly increases likelihood that they will become buyers. Research shows that in order to reach most of the active buyers around the world you would need to translate your website into 8-10 languages. Understandably, most companies just start with one.
So how to go about website translation?
1. Avoid simply adding a button for Google or any other free online translation tool or widget. While these tools are getting better every day, they will never replace the quality of human translation. Using free, automated tools for translation of any material that truly matters and can affect your image, revenue or legal exposure, would be risky to say the least. You also risk that your potential customers will be appalled by how little concern you had for their reading comfort.
2. Find a good translation partner: one who has not only the linguistic expertise but also the technical skills and technology to translate files in the format needed for your website. You should be able to simply take the translated files and load them into your site. Nowadays, translation companies are equipped with excellent tools that play right into your webmaster’s hand.
3. Discus the following issues with your translation partner:
Your brand and how it will be preserved in the target language.
Handling of cultural and linguistic nuances.
Target audience – determine exactly who they are and here they are
Localization details – format of numbers, dates, telephone numbers, information on national holidays, selection of colors, website language codes, currencies, etc. All these are details that need to be addressed, as well as legal requirements that may differ country to country. These include handling of privacy statements, returns of any products purchased, tax laws, complaint procedures, data protection, etc.
4. Following translation, focus on multilingual Search Engine Optimization – your translation partner should be able to come up with a strategy for search engine optimization in the target language(s). What good would it be to publish a website without optimizing it to be found? Researching keywords in the target language should be done in cooperation with your translation partner.
5. Consider testing your website on target audiences abroad. Again, your translation provider should be able to help you with that.
6. Once your website is up and running, ask your customers for feedback. Give them a voice and listen to the information you receive.
In conclusion, website translation is very useful. But it might also be your only chance at a good first impression – so do your very best making sure you are working with the right partner who can not only help you with translation but also with SEO and testing.
