Have your translations done by people who know your business

When our translation agency was founded in 1989, I had just stopped working for a construction machinery manufacturer.

I was looking for customers for translations. I telephoned hundreds of them. It’s never an easy operation. It’s very difficult to get past the switchboard operator – and email was only just coming in at that time.

Then one day I thought  “I’m going to try contacting the company I used to work for” (I don’t know why it took me so long to think of it). So I contacted the company and we received plenty of translation work from that company.

Our agency expanded. It managed to weather three recessions (one in the UK, one in the USA and yet another one in France). We translated mostly engineering documents, user guides, operator manuals, service manuals, job code manuals and the like, for manufacturers of construction equipment and agricultural machinery, plus technical documents for various engineering companies.

It was still difficult to find enough new customers.

Then I suddenly understood that the reason why we received so much work from construction and agricultural machinery manufacturers was because I had worked in that business and consequently I had been able to build up a team of translators who had also been in that business. Our customers had confidence in our expertise and we were supplying exactly what they required. .

What our customers wanted were translators who had practical experience of the industry or profession concerned. Not merely people who have a degree in the language concerned, but people such as engineers, programmers, doctors, accountants, geologists, lawyers, scientists, technicians and bankers, people who know the business and who also speak the two languages concerned. That is our definition of a "professional translator".

We then had to come up with a procedure for finding such experts. It took time, but after all the tests were completed we had assembled a large team of translators with practical knowledge of the fields concerned. We now knew that we could satisfy our customers and that they could be confident that our translations would provide correct information to their customers.

Our business has progressed very well over the last few years – and a great part of the increased business has come from our policy of using translators who have practical experience in the industry or profession concerned. We have also developed new systems and taken on new translation technology which not only reduces costs for our customers but also provides a standard vocabulary throughout a long translation.

Using the same word for the same thing may seem quite obvious, but some translated handbooks never manage to use standard vocabulary.

A translation memory system ensures that there is never any confusion in the mind of the user – he or she is never going to wonder whether the screw mentioned on page 6 is the same as the bolt mentioned on page 8.

I’m sure that people in companies who are responsible for technical or commercial literature would be very interested to learn about translation memories, which can cut translation costs and improve vocabulary consistency in their documentation.

And then we come to the appearance of the translation and the way the pages are set up:

Customers often send the original text to be translated in DTP form and of course, all the well-known DTP programs are available. The DTP personnel are used to working with all languages – not just the most common European languages but also the languages of Eastern Europe and the Middle and Far East. Often the type face has to be adjusted, because one language takes up more or less space than the original language.

We work very closely with the customer to make sure that the end product has the required appearance. Good appearance gives confidence in the product.

Please contact us for any questions you may have about translation. We are always interested in your opinions and also in the latest technology – both as regards translation and the technology of words in general. info@technical-translation.co.uk