quality assurance – Translation

Translation is much more than simply reproduce the same text in the target language. It is important to properly transfer the content of the original text to the translated document. It must be used specific terminology and style of the industry to which the documents belong to. The target audience for which the translation will be used should also be taken into account. Hence, the importance of following a quality assurance process that guarantees that all these parameters have been followed before the translation delivery.

The following procedure is applied to all translation projects to provide an outstanding service.

Before accepting an assignment

During the first contact with the customer, I request all the required information about his translation requirement and the scope of the translation, such as word count, subject, target audience, original format and delivery format, reference material and all other relevant instructions.
Then the documentation provided by the customer (content, format, reference material, etc.) is evaluated carefully in order to determine the requirements of the project.
After fulfilling the scale and scope of the translation project, I proceed then to prepare the budget including the delivery date and general terms (support and delivery format) are agreed with the customer.

Translation procedure

Once the assignment has been accepted and all the details agreed with the customer, the translation procedure starts:

First, reference material and instructions provided by the customer are reviewed and read carefully.
The documents to be translated are prepared, if necessary, using specific translation tools.
The translation of the documents is made expressing as closely as possible the original text message and taking care of instructions, glossary and translation memory provided by the customer.
Generally, it is required to perform a documentation process in order to ensure that the correct terminology and the right style are applied.
If questions arise during the translation, for example, doubts about the terminology used, inconsistencies, formatting problems, unclear parts of the original document or the need of background information, etc. this will be discussed immediately with the customer.

Review procedure

After the translation is finished, it is required to perform a series of final checks in order to correct errors or omissions of various kinds, as far as possible:

Bilingual review: first reading of the translation comparing it with the original, searching for missing content or translation errors, the right choice of the used terms, if the glossary provided by the customer has been followed, etc.
Monolingual review: second reading of the translation, checking the consistency and the style. This review will take place, whenever this is possible, the next day or at least several hours after completion of the translation and in the final delivery format.
Making sure that all the instructions given by the customer have been taken into account.
Spelling and grammar is checked (punctuation, parentheses, date format and numbers, etc.)
The general layout of the document is checked (paragraphs, fonts, bold, underline, tables, lists, etc.) and this should be as close as possible to the original, if this is required by the customer.

Finally, the delivery of the translation to the customer is made in a timely manner.

Contact

Asetrad

ProZ.com

UniCo