What We Ask When A Client Inquires About Proofing Services

When we’re asked to provide a quote for proofing a client’s existing translation, among the questions we usually ask are:

1) When you say “proofing” what do you mean exactly? Do you want us to:

a) Evaluate the translation’s “readability” and verify other details such as punctuation and grammar? In this case we only need to read the translation.

b) In addition actually evaluate the translation itself to determine if there are any errors or possible mistranslations. In this case we need to have both the source and target language documents.

2) How was the translation prepared? What are the translator’s qualifications? Is the translator a native speaker in the target language? By any chance does the translator also answer to the name “Google Translate?” Hopefully not.

3) Would you send us an electronic version of the translation to allow us to verify that proofing is the service best suited to your needs, or whether full service translation services are more appropriate?

In many case after probing a little further clients realize and agree that they require full translation services rather than proofing only.

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