Translation Agency USA

In contracting for translation services with an agency or translation company it should be noted that:

1) When translation services are purchased, clients essentially buy the judgment of the translator(s). In most cases that’s an acceptable approach although synonyms and alternate translations do exist. If 10 different translators are hired for the same project we would get 10 different translations (to some extent) in return. All 10 could be correct and perfectly acceptable in meeting the objective of conveying the meaning in the original source language, in the target language.

2) When clients want translators to strictly adhere to particular translations of special terms or vocabulary then a glossary must be provided in advance. Translators have no clairvoyant powers (that we know of) to ascertain a client’s undocumented preferred terms, and in the absence of a bilingual glossary will make translation determinations based on their experience and research over the course of a project. Even when supplied with a bilingual glossary of terms translators will make subjective determinations regarding style and presentation so that the intended meaning is optimally conveyed.

Internal client-side reviewers of the delivered translations, native speakers or not, are presumably not professional translators. Their preferences for translations may be valid but they cannot be considered correct to the exclusion of all other approaches. Worth considering is that internal reviewers are also susceptible to organizational bias given their sometimes over familiarity with subject matter, lessening their objectivity and ability to make the best suited translation choices for external audiences.

One suggested effective approach in working with translation companies would be to cooperatively pursue the development of a bilingual glossary of preferred terms for use in ongoing projects. If translations (and translators) are evaluated on the basis of matching the subjective preferences of a particular third party reviewer then this would be an impossible standard (as well as an absurd one). In the absence of developing a more cooperative approach for guiding the translation process then clients are destined to continuously go from one translator/agency to another since the standard for translation quality is ill-defined, and the process for evaluating quality is insufficient (or worse dysfunctional).