3 Ways to Sabotage A Translation Project
The work of professional translators is challenging even under ideal circumstances. While all stakeholders in the translation process (e.g., clients, translation companies, individual translators) have an interest in a translation project’s success, projects are sometimes unintentionally disadvantaged.
Among the most common ways to impede a translation project’s success are:
1) Insufficient Project Time Allowance
Skilled translators are professionals and the application of their skills requires a reasonable amount of time. On average a professional translator will competently process in the range of 2000-3000 words per day. At our company a second translator then proofreads the work of the first translator as a quality control measure. Sometimes the need to compress project schedules is unavoidable. Whenever possible planning ahead and allowing for sufficient time for the translation process to occur normally is ideal.
2) Withholding Project Resources
If preferred terminology glossaries or actual translation memories (TMs) are available, translators will gladly receive them at the beginning of a project. Since synonyms and alternate expressions exist in most languages, translators might independently select translations for terms other than those preferred by a client. When specific translation are preferred, clients have the option to provide preferred translations via terminology lists, glossaries, or an actual translation memory file. In the absence of resources such as these translators will apply their judgment in the selection of translation terms.
3) Inadequately Directed Client Side Reviewers
Client side translation reviewers can sometimes help to support the translation process although should they should typically be carefully instructed. Undirected reviewers internal to a client’s organizations will sometimes completely re-translate a project to suit their individual terminology or style preferences when the original translation was correct and acceptable.
The language skills of internal reviewers are often an unknown. Native speakers in any language are not necessarily qualified proofreaders or editors. For example, native English speakers are abundant in most US organizations, although of these native speakers how many are qualified to perform professional editing and proofreading of the English language?
In most cases client side reviewers should be instructed to look for departures from provided terminology or anything they consider to be potentially problematic. If something like this is noticed then the issue should be brought again to the translator for review prior to making a change.
