3 Ways To Earn “Translator Love”
Chances are earning your translator’s undying affection is not your number one goal in life. Still for those who utilize professional translation services, cultivating a little good will with your go-to translation service or favorite freelance translator might just result in a better working association and higher quality translations.
To that end here are a few best practices to keep in mind in when working with a professional translation service or translator:
1) Provide Target Audience Description
It’s always a good idea to provide information about the target audience for your material at the outset of a project. Language choices such as tone and word selection might be different depending on the target audience.
Translators can often infer the target audience based on the nature of the material. Still it’s better to provide more information that necessary instead of too little. Translators can filter out information that’s not useful.
2) Supply A List Of Preferred Translation Terms (If You Have Them)
Translators are a skilled and resourceful group of professionals. Still in general their talents do not include psychic powers. So if preferred translations exist, that is there is a preference for applying a particular translation in a specified context, translators need to know this in advance. A simple glossary list in an Excel file will usually be sufficient.
In the absence of having a preferred list of terms, translators will apply their best judgment based on research and/or their personal knowledge of language. This is often a good approach since it’s the translator’s judgment that’s of value. However, since there are often multiple acceptable ways to express the same or nearly equivalent meaning, a translator’s approach might not be a client’s preferred one.
3) Instruct Client-Side Translation Reviewers Carefully
Sometimes translation clients will have internal personnel with language skills review the work of a translator. When this is done it’s best to instruct reviewers to look only for what might be considered a mistranslation, or a departure from agreed upon use of preferred translation terms.
On occasion a reviewer will take license to completely redo a translation to suit their own language preferences. The practice begs the question why hire a professional translator in the first place? When purchasing translation services clients essentially buy the judgment of professional linguists.
