In the November/December 2018 edition of trade industry publication MultiLingual, we read the following: Those LSPs (language services providers) with higher levels of automation—particularly on basic jobs—can process jobs faster, cheaper and more profitably. Although the writer making this statement doesn’t provide evidence to support this claim, intuitively it stands to reason it might be […]
How do we measure progress in the translation business? Whether for a translation agency or a freelance translator, what’s the answer? Is it by the number of words translated? This would be an easy metric to track. If the number this year is higher than the number last year then that’s presumably progress. Or it […]
Sometimes unexpected things come up in translation projects. Today it was a formatting issue. A large MS Word source file (500+ pages) in English was not professionally formatted by the client. The document was visually okay, but there were underlying issues. The problems were not discovered until the translated text was placed back in the […]
Some translation projects are more complex than others. Standard translation and proofreading of text is relatively straightforward. Project complexity is increased with the addition of other services such as formatting, voiceover production, and elearning application integration, to mention a few other categories of service. All issues need to be considered in calculating costs and pricing […]
What is the business of providing translation services about? It depends on who you ask. The Project Manager The project manager thinks about managing resources and getting things done. They might say: “I need this text currently in language X to be in language Z. I need this to happen within 10 business days. I […]
It’s Monday and today we’re delivering a project that’s been in process over the weekend. The assigned translator began the project on Friday afternoon and continued through Saturday, Sunday, and into today to accommodate our client’s requested schedule. Although our business office is open normal business hours Monday through Friday, translation processes occur around the […]
