Your team has finished writing a crucial text describing your company’s future projects. To ensure the quality of your text in all the languages in which it will be read, you have decided to do business with a firm offering professional translation services. However, the translation process is an enigma to you. How does this really work at a translation firm? In this article, you can discover what goes on behind the scenes. The whole process will be unpacked and explained in 5 simple steps.
First step of the translation process: receipt
When you submit a text to a firm offering professional translation services to be translated, your request is handled by a project manager. They take care of the preliminary evaluation of your document in order to verify several important elements for the rest of the project. They will draw up a detailed quote that takes the length of the text, the number of words, the desired deadline, the complexity of the document, and the formatting into account.
Second step: distribution
After confirming the quote with you, the project manager can assign the translation to the translator that they think will be the most qualified for your project. To do this, they evaluate the specializations of their team of translators and also consider the deadline and the translator’s availability. Choosing the right translator is a crucial step in the process. A professional translator must be familiar with the subject, show intellectual rigour, master the source and target languages, and respect the deadlines.
Third step of the translation process: translation
Once the translator has been chosen, they receive the text and can start working on it. First, they must familiarize themselves with the subject. They browse the text to understand the general meaning and identify the main difficulties. The translator has several tools to help them in their work: translation assistance software, glossaries, translation memories, concordance programs, dictionaries, lexica, etc. Sometimes, a terminologist may also participate in the project to help the translator with more specific concepts. This step of the translation process is the most important, because this is the core of the work. The translator is also responsible for asking the client questions if certain passages require clarifications. The translator revises their text before submitting it.
Fourth step: proofreading/formatting
At most firms offering professional translation services, proofreaders take care of reviewing all the translator’s work. They can take a fresh look at it and find mistakes that went unnoticed before. These eagle-eyed proofreaders communicate with the translator if needed. A team also takes care of the formatting so that the layout of the text, the length of which will no longer be exactly the same after translation, is the same as the source text.
Fifth step of the translation process: delivering the project
The project manager delivers the final text to you, translated, revised, and formatted, if necessary. They may attach notes from the translator with the project, if necessary. You can contact the project manager if you have further questions.
To learn more about the translation process, contact the experts at SLRR Translation Firm.
