10 Best Practices for High Quality Translations

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Do you want to improve the quality of your translations? Use these 10 best practices for precise and error-free translations.

How do you make sure that your translations are free of grammatical errors, precise and conveys the message that it is intended to do? The answer to this question is a clear definition of your expectation to the translation service provider. When details of your product, ad campaign or technical document are translated precisely into the language of your choice, you know that you have achieved your business goals.

No one can understand your business goals or brand better than yourself. This is why it is important that you communicate your quality expectation to your service provider, at the onset of the translation project. A high quality translation of your content can help you achieve your business goals. With your business performing well in new markets, you can continue to maintain the voice of your brand, while communicating with your local audiences.

Here are some best practices that you can use to improve communication, meet quality standards and simplify translation review cycles with your translation service provider.

  1. Ensure that your translation service provider completely understands your company’s style guidelines and works by the glossaries approved by your team
  2. Provide the translation service provider with guidelines on your brand. This will help the translators and reviewers to comprehend details about your company’s voice and brand identity
  3. Give your offshore translation team access to your internal staging server, so that the translated content can be reviewed in context. Also provide access to your web applications, so that UI text elements can be reviewed
  4. Offer your service provider with a handful of previous translations that are in tune with your quality standards and expectation. Also provide a few examples of translations that do not meet your standards
  5. Insist on utilizing the skills of native translators. For instance, if you require Spanish translation, using a native-speaking Spanish translator can provide you with better results
  6. Make sure that the source content provided is of good quality. You must keep in mind that if the source content is of poor quality, you will only receive a poor quality translation in another language
  7. Specify the deadline for the completed translations. Ensure that you have provided a reasonable amount of time to complete the work
  8. Communication is the key to any successful outsourcing project. Set up regular meetings to check how the translation project is progressing. Make calls, send emails or chat on Skype with the team’s Project Manager
  9. Work on building a long-term relationship with your service provider. The more familiar the service provider becomes with your content, terminology and business, you can expect higher quality translations
  10. Choose an employee from your internal team who will be the point person that your service provider can reach out to for any question or clarification that may arise during the translation process.

Do you know of any other best practice that can ensure high quality translations while outsourcing?  What do you think is the biggest hurdle while outsourcing translation services?

Share your views, queries or feedback by leaving a comment in the box below. We, at Outsource2india love to hear from you!

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