How to choose a translation company?
What should one take into account when choosing a translation service? Here is some advice that we hope might be useful.
The lowest price is not necessarily the best. Saving some money at the expense of the quality of the translation you can lose much more in future because of the translator's mistakes. Besides, some companies offer pricing that includes only translation without proof-reading or any other accompanying services to get customer attention with low prices. This is why it is extremely important to inquire which services are included in the price to avoid paying much more if you want to have your document proof-read or spellchecked.
Estimate possible timeline for the order. Normal translator's speed is about 5-7 pages a day if the text contains no perfect match phrases. If the translation is to be carried out in short notice, several translators are involved, because pressing one translator leads to severe deterioration of quality. Managing and co-ordinating several translators involves additional management expenses as well as extra expenses for the editing and QC. Therefore, be ready for extra charges for an urgent order.
Find out about vendor's experience in technical translation. Ask, how long the company has been performing technical translations, if it provides services in other areas. The more technical translations experience the company has, is, surely, the better. But beware of the vendor that takes any sort of jobs. Company, taking all sort of tasks, may be not efficient enough in every single of them. Technical translation management differs crucially from managing any other translation or interpreting process.
Do not hesitate to enquire into how your translation company manages the work. Quite often translation companies work as follows: "getting translation from the client" – "sending it to the translator" – "getting it back from the translator" – "sending the translation to the customer". That is, the translation agency works only as a mediator between the customer and the translator taking no part in the process. Quality of such translation depends solely on the translator. This scheme is OK for translating small documents (such as letters of attorney, diplomas). For large amounts of technical documentation the scheme is hardly applicable. If you place a big order and it is divided between several translators, it can be possible, that in different parts of the job different terms will be used for the translation (for example stuffing-box and packing gland). Or, which is worse, the quality of one of the parts will be much lower that the other's. Translation managers must co-ordinate the work of the translators in order to prevent such problems. Using Translation Memory technology also is a great help in the case.
Find out if any Translation Memory system is used. While the translation memory technology has become standard abroad, in Russia these systems still are used not wide enough. Your vendor must be able to name Transit, Trados, SDLX, DejaVu. Find out if Translation Memory is used for all translations. If this technology is used only upon customer's special request, vendor's experience in this technology might be insufficient. If Translation Memory systems are not used at all, the professionalism of the vendor must be seriously considered. If you are looking for a reliable, long-term partnership for translating big amounts of documents on regular basis it is really important to select a company using a translation memory system. In future it will help you save a great deal of time and money, especially if the company offers discounts for repeating elements of the translation.
Ask if any dictionaries are kept and how they are kept. The dictionary is very important for the consistency of terms in the translation. It allows to take into account the terminology demands specific to your company. It is very important that special software, incorporated in Translation memory systems is used for keeping dictionaries, because it allows to check the consistency of terms in the document. Excel or Word tables, even if they are kept, are of little use. If there is no dictionary, inconsistency of terms and iterative errors are inevitable.
Ask for a translation sample. It's hardly a good idea to trust a vendor, who refuses to provide one with it. Comparing similar tests done by different vendors you can estimate and compare the quality of their services. Generally accepted maximum volume of the translation sample is 2/3 pages of text without formatting (about 1200 characters). If you would like to get a larger sample and with full formatting, you should expect to pay the full amount for the job.
Ask your vendor if they provide DTP services. Several problems connected with desktop publishing software may arise: support of Russian and other languages, using Cyrillic or other sets of symbols different from standard Latin and so on. These problems normally show up only after customer having got the translation back and worked with it for some time. To prevent such problems you need a high-class specialist in desktop publishing and document internationalisation. So, if you want to have your document translated and fully formatted select a company providing DTP services. You can roughly estimate the complexity of formatting by its layout: general design, graphics and tables used, different types of formatting, technical apparatus (table of contents, index, lists of figures, cross-references), number of languages etc. The general principle is: the richer the formatting of the document is, the more difficult is the typesetting, the more qualified specialists and managers should be involved.
We hope that our advice helps you to avoid errors when selecting a translation services supplier and to get a high-quality translation.
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