How to prepare a translation project
When a company sets out to engage a foreign audience, it usually translates its written material into other languages.
Every translation project demands a preparation phase that will shape the quality of the final product and its success with prospective clients.
Before the translation phase begins, there are a few essential questions that, asked early, will help you avoid problems further down the line. When in doubt, the best step is to talk to a specialised translation agency that can support and advise you throughout this preparation.
Defining the project's goals
This initial assessment seems straightforward, but it is not always carried out with the rigour it deserves. The company must define its objectives and, therefore, which audience it wants to reach with its products or services. This makes it possible to determine the required language combinations and to prioritise them as essential, necessary or secondary.
If most of your English-speaking clients are in the United States, it would be a waste to translate the texts into British or international English: American English will always sit more naturally with the audience you want to reach.
Translation or localisation
Translation and localisation are two distinct services. Translation is the transposition of a text from a source language into a target language while preserving its meaning. Localisation combines language with the cultural conventions of the destination country, changing the identity of a text and reshaping it during the translation process. If your aim is to communicate information, you will commission a translation; if you aim to influence the reader's behaviour — for example, in marketing campaigns — you will commission a localisation. Because it involves translation, design and copywriting, localisation is always more expensive than a straight translation.
Setting realistic deadlines
The time needed to translate two texts of the same length can differ widely. Some documents take as long to translate as they did to write. Translation is intellectual work, and intellectual work takes time. A translator can translate around 2,000 words per day, while a reviewer can revise up to 10,000 words per day. These figures are the usual baseline for setting realistic deadlines during the preparation phase. For localisation, deadlines depend less on word count and more on the expectations of each client.
Providing reference material
A translation is not a commodity but an intellectual service. Even when translators have command of a specialist field, they cannot know every piece of information in that field. Providing accurate reference material allows the project to be planned, helps build a terminology glossary that guarantees the consistency of the vocabulary used, and makes it easier and faster to resolve any questions with the client.
Choosing the translator
We often see companies spreading their translation work across several providers: a freelancer for one language, an agency for another, a different agency for a third language, and so on. This choice is often driven by price but, in the short term, it can backfire. By scattering its translations, the company loses the chance to build a large multilingual glossary, to optimise the flow of documentation and to grow a specialised translation memory that lowers costs over time by capturing word repetitions. Entrusting all translation projects to a single agency saves money and improves quality in the short to medium term.
The desired quality level
Most modern translation agencies bundle additional services around the translation itself (inserting translations into websites, formatting, graphic execution of translated texts, transcription from audio, subtitling video, and so on). A translation agency is always better equipped to manage these projects effectively than a generalist communication agency or design studio.
The level of revision
A distinction must be drawn between revision that verifies the quality of the translation and revision that checks grammar, spelling, typography and syntax. Every translation must be revised at least once. It can also be revised two or more times depending on the desired outcome. This is partly a question of cost, but mainly one of how much value is placed on the translated text. Some published texts can shape the future or the image of a company — a single translation, style or spelling error can be costly. In those cases, a second-translator revision is always indispensable to guarantee maximum quality and the saleability of the product or service.