We all want to save time and money –that is just part of good management, isn’t it? However, when it comes to critical services such as translations, we must also pay attention to quality. A cheap translation work is the least efficient type of translation: your corporate image is at risk, not to mention potential lawsuits. The cost of having to edit a bad translation, or having to re-translate it all from scrap, can end up being much higher than doing it right from the start.
There are, nevertheless, smart ways to save time and money when it comes to translations:
1. Make sure your translator knows who to contact for any doubts that might arise during the translation.
2. If you have a glossary from previous jobs done by other translators, please provide it.
3. Do your best to provide the final version of the documents.
4. Translate only the parts you need.
5. Format –the simpler, the better.
6. Are there any bits that you already have translated?
As your translator, I am interested in saving you money and making you look good. The better your business goes, the better my business goes. This is how long-term business relationships are built.
There are, nevertheless, smart ways to save time and money when it comes to translations:
1. Make sure your translator knows who to contact for any doubts that might arise during the translation.
- This is particularly important in the case of rush jobs, when the translator will be working during non-business hours. Often, the person requiring the translation is not the author of the documents, or the person who will be dealing with them. Would they be able to answer technical questions?
- Provide email and mobile telephone number, and make sure that person is aware of what is going on with the document.
2. If you have a glossary from previous jobs done by other translators, please provide it.
- This will not only help save time with terminology searches, but will also ensure coherence among your documents. Job positions, department names, corporate policies... There are many ways to translate the same thing, and often it is just a matter of preference.
3. Do your best to provide the final version of the documents.
- Every time something is changed in the document, the translator needs to stop and go back to make such changes, sometimes having to delete whole sections that had already been translated.
- This might not always be possible, due to time constraints, however. If you can, please make sure you use the “track changes” feature in MS Word. That way, the translator will not need to review the whole document word by word to make sure no changes are missed, but will be able to go straight to the changes instead.
4. Translate only the parts you need.
- As a translator, I have no way to know which parts of the document you will need unless you tell me why you need the translation. If you need to register the document for official purposes, then you would need all tiny details translated, including stamps and signatures.
- I often find that clients do not really need the whole document translated. For instance, in the case of a previously signed power purchase agreement a client wants to use as base for a new agreement, those first introductory pages written by the notary public are not going to be used; neither are those pages identifying the parties (name of representatives, ID numbers, addresses, powers of attorney), or the boundaries of lots. Eliminating those and other unnecessary bits will save you considerable money –and time.
5. Format –the simpler, the better.
- First of all, if you have the document in editable format, make sure that is the version you provide. Converting is possible, but it takes time and there are always glitches. And yes, as a translator I have to re-write everything, but if you give me a document in editable format, it is much easier for me to give you a translation in the exact same format as the source text.
- Columns, tables, graphics, etc., slow down the translation process. Simplify the layout before requesting the translation.
- When you hire a translator, you’re hiring their time, whether it is for translating or for formatting. Just as if you hire a brain surgeon to disinfect a wound –you’ll still have to pay them at brain surgeon rates.
- If you have document full of tables with figures that do not need translation (other than changing the periods for commas and the commas for periods), you might just as well delete those figures and later have an assistant copy/paste the figures to the translated text.
6. Are there any bits that you already have translated?
- Often, there are bits of text that are repeated over and over again, from document to document. Disclaimers in press releases, stock market info, incorporation info, etc.: keep a folder with those documents and just insert the corresponding parts. There’s no need to re-translate them every time. If you always work with the same translator, just give these documents to your translator and they can access them whenever needed.
- Is there a previous version of the same document? If you have it in Word, for instance, it is just a matter of running an automatic comparison, and translating only the changes. You can even ask your translator to run such automatic comparison: it really takes less than two minutes.
As your translator, I am interested in saving you money and making you look good. The better your business goes, the better my business goes. This is how long-term business relationships are built.