Transhorsa

We usually hear clients complain that the translation company’s work fails to meet their requirements. In fact, some failures have taken place even before the translation project is to be assigned officially. The lack of communication of their cooperation leads to the client’s discontent on the translation result.  What’s the cause of such discontent? The answer lies in some way of communication and cooperation between translation companies and the clients. This article shows some tips clients should pay attention to before contracting with the company.

First, before the client makes a decision to choose a proper translation company as his service provider, he’d better do a survey to investigate credit standing of translation companies, the number and qualifications of staff in the company, and what the most important is to make sure whether the company has the translators with the specialty that can meet his requirements. Take engineering translation for example, the translator who has professional engineering knowledge and the fittest expression ability for target language is an ideal candidate.

Second, once having chosen the company, the client had better provide some background information and references to the company as ample as possible, including the previous translation texts, technical terminology, communication purpose, target audience and so on. Because every profession has its particularity, the translation company isn’t able to be accomplished in every field. A well-defined original document will give the opportunity to guarantee a satisfying translation and make translators go directly on the right way such as context style, format, and typesetting. This can be trouble-saving if the client explains his requests of needs clearly to the translation company.

Third, the client should set up quality criteria together with the translation company for the client’s final review and approval of the translation work. The layout request should also be made clear to the vender according to its publishing situation. If the client has specific requests, he should clarify them and put forward to his vender at first. The quality criteria should include technical terminology, consistency, veracity of expressions and readability.

Forth, as to the pricing, there is general average pricing in the translation industry with varieties from one company to another. Some clients hold the view that the company charges high may produce translation with better quality. In some situations the client just compare different quotations makes them neglect the quality result that should be got by the client’s specific demands.

Fifth, the deadline is supposed to be fixed according to the agreement by both sides. If it is not in emergency, the client should give as much time as possible to the vender. Translation is a complicated and laborious work. Even for the most experienced translator, the workload of 2500 words per day is a limit for a good quality work. The client’s consideration can help the vender devote enough time and energy to the working process.

Sixth, the client is suggested to make clarification of the service responsibility on the translation vender. If the translation company cannot accomplish the work on time, or if the final work doesn’t meet client’s demand, what responsibility should it take? If upfront deposit has been paid, Should the client be refunded? All these need to be discussed by both parties.

All in one, a good communication at the very beginning is a guarantee to a qualified translation. It is highly suggested an agreement signed for the benefit of client. A detailed contract consists of the requirements of client for the translation work such as the layout, format, pricing, payment method, compensation for failure and the deadline.

Translation Trend professional translation service, translation company, translation quality

As a matter of fact, translation services cover all fields in society. Where languages are used, there may be the need for translation. When it comes to professional translation services, it presents an even more challenging job. Since society has never stopped its advances, more and more special areas have evolved along the way. With the deepening and broadening of knowledge base in nearly every discipline, the society calls for the dissemination of latest professional developments so as to facilitate all people to gain benefit from them. One way to reach this goal is through professional translation services. Therefore professional translation services are of great significance and importance to the development of society at large.

But for professional translators, it is not easy to provide qualified professional translation services. For any individual, it is just impossible for him to be a Jack of all trades. His intelligence and energy restrict him and it is impossible for him to become a master of all. Fortunately it is possible for him to become a specialist in a particular area so long as he devotes himself to learning the necessary expertise and skills. In order to provide high-quality professional translation services for his clients, he has to know himself, his strengths and weaknesses, and the nature of his assignments. There are means to help him provide better professional translation services.

First of all, whenever given an assignment, a professional translator should assess and judge whether he can handle the translation well. At times he encounters materials beyond his depth. When this happens, he would better leave it to someone who knows the specialty. A Chinese saying goes something like “difference in profession makes one feel worlds apart.” Even lots of daily used plain words have special meanings when used technically. It is just difficult for someone outside the profession to translate them correctly. To provide good professional translation services, mastery of language skills is not enough. Language serves as a way of expression of ideas, concepts, feelings, etc. what matters more is the content. A competent professional translator should at least feel free to translate in one field. He would be wise to decline the translation of those beyond his capacity. He will be very likely to give his best performance when he is in his own territory.

Second, professional translation services evolve with the time. Along with the ever-advancing technology updates, new terms and words are being coined while old ones may become obsolete. Professional translation services should keep pace with technology. To maintain his competitiveness, a professional translator should always keep himself well informed with the latest technological developments. Never make blind guesses. When encountering a word whose meaning you are not sure about, check it up, since the nature of professional translation services is provision of accuracy. If necessary, consult with some profession insiders. Poor translation will not only damage your reputation, but also mislead your clients.

Third, lay emphasis on the individual development of professional translation service providers. A set of conduct codes needs to be in place to guide them in their work. Every profession has its own generally-recognized ethics and working practices that require all the practitioners to respect and follow, and the professional translation service industry is no exception. A translator should keep in mind that he needs to improve himself both morally and professionally throughout his life. Taking training courses on a regular basis is one way to recharge oneself. Self-teaching is convenient in that it can be done at a flexible time and location. Literally you can learn something to your interest anytime anywhere by making use of the information available at hand. Constant improvement can put you in a better position in the translation service market.

Last but not least, communication skills are also needed in the provision of professional translation services. Communication serves as a bridge between you and your clients, which can help clear up misunderstanding on the material for translation in the first place. It can also lead you to better the relationship with your clients who will feel willing to cooperate with you once more.

Anyway attitude is the most important of all factors leading to good professional translation services. If you really want to do it well and strive for it, you will make it. You will harvest what you have sown. It is a general principle.   

Summery: In this article, the author discusses how to provide good professional translation services in aspects of translation assignment assessment, keeping pace with the evolution of professional translation services, self-improvement of professional translators, communication skills.

Author Information:

Jane Yu

Market Researcher of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native translator & Proofreading

Uncategorized high quality translation service, language translation services, professional translation service

Abstract：This article illustrates the necessities of the professional translation services in several aspects, such as the advantage of professional translation services，the huge market needs in translation field, the dissatisfactory situation of current translation services, etc

Language is an important inter-medium of information exchanging, experience sharing, cultural bearing, etc. As the bridge of different languages, professional translation services have become more and more subservient to the society, particularly in the business field. 

As we all know, the world now has entered into an age of globalization, which means that communication among different countries in this decade is more frequent than any other decades in the world history. Today, speakers of different languages may sit together to talk about their families, their dreams, and most importantly the business related things. Statistics show that more than 480 multinational companies has invested in China or set up administrative offices in China among all the top 500 multinational companies in recent years. Meanwhile, China’s foreign trade continued to maintain a steady and rapid development in 2007, and the total import and export volume, which for the first time reached a new high of 20 thousand billion U. S. dollars, still kept a growth rate of about 20% during the past six years. In this case, translation plays an important role in business communication. In order to transform information accurately, professional translation services is of essential importance.

To meet the needs of the market, it is found that a great amount of translation companies has sprung up overnight and are on a high increase. However, feedbacks show that many translation works performed are not so satisfactory to meet clients’ expectations. In fact, at the present time, there still exist lots of small companies that usually organize the free-translators to do the work temporarily, leading to the problems such as low quality of translation works, delay of the clients’ business, or even cooperation disruption. Actually, this problem has been pointed out by many experts who indicated that service quality and talent management in translation field need to be further enhanced. Currently, the output value in translation field has surpassed 20 billion Yuan (RMB); although a large amount of translation companies has established, compared with the European and American market, China’s translation market is in a chaos, such as lack of guarantee for the translation quality, specific division of labor shortage as well as requisite of standard market price. In this circumstance, professional translation services are in an urgent need.

Why professional translation services can solve all the problems above? As we all know, professional translation services provide the market not only with translation talents but also convenience for searching those services concerned. On one hand, professional translation services run on the basis of a group of excellent and professional translation talents, who are masters of various kinds of languages in different fields, which fundamentally ensures the quality of translation works; on the other hand, professional translation services consist of a complete service system, which not only serves the clients with translation works, but also provide the clients with support services such as interaction platform, price inquiry service, customers’ evaluation system and so on. All of these make it convenient for the customers to gain the information about the professional translation services easily, accurately and duly, find the appropriate translation company or make a judgment of their qualification in translation services.

Aristotle once said “excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly, because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit”. As for translation, professional translation services that can guarantee quality of translation works and provide supportive services are really a necessity to the market today and it will surely benefit the translation field in the long run.

Author Information:

ivy

Marketing Manager of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native translator & Proofreading

Industry News global translation company, professional translation service, translation company

Abstract:   Providing the clients with high-quality professional translation services is not an easy job. A qualified translator to provide their clients with professional translation services must meet the following three requirements: an expertise in source and target languages, some basic knowledge of the specific branch of science your translation concentrates upon, and a lot of discipline in carrying out your translation practice.

 Doing a little casual translation may be not difficult, but, if you want to engage in professional translation services, you need to have the following key qualifications: an expertise in source and target languages, some basic knowledge of the specific branch of science your translation centers on, and much discipline in translation practice.

First of all, if you want to gain competence in professional translation services, you need to have an expertise in at least two languages. A good command of the source language is the most basic requirement for professional translators to start their works. Take E-C translation as an example, before you translate a text into Chinese, you need to perfectly understand which the branch of science it belongs to, like what the  English text is talking about, the associative meaning, including the syntactic structures, all the nuances of the stylistic devices, the language tenor and mode, and the cultural context of such an English text, etc. Otherwise, it will be impossible for you to achieve faithfulness to the source language during the process of translation. In addition to a perfect understanding of the source language, you also must skillfully master the target language (here it refers to Chinese) so that when you are entrusted with a translation task, in order to make your translation totally understandable and acceptable to the counterpart experts in such field of science who can speak and read only the target language, you can know very well how the text shall be conveyed and organized and what kinds of words and phrases you shall choose to use in the target language. To make it short, high proficiency in at least two languages is a must foundation for good performance in professional translation services.

Apart from an expertise in the source and target languages, for those translators delivering professional translation services to the clients, a basic knowledge of the scientific field the text to be translated is categorized into is a must. Usually, a language can be grouped into different genres according to the content and purposes of the text. For instance, English can be classified into news English, English for science and technology, English used in drama, English used in daily life, ect. As for English for science and technology, they may involve the knowledge of different branches of scientific learning, such as physics, medicine, computer science, architecture, electronics, telecommunications, law, and so on. If you have to put theories or scientific procedures of a specific branch of science to paper, you need to resort to the specific language domain where the words and phrases are at, which may contain technological terms that you might have never seen before if you are unfamiliar with such a branch of learning. Therefore, professional translation services require that the translators be equipped with some knowledge of the scientific field to which the translated text belongs.

The last requirement for providing professional translation services is discipline. If you want to translate a book from one language to another, it means a lot of commitment, which demands effort necessary for fighting a war. Such a task will become a torture for those who are not prepared beforehand. If the book consists of 100,000 words, suppose you can translate 5000 words on average per day, you need to work continuously for twenty days. For those who don’t have much experience in professional translation services, they may work very hard during the first few days, engaging a lot of time and efforts, and then they have to rest for a day or two because they feel exhausted, but when the due time is round the corner, they might find that it would be impossible for them to fulfill the tasks. Even some green hand translators are   reluctant to do the job for the first few days, imagining that they can accomplish the work in an efficient manner by just using the rest of the days. In fact, magic will never occur. Experienced professional translators will always make an advance estimation of the average amount of the words that they can translate each day, calculate their time in taking care of their family routines under those circumstances, make a schedule of the translation task, and then try to carry out their plans day by day. In professional translation services, it’s not just the translator’s will to timely accomplish the assigned translation tasks, but is concerned with the fact that whether the translator can strictly observe the discipline and keep doing translation on a regular day to day basis.

To sum up, engaging in professional translation services is not as easy as it seems to be. But to be precise, to master the languages with maximum efforts, to accumulate some professional knowledge by learning some specific branches that your translation work mainly focuses upon and related to, and to develop a good, disciplinary habit in doing translation is very important and helpful to your work in the process of providing your clients with high-quality professional translation services.

Author Information

Marcia  

Translator of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native Translator & Proofreading

Industry News high quality translation service, London translation company, professional translation service, professional translation team

Abstract: As the globalization deepens increasingly and the economy development advances with high speed, communications in different fields throughout the world plays a more and more important role.  Translation, in the process of communication, is the connection for those who do not understand each other or who cannot read in other languages.  Due to the demand on communication, translation companies spring up like mushrooms, which provide various levels of translation service.  Nevertheless, not every company provides good service for the customers. Only the translation companies which provide professional service can survive in the fierce competition. 

This study will show the current situation of translation industry in China, which does not run in a well-organized way.  Therefore, the author will analyze the reasons and sort out a standard of professional service guided by the some regulations. Then based on the discussed standard of professional service, some suggestions will be given so as to keep the industry in a good order, and to improve the translation quality in China.

The statistics shows that there were about 28,500 translation works published throughout China, with an average of 2192 annually from 1978 to 1990. Then the data from 1995 to 2003 is almost nine times of that from 1978 to 1990, which were 94400 and 10489 respectively. There is no doubt that China is a big translation country. However, it cannot be considered as a powerful translation country due to the current situation.

Firstly, the total translation level is not as high as that in other countries. Many translation companies emerge in powerful a large number and various levels of translation services.

Secondly, both of the quantity and quality of translators are badly needed to increase. In despite of that the number of professional translators has reached 60 thousand, there are about 500 thousand part-time translators in China, and the translation quality is still in a low level.

Thirdly, there is no mature regulation to guide and manage the translation industry.

It is obvious that translation service needs to be improved in order to make China a translation power. In fact competitive strength of a translation company depends on its translation service.  Translation service is a rewarding business behavior which offers customers with transforming service of more than two languages.  Because of the irregularity in translation industry, competitions are becoming fierce increasingly.  Only professional translation service can make a company in an invincible position and outstanding among so many competitors.

Above all, the core to achieve professional translation service lies in the standard.

To begin with, professional translation service requests the support of translation management. In other words, it is not performed by an individual, but by an excellent team, in which team members cooperate in a well-organized way. The team consists of project manager, translators, quality assurance department (QA department), editor, proofreader, linguistic expert and technical expert. The talent filtering is especially important so that the involved persons are entitled to their work. Take Soven Trans for example, the talent filtering process is rather tough. Only 3 out of 1000 persons would be employed. Besides, cooperation and coordination among team members is a key to obtain professional service. Every person should be responsible for his or her works.

Then a thorough and prompt communication with the clients makes the project in good progress. It is easy to clearly figure out the translation content, quality, style, purpose, composing requirement of target source, confidential term and so on at the beginning of contact. When the translators encounter difficulties and pose questions, the project manager should contact the clients to obtain the solutions as soon as possible. Then project manager should tell all translators concerning with the difficulties and solutions.

Finally, feedback collected from clients and quality tracing can expose the weakness and help to improve service quality next time. The team will make rapid progress in professional translation service continuously by discovering its weaknesses and correcting them without delay.

Based on the standard of professional translation service, some suggestions are given as follows:

1.            QA department is strongly recommended to take advantage of translation tools, such as Trados, which can monitor the activities of each translator. Besides, resources can be shared through the tool so that the translators tend to work efficiently. It is encouraged to create a system that is unique to others.

2.            Each client can assess the credit and service quality of a translation team. After the team hands in the finished translation to the clients, the latter might give the team an evaluation by rating on the website of the translation company. Pressure puts forward quality.

The related institutions should put emphasis on the regulation of translation industry to establish a healthy market.

There is a long way to keep the translation industry in order, but providing professional translation service is an inevitable trend in the near future. It is time to specify professional translation service right now.

Author Information:

Lucy Zhou

Project Manager of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native translator & Proofreading

Industry News London translation company, professional translation service, professional translation team

Abstract: What does the professional translation service mean to the translation companies and the individuals, and what’s the relationship between the translation companies and the translators?
 
 At one time, it was the dream of many ambitious young people to become a translator or interpreter. Their dreams were not only due to the desirable payment, besides, they wanted to gain social prestige and more opportunities to contact with the upper classes. Unfortunately, few people who proclaimed themselves as qualified translators or interpreters can offer professional translation service.

The May Fourth Movement launched a campaign of Chinese culture exchange, the translation industry enjoyed an unprecedented prosperity and taken the “faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance” creeds to the professional translation service. However, such creeds are far away from sufficient and accurate as keys to the practical professional translation service despite that they can represent the uppermost standards.

Translation is a stage for team work other than individual heroism.. Therefore, from the perspective of undertaking big projects and the sustainable development of a professional translation company, the maintenance of a terminology bank, loyal patrons, qualified translators and the passion for translation industry should be attached with great importance. The manager who takes charge of a professional translation service should have a holistic consideration in arranging the projects and should meticulously guarantee the quality of each process of the work including project definition, translators selection, proofreading and quality review.

In such a hustling and bustling world where people are so selfish and greedy to gain financial benefit, it is hard for the translation companies to make an alternative between the speed of making profit and the quality of their works. How can a translation company make its professional translation service genuine enough to lure more business and bear more responsibilities in culture exchange? Even though the current total production of China’s translation industry is about 30 billion Yuan in 2008, according to China International Publishing Group, nobody knows how much money has been consumed in subcontract operation. Ubiquitously, some Chinese translation tycoons distribute giant projects to other trust resources and make a profit by their own reputations.

 Due to the secret volume of their business, nearly no clients have the awareness of their translation company’s full-time translators’ working strengths and arrangements. When professional projects are done by some laymen who lack of a clear understanding about the quality and the general arrangement, the proofreading will be the heavy workload. When the day comes that the subcontract operation is revealed to the translation circle, the dishonest companies will suffer an appalling decline of businesses amount.
 
Up to 1520, all the commercial groups whose names coincided with their functions disappeared except for 85 international organizations including 70 universities and 15 religious groups. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that the establishment of enterprise culture is the cause of the longevity of professional translation service. It needs the translation companies to reestablish the value outlook, rules and regulations, the behavior culture and the material culture.

Translation produces lots of fruits, which make culture communication become possible, bring culture communication into translation: the growth of knowledge followed a kind of compound-interest law, which was further greatly enhanced by the invention of CAT, giving rise to the coherence of professional glossary and practical application of CAT software. On the other hand, the professional translation service lies on the improvement of the individual translators, which thanks to the translation companies as they play a positive role in this regard. Some translation companies keep a custom to return the unpolished translation to the translators on the pretext of reasonable excuses, which aims at helping the translators to develop their skills in the future work and be more successful.

In conclusion, to fulfill the desire of the customers is a specific characteristic of the professional translation service, which is full of the duration of severe miseries and the frustration on what is required to translate. As with Aristotle’s words, ＂Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

Global Business Strategy Chinese translation company, London translation company, professional translation service

Abstract:   Providing the clients with high-quality professional translation services is not an easy job. A qualified translator to provide their clients with professional translation services must meet the following three requirements: an expertise in source and target languages, some basic knowledge of the specific branch of science your translation concentrates upon, and a lot of discipline in carrying out your translation practice.

 Doing a little casual translation may be not difficult, but, if you want to engage in professional translation services, you need to have the following key qualifications: an expertise in source and target languages, some basic knowledge of the specific branch of science your translation centers on, and much discipline in translation practice.

First of all, if you want to gain competence in professional translation services, you need to have an expertise in at least two languages. A good command of the source language is the most basic requirement for professional translators to start their works. Take E-C translation as an example, before you translate a text into Chinese, you need to perfectly understand which the branch of science it belongs to, like what the  English text is talking about, the associative meaning, including the syntactic structures, all the nuances of the stylistic devices, the language tenor and mode, and the cultural context of such an English text, etc. Otherwise, it will be impossible for you to achieve faithfulness to the source language during the process of translation. In addition to a perfect understanding of the source language, you also must skillfully master the target language (here it refers to Chinese) so that when you are entrusted with a translation task, in order to make your translation totally understandable and acceptable to the counterpart experts in such field of science who can speak and read only the target language, you can know very well how the text shall be conveyed and organized and what kinds of words and phrases you shall choose to use in the target language. To make it short, high proficiency in at least two languages is a must foundation for good performance in professional translation services.

Apart from an expertise in the source and target languages, for those translators delivering professional translation services to the clients, a basic knowledge of the scientific field the text to be translated is categorized into is a must. Usually, a language can be grouped into different genres according to the content and purposes of the text. For instance, English can be classified into news English, English for science and technology, English used in drama, English used in daily life, ect. As for English for science and technology, they may involve the knowledge of different branches of scientific learning, such as physics, medicine, computer science, architecture, electronics, telecommunications, law, and so on. If you have to put theories or scientific procedures of a specific branch of science to paper, you need to resort to the specific language domain where the words and phrases are at, which may contain technological terms that you might have never seen before if you are unfamiliar with such a branch of learning. Therefore, professional translation services require that the translators be equipped with some knowledge of the scientific field to which the translated text belongs.

The last requirement for providing professional translation services is discipline. If you want to translate a book from one language to another, it means a lot of commitment, which demands effort necessary for fighting a war. Such a task will become a torture for those who are not prepared beforehand. If the book consists of 100,000 words, suppose you can translate 5000 words on average per day, you need to work continuously for twenty days. For those who don’t have much experience in professional translation services, they may work very hard during the first few days, engaging a lot of time and efforts, and then they have to rest for a day or two because they feel exhausted, but when the due time is round the corner, they might find that it would be impossible for them to fulfill the tasks. Even some green hand translators are   reluctant to do the job for the first few days, imagining that they can accomplish the work in an efficient manner by just using the rest of the days. In fact, magic will never occur. Experienced professional translators will always make an advance estimation of the average amount of the words that they can translate each day, calculate their time in taking care of their family routines under those circumstances, make a schedule of the translation task, and then try to carry out their plans day by day. In professional translation services, it’s not just the translator’s will to timely accomplish the assigned translation tasks, but is concerned with the fact that whether the translator can strictly observe the discipline and keep doing translation on a regular day to day basis.

To sum up, engaging in professional translation services is not as easy as it seems to be. But to be precise, to master the languages with maximum efforts, to accumulate some professional knowledge by learning some specific branches that your translation work mainly focuses upon and related to, and to develop a good, disciplinary habit in doing translation is very important and helpful to your work in the process of providing your clients with high-quality professional translation services.

Author Information:

Marcia 

Translator of

Transhorsa Translation Co., LTD., Shanghai

http://www.transhorsa.org

Native Translator & Proofreading

Industry News London translation company, professional translation service