yndigo

Handling Rush Jobs

I’ve seen 28,000 words of Russian translated in a 12-hour period; 36,000 words of Spanish overnight; 1.2 million words of French in under a week. From a translator’s perspective, jobs like this should never happen because achieving high quality results seems pretty unlikely. From a client’s standpoint, there’s simply no choice.

Projects of this volume become the “case studies” of translation agencies’ advertising literature and websites because they represent truly incredible organizational achievements, but achieving high quality results is challenging. As a customer in charge of finding the right translation service provider, learning a little about what goes on behind the scenes can help keep your project on track. Here are some questions to ask:

1. How many translators will be needed? Because translation is done by humans at a rate of 10 to 20 pages per translator per day, a lot is possible but not everything. If an agency is quick to guarantee a project involving several bankers boxes on a short deadline, or even several binders in a language or subject matter that are far from run-of-the-mill, be wary.
2. Have all the translators been vetted? Translators are freelancers and even large agencies advertising databases of thousands of people carry on close working relationships with only a fraction of them. Those that are right for the language pair and subject expertise your documents require are fewer still. What’s more — as free agents — translators may be busy with projects from other agencies. This means that for a big rush project, agencies may need to look to people they don’t ordinarily work with and whose quality they know little about.
3. How will the project be outsourced? Email and the Internet have become wonderful tools to reach talented people around the globe in an instant. But they have also made it possible to avoid the rigor that translation demands. An overworked project manager can contact hundreds of translators with one email message and, although they may not all perfectly fit the job description, outsourcing becomes quick and easy. A bigger concern with this practice is confidentiality, especially if sensitive information is shared accross the web.
4. How is quality and consistency assured? High-volume projects with tight deadlines preclude the use of otherwise helpful Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools, which require one translator, or a small networked team, to complete the translation stage before documents can be edited and proofread. Hard copy or scanned originals — standard for discovery documents — complicate things further. Handling the project the old fashioned way may be the only choice, but it requires bringing together a tight-knit team of translators, editors and proofreaders, organizing an hour-by-hour document flow and preparing glosssaries and global style guides to be shared by all members.
5. What can you do to help the process? Dropping your files on the doorstep of the translation agency and expecting flawless results invites trouble, especially if you’ve never worked with them before. Translation is a competitive business so most agencies that survive are reputable and implement quality standards commensurate with the industry but your guidance and input will help ensure success. Here are some things to consider:
• Quality takes time. Any extra days or hours you can allow on your end will improve the final product.
• Finish the original. Providing translators with unfinished drafts in the hope it will save time risks complicating the process and may actually slow things down or introduce mistakes.
• Provide a glossary and style guide. Global terminology and style preferences help translators immensely and smoothe the entire translation process. If you can’t provide them, insist that some time be set aside at the start of the project to create them. Even if key terms are not final from the start, consistent use of them will allow quick global changes during the review process.
• Don’t split the job. Because agencies generally take from the same pool of translators, splitting a large job among agencies, rather than increasing capacity, fosters competition for resources and decentralizes project management. If an agency can promise only a portion of the job, inquire elsewhere before accepting.
• Don’t freak out! Translation service providers and translators are capable of truly amazing things. Discuss your concerns with them and develop a strategy. Their expertise will help you realize what is possible and how to achieve the best results.
  
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