Last week, we wrote about the importance of quality in translation projects. If you haven’t read that post, check it out here!
Despite understanding that excellent translations are utterly important, most clients do not speak or understand the target language to know if they paid for a translation that provides the value they are seeking. That’s why Ready-to-Publish Translations, LLC wants to share some basic quality control tips you can do yourself. In any case, remember that by working with us, you are hiring language experts who will ensure that you won’t have to worry about receiving low quality work, ever. We are absolutely certain about this – to the point where we offer a money-back guarantee if you ever receive a service that does not satisfy your requirements.
The first thing you can do to check the quality of a translation is to place the original text in an online translation tool, such as Google Translate or Microsoft Bing, and then compare the original text to the translation you received. Note that this is a very rough first step and it only works if you can read the script of the audience language (so it would work if the translation is to Spanish, Italian, Romanian or Turkish, for example, but not to Arabic or Mandarin). If the resulting translation text is eerily similar (there is no rule of thumb – but read through five or six lines to see if there is any evident plagiarism), it is most likely a low-quality adaptation of a machine translation.
The second thing you can do is have a native speaker with a university-level education review the translation. While we firmly believe only certified translators can provide top-notch translators, a properly educated native speaker will be able to identify horrible copy. If they have serious doubts about the translation, it might be a good idea to hire an excellent proofreader, which is also our third tip. While this option does cost you some more money, professionally proofreading it is really a fail proof method.
Our final recommendation is simply hire a professional translation agency, like ours and trust the valuable control process that is meant to deliver outstanding translations. Our quality control process means that all translation documents and projects are then assigned to qualified proofreaders and editors who make sure that the content is ready-to-publish (that is, completely error-free). For large projects, they also ensure that the resulting translations are consistent, both in style and terminology. Even after our intensive quality control methods, if you ever require that we revise a document, we will always gladly look into it and perform the necessary revisions. Given the level of confidentiality needed in different business fields and the importance to secure valuable information when outsourcing projects or documents nature of your work , it is worth mentioning that all of our in-house employees, language experts and associated contractors have signed strict NDAs with us as part of their contracts, and as such, both the original documents and the resulting translations will always be treated with the highest attention and confidentiality, as if you were translating your documents internally.
