Many successful businesses today have great plans to grow and expand globally; and most are aware of the importance of partnering with a respected and professional translation company. Translation companies, like Junction International, are a great place for businesses to start when looking to discuss the localization, cultural marketing and translation needs of company materials including: legal agreements, collateral documents, email blasts, websites, and brochures. However, when the time comes to discuss budget, some businesses underestimate the actual cost of professional and quality translation services and as a result their plans unfortunately often begin to crumble.
Claudia Waitman, President & CEO of Junction International, recommends the following tips for those businesses ready to go global but need to stick to a limited budget.
1. Prioritize your goals. This should be every company’s main mantra when thinking about the end-to-end process of developing content for the global marketplace. If writers know that their content will eventually be translated into other languages, keeping the following tips in mind will ultimately improve the overall quality of the translation and decrease the production time and costs.
2. Know how you plan to use the content. Is the plan to have the translations published or will they solely be used internally? If the content will only be used internally or for informational purposes, money can be saved by requesting a draft translation. A “draft translation” is still done by a quality translator, but shortens the re-checking process and can cut costs by up to thirty percent!
3. Identify how much translating you need – full or partial. Before hiring a translation service, know how much of your document you really need translated. As per industry standards, translation projects are typically billed per word. In order to lower the overall cost, we always urge our clients to think carefully before assigning ALL of their pages to us for translation. One fast and cost-efficient option is a summary translation, which consists of the creation of a translated index based on headlines. When using a summary translation, businesses can make an educated decision on which sections they need translated going forward.
4. Make sure your text is final and approved. A good way to raise the cost of translating a document is to send it and re-send it numerous times! Try to make sure that you are sending your translation service the final draft whenever possible. Unfortunately, if there are changes after the translation process has begun, the translators will have to re-translate, recheck and re-edit – all of which delay the schedule and raise the final cost.
5. Eliminate unnecessary words. Lots of content and text means lots of cost! Think of the old adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. Keep the text and content simple and use images to convey an idea whenever and wherever possible. Not only will this help reduce the cost of your project but it will also add to the overall quality of the piece.
6. Be consistent. In other words, say the same thing the same way every time. This will help the translation company you are working with leverage repetitive content using memory tools. This is especially important for businesses creating manuals that often repeat terms or words. For example, if the manual is focused on computers, consistently use the word “computer” rather than alternating between PC, computer, laptop, machine and device. In the long run, it will not only save you money but increase the overall quality and coherence of your translated document!
7. Avoid play on words. If possible, when drafting a document that you know will have to be translated, stay away from clichés, alliteration, rhymes or other linguistic devices. Unfortunately these word plays, once translated, will lose their original power and recreating these in the target language requires a complete rewrite.
8. Identify non-translatable text. It’s always helpful to inform your translator of any key terms, titles, department names, and/or acronyms that should not be translated or that already have an official translation within your company/organization. This will save time and money down the line.
For more tips and advice on how to go global on a budget, visit www.junctioninternational.com. Follow us via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Junction-International/64653052776 or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/JCTINT.
Good article, I truly await posts from you.
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