Professional document translation consists of a 3-step process that includes different levels of review: Editing/Proofreading and Final Review/Certification. In the following, we are taking a look at why it is crucial to allow for time to perform revisions, corrections, and improvements as needed in every single document translation project.

Let’s begin with the obvious: While professional translators have excellent writings skills and will always do their best to avoid typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, another set of eyes focusing on these type of issues will ensure that not even the slightest detail is overlooked—just as every professional report, business letter, or article in any other industry is read and reviewed several times before it goes to print or to the client.

Since document translations are based on other (source) documents, an important part of this initial review also consists in checking for completeness and making sure that the layout of the target material matches the source materials and/or the client’s requirements.

Then there is the stylistic and terminological aspect. The professional reviewer needs to double-check vocabulary and terminology, especially in document translations of highly technical nature. While the writing style is to a certain extent a subjective affair—we all have different ways to express ideas—it must be ensured that the style employed is right for the target audience of the respective document translation project. Flow and readability are other crucial factors and part of the job description of the professional document translator serving as editor.

Sometimes document translations come back with notes from in-house reviewers of the client. When going over the notes, it is vital to distinguish where the suggested change is a stylistic preference—it may be part of the company lingo, which the professional translator is not necessarily aware of, unless a specific glossary has been provided. The document translator going over the review notes also needs to clarify where the client-revised text departs from the source and make the client aware of the fact. While a company’s foreign branch may have the freedom to recreate the material, the translator does not—once the revisions go beyond stylistic changes, professional translators are bound by their duty to truthfully render the original and are not authorized to add anything or leave anything out.

Document translators, editors, and proofreaders serving professional document translation services companies such as Legal Translation Solutions and its parent company, ASTA-USA Translation Services, are well-versed and experienced in performing the different levels of review and communicating to the client—by way of translator’s notes—any issues and questions that may come up with regard to style and terminology.

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Professional document translation service providers have to meet the growing needs and requirements of their clients by providing an increasing number of value-added quality services. But what are some of the aspects to take into account to find the one that is right for you?

In a world where more and more aspects of life and work have become computerized, it is critical that a professional document translation firm bases its services on human translation. What is commonly referred to as “machine translation” produces generally incomprehensive results, and while computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools are useful for large volumes of repetitive texts—as can be the case when translating technical manuals—accurate, high quality document translations can only be created by qualified professionals, i.e. certified human translators experienced in their specific fields. Advanced technology certainly has its place in professional document translation services, but the translation process itself relies on the competence, skill, and knowledge of the professional translator.

Another important factor to consider is that the professional translation services provider of your choice should work with a global network of accredited document translators and can take advantage of their geographic placement. This means that your document translation projects are processed 24/7, independent of your location and/or time zone. In this regard, modern technology is vital to relay materials and make document translation results available on secure web server any time of the day.

One of the most important indicators for a quality document translation services company is a solid reputation for reliability. Longstanding professional translation firms are registered with the American Translators Association and exclusively work with certified document translators accredited either by the latter and/or organizations such as The Institute of Linguists, La Société Française des Traducteurs, Institute of Translation and Interpreting, US National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators, and the United Nations.

The professional document translation service of your choice must also be able to efficiently handle all your specialized translation requirements, using a team of certified translators with the experience and knowledge needed for each individual assignment. It is crucial that the translator team handling your project specializes in the respective field and that all translations are subject to strictest quality control.

Last but not least, the project or account managers—your number 1 contact at the professional document translation company—must be experts in all things translation, able to answer your questions, address your concerns, and assign the right document translation team for every individual project. They also must be able to accommodate special requests, ranging from particular layouts to specific certification and turnaround requirements.

With their specialized teams of professional, certified document translators, their proprietary translation workflow process and proven track record in the industry, Legal Translation Solutions, and its parent company, ASTA-USA Translation Services, are an excellent choice when you are in the market for professional document translation services.

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By: L. Amado – 02/08/2010

Reviews are an important component of the professional document translation process. As a general concept, reviews can take different forms. The most common ones are usually referred to as proofreading and editing. Different people use these terms to mean different things, depending on the context, while others use them interchangeably. When it comes to professional document translation, however, each terms refers to a very specific concept that plays a vital role in the delivery of accurate, high quality document translations.

Proofreading document translations involves reading copy or proof in order to find errors and omissions. It is always performed in comparison to the original. The professionally translated document is checked for grammar, syntax, figures, spelling and related errors and then compared to the original, making sure that the formatting matches and nothing has been overlooked. While modern text processing software is very helpful, especially when it comes to punctuation and spell checks, it is crucial that a professional translator in the respective language pair performs the review.

Editing document translations means dealing more directly with the text, ensuring readability and flow, verifying that colloquialisms and similar idiomatic expressions have been rendered accurately, and generally checking the correct use of vocabulary and terminology, whether general or project-specific (in some cases, glossaries or reference materials are provided by the client). It involves researching problematic terms and entering corrections or suggesting changes. While editing is particularly crucial for document translations meant for publication, clarity and precision in terms of expression and tone are vital to guarantee proper understanding of any document translation.

Editing and proofreading can be performed as one process, meaning that the professional translator reviewing a document translation checks a document for errors while simultaneously improving the translated text itself where needed. However, when dealing with larger scale and more complex projects, it is helpful to separate the two and first have a professional translator edit the document in order for the text to read as it should, then have another set of eyes going over the edited document and checking the translation against the original to ensure there are no typos or omissions.

Under normal circumstances, reading and correcting a professionally translated document is less time consuming than translating “from scratch”. But it is important to keep in mind that estimating how much time will be needed for a proofreading/editing job can sometimes be tricky. If a project is brought to a professional document translation company that was translated by another entity, it can occasionally happen that the translation to be reviewed leaves much to be desired in terms of accuracy and quality. In this case, it may actually require more time to correct the translation than it would have taken to professionally translate it.

Since different people mean different things by proofreading and editing, it is important to make sure all parties involved are on the same page about the requirements before undertaking a professional document translation job.

For professional translation services companies like Legal Translation Solutions and its parent company, ASTA-USA Translation Services, performing the three steps of translation, editing, and proofing for every single document translation assignment sets a rigorous quality assurance standard that is topped off with a final review and certification.

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A group of well-known pharmacies, for instance, only recently reached a settlement in a civil law suit brought against them for providing inadequate translations on their labels, and media outlets reporting on the case foresee that translation is becoming the new civil rights issue of the future. Jody Byrne, in her article about document translation errors in JoST (The Journal of Specialized Translation) reminds of a case back in the 1990s, when the Commodity News Service reported of rumors that a Japanese Bank was planning to take over Continental Illinois. This report happened to be mistranslated into Japanese, stating the take-over as a fact, and the effects were disastrous. The bank’s depositors and creditors all sought to withdraw their money, and with looming bankruptcy as a result, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation together with the Federal Reserve Board and the Comptroller of the Currency ended up pouring some $2 billion in additional funding to guarantee deposits and reassure investors. According to Byrne, even the (French into English) translation of an institutional document like the Warsaw Convention is an ongoing source of legal argument and “has featured prominently” in numerous cases in the English-speaking world. While most legal documents tend to apply in their original version only, it is crucial to multinational contract negotiations that every detail is spelled out clearly and accurately for all parties—and thus in all languages—before anything is signed.

The list of examples endless, of course, but what they show us is that translating documents of any kind requires professional translators and professional document translation services. Nothing can be left to chance, be it in legal, technical, financial or medical translation, and today’s organizations thus need a professional translation services provider they can trust. At Legal Translation Solutions and our parent company, ASTA-USA Translation Services, we know that professional document translations are vital to your business, and we have the resources necessary to deliver accurate, high quality translations of your mission-critical documents, cost-effective and fast.

By: L. Amado 02/03/2010

One interesting and seldom discussed aspect of professional translations is the fact that the length of a text in one source language will typically expand or contract when translated to certain target languages. When translating documents from one language to another the content will typically change in length as measured by the number of words. This variation is known as text expansion and text contraction.

When translating documents text expansion and contraction is not a constant ratio… It varies according to the languages involved in the translation of written content. For instance, an English document professionally translated into Spanish can be as much as 25 – 30% longer (a case of text expansion). Conversely, a Spanish document professionally translated into English will, on average, be around 10 – 15% shorter (a case of text contraction). Texts in other European languages may similarly be affected. On the other hand, documents translated in Asian languages tend to be shorter than the English source content.

Text expands and contracts for different reasons. The structure and rules of a language – aspects such as grammar, syntax, terminology, and sentence structure – all play a part in this outcome. The English language is generally more concise and to the point than Romance languages. Subject matter is also a factor in text expansion and contraction in professional document translations. Formal text covering technical, legal and academic subjects tends to be more affected than informal text, such as letters or personal papers.

In the professional translation services industry there are several reasons why it is very useful to know how much texts will expand or contract. Some professional translation services providers calculate costs based on the target language word count, that is to say, the number of words in the finished translation. Some others calculate costs based on the source language word count, that is to say, the number of words in the document to be translated.

Text expansion and contraction is also a major issue when dealing with software localization, web page design, desktop publishing (DTP) and artwork design. In the case of software localization, before the actual professional translation takes place, software developers typically perform what is known as “mock translation”, replacing text lines in the source language with strings of letters, taking into account the average text expansion and contraction ratios. The aim is to make sure that the extra length of the professionally translated text does not affect functionality or the way the text is displayed.

Likewise, in the case of web page design, DTP and artwork, designers need to know if the translated text will fit into an existing webpage or artwork file. Text expansion and contraction will be a major factor to determine the required font size, how much room is needed, the number of pages, amount of block space and so on.

Professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) can help its clientele deal with text expansion and contraction and other issues affecting professional translations.

Professional Translation Services – Common Misconceptions

It is very common for people who are not closely involved in professional translation services to believe that translating from one language to another is a straightforward and simple endeavor.  Any bilingual or multi-lingual individual can do it – seem to be the most obvious and most common misconception. The truth is that the process of translating from one language to another as a professional activity is in fact a very serious business that should be approached with the upmost professionalism in order to execute each translation task in a correct and professional manner.

In order to become a professional language translator one needs a lot more than just familiarity with foreign languages. Command of a foreign language does not qualify anyone to undertake translation work any more than being a fast runner makes somebody a good candidate for an Olympic marathon.

To be considered a professional translator requires in-depth understanding and knowledge of at least two languages. Translating is an acquired skill. Professional translators need formal training to be able to write well and understand the subtleties of language use. Language is a cultural construct and if the professional translator fails to appreciate the culture context underneath a given language it is almost impossible to generate an accurate professional translation.

Professional translation is not a simple endeavor. A professional translator is not the proverbial monkey hitting at the keyboard to eventually come up with a properly translated text. Professional translation is a very time-consuming, intricate, complex and arduous professional activity. It requires simultaneously working with two different texts and can be mentally exhausting. A professional translator moves continuously back and forth between two languages and two mental structures. A professional translator needs to first read and process the information in the source language to be able to reflect it accurately in the target language.

Due to the popularity of some free online translation engines, some people tend to believe that it is perfectly possible nowadays to use a computer program to do translations without human intervention. The truth is that there is no machine translation program in existence able to grasp and accurately transfer the subtleties of human languages. Perhaps it is possible to informally use translation engines or computer programs to translate simple, straightforward phrases, but for the time being they are not able to tackle the complexities of more intricate texts.

It is possible to have a friend who is a native speaker of the target language do a quick and dirty informal translation of a small text. But any context that requires information to be accurately and professionally presented requires a professional translation by a professional translator. There simply is no other way. Inaccurate or unusable translations can cause many problems, including the involuntary presentation of inaccurate or misleading information which may have very serious legal consequences. At the very least, amateurish and incorrect translations reflect poorly on a business or organization. Just as you would go to a professional certified medical doctor if you have a serious medical condition, a professional translation services company who hires only professional translators is the way to go for professional translations.

Professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) are the only option if you are in the market for accurate, high quality professional translations.

Professional Translation Services – The Hallmarks of Truly Professional Translators

The professional translation service industry is highly competitive and challenging. In order to succeed, a professional translator needs more than just familiarity in a language pair. Here are some of the characteristics of successful linguistic experts.

The first and most obvious requirement is language skills. It goes without saying that professional translators must be fluent in at least one language besides their native tongue. A passing or informal knowledge is not enough. Language Translation as a professional service requires the systematic study of a foreign and/or second language. A university or equivalent degree on professional translation or related field may have been desirable a few years ago but in the current market is an absolute must.

A professional in the translation field needs to be curious by nature and possess excellent research skills. Contrary to public perception, professional translators are not walking dictionaries. Even generalists cannot be expected to be experts on every field and to be up to date on the latest terminology. Truly professional translators need to be very straightforward about the things they do know and the things they do not know and be able fill the gaps by researching for the appropriate terminology and information. Research can take many forms, from good old-fashioned paper and ink dictionaries and text books to the vast amounts of information on the Internet.

Professional translators need to be proficient with the latest translation tools, such as translation memory management and glossary creation and maintenance tools. At the very least, they should be advanced users of word processor programs, such as MS Word, and other tools such as the Adobe Acrobat suite.

In addition to possessing professional training on languages, a professional translator has to be highly proficient in written communication. Translating is essentially the transmission of meaning from one language to another. The professional translator has to be able to accurately and thoroughly deliver in the target language the same message expressed in the source language. Remember that good writing skills in one language are usually tied to very solid reading habits in the same language.

With globalization and the opening up of markets in different areas of the planet, professional translations are in very high demand from companies dealing with the most varied commercial activities. The more subjects, fields and industries professional translators can cover the more work they can potentially take. This does not mean professional translators have to improvise or pretend they can deal with professional translations covering any area of expertise. It means that professional translators have to stay current with the changes in the professional translation services industry and the needs of potential customers. Additionally, professional translators must be true experts in the fields they claim they can handle. Improvisation is a recipe for catastrophic failure and a sure sign of lack of professionalism.

Last but not least, it is important to always keep in mind that a translator may have graduated with honors from a very prestigious university but those credentials would mean very little without a proper professional attitude. What does it mean to be professional? It means approaching work with discipline and commitment. Professional translators work in the service industry. Professional translation requires the commitment to deliver the highest quality professional translations according to a previously agreed schedule. Professional translators should have very efficient time management skills and take only the amount of work they can professionally handle. Remember that while it is very nice to get paid for doing what we love, if it is a hobby is not professional translation.

Professional translators working for professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) understand that being a truly professional translator requires much more than bilingualism.

By: L. Amado 01/28/2010

Of the thousands of languages that exist in the world,1 only a few hundred are spoken by at least one million people. The top three languages by the number of native speakers are Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish. Languages are living, breathing organisms, constantly evolving and, as such, some are expanding and are some contracting. Languages are the bread and butter of professional translation services companies and their language translation experts need to stay as up to date as possible of changes and linguistic tendencies.

Most professional translators try to keep up with the changes in the world of languages, but, as with any other field, predicting the direction of change is an impossible task. Besides being the second language by the number of speakers, English in general and the American or US variety in particular has been the de facto lingua franca for almost a century. Will English manage to maintain its relative importance in the future?

It is very hard to tell. As an old professor at school used to put it, a language is as important as the people who speak it. English owes its status to the importance and extension of the British Empire and later to the ascent of the United States, initially as a world power and later as the sole superpower, and as a scientific, industrial and technological powerhouse.

Few experts doubt that, just as it happened to Latin, the day will come when some other language or group of languages will replace English as the de facto lingua franca. The question is when it will happen and what language or languages will take its place. Predictions are very hard to do. I still remember my university colleagues who decided to specialize in Russian during the 80s to suffer a major letdown after the end of the Cold War. Something similar happened with the Japanese language in the early 90s. Many people were convinced that Japan would soon overtake the United States as the world’s only superpower and Japanese would replace or at least seriously challenge the status of English. Now, due to dynamism of the Chinese society, the major contender seems to be Mandarin Chinese. Time will tell.

In any event, besides the natural decline of the relative importance of English-speaking societies, there are at least two major threats to the supremacy of the English language. One of them is linguistic nationalism, or the desire of many countries and regions in the world to defend and preserve their languages. Many of them have in place very strict language laws to promote the national language. The other major challenge is demographics. Birth rates in English speaking countries are generally lower than those in countries or societies with other languages.

We can now safely say that we are almost living a dual existence: the real world and the virtual world, or the world of Internet. It is interesting to note that to a certain extent the virtual world of Internet replicates the real world, as far as language usage is concerned. Most estimates indicate that English is the most widely used language by Internet users, followed by Chinese and Spanish. Not surprisingly, the ten languages with the most speakers cover more than 80% of the total number of internet users. Far from promoting uniformity, globalization, with its revolution on the availability of faster and cheaper transportation and easier communications, has created the opportunity for many languages to thrive. Easier communications and more readily available transportation mean that interaction between different linguistic groups will definitely grow.

Does the above mean that professional translators need to ditch English studies and start taking Mandarin Chinese classes? Not at all. It simply means that professional translators working for professional translation services companies such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) need to stay current with the needs and requirements of the professional translation services market.

1The most extensive catalog of the world’s languages, generally taken to be as authoritative as any, is that of the Ethnologue organization (http://www.ethnologue.com), whose detailed classified list currently includes 6,809 distinct languages.

By: L. Amado 01/28/2010

Languages are systems to encode and decode information. Human or natural languages are cultural constructs; they are arbitrary and based on convention. They not only reflect but effectively shape the way we see reality. The main function of human language is communication and all human language carries meaning. But since all communication and meaning take place in a given environment, context plays a major role.

At its core, translation – whether amateur or professional translation – involves understanding the meaning of a text in a given language and producing an equivalent text that communicates the same meaning in another language. The language of the text to be translated is known as the source language and the language that it is to be translated into is called the target language.

Before translating, the translator needs to understand the meaning of a text. To do so, the translator has to take context into consideration. Context refers to the total environment in which a word, phrase, or sentence appears. Context is very important because we do not translate words in isolation but rather words bound by their syntactic, situational and cultural contexts. We can safely say that for most practical purposes context determines the meaning of a text.

Take the word “bat” in English. It can be used as a noun or as a verb. In the sentences “He hit the ball with the bat” and “The bat flew into the night”, the term is used as the same part of speech, a noun, but with two completely different meanings. In the first sentence, we are talking about a wooden or metallic club, in the second about a winged, furry, nocturnal mammal. Things get more complicated when we consider “bat” as a verb. For example, “He will bat next” (meaning to strike with a bat) or “She did not bat an eyelid” (informal, to blink).

According to pragmatics, the subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context influences meaning, there are two primary types of context with relevance to meaning: linguistic (sometimes also referred to as verbal) and situational (or social).

Linguistic context refers to all the linguistic factors which influence or shape the meaning of the text. Words or lexical units in a text do not occur in isolation; they interact with other words and the text as a whole. Most words have more than one meaning or category and translators need to understand the way in which they are used. The best way to find the particular meaning of a word is to look into the context.

Situational context refers to the non-linguistic factors which influence or shape the meaning of a text. The same sentence or statement used in different circumstances may have quite different or even opposite meanings. Situational factors may include the body language of the speaker and the hearer in oral communication, and the social, political, moral, cultural and economical environment. Other factors to take into account are conventions, value systems, religious beliefs and even ideology.

Experienced professional and certified translators working for professional translation services companies such as such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) are well aware that they do not translate words in isolation, but rather words with meanings determined by linguistic and situational context and that developing context awareness is one of the most important requisites for a professional translator.

By: L. Amado – 01/25/2010

If you are in the market for a translation, there are basically two ways to go. You could either opt for what is known as “machine translation” (sometimes abbreviated as “MT”) or for human translation. Call me a conservative, but I can tell you right away that there is no contest here. Good old-fashioned human translation is simply the only option if you are looking for high quality (correct and accurate) professional translation services.

What does “machine translation” mean? You have probably seen it before. In its more popular versions, it takes the form of online translation engines or computer programs which can be installed on a PC. In either case the result is an automated translation created exclusively with some sort of computer software, with no intervention from a human translator, professional certified or otherwise. Translation software uses algorithms and relies mainly on language usage statistics and word substitution. At its core, automated translation is an attempt to simplify human language and it very seldom, if ever, produces a viable and usable translation.

The main issue with this type of approach is that human languages are very sophisticated and complex constructs. They cannot be reduced to their bare bones without significantly hindering communication. It would take considerable advances in artificial intelligence to develop a software program able to grasp the extremely complex subtleties of human languages. Therefore, for the conceivable future, my favorite Star Trek gadget, the “universal translator”, will remain exclusively in the realm of science fiction.

Professional human translations, on the other hand, are created exclusively by professional certified human translators. They rely on extensive knowledge of both the source and target languages and the ability to naturally recognize and incorporate all the subtleties of human languages, taking into account such considerations as the cultural context, intended market, domain, target audience, etc.

Nowadays, it is common for professional certified human translators to use professional translation tools, such as translation memory management tools, to aid them with their work. They are known as “computer-assisted translation” (sometimes abbreviated as “CAT”) tools.

Just as using a word processor was a huge leap forward in productivity from using a typewriter, the use of computer tools can have a very positive impact on the quality of professional human translations.

“Computer-assisted translation” tools are used by professional human translators in order to have quick access to more accurate glossaries and terminology lists. They also allow professional certified human translators to develop their own glossaries and lexicons according to the requirements of the professional translation process. They are not suitable for all types of professional translation projects, but can have a considerable impact on productivity and consistency, especially in complex professional translation projects with higher word counts.

Truly professional translation services providers such as ASTA-USA Translation Services (www.asta-usa.com) and its legal division Legal Translation Solutions (www.legaltranslationsolutions.com) offer exclusively human translations done by professional certified human translators, assisted by the latest and most productivity-enhancing tools of the trade.