Your Favourite Translator Is on Holiday. What Now?

If you order translations regularly, then you might notice that their quality can diminish in summer. You’re not alone! This is quite common. The ordinarily perfect translations may suddenly need a lot more revision. So why does this happen?

Even translators need days off

Just like everyone else, your go-to translators take some days off during summer.

If you’ve become accustomed to a particular translator’s style and expression, then it contributes to how you assess and review their translations. This means that even a terminologically and grammatically sound translation might appear inadequate. Translators covering your regulars simply lack the specific experience with your texts.

Even though many clients think individual translators are replaceable, that hardly applies ubiquitously. Nor is it always that simple.

Let’s discuss why that happens. Moreover, we’ll advise you on handling your favourite translator’s holiday without any major turbulence.

Translators are part of your brand

Just like with any other author, lyricist or copywriter, a translated text carries the stylistic imprint of its translator. Marketers usually focus on the choice of words, style, and impression that their text must leave. A good translator thinks in the same way.

Translators are also brand specialists

After a translator has worked on multiple projects for you, they gradually become familiar with your products, services, and terminology. They also learn to understand your thought processes, company culture, and the principal ideas on which your company stands. This develops them into a brand specialist and, in effect, your team member. Therefore, the more they learn about your company, the better their translations will be.

Translators pool resources that improve translation quality

To have “your own” translator taking care of all your texts is incredibly beneficial. Besides being deeply familiar with your specific needs, they can continually update the term bases and the databases of past translations. In turn, this enables them to work faster and more effectively.

On the other hand, this can prove somewhat detrimental if you cooperate directly with just one translator. If they become unavailable for some time – going on holiday or some other reason – then you risk losing quality in your translations. This is due to the following reasons:

• you can lose these resources,
• they can’t be accessed by reviewers, proofreaders etc.,
• you can’t use them as you please,
• and sharing them is slow and manual.

3 tips to prepare you for your translator’s holiday

But let’s get to the centre of this. What can you do to avoid complications when your translator goes on holiday?

1. Compose a company communication manual

Assemble a style guide, company term base and possibly a marketing brief. Create these on your own, with a translator’s help, a translation agency or have your translator do it for you.

These materials will be crucial not only when translators go on holiday, but also when you want to cooperate with other translators or work with other languages. Each language has its own idiosyncrasies, but translators can apply some of the characteristics and tone of voice to their translations.

2. Provide context and references to new translators

A translator who hasn’t worked with you (in the long-term) won’t know the context when first encountering your texts. Even well-known terms can vary in meaning across different contexts, and your company may even maintain a list of preferred/banned ones.

That is why it’s best practice to give the translator as many reference materials as possible in addition to the original text. For example, if you need a translation of a brief presentation on your product, then provide the translator with everything you have about it: a user guide, technical documentation, instructional videos, etc. They might not be translating these specific texts, but they’ll be crucial reference points. This access to more materials provides them with a broader perspective of the product overall. Comprehending the wider context also enables them to correctly understand a shorter text and translate it better.

3. Utilise translation resources (effectively)

We recommend asking the translator to share their translation memory and term base with you. This will save a lot of time for the new translator and help maintain the translation quality.

Professional translation agency will manage the translation resources for you, using specialised software to store the information centrally and back it up. This safeguards your company data and makes it readily accessible to you and other translators, reviewers and proofreaders. The agency will process your translations continually, and you won’t need to wait for your translator to return from holiday.

Want to learn more about how a centralised translation management approach can help your business? Feel free to contact us!