When it comes to selecting translation providers, a frequent practice is to compare between freelancers and translation agencies. In this blog, we will share some major comparisons between freelancers and translation agencies, to help provide insights into your selection process. There are usually a few key factors that affect the client’s decision-making process, namely cost, requirements, quality, turnaround time, and security involved in a translation assignment.

Translation Cost and Requirements

It is commonly believed that freelancers charge less than translation agencies. You need to take the following into consideration, in order to achieve a fair comparison:

Since the freelancers work on an individual basis, their costs usually cover either only translation or editing, while the translation agency’s rate covers the full cycle of tasks e.g., translation + editing + proofreading, which involve the efforts of more than one linguist.

Apart from the linguist’s tasks, the translation agency also includes other tasks that are beyond a freelancer’s capability.

1. Engineering Tasks: Translation agencies handle engineering tasks that are involved in helping the client maintain a translation memory, if there are ongoing translation requirements, thus achieving consistency and quality in the long run. For web and software localization projects, Engineering can perform tasks related to importing and exporting content, online QA, and troubleshooting.
2. Centralized Translation Memory Management: Individual freelancers might not have the capacity to manage individual translation memories, and even if they do, they maintain their own language data. The translation agency, on the other hand, can manage the translation memories of all the languages the client requests.
3. Desktop Publishing Tasks: if your translation requires formatting or desktop publishing that involves the usage of certain tools such as Adobe InDesign, Word, Illustrator., etc., your freelancers might not be able to help. Of course, you can source another freelance DTP team to handle this, but it would cause your extra time and energy to manage these.
4. Project Management Tasks: The translation agency will manage all languages, tasks, and vendors under one project. This will include project planning and scheduling, determining if glossary and style guide development are needed, assigning, and managing all vendors (they already have a pool of vetted linguists), budgeting, and invoicing. This provides you with a stress-free process and an expert managing the translation process.

Translation Quality

Professional translation agencies will include quality assurance (QA) steps in their translation workflow before the delivery of a project. This workflow can include the usage of preliminary QA tool verifications, post-DTP QA of a formatted document, Online QA of web pages, or QA testing of software/apps.

This includes a review of the translation in the actual context after it is added to a document/webpage/app. This crucial step ensures that the translations are correct in the actual context, thus the client can use it straight away after receiving the translation.

Translation agencies also apply specific standards when recruiting linguists, such as academic qualifications, professional translation experience, subject matter experts, and technical knowledge. Most agencies also require linguists go to complete evaluations prior to qualifying them.

Translation Turnaround Time

If you are looking for translation only by 1 individual linguist, the turnaround time between a freelancer and a translation agency is the same since standard production metrics of linguists are fixed (e.g., a linguist should translate no more than 2500 words daily).

However, as mentioned above, if after the translation, there are other tasks required such as editing/proofreading, desktop publishing, or quality assurance steps, the turnaround time will increase accordingly.

The difference between translation agencies and freelancers is that translation agencies usually work with fixed teams of professional linguists which means they are able to handle larger volume projects in a more organized and effective manner.

For instance, if you have a 200k word project that is needed in a short turnaround time, a translation agency will set up a workflow to have it translated by a team of translators and have the translation reviewed/approved by an editor to ensure consistency and quality. This increases the efficiency and capacity to meet the project requirements and deadline while ensuring quality.

Translation Security and Confidentiality

Data management security and confidentiality have always been an important topic. Weak security measures may lead to a data breach of your information and cause damage and loss to your business. Therefore, when selecting a translation partner, you need to ask about their security measurements.

For freelancers and agencies, clients can execute confidentiality agreements to ensure their information is secured. However, for document and data handling and storage, freelancers might not have the ideal conditions to minimize security risks.

Professional translation agencies, on the other hand, should have dedicated security departments that handle and maintain all security requirements for core policies, procedures, guidelines, and associated resources and activities, to ensure the integrity of client data.

To summarize, when you have a translation requirement and are deciding between using freelancers or translation agencies, you can look into the above topics as an initial assessment to help you establish the best plan and practice that suits your budget, scope, and requirements.

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The Russian community has been expanding in Dubai since the beginning of 2022 due to the Russian government invading Ukrainian territories. Statistics show that Russians took 1.2 million trips to the United Arab Emirates last year.

Dubai: A Welcoming Hub for Russian Entrepreneurs

Nowadays, settling down and starting up a business in Western Europe is difficult due to the various sanctions and restrictions. On the contrary, Dubai has been very supportive in this situation, welcoming Russians and giving them the opportunities to start over, pursuing new business possibilities and potential growth.

Russian Businesses Flourish in Dubai: A Gateway to New Ventures

Among the city’s beachfront, shopping malls, and residential neighborhoods, Russian is becoming a lingua franca. Russian real estate businesses are slowly launching their branches in Dubai, Russian restaurateurs are renting spaces to open their dining venues, and Russian local brands are relocating to Dubai; opening brick-and-mortar shops and expanding their online presence.

Any business that is venturing into the UAE market can benefit from professional translation services, helping clearly communicate the right message to the target audience. Promotional marketing materials, digital ad copies, SEO campaigns, software, websites, and video footage translated into Russian will strengthen client relationships, and influence the understanding and decision-making with the potential guest, customer, or buyer.

The Power of Professional Translation Services for Tapping into the Russian Market

There are a few vital aspects to consider when choosing to work with a professional translation agency.

It is essential to find an agency that is aware of the cultural differences and uses subject matter-trained linguists, who are native speakers with translation degrees.

Knowing the audience and the tone of voice helps linguists to communicate in a more appealing way and translate with a culture in mind. Any sort of brand guidelines and stylistic guides will just reinforce that message, making it clearer and easy to read.

Glossary – the safe box of all industry and company-related abbreviations, acronyms, and keywords. This should be created and translated by a subject matter specialist to ensure accuracy. Once the client approves the glossary, it will be applied and followed in the projects moving forward by your agency.

Ensure that the translation company you collaborate with provides translation, editing, and proofreading. It is standard to have a second pair of eyes review translated content from a linguistic point of view – this eliminates errors and adds additional measures of quality control.

Work with an agency that will manage your translation memory (TM). Maintaining translations in a TM is like money in the bank. It will serve you literally like a bank of all your translations that you can leverage long-term. By managing time efficiently, reducing costs by leveraging previous translations, and ensuring content consistency, a well-maintained TM is invaluable.

Now, going to the challenge of working with the Russian language! Keep in mind that Russian letters are Cyrillic, and the length of Russian text can be approximately 15% longer than the English source. Planning a layout for your content to accommodate translations in advance will save time and money.

Paying attention to punctuation is key to the way the Russian will sound. Russians use completely different punctuation rules.

Russian translations cannot be done word for word from the English context, as the grammatical order is not the same. To avoid literal translations, native Russian speakers will be able to accurately adapt English content to Russian with accuracy.

Conclusion: Unlocking Business Potential with Professional Russian Translation

To conclude, partnering with a professional translation agency helps businesses communicate and attract Russian audiences in Dubai without the fear of the original message’s meaning being distorted. Through a successful partnership, translating English content into Russian will lead to new business and customers, influence revenue growth, and help increase website traffic and rankings.

Hopefully, you will find this blog beneficial to read, and you will look to expand your business in the UAE market, engaging the growing Russian population as business prospect.

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French Language Origins

Nowadays, the French language belongs to the Indo-European language group, and it is classified as a Romance language, which indicates its derivation from Latin. Of course, the spoken French of today did not appear right away but was the result of a millennium of being spoken, written, and revitalized with new vocabulary and changing grammar.

The first written language appearing in documents in France was Gaulish. The Gauls were people who lived in Western Europe and were called the Celts.

In 58 BC, Julius Caesar started the Roman invasion of Gaul and took over the territory of what is now France, also including parts of modern Switzerland and Germany.

Since the Celts did not possess their own alphabet, the earliest writings in Old Gaulish, which date back to the 3rd century BC, were transcribed using the Greek alphabet.

After the Gauls were conquered by the Romans and took part in the Roman Empire, Latin became an official language.

In the 5^th century, Germanic tribes took over most of Gaul’s territories and established the dynasty of kings called Merovingian. There the people spoke Frankish, which belonged to the Indo-European languages.

The Emergence of Old French and Middle Ages French came a long time after. By the time the 10^th century approached, the Romance languages in France were already set.

French Language Locales

Roughly 3 billion individuals around the globe speak French. There are over 30 Francophone countries worldwide, it is the only language other than English spoken as a native or first language on all five continents.

Apart from French spoken in France, there are many other locales such as Canadian French, Swiss and Belgian French, African French (Creol), and even Indian French, spoken by Indians in the previous colonies of Mahe, Pondicherry, Karaikal, Chandernagore, and Yanam in Southern India.

French Localization Opportunities and Challenges

Nowadays, 4% of internet content is in French as it became one of the most used languages for business communication. For translation agencies offering website localization services, this is a good business opportunity.

Companies wanting to target French audiences should be aware that there are challenges, and engaging the services of a translation services provider experienced in translating for French markets is recommended.

As there are variations in the English language spoken in different countries, similarly, there is a difference in the French spoken in France, Belgium, the Middle East, Africa, and Canada.

Moreover, there is a difference in culture and grammar – this is why businesses should employ a professional translation agency. Depending on the target audience, the document or website must be translated into the French language of that audience. By working with a professional translation agency, you can be assured that the translators (who are native speakers of the target language) assigned to the project are experienced in the company’s industry and the style of the content.

Due to the nature of languages, each varies in its length and sentence structure. In the French language, which is approximately 15–20% longer than the original English text. This is important to be aware of when preparing the source documents or GUI (graphical user interface). Too-tight text layouts may not leave room for the longer French translation, which means the copy will either need to be in a smaller font size or need to flow to the following pages. For GUI’s, it is important to make adjustments so that the expanded text will show properly, or, if there are character limits, detail those at the project start to save time and money. Both English and French have different styles of grammar – be it the syntax, gender, verbs, and other aspects of grammar, there is a huge difference. Likewise, there is a tremendous variation in terms of subject-verb-object structure. French is a two-gender language, however, there is no specific rule, and knowing what nouns are feminine can be confusing. This situation is similar in verbs and adjectives. A native-speaking French translator will know these types of differences and work accordingly on the translation.

While it may be tempting to control costs using one of your employees who speaks French, it may not be the best approach. Professional translators translate full-time (they leave and breathe words), and most importantly are native speakers of the target language and live in-country. This is crucial as languages develop over time and by being immersed in the country, the translator is up to date with the language in its current state.

Conclusion

As mentioned above, there are millions of French speakers worldwide. As globalization has grown, the need to target markets in their native language has proven to increase market share and as a result, ROI. But companies need to plan smartly to target these regions and this needs to occur at project start. By preparing content, software, and websites with the anticipation it will be localized for global markets, you can save time by developing them properly from the beginning. If you are not sure what that entails, partner with a qualified translation service provider. They will have the expertise to guide you in solid internationalization and localization practices and will have vetted qualified professional translators for your industry and content type.

Reference:

• French Language History
• French Dialects, Varieties, Creoles, and Accents Across the World

The post French Translation Services appeared first on Globalization Partners International.

Throughout history, translation has played a significant role in communicating culture and knowledge between people. Students, scholars, and religious figures have traveled between countries and borders to transfer the sciences of astronomy, arithmetic, agriculture, religious beliefs, and cultures into other languages.

This is something that has occurred between all civilizations and people, and it still happens today, though advances in translation technology have greatly facilitated the process.

As translation has become mainstream with the development of a robust global economy, there is a greater need for professional translators.

Professional Translators

Translation is not simply the conversion of one language to another. It is a mixture of science, art, and skill.

Let us emphasize the word professional. Simply speaking a language is not enough to provide professional translations.

Basic Translator Skills

The translator must:

• Be fluent in both the target and source languages, including grammar. As a rule, a professional translator should only translate into their native language. Translations should read as if they were originally written in the target language, a native speaker is more apt to produce this quality of translation. Additionally, living in-country or frequently visiting, allows the translator to stay current with changes in the language.
• Be familiar with the culture of the people of the two languages. This will enable the translator to correctly translate the content from one language to another. If the source text is full of idioms, the translator needs to understand how to convey the meaning to the target audience.
• Be a subject matter expert (SME) of the text to be translated. It is advisable for a professional translator to choose a specialty or related specialties. It is impossible to translate all topics, and listing too many specialties on your resume can actually be a flag to the agency reviewing your credentials. If you love marketing, specialize in marketing, and if gaming is your passion, translate for the gaming industry. Many times, a person will study a topic in college and then decide to become a translator and specialize in that field.

As a translator, you need to stay current with industry terminology which is easier when you specialize.

• Have a literary sense to be able to translate literary texts properly and adequately.
• Be able to adapt or transcreate expressions that may seem unimportant, incomprehensible to the culture, or unacceptable in the religion. Translations should read as if they were originally written in the target language. As a translator, you can offer your cultural expertise to the client if the content needs to be adapted to the Arab culture.
• Be very familiar with the holy books and texts, as you may be required to brief or rephrase, using quotes from the Qur’an, the Bible, or the Torah.
• Ask questions and research. If you do not understand something in the source file, do the research and/or ask the question, get the clarity you need in order to accurately translate.
• Review your work. Before you hit send and deliver your project, reread your translation, is it complete, did you adhere to the glossary and/or the translation memory, did you check spelling, grammar, and punctuation?
• Have a well-developed resume. While you may not be able to say who you have translated for, you can specify the type of translations, subject matters, and volume of translations. Be as specific as possible and avoid irrelevant or even not enough information. Your resume is your billboard, market yourself well.

Practical Training

In addition to formal education in translation and continuing learning classes, the modern translator also needs to learn the tools of the localization industry. With the rise of computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, translators need to develop their skills and capabilities and be familiar with or master some of the mainstream tools such as MateCAT, OmegaT, SmartCAT, MemoQ, Poedit, Wordfast, and Trados. It is also recommended to become familiar with platforms like Smartling, GlobalLink, and GPI Translation Portal. You will not be able to have all the different applications as this is cost prohibitive, so research or ask your peers what systems they recommend. As you become more established, you can make investments and purchase a program. If the company is using a translation management system (TMS) they may offer direct training.

Unfortunately, the current learning curriculums in many translation schools are focused on the basic preparation of a good translator. Still, it is not making them ready for the translation market.

Currently, there is no dedicated department for localization engineering and translation technologies in Middle East Universities.

So, the current top-performing Arabic translators in the translation market gained this additional experience by themselves after their education or perhaps sought their education at other universities.

Conclusion

Just because you speak a language does not make you qualified to be a translator. You need to have a passion for language and specialize in an industry so that you are a subject matter expert. A professional translator generally translates full-time, though starting out, you may need another job while building your portfolio. Perhaps you are lucky, and that job is in the industry you want to specialize in. Many agencies prefer translators with at least five years of translation experience.

Translation takes practice and dedication. If you are just starting out or thinking about a career in translation, look for translator groups to join and learn more about the localization industry. Look for volunteer translation organizations such as Translators without Borders, volunteering is a great way to gain experience and build your resume.

If the information we’ve provided is applied to several translation courses, imagine how much information they will transfer to the target language in a particular field. Also, imagine how much time scholars and scientists could save by only studying the translated text rather than translating it themselves. This will increase the number of scholars in the nation that is studying that field and lead to qualitative advances in that field, which means prosperity and progress for the people, and all this is thanks to translation.

In our next blog, we will cover some essential tips for translators who decide to work as individuals based on experience gathered from current senior Arabic freelance translators with hands-on experience in the field.

References

• The Role of Translator in Intercultural Communication
• Introduction: Science and Practices of Translation
• Training Translators

The post Preparing to be a Professional Arabic Translator appeared first on Globalization Partners International.

In a recent report, it is estimated about 5.16 billion people used the Internet for various purposes at the start of 2023. You would be surprised to know that these people are among the 64 percent (approximately) of our world’s total population.

Experts are estimating that two-thirds of our population will be using or have access to the Internet by the end of 2023. These mind-blowing statistics are more than enough for any business to declare that ‘’Content’’ is going to be the most vital factor for revenue generation for any company in the coming years. However, will creating highly creative and engaging content in only English or one particular language suffice? Probably not. Do you know that only 1.5 billion speak English across the globe? That is why top global companies translate their content into multiple languages targeting international markets to garner the most engagement and attention for their brands, products, etc.

Finding a Translation Partner

Over the years, companies have realized that it is now their customers who drive their strategy and plans with regard to content. To keep up with these customers across the globe, translations are now considered to be one of the most important marketing tools, for not only driving traffic to their website but also increasing their brand/product awareness through marketing collaterals, advertisement banners, social media posts, etc. But finding the right partner for your translations could be difficult if you have not worked with one before.

In a recent study, it was estimated that there are approximately 1.8 million translators across the globe. Thus, qualifying one that meets your company’s and reviewers’ expectations to produce optimal quality translations within a specific budget is challenging.

For one language, you can expect to need 2-3 translators to perform the various tasks, plus, depending on the format of the translations, you may need desktop specialists to typeset the translations. Based on the multiple facets of translation and vetting qualified resources, a professional language service provider (LSP) can manage these tasks for you.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Translation Partner

To identify the right partner for translations, there are some key factors to consider:

• Look for an ISO-certified and professional translation agency.
• Qualify whether the translation partner you choose has expertise within your field/subject matter and if they can provide any references/case studies.
• Are they using localization tools and best practices such as Glossary Creation, Translation Memory (TM), Online QA, etc?
• Are the translations performed by professional, native-speaking (of the target language), and subject matter experts? Not all who speak the language are good at writing or translating the content.
• Confirm if they are familiar with key terminologies within your industry and are willing to get on calls to discuss the style, tone of voice, and preferences of the translations.

While these factors may seem a lot to verify for simple document translations, please remember – every content that is out there with your company logo/name represents you. The benefits of working with an LSP will serve you in the long run by helping save money on repeated content, shorter turnaround times, optimum quality of translations, and SEO rankings.

Working with a Translation Company in the UAE

UAE is a country with an 88.52% of expat population, thus, companies in this region have a deeper understanding of every cultural aspect, buying patterns, customer behavior, etc. While these factors also play an important role within the translation industry, it will always be an added advantage for companies to work with translation agencies that are experienced in this particular region.

UAE’s laws have set great expectations for each of their licensed companies to be able to meet clients’ requirements through the optimum quality of deliveries. Hence, any UAE-based company will always ensure to meet the client’s expectations to the best of their ability and comply with the service laws and regulations within the country.

In recent years, UAE has welcomed and acquired the best talents from across the world providing them with short/long-term visas to be able to work from the country. This allows top localization professionals across the globe to travel to UAE for work and be able to serve not only the clients in UAE, but across the globe and different time zones. Especially for languages like Arabic, UAE has certain certifications and qualification requirements for any translator to be able to provide translations legally, hence, companies always prefer working with UAE-licensed translation companies for translating any of their legal, general, marketing, or website-related content, to name a few.

Conclusion:

While UAE is a country with a large number of expats and English-speaking individuals, it is still one of the most popular tourist countries in the world. So businesses can always be driven by not only targeting the residents that speak English but, by planning ahead of your competitors, translating your content for your targeted markets, and having a cutting-edge benefit to winning business. You can also review our blog on ‘’what to look for when selecting a translation company’’ to start on the right foot.

References:
Digital Around the World — DataReportal

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Nigerian Language Translation

Nigeria is a linguistically diverse country; therefore, language is a solid point which must be understood when doing business in Nigeria. Understanding Nigerian languages and how they are interpreted is important, to prevent miscommunication of organizational values, and the product or service being presented.

As a firm seeking to enter a foreign market, your main focus should be on localization. If you are localizing in Nigeria, translating your website and social content for the Nigerian market is crucial.

It is recommended to get started with Nigerian language translation for your content as soon as possible. This is because the stakes are high for Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa.

Main Languages to Translate into

There are approximately 525 languages spoken in Nigeria. With such an amount of language diversity, the languages spoken by the majority are just three (3), Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.

·        Yoruba

This is the language spoken by the Yoruba people of Nigeria, located mostly in the South-Western part of the country.  The language is a Yoruboid language under the Volta-congo subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family.

·        Igbo

This language is mostly spoken in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria. Unlike most ethnic groups, the Igbos are the tribe most spread across different states in the country. Approximately 30 million people speak the Igbo language, it belongs to the Nuclear Igboid subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family.

Currently, English is slowly relegating the language, but most Igbo families are still upholding the tradition of speaking their native tongue to their children.

·        Hausa

Hausa is the language of the majority in the northern part of Nigeria. The estimated number of native speakers of the language is 50 million speakers. The language belongs to the West-Chadic subgroup under all Afroasiatic languages, and there are also more than 45 million people who speak Hausa as their second language.

Hausa is the most spoken language in West Africa and can be adapted for other countries with Hausa speakers. In what might be good news for middle eastern organizations who are aiming to localize their content to the Northern parts.  About one-fourth of the entire Hausa vocabulary, is adapted from Arabic.

Nigerian language translation is a tedious task. Therefore, getting the services of a Nigerian language translation company would go a long way to ensure proper understanding.

Statistics on Consumers in the Nigerian Market

Being the giant of Africa (with approximately 218 million people), successfully entering the Nigerian market would yield positive results. Below are some statistics that analyze how consumers behave in Nigeria.

According to a Geopoll survey and research;

Social media influences affect 27% of people to purchase a product.

Friends affect an estimated 24% of consumers.

Families prompt 23% of consumers to buy a product and ethnic groups only have a 4% influence on people’s purchasing decisions.

These findings show how influential word-of-mouth is among the top influencers, whether it comes from friends, family, or social media. Due to the high response rate for social media’s influence on preferences, social media advertising has the potential to be a successful method of market penetration.

Thus, any business that can combine these modes of reaching out to consumers will be able to boost the likelihood of its success.

Features for Websites Nigerian Consumers Use

Nigeria has about  32.9 million active internet users. Therefore, Creating a website that would grab the attention of visitors is an important thing to do for any business that wants to create an online presence that can generate revenue for the company in return.

After careful analysis of Nigeria’s most used social media platforms, these are a few of the features Nigerians prioritize in a website.

• Relatability: how Facebook, Whatsapp, and Nairaland got into the Nigerian market is by making their product relatable. Coca-cola performed some specific additions to their product’s name to reflect the Nigerian culture also.
• Quick Customer Support: like Netflix, the majority of the fintech brands employed this method to outpace their competitors, as customer response is a very important aspect.

Most Popular Social Channels Used by Nigerian Consumers

The wave of better internet usage is hitting Nigeria, and more people are beginning to use the internet. But while there are only 32.9 million active users, more than 90 million people are using the internet but not actively.

In 2022, Facebook users in Nigeria were far more numerous than WhatsApp users. This year, it is anticipated that there would be just over 36 million active Facebook users, or a user penetration rate of about 16.7 percent. Additionally, given its user base, Facebook could potentially advertise to almost 26 million individuals online.

YouTube is the most popular video hosting site in Nigeria. With more than 2 million videos available each day and more than 400 million views every minute.  YouTube is a popular social network among Nigerians. The number of platform users in 2022 is predicted to be close to 6.7 million.

Instagram continues to be one of the most important social media platforms in Nigeria due to its massive user base and reach. It is also one of Africa’s largest social networking sites, with more than 500 million active members per month.

This is the rank of the most used social media platforms in Nigeria;

1. Facebook
2. Whatsapp
3. Instagram
4. Facebook Manager
5. Twitter
6. Telegram
7. Snapchat
8. Tiktok
9. Linkedin
10. Pinterest

These social media platforms can be used to test the level of acceptance of your product by people, and it can be performed even before Nigerian language translation and interpretation.

Conclusion

Nigeria is a country with unique qualities and people. Tapping into the existing market can easily be done by localizing your content for the people, and employing Nigerian translation companies. This would significantly increase the acceptance rate for your product or service.

References

• Hausa Language
• Igbo Language
• Customer Behavior in Nigeria
• Nigeria Population
• Most used Social media Platforms in Nigeria

The post Translating your Website and Social Content for the Nigerian Market appeared first on Globalization Partners International.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an independent, non-governmental organization, is the governing body that develops standards – the best practices for a process or service. When you see companies that are ISO-certified, it means that they have adopted the practices laid out in a specific ISO (for their industry or product) and have proven to a certifying agency (not ISO) that they are following the standards laid out in a specific ISO. This is not a one-time certification, it requires a company to comply and illustrate, through an independent audit at periodic intervals, their adherence to the standard to achieve recertification.

Why is this important for a Language Service Provider (LSP)?

It means, that any LSP that achieves ISO certification for ISO 17100 Translation Services Management System, follows the international best practices for translation services. These best practices, designed by leading industry experts, are designed to achieve the highest level of translation quality by following a standard process that includes quality checks.

An ISO-certified LSP has a competitive advantage over non-certified providers – consumers are more likely to engage with a certified vendor since they have proven to follow standard quality processes. Some clients may require ISO certification as part of the bid application which means a greater number of opportunities for ISO-certified LPS than those who are not certified.

Why is ISO certification important for translation consumers?

It is often said that translation is an art, not a science, and in some respects this is true. There are specific grammar and punctuation rules for a language that must be followed, but how content is translated, the tone and style are not as exact because there is more than one way to express the same content.

The first crucial step to a quality translation is a quality translation team. ISO has established the minimum requirements for an ISO-compliant translator:

1. A recognized graduate qualification in translation, linguistics, or language studies or an equivalent degree that includes significant translation training, from a recognized institution of higher education.
2. A recognized graduate qualification in any other field from a recognized institution of higher education PLUS a minimum of two years of full-time professional experience in translating.
3. A minimum of five years of full-time professional experience in translating.

How does ISO 17100 standard help achieve the best translation quality?

By laying out the steps (defining who performs the tasks), that a translation should follow, to ensure the best quality. From pre-project planning, through translation and editing/proofreading, and client delivery and review. This system of checks and balances helps ensure that content is translated completely and accurately.

ISO 17100 certification shows that an LSP follows an international standard of best practices for all facets of translation. It clearly defines and standardizes roles, responsibilities, and processes, all crucial factors to translation success.

Conclusion

While ISO certification provides confidence to the buyer, it also opens the market for the certified LSP by providing them with a competitive edge over their non-certified competitors. In addition to increased market share, an LSP that adheres to ISO standards is following the “best practices” of the localization industry to facilitate producing the highest quality product, which is of benefit to the company and its clients.

Globalization Partners International is an ISO certified (ISO 17100) company that complies to a specific process designed to provide the best in quality translation services.

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