You have a doc to translate. You’ve decided to try and hire a freelance translator like me, or to ask for a quote from a translation agency you found on Google. But then, you didn’t like the idea of letting them read your company’s stuff. Or the quote was much higher than you thought (want to know why? Read here!). So, you’ve changed your mind: you’ll have someone in your staff translate that file.
That’s fine with me, I totally get it! However, I’d like to help you anyway and warmly suggest you keep a few important things in mind.
Create a special team
You should identify a person or a small team that will handle all your translations. This won’t only provide you with a “single source” for your linguistic needs, but will also ensure that your texts feature a consistent lexicon and style.
Make sure they know what they’re doing
The person/s you will entrust with this task should at the very least know your industry terminology and have some translation skills. Knowing a foreign language is often not enough to be able to produce flawless, enjoyable texts that sound as if they’ve been written by a native. Ultimately, you may want to hire in-house translators to make sure they have everything covered.
Create/give them access to the right resources
Another way to make sure that your documents, marketing materials, etc. are consistent, the translator/s will need access to relevant and/or similar texts translated in the past, any glossaries, and possibly to your company’s style guide. If you don’t have one, consider creating one with them to define the typical jargon, tone, and style of your documents.
Help them with the right technologies
Consider investing in state-of-the-art translation technologies, beginning with a CAT Tool (i.e. computer-assisted translation software). I’ve written a bit about these technologies in this post
Now, does that sound overwhelming?
That’s because you can’t improvise translation, just as you can’t improvise website design or bookkeeping. Want to (re)consider the option to hire someone else to take care of all this? Let me know how can I help you.