The Fine Art of Working With a Translation Agency

And your priorities are quite clear: fast, perfect and, most importantly, cheap. Received wisdom, however, holds that you can have one, maybe two, of those qualities, but never, ever, all three.

I shall, of course, beg to differ, based immodestly on my own many years of toiling in the trade. I can assure you that all three are possible with Acute Translations.

There are several vital steps, however, for ensuring a happy outcome. The first is to understand your role in the transaction. You are the client, you have a job (“project”) which needs to be done, and you require someone (a “provider”) to do it for you.

But first you have some work to do.

Have a peek at your project, and ask it a few questions.

How many words are involved? Most software programs, like Word, have a word count mechanism.

What is the nature of the text – legal, financial, medical, technical, marketing, academic?

What is your sense as to level of difficulty? Would it require someone with extensive knowledge of a specific field, or could it be handled by someone with a good general background?

What is the format of the text ( the “source document”): Word Document, PDF, Excel, PowerPoint, a website, hard copy?

Do you have someone in-house who can handle proofreading and/or editing?

What is your realistic deadline (preferably somewhere between tomorrow at 9 AM and when you retire)?

Do you have a set budget for your project?

Once you have answered these questions, your work is over and ours at Acute Translations is just beginning. You will have a bevy of people working on your project, many of whom you won’t meet. Let me introduce them:

Project manager. Yes, this is the person who will indeed “manage” your project, shepherding it through the various complex stages required to produce a perfect finished product. He or she will be your contact person, staying in close touch with you and always available. He will be responsible for, among many other things, locating your ideal translator.

Translator. Your translator will be native to your target language, have excellent credentials, years of professional experience in translation and knowledge of your project’s particular field.

Proofreader. A similarly experienced wordsmith will check and re-check, making sure not only that there are no errors in style, words or syntax, but also that the text flows in a natural, seamless fashion.

There will be any number of other busy little bees, depending on the specific requirements of your project, compiling Translation Memories, doing final checks and anything else that might be necessary in order to assure you a happy outcome and a professional translation.

Acute Translations is a premium-service translation agency offering translation agency and localization in 1373 language pairs.