For many people, it looks troublesome to select an appropriate translation service supplier when they need it, with many uncontrollable factors to worry about. It really costs a lot of time and energy to find a translation service supplier who can provide the service of reliable quality and acceptable price.
Due to the particularities of language service, many people will have their own way of judgment in choosing translation service suppliers, hoping to obtain translations of higher quality. However, are these evaluation criteria objective and effective enough?
Mistake 1:To engage two suppliers to achieve mutual quality check
Some people believe themselves to be wise in selecting a translation service supplier: they would entrust the translation job to Agency A, then entrust Agency B with double-check of the translation, thinking they’re double-guaranteeing the translation quality.
This is a very ridiculous idea from many aspects. Firstly, the agency that assumes translation double-check will focus on picking up errors in order to ensure its workload meeting requirement, so they would be generally reliant on the quantity of errors found, sometimes even picking up those that are not exactly errors, in order to gain higher pays.
Besides, the client will have to spend more time and energy to achieve balance between the two language service suppliers, reporting the ideas of one party to the other. As one party is responsible for picking up errors for the other, their disharmony is doomed. And to find out which to accept or reject between the suggestions of the two parties, the client is pushing itself into a plight.
Mistake 2: One translator is sufficient for handling an entire translation project
Behind the production of a publication, even the best writer needs the assistance of editors and proofreaders. Similarly, in the process of professional translation, many parties at different steps will be involved.
Sometimes it’s likely to complete a translation business by cooperating with a professional translator, but it’s more likely that the translator is not the only assumer of a translation job. A translator needs a translation reviser to help check the translation quality, which is an opportunity of conducting secondary review of a finished translation that is imperative in most cases.
In addition, if the materials to be translated are relatively complicated—like those involving several languages, relatively complicated file formats or rare types of content, a collaborative translation team will be a better choice.
In the industry of translation, where there’s co-existence of multilanguage, multi-platform, multi-procedure and integration of knowledge and skills, only by making each step as professional as possible can the translation service be truly valuable. In an “era of collaboration for language service”, it’s far too rare to have one translator handle everything involved in a translation project; instead, it’s commoner to go through procedures including translation, revision, typesetting and so on. Even a translation master frequently hired by top governmental officials cannot guarantee everything well handled, not to mention that there’re limitations on time and energy.
Mistake 3: The more available translation companies there are, the more reliable the translation service will be
People are apt to choose translation service suppliers and translators that they have long-term partnership with. With extension of cooperation, translators will be more and more familiar with their steady clients who have translation demands, like the writing style and tone they favor. It’s somehow like driving: when a driver knows a route very well, he will drive on it faster and safer. Therefore, in selecting translators, people tend to give priority to the translators and translation agencies that have had good cooperation with them.
In translation service as a creative service industry, clients are trying to find a reliable partner in most cases. When you find a good translation company, you’ll be willing to cooperate with it for a long time, unless the company offers quotations suddenly raised too much so that your budget cannot cover the charges. On finding a reliable translation company, just cling to it and don’t give it up casually. After all, it’s like experimenting to change to another company, and I would say I’m reluctant to undergo such experiments.
Mistake 4: The larger a translation organization is, the better it is.
People sometimes hold that choosing a large-scale translation organization is partly a guarantee for high-quality translation service, because a large-scale enterprise that owns thousands of translators and claims to be able to handle hundreds of languages looks very powerful and creditable. In most cases, a large translation company means higher qualifications and better conditions for attracting top translators, and it’s also more advantageous in getting large-scale translation projects, so that its translators will have more opportunities to polish their translation competence.
However, it’s not wise to choose large translation companies for all clients and translation projects. Being large and comprehensive is not always better than being small yet specific. When you’re in need of translation service of a certain language in a certain subdivided industry, a small translation company that features part-time translators who exactly meet your requirements may be a better choice.
Large translation companies have their own missions and functions—usually offering services to large enterprises boasting considerable budgets for translation.
Mistake 5: To ensure translation quality by “back translation”
Generally, people would hope the quality of the translation service they obtain is controllable. Therefore, some come up with a seemingly unparalleled idea: after entrusting Translation Company A with a translation job, they may send the translation to another company for back translation.
Yes, that means if Company A does Chinese-English translation, then Company B assumes English-Chinese translation, then they would compare the two Chinese and English versions. They believe it’s a good way of reducing translation errors to minimum, but in fact, it’s doomed to fail its purpose, with backfire sometimes. Why? If the translator who takes on “back translation” makes any mistake, the version of back translation will be surely different from the original one. But the point is, most clients are unable to know if the error is due to the original text.
By this I’m reminded of some Chinese university students who try to cheat the repetition rate checker of thesis by translating their Chinese thesis in English, then back-translate it into Chinese, and most of them would succeed in passing the repetition rate standard by such a special “back-translation”. However, it’s unsmart to choose a translation service agency by this means.
