In the most general sense, translation can be needed in any situation where you have any dealings with people who do not have English as a first language, for example customers, suppliers, members, regulators and audience. Or you might just want to understand what something means.
So in that situation the main options are:
• Do nothing – i.e. make it a policy to only use English in your business
• Use a free automated service such as Google translate which may be the best option to instantly understand the meaning of any text. However you probably wouldn’t want to use the translation for anything else and there are confidentiality issues.
• Find a freelance translator and work with them directly. Could be good for cost and control, but means you need to find the right person.
• Use a translation agency. For the extra cost you should get a wealth of benefits such as continuity, consistency and quality across a range of languages. You may also benefit from specialist software and services such as DTP, subtitling, voiceover.
How far you go and how much you spend then depends how important it is for you. We obviously think it’s important to get the right message and meaning across in all languages, especially if it’s already taken a lot of time and effort to get the English right. Plus you would want to get best value from your printing costs.
There may be situations where you simply need texts translated as a condition of trading in a particular territory and ideally that should be included in the plan from the start. By definition this would have to be done properly.
Some of the most common documents translated into or out of English on our experience are:
• Legal: contracts, witness statements, ID documents, tax documents,
• Correspondence: emails, letters, presentations
• Websites: whole websites, blogs and articles, product descriptions
• Marketing: slogans, advertising, packaging, displays, press releases
• Technical: product manuals, data sheets, reports, catalogues
Quite a variety - however, the process is essentially the same in that we as an agency will select a qualified, experienced translator to use their own skill, assisted by software, to produce a translated document suitable for the client’s purpose.
Get in touch with the award winning team at Surrey Translation Bureau to see how we can help. Call 01252730014 or email
[email protected]. You can also find more information here:
www.surreytranslation.co.uk.
