Automated Translation services Management

Is Online Translation Services Project Management the future?

Its ok to say that the majority of small and medium sized companies specialized in internationalization, localization and Translation services have their own modern and informative websites but they are now following the big players in the industry and providing online translation facilities.

I am not talking about automatic translation but automatic management of translation services where the Users submit directly the criteria of the Project, the files, personal information, Project details, expectations etc…. When all has been uploaded the translation quote and delivery dates will appear on the screen. Also, when the user replies with invoice information and the payment he receives an automatic mail confirming the transaction. At the same time the Project Manager receives all the Project details via the internal server.

From here the Project manager allocates all the resources according to the Schedule and all the relevant logistics – its all so simple.

Many companies are now perfecting a fully automated process thus cutting out the project managers. Based on the criteria chosen by the User the system automatically selects the appropriate resource. Following this a mail is sent to the translator giving him a certain amount of time to respond before the Project is offered to another translator. Although this automated system is a considerable outlay initially there is the obvious saving on administration costs.

Apart from giving the user a greater sense of security the system also gives the user the option of following the progress of the Translation via an Access key.

It seems very possible to automate the whole process, by-pass the middle man and get a reasonable profit. If this is the case, why don´t more translation companies do it? Maybe it´s only a matter of time, but the initial investment and the fact that most clients still want some form of human interaction means that the job of the Translation Project manager is still safe for now, at least. Also, some localization projects are very complicated and involve multiple stages and languages making it nearly impossible to automate.

Today, there are few companies that offer these type of services. Of course, the big players in the industry have offered this service for many years but now some of the medium and smaller translation agencies are offering it.

With all this taken into account I believe that that automated Project management will be an industry standard but for more complicated projects involving many words, stages and languages the Translation Project manager´s job is a long way from being automated.

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Mark Kieran, CEO, One Stop Shop Translations

For a greater insight into our translation project management click on this link.

One Stop Shop cuts translation rates

One Stop Shop Translations has just cut its translation rates by up to 20% for some language combinations. The cuts are in line with the current economic climate but in no way reduce the quality of the translation services produced by One Stop Shop.

One Stop Shop Translation’s CEO, Mark Kieran says, “With these cuts on top of the cuts last November we see ourselves extremely competitive in the current market place. In fact I would go as far as to say that we are probably one of the most competitive in the world considering the quality of the translations we offer. We can afford to offer such great rates to our clients due to our low over head cost model and translator loyalty that we have built up over the years.”

One can request a translation quote here at or alternatively do an online translation quote here.

Translation rates and Prices

One of the main difficulties when choosing a Translation services company is understanding why the translation prices vary so much from vendor to vendor.

There are many factors that contribute to the price of translation apart from straight forward translation. Many translation companies include the revision cost within their translation rates whereas other translation company’s prices simply cover just translation within their translation rate.

With regard to the language combination it tends to be reliant on different factors:
• The supply of the language combination. The rarer the combination the more expensive it tends to be.
• The cost of living in that particular target language country. For instance the cost of Scandinavian languages tends to be a lot higher than other languages as the living costs and average wage costs in countries such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark tend to be much higher. Translation into Spanish is one of the cheapest rates per word as there is a high supply of Spanish translators and the cost of living in these countries tends to be much lower.

The level of expertise required for the subject matter. In addition to be being a qualified translator the translator may also need to be qualified in the subject matter being translated. For instance a general business text will cost a lot less to translate than a medical text that requires a medical qualification in addition to a translation qualification.

The type of translation requested has a bearing on the translation rate. For instance in the case of software localization the rate may be higher as the translation rate includes resizing of the translated strings. In other cases the translation rate is charged separately to the additional services. For instance, in the case of desk top publishing the typesetting of the translated pages is charged separately to the translation itself.

Finally, does the company use translation memories? This may increase the rate. Translation memories involve a complicated workflow where the files to be translated need to be converted into a compatible for the TM environment. However, this extra work and cost is beneficial in the long run as previously translated texts can be re-used thus saving time, ensuring consistency and quality and cost in the long run.

As one can see there are many factors that have a bearing on the translation rate. The best thing to do is to shop around when requesting a translation quote. Request an itemized translation quote per word, language combination and additional translation service required. If you have requested three to four different translation quotes and you receive an itemized quote in this format it should be easy to compare which agency is the cheapest. Alternatively, it may give us an idea of where to outsource different translation services. For instance we may outsource French, German and Italian to company A, Spanish to Firm B and Publishing to Firm C as they are the cheapest in these respective services.

All you need to Know about Legal Translation?

A legal translation is any translation used within the legal system. This can mean all manner of documents required by the civil and criminal justice systems. It includes documents such as contracts, patent and trademark filings, court and witness transcripts, depositions, registration documents, expert reports, legal disclaimers, affidavits, regulations, laws, confidentiality agreements, legal certifications and statements, government and legal ruling reports, letters of credit, technical documents to support litigation efforts , licenses, litigation and arbitration documents.

The list of legal translation is endless and we must also bear in mind that other documents become “legal” when they cross into the civil and criminal justice systems.
Examples include passports, death certificates, birth certificates, last wills and testaments, immigration documents, marriage certificates, powers of attorney, evidentiary recordings of phone calls, police interviews, court documents, contracts, complaints, judgments, affidavits, judgments, adoption papers, , summons, legal proceedings, trusts, partnership deeds, sales contracts, real estate titles or leases papers, permits, insurance policies, trademarks and copyrights, service agreements, escrow instructions, distribution agreements or arbitration documents.

The main question is when a document needs to be translated legally and the answer is when whenever the document is to be used by the courts or for legal matters. If, for example, you moved to another country with your family and died there, you would need a sworn or notarized translation of the will in the language of that country in order to go through the relevant legal proceedings of that country.

It is always best to have these things done in advance rather at the last minute at times of stress when mistakes are more likely to occur. After all, in a lot of cases these events will definitely occur so why add the extra stress.
This brings us to our next question. Who can do a legal translation and how do we know they have the credentials and qualifications to do the translation. In Spain for example a legal translation needs to be translated by a sworn translator. A sworn translator in Spain takes periodic exams with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On passing these exams the sworn translations are accompanied by their stamp. In the United States it is less clear cut in that there are no official exams or licenses. There are voluntary certifications given by bodies such as the American Translators Association and the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters & Translators. These bodies work along similar lines to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in that the translators and interpreters have to pass periodic exams to maintain their status. Some translators may have a relevant legal background such as a law degree. When choosing a legal translator it’s really important that the translator or translation Agency has a demonstrable legal qualification or experience.

To make a legal Translation official a professional translation agency should be able to certify or notarize their translations with the relevant stamp from that particular country. At One stop Shop legal translations are notarized or stamped according to the country the translations are intended for. I would now like to define a few essential terms for legal translations that may help you decide in choosing the best qualified translator in the country you wish to use the translation.

A certified translation as one that has a document accompanying it attesting to its accuracy or validity, but is not notarized. With a notarized translation the accompanying certificate is notarized by the relevant legal representative.

A sworn translation has the official stamp of the sworn translator who is regulated by a Government body in that country

Below is a list of the qualifications per country used by One Stop Shop Translations to “legalize” a translation. In the case where a translator is sworn the translation is sworn in that particular country in order to legalize it.

French Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with a Regional court of Appeal in France.

Spanish legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign affairs.

German Legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with a regional court in Germany.

Italian Legal translation: Translations are sworn at the local Italian court of Justice on a case by case basis. Some legal translations need to be notarized before a notary and the relevant parties.

Austrian Legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with a regional court in Austria.

Dutch Legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with a regional court in Holland.

Portuguese Legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with a regional court in Portugal.

Czech Legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with a regional court in the Czech republic.

Polish legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Polish Ministry of Justice.

Romanian legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Romanian Ministry of Justice.

Turkish legal translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Turkish Ministry of Foreign affairs.

Venezuelan Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Venezuelan Ministry of Justice.

U.K. legal translation: no sworn translation system.

Argentinean Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Argentinean Ministry of Justice

U.S. legal translation: No sworn translation system. Translators are registered with the ATA (American translators association)

Mexican Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Mexican Superior Court of Justice

Norwegian Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the Association of Government Authorized Translators.

South African Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the South African High Court.

Swedish Legal Translation: Translators sworn and registered with the "Kammarkollegiet".

Your Spanish Translation Quote – Tips and Advice

Choosing the correct translation services is often a very difficult and time consuming. These days there are thousands of freelancers, agencies, directories, software and methodologies. To add to this, the difference in the Spanish translation quotes from agency to agency can vary greatly. This mish-mash of decisions make it very difficult for a person to be happy with the choice they have made and may make them always wonder what they may be missing.
The aim of this article is to aid the reader to make informed decisions when purchasing translation services. The article touches many translation issues and hopefully some will be applicable to you the reader when making a safe decision.

The core resource of translation is course the translator. Let’s take a scenario where we have a friend who is bi-lingual in Spanish and English and a medical patent to translate from English to Spanish. Easy, he’s a friend and he’s cheap although he has no translation experience. Wrong, the consequences of choosing this resource, although cheap, could be disastrous. Every particular field of translation requires particular skills. In this case where we have a medical patent translation the translator needs to have grounding in medical science and be up to date with the latest medical terminology. In addition, they must also be experienced in writing in the particular style of medical patents, something which is learned over years of practice. At One Stop Shop we have medical patent translators with PHDs in fields such as chemistry, biology and biotechnology and years of experience translating in these particular fields. Even within the Medical or life Sciences field a translator with education and experience in chemistry would be a much better choice, than for instance a translator with a background in Biology, for the translation of a drug patent. It must also be emphasized that your translations should be handled by professionals. A good translator is a linguist, they have studied the art of translation, specialized in the language combination and fields they are most suited to and built up years of knowledge and experience. A linguist also has to mold the Spanish translation for an international audience meaning that the language must be neutral and not have any slang or regionalisms.

Some people may query the importance of being so selective when choosing a translator, after all, it’s only translation but take the example of the drug patent which is written by a chemist. To the average lay person the patent is double Dutch. The patent will only be understood by peers in the industry. This is why peers in the Spanish speaking drug patent field deserve to receive a high quality translation from a translator with grounding and experience translating drug patents regardless of the translation price.
The image of the company depends on it. A poor quality translation will cause untold damage within your industry and affect your standing within this industry.

Some clients may say that they have this great software that translates automatically. One thing to bear in mind that machine translation is only approximately 60-70% accurate, the rest of the fine tuning needs human intervention. While machine translation is good for informal translations and getting the general gist of something, professional translation that represents the image of the company requires a human. Then a client may say to edit the machine translation thus saving up to 70% of the costs. The reality is that a professional translation agency or translator will probably refuse to do this as editing a machine translation involves re-writing the whole translation and may involve more work than starting the translation from scratch.

The next question is whether to use a freelancer or a translation agency? The main question is what the difference is. With an agency the text is revised which is why the translation quote tends to be more expensive. The main advantage to having the text revised is that it is better to have a “second eye”. No matter how good the translator they are bound to make errors from time to time and in this respect, the revision cycle is like an extra safety net to eradicate these simple errors providing a higher quality translation.

To summarize, here are a few questions to ask oneself, before deciding on the translation service to use:
• Is the translator experienced and qualified in this particular field. Ask for a profile of the translator or better still ask for a sample of profiles and decide on the best fit
• Why is the translation so cheap from this agency? In some cases the translation rate may not include revision, hence the reduced fee. The translator may not be fully qualified either and cheaper to sub-contract.
• Does the Translation Agency use the latest Translation memory technology? This is very useful in the case of updates. The previous translation is re-used and hence reduces costs and ensures consistency.