Web-based tools make it easy for clients and translation agencies to work together. One option is for a client’s in-house experts to use the agency’s software to carry out their own reviews or maintain their term bases. This doesn’t just save money: it also allows their translations to be adapted to suit the expectations of the specialists reading the texts.
A faster, simpler and more efficient way to review translations – sounds good, right? Web-based systems allow clients’ in-house experts to get involved with the translation process, saving time and money and allowing the translation to be adapted for the respective readership.
In-house experts: the best people to review your texts
Although specialist translators know what they’re doing and have the required linguistic skills and experience in their specialist areas, you know the terminology specific to your sector (and above all your corporate language) better than anyone else. Your staff at each site, and potentially your external business partners, are the subject matter experts (SMEs). They have in-depth knowledge of the markets and what potential clients in your target countries expect, and are the best people to adapt translated texts to these requirements. Customer reviews can therefore be invaluable for the success of your business. But won’t they result in an endless flood of e-mails, and confusion between all the different versions of a text? You’d be forgiven for thinking so, but in fact that’s not the case.
E-mailing documents back and forth? A thing of the past
MEINRAD’s review portal means that files no longer need to be sent around the world from one office to another, so your inbox will be considerably less full. Wherever your staff are based, they can be seamlessly integrated into the translation process and assigned to a project as reviewers. It doesn’t matter if it’s just one person responsible for the reviews for a particular language or an entire team – everyone who needs access to the files can work on them anywhere and at any time. The system doesn’t require any special software to be installed (it works in an internet browser), and it’s intuitive and easy to use. Experience shows that the review portal significantly reduces the time between the translation and internal approval of the final text by the client.
Reviewing made easy
The SMEs go through the text sentence by sentence using the two-column table view, helpfully laid out with the source text on the left and the translation on the right. Another very useful aspect of the tool is that it features a preview, so you can see how the translated content will look. If the reviewers have questions about the translation, they can contact the translators directly using the portal’s comments and discussions feature – so there’s no need to send lots of e-mails. If multiple in-house reviewers are working on the same text for a particular language, they can also discuss any issues with the text using the portal (this is particularly useful if reviewers are based in different locations). All communication is saved in the system, allowing those working on subsequent texts to find out exactly why one term was used and another one wasn’t, for example. Another benefit of the review portal is that it gives you access to the term base. Your SMEs can add key terms and the required translation into the term base during the review, so that they can be used as a resource by everyone involved in your future translation jobs. And adding terms isn’t difficult to do: simply highlight the desired term in the text, click one button, and the term will be incorporated into the term base.
Web-based terminology management
Clients can work on their terminology even when they aren’t in the middle of reviewing a translation. MEINRAD helps its clients set up and configure term bases and trains businesses in how to use them. Because it’s not just a question of creating a term base and then resting on your laurels: a well-maintained term base is one that’s regularly expanded and updated by the relevant experts via the web interface. And it really pays off: the better a term base is managed, the better your translations will be in terms of consistent use of the correct terminology. If that weren’t enough, the specialist terminology and corporate terms contained in the term base also reduce costs when it comes to writing new texts and getting them translated.
If you’d like to find out more about our review portal and terminology services, we’d be delighted to hear from you!
Main image: © MEINRAD
