What is Technical Translation?

Technical translation is a specialized translation task that involves translating documents that have been written by technical writers related to a particular subject area that is technical in nature. Often, this involves writing technical manuals for products or written descriptions how a product works and how it should be repaired if it has ceased to work. Overall, to provide an accurate document about a product a technical writer would be very conversant with the sorts of products he or she is writing about so that there is a certainty the end-product is as accurate as possible.

As long as the technical writer is consistent in language use the technical translator will more easily be able to perform a good translation of the document. The use of computer-assisted translation along with terminology databases and translation memories has enabled translation services to provide translations at a much faster rate and with improved accuracy than has been in the past.

This means that language speakers from around the world are able to benefit from better translations of technical manuals than has previously been possible because of the time and cost of manually translating technical texts.

A technical translator working for translation services even when using the tools of computer based translation should still have a specialized background in the field they intend to work in and many familiarize and learn the language and orientation of limited areas such as medical or automotive language.  This means they can quickly work through translations using their two specialist languages and come up with an appropriate technical translation.

A technical translation also requires good knowledge of technological skills when using machine translation (MT) and computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools. This technology is not used when the client wants more creativity applied to the document translation, so the document translation service has to be sensitive to the needs of the client when choosing a suitable technical translator. 

Hot Tips for Budding Scientific Translators

Are scientific translators professional linguists who have developed a good understanding of scientific terms and ideas or scientists who have developed linguistic and translation skills? The answer is that they can be either as long as they do develop an understanding of both disciplines. In fact, scientists are normally quite specialised, so they may have a particularly deep understanding of some branch of science but little of any other. Unless they stick to translating a narrow range of scientific texts, they still have to learn about other areas of science if they are to become scientific translators.

So what are the best tips for anyone setting out on the career path of a scientific translator?

Tip #1: Clarity and conciseness are key to scientific translation success

A knowledge of scientific terminology is vital for scientific translation services. Scientific terms are very precise and there is a potential for complete misunderstanding if the wrong terms are used. Literary translation is quite different as it can be ambiguous or unclear without having too much effect on the text being translated. Being familiar with the scientific terms and their meanings in both the original and the target language takes time and it is often difficult to use the correct terms without appearing too repetitious, but that is important for the translator to attempt to master, too.

Tip #2:  Proofread as you translate

It's common for the translator to come across small inconsistencies in the document they are translating. It's best to correct these as you translate them rather than leave them as they are. These small errors in the original document include things like numbers, references to tables and diagrams, wrong symbols etc. It is best for document translation service providers to correct these at the point of translation, rather than have any misunderstandings later on.

Tip #3: Pay attention to symbols, numbers, formulas and units

Most, but not all scientific documents tend to have a large number of these things scattered throughout amongst the text together with graphs and diagrams. Most symbols, numbers, formulas and units tend to be the same whatever the language, which makes translation issues easy, but this is not always the case and particularly translators may have to adapt units from metric to imperial or vice versa depending on the target readership for the documents. More importantly, there has to be absolute consistency with all these components of a scientific document - another example of the scientific translator having to be as much proofreader as translator.

Is Back Translation a Waste of Time and Money?

The short answer to that question is that it depends on how extensive and complex the original translation is. In many cases, where short simple translations such as are commonly handled by document translation services, like driving license and marriage certificate translations, back translation is probably unnecessary. However, for important projects like medical or legal document translations using a back translation as part of the whole translation process may be justified.

But what exactly is back translation and what does it involve? Back translation is usually the last stage in a translation and is most likely to take place after editing and proofreading. For example. imagine that a document has been translated from English into Chinese (or vice versa). Once the main translation has been completed, a back translation would involve the text being translated back again into the original language, so in the example just given it would mean translating back from Chines into English. The back translation, like proofreading is most effective when it is done by a translator who is not the same person who did the forward translation.

Why complete a back translation?

At first sight, it seems unnecessary to double the workload if a translation service provider has been chosen to do the original translation who is competent and experienced. However, it is amazing how back translation can reveal errors in meaning which never show up with proof reading, so it is something which is definitely worth doing if accuracy is paramount.

The sorts of documents that benefit from back translation are things like instruction manuals, technical documents, legal documents of all types and medical instrumentation information and dosage instructions. The list could be expanded to include any sort of translation which requires extreme accuracy and where errors in meaning could end up being costly mistakes or even result in harm.

If your business depends on translation but you are unsure about the accuracy of a translation service provider you are using for the first time, performing a back translation with another translator will serve to illustrate just how good the original translation was. This might be a lot cheaper than losing valuable clients or even being involved in a lawsuit because of an inaccuracy in a translation!

The Main Reasons Why Consumers Unsubscribe From Marketing Emails

Business owners and their marketers use their websites to spend a considerable amount of time getting customers to subscribe to their newsletters, latest product information, special offers and other bits of information that may be of use to consumers. There are times when the consumer finds little use for the information that they have subscribed too and decide to unsubscribe.

What should be the Priority for Legal Document Translation?

Legal firms that do business overseas usually find that they have to make use of legal document translation services quite often. Like many businesses, there is a constant push to reduce the cost of running the business, but there is that awareness that quality counts, too and there must be a trade-off between the accuracy of a translated document and how much it cost to produce it.

Software that can Translate Audio into Another Language

There is no end to the amount of research now being done into helping us speak more than one language. Microsoft has now developed software that can recognise speech, whether from an audio recording or from a person’s natural voice, and can translate it into a second language that sounds exactly like the original voice. This could be fantastic news when someone wants a document translation when conducting a presentation at a conference.

Has the Word Okay Become a Truly Universal Expression?

Most people if asked about the word “okay” or its shortened versions of “OK” and “O.K.” would probably think that its origin is the U.S. This may be at least partially correct, because it is certainly not a word or term that was in use in England before the second world war and it use in the English speaking world seems to have arisen from after contact with U.S. forces during that period in the nineteenth century and the arrival of U.S. T.V. shows and films.

But is “okay” actually an American expression originally and how much is it recognised around the world today? There are actually a number of competing possibilities for the origin of the word and probably no-one is absolutely sure. One story, probably the one that is most widely recognised, at least in North America that the word “okeh” is actually an Amerindian word (north American Indian) meaning in English “That’s right” or “Yes it is so”. Other possible origins are a Mande word from West Africa, “o-ke” which means more or less the same as we understand it to mean in English. Other West African languages, such as Wolof and Mantu have similar sounding words to “okay” like “waw-kay”.

Whatever the origin, the word certainly seems to have taken residence in many other parts of the world and has been adopted as part of the foreign language additions to many other languages. No-one that is involved with translation services worldwide has to worry about the translation of this particular idiomatic expression!

In English, “okay” has several different meanings and can be used as a stand-alone expression or a part of speech. For instance, it can be used as an adjective in such an expression as “It’s an okay day today”. It can be used as a single answer to a question like “How are you?” “O.K., Thanks!” or just “O.K.”

Its adoption elsewhere in the world hasn’t changed the basic meaning of the word and wherever you go, even in countries where English is rarely spoken, you can bet that some version of “O.K.” is understood. It may have become an accepted part of that language’s vocabulary and even when two people are speaking together in Hindi, Chinese, Spanish or Yoruba you can most likely hear the ubiquitous and useful little word spoken!