What Is Technical Translation?
Technical translation is a highly specialized type of translation; it involves the translation of documents that technical writers create. These documents relate to technological processes, mechanisms, facts and describe the practical application of products.
Not every translator can do things like that. Technical translation requires the knowledge of subject matter and special terms.
Here are the cases when a company may need technical translation services:
- A company has foreign suppliers
- A company wants to enter a foreign market
It is highly important to translate a product and its documentation as the majority of users don’t know the language of your product. Moreover, a software product and technical documentation should be localized. The difference between translation and localization is the following: translation is changing a text into another language, and localization is the cultural adaptation of a text to a new market. You can read more about localization in my post — Why Is Localization Important?
With the help of translation, you can get the following:
- Satisfy customers. Surely customers will appreciate the fact that they can use a product in their native language. It adds to their positive experience. And, this will attract new customers.
- Find new markets. When you already have translations into a couple of languages, you may notice that you can easily enter adjacent markets. Sometimes, you only need to localize your documentation to enter a new market. For example, English in the US and UK is different, but technical documentation will require localization only.
- Increase brand awareness. The more languages you have, the more customers all over the world you get.
Documents that require technical translation vary greatly, they may belong to absolutely different industries (engineering, medical, software, etc.) So, technical translation may require special knowledge and skills from translators. That’s why technical translation may take more time and be more expensive.
These are the technical documents that can be translated:
- Manuals
- User guides
- Instructions
- Technical specs
- Scientific papers
- Safety sheets
- Patents
- Technical proposals
- White papers
- Online help
- etc.
Translators use specialized tools for translation to easily produce high-quality content. These are computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools. They split the content into segments (phrases or paragraphs), thus making it easy to work on. CAT tools help translators speed up their work and make it more accurate. Actually, they help not only to translate texts but also to edit and manage translations. On top of that, they add extra functionality — spellchecking, equivalence, and many other things. There are different types of CAT tools — desktop or cloud, free or paid. It is up to a translator what to choose. But for technical writers, there may be a problem: they have to use two separate tools to write technical documentation and to manage its translation. Too complicated. It is better to choose a tool in which you can do both things. ClickHelp is a tool like that. It has the Translation Module that works like a CAT tool. Being a technical writer, you can involve any expert and keep track of translation progress.
Choosing the right tool is always a challenge. There are so many platforms for different types of pains. Analyze your needs to find what suits you best.
