The Ideal Localization Workflow
People who haven’t worked with language service companies frequently might wonder why it takes so much time to have their file translated. Why, can’t they just receive their translated files back in, like two days?
In this blogpost we talk about the stages of the ideal localization workflow. Common industry practices adopt three stages of localization, each stage can be further broken down into various steps: pre-production, production, and post-production.
Pre-Production
In pre-production or the planning phase, buyers submit project files to the language service provider, then the provider examines the file and evaluates how much work is needed before the file can be translated.
Project Evaluation:
Some files are easier to localize than others. For example, software, website, audio-visual files, and anything related to desktop-publishing is going to take more time than a simple word/excel document.
Risk Assessment:
After identifying file types, we conduct a risk assessment to see what kind of issues they might encounter and point out critical issues. The risk assessment becomes part of the guidelines we give to translators.
File Preparation:
We either need to extract your textual data from your files or need to convert your files into an editable format. Note that PDFs require extra work to manually convert back to an editable format; this is because automatic conversion using current optical character recognition (OCR) technologies are prone to errors. For larger projects that involve multiple translators at the same time, it would be a good idea to build a glossary to ensure certain terms are translated consistently. Better do it in the pre-production stage than try to fix it after the same term is translated into five different variants.
Translator Assignment:
Once the files are ready for translation, we need to assign translators to the project. Language service providers usually keep a list of linguists tracking their subject matter expertise, translation experience, past performance, and availability. Once we find a translator, we can move on to the production phase.
Production
Translation:
To ensure translation quality, the ideal production stage has three phases: translation, editing, and proofreading. Translation is the rendering of the file from its source language to the target language. The minimum requirement is that the translator needs to be a native speaker in the target language.
Editing:
The editor too, needs to be proficient in both source and target language. The editor’s task is to revise and update any translation errors in the translated text. The editor serves as a gateway: if there are too many errors or should critical mistakes be identified, the language service provider will have to assign the project to a different translator to start the production stage all over.
Proofreading:
Once edited, the file is sent to a proofreader to check grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The proofreader only needs to know the target language.
Final Checkup:
If the source file is not a pure text document, a localization engineer will import the text data back into its original format. The engineer will make sure there are no textual truncations or expansions that break the UI or make sure image localization is done right with tools like photoshop. Some companies might have quality assurance specialists to scrutinize every detail of the project as a last checkup. Once every checkup is done, the project manager delivers the localized files to the client.
Post-Production
Clients may have feedback for the translation either from client-side linguists or from users. It is important to provide feedback to your language service companies because we integrate feedback into our workflow to improve our services and future collaboration.
Think Twice Before Skipping Any Steps
In the beginning we said the purpose of this blogpost is to introduce the ideal localization workflow. Honest language service companies don’t omit these steps on their own volition. But oftentimes, under non-ideal premises, some of these processes are omitted due to stringent budgeting and scheduling.
Maybe it’s a little awkward to say this, but language service providers could care more about translation quality than language service buyers. As linguists, we respect our vocation, we want to bring about your project’s success, and we want users to be satisfied with our effort. Most importantly, we believe in the power of language bring your customers a better experience.
This is why even before language service buyers contact providers, buyers should allocate sufficient time to the localization process, because in the end poorly translated or rushed projects may result in more lost revenue than a later launch date. If the launched translation needs a redo or further editing, you will spend extra time, incur extra cost, and you’ll have to win back customers’ hearts.
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