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"We do not have access to persons who first language is what we are
translating to."
Really? Who is selling your product in these other countries? Normally, I
would suggest sending a few pages of each release to the Sales team in that
country to get their feedback on the quality. Free review from employees.
If you truly have no one in those countries you can use, I would define very
strict quality testing requirements for each of the translation houses.
Something that requires test results to be returned to you, which you can
then review with the vendor. What text was reviewed, who translated it, who
reviewed it, what problem was found, what is the corrective action (could be
vague English text), and was the translation memory corrected? Make a big
deal about quality every time you talk to them so they stay aware and
conscious of it. The squeeky wheel gets the attention, right? :-)
The only other suggestion might be using your various translation houses to
check each other. I can see potential for issues with that, though. It
would have to be handled carefully.
Sally Derrick
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Richard Melanson
<rmelanson -at- spirecorp -dot- com>wrote:
> May I please ask for advice or assistance. My group currently writes
> user manuals for solar equipment. Believe it or not, translating our
> documents has just come onto our plate. We have two or three translation
> house we use fairly regularly, but I have a question. How do we
> determine the actually quality of the translations we are getting. We do
> not have access to persons who first language is what we are translating
> to. Thank you for any advice you guys can give me.
> Rick
>
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